Good grief...a WIP actually finished!

Oh yes indeedy, I have finished Mum's shawl.....shhh, we aren't mentioning that most of the work was already done 😉

It didn't take many more rows to get the shawl to the size I was looking for ~ I ended up with 80 altogether.  If I had been making it for myself I would have made it somewhat larger but I think this is a good size for Mum. Working corner-to-corner as a triangle leaves the top edge jagged, of course, but I wanted it to be nice and straight.  I had a trawl around to find a suitable pattern and came across just what I was looking for on Feet Up and Crochet.  

I then worked half trebles (US half double crochet) round the entire shawl.  I knew that I wanted to work a row of Lucy's bobble shell edging along the two "wings" of the shawl to finish it off, so had to decide which side was to be the inside and which the outside.  I really liked how the half trebles along the top edge looked from this side of the shawl, so decided this would be the outside.  

The bobble shell edging is very pretty and gives a subtle finished edge especially, as here, done in the same yarn as the body of the shawl.

Corner-to-corner is such a lovely stitch and is so easy to work ~ nothing complicated to have to remember, so perfect for doing in front of the TV 😄   

The finished shawl, with the "wings" folded in so I could photograph it more easily LOL

I still have a lot of this yarn left ~ about 600g to be exact 😮  For now it's gone back in the stash but I expect I shall use it in another blanket at some point 😉

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)          

Reminder to self.....

.....making notes on a project would be really useful!

 When I was cramming neatly storing my yarn stash in the base of the bed in the guest bedroom, along with said yarn I came across a few WIPs.  Needless to say, none had any pointers as to who they were being made for, how large they were going to be,  size of hook, etc 😒  In my head, you see, I live in this little fairy tale world where each time I start a new project I will gaily work away until it's finished.  In the real world, of course, I am all too easily distracted by other projects to make, lovely new yarn begging to be purchased, etc, etc 😏

And so it was with this little bundle of yarn and an already-started project.  I must have previously begun to make something and changed my mind, judging by the little balls in the organza bag.  I hardly need tell you that once again, the yarn is my favourite Stylecraft Special double knit, no doubt purchased from my equally favourite online store Wool Warehouse ~ and no, just in case you are wondering, I don't get anything for mentioning either the yarn or the store 😄

The yarn is a very pretty combination of pink, green and white called Spring Marl which seems to be discontinued now, so goodness knows how long I've had it stashed away!

I think my original intention had been to make a corner-to-corner blanket.....oh, a blanket ~ what a surprise, eh 😉 I could see that I had reached the width of what I was making as I'd started to decrease on one side whilst continuing with the increases on the other.  Now, to be perfectly honest, I really don't think that this was going to work very satisfactorily as it didn't seem quite wide enough to me.  I wonder if that's why I abandoned the project ~ perhaps I'd realised that I just didn't have enough yarn to make a suitably-sized blanket?  And, of course, I also have absolutely no idea who the blanket was originally intended for 😄

Anyhoo, rather than frog the whole bloody thing I've decided to turn it into a shawl instead.  I've been planning to make one as a Christmas gift for my Mum and as she loves pretty, pastel colours this will be perfect.  It's okay, by the way, she doesn't use a computer so I'm not spoiling the surprise LOL

I frogged back to where I'd previously started to decrease, so that I can continue making the shawl wider.  It looked very much like I'd been using a 4mm hook and when I restarted working on the shawl, I was very happy to find that was indeed the case!  I'm alternating work on the shawl with the granny square blanket but I don't think it will take too long to finish 😊

Use it up!

Yes, well, we all know this most definitely applies to moi LOL So I'm still being a good girl by diligently working my way through that stash 😉

This is the "oddments bag", filled with balls of varying sizes leftover from the most recent stash-busting blankets I made for Beverly, Ellie and Arthur.  So it's mostly a mix of Stylecraft Special and Scheepjes Colour Crafter; I'm also throwing in the leftover West Yorkshire Spinners Bluefaced Leicester and Ayre Valley.  It's therefore a mix of acrylic and wool/nylon yarns but is all double knit.  Hopefully so long as the blanket is washed on no more than a 30C wool wash, fingers crossed all will be fine!

I decided to make this blanket out of solid colour granny squares.....well, I say "solid colour" but some squares will have to be mixed (as you can already see!) depending on how much I have left of any one particular ball LOL  I'm using the join-as-you-go method and it's working up more quickly than I thought it would, which is very pleasing as I have an ever-increasing list of other things I want to get made 😄

It will be interesting to see how much is left in that pillow-sized oddments bag when this blanket is finally finished.....

Little words of wisdom

 

Soon be on their way...

As you may recall, Beverly and I made this year's Christmas puddings a couple of weeks back.  With the planned strikes by Royal Mail over the next few weeks, I thought it best to send the puds for family and friends down south a little earlier than I would have done otherwise.

Here's the first two, ready to wing their way to my sister and parents 😊  Unsurprisingly, I didn't have cardboard boxes of the right size in my stash so I've cut down the ones I did have to make them a tad smaller LOL

I came across a lovely pattern on Lucy's blog for a sweet little crocheted snowflake, so I thought I'd make some for this year's puddings.  Lucy said that she made hers using a pure wool double knit yarn and four different size hooks.  I used a 4.5mm hook and yarn from my stash (of course!), James C Brett Baby Shimmer, which I've had for a very long time; I last used it when I made some Christmas pudding baubles a couple of years ago, for the "cream" topping.

When I came to crochet the second snowflake, I made a little mistake in round three by omitting the last chain 2 in each of the worked sections ooopsies!  Thankfully it didn't affect the appearance of the finished snowflake 😉  I finished mine off with a hanging loop, simply made with a length of 12 chain stitches attached to the tip of one of the icicle points.   

I confess that I was too lazy to block my snowflakes but I think they still look very pretty 😊

Heavy-weight stash busting!

Needless to say, I still have rather a lot of yarn in my stash to use up 😄 Despite Beverly telling me that I have an addiction to yarn, she nevertheless dropped a big hint about me making a blanket for when she does sleepover shifts at work ~ perhaps she thought it would help me use up some of said stash 😉

I had a shopping bag full of West Yorkshire Spinners yarn that I've had for absolutely ages, their Bluefaced Leicester (50g) and Aire Valley (100g) double knits, both of which are now discontinued I believe.  The former is 100% wool, the latter 75% wool/25% nylon.  I will be honest and say that I didn't really like either yarn as they're not particularly soft and squishy ~ perhaps I've just got too used to working with the Stylecraft and Scheepjes yarns!  Still, they needed using up so a blanket seemed the ideal thing to whittle that stash down a tad more.    

I used a very simple pattern, one I've used a few times before: Dottie Angel's ordinarily extraordinary blanket.  It grows satisfyingly quickly and the squares can be made whatever size you want ~ I simply chose to follow the size in the pattern and made it 9 squares long x 7 squares wide.  A couple of the squares did have to be completed with some of the leftover Stylecraft and Scheepjes yarns, but it isn't really that obvious to be honest.

I edged the blanket with four rounds of half-treble (US half double) crochet, with Lucy's bobble-shell edging to finish.  I don't usually wash my blankets before I gift them but because I didn't like how this one felt I did this time, on the wool setting obviously, and have to say that it felt a helluva lot nicer when I took it out of the washing machine.  I also decided to take a chance (considering the wool content of the yarns is so high) and popped it in the tumble-dryer, again on the wool setting.  What a difference that has made; despite my fears, the blanket didn't "felt" and now feels so much softer! 

This blanket really isn't an awful lot bigger than the ones I made for Ellie and Arthur, but my word it felt so much heavier as it grew in size ~ hence the "heavy-weight" reference in this blog post!  Having said that, though, it was very cosy on my lap as I worked on it 😊

I still have some of the WYS yarn left, as well as a fair bit of the Stylecraft and Scheepjes, so I'm currently working on yet another very multi-coloured blanket in an effort to use all these oddments up.  I'm not making it with anyone particular in mind, but Beverly informs me that she can quite easily find homes for at least two or three so watch this space 😉 

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)          

Little words of wisdom

 

What do you keep in your cupboard???

I keep a husband in mine 😄

Not really, of course ~ he was just sorting the cupboard out as we wanted to actually make use of it for storage rather than as a dumping ground for all and sundry 😉  It's opposite the cupboard-under-the-stairs, in a tiny lobby area between the dining room and the kitchen, and before we had the kitchen door taken off I always felt like we were going into some kind of air-lock between the two rooms!  I don't think that the lobby itself was made when the house was built; rather, it seems to have been made by partitioning off a corner of the dining room.  This has created the alcove we have in there, and to be honest it's made the room a little awkward for setting out furniture.  Still, the cupboard in the lobby does give us more storage space so it has an up-side too I guess.

The top half that Adrian was working on originally had a pair of doors like the lower section but we decided to remove them to give us open shelves.  For some reason best known to themselves the previous owners of St Abbs had papered over the rather lovely wooden tongue-and-groove cladding ~ they also added hardboard panels to the cupboard doors, top and bottom, which we will most likely remove at some point.  And not only had they stuck the wallpaper to the cladding with wallpaper paste, they added some staples and tacks for good measure!  The walls of the lobby have also been given the same treatment 😒

Ta-daa!  Adrian made a really good job of stripping back to the tongue-and-groove cladding, and I think it looks rather lovely now ~ well, at the very least it certainly looks very much lovelier than it did 😉

 I've finally been able to get my cookery, gardening and other miscellaneous books out of the blue plastic crates they've been stored in since we moved here, along with some of my little knick-knacks.  What's left of the latter will eventually find a home as décor in the porch when we finally have it refurbished.  I had a really good sort out of the books and was surprisingly ruthless over what I eventually decided to keep ~ Marie Kondo would be proud of me 😄

Hot 'n' steamy!

The kitchen, that is, not me personally 😏

Beverly and I made this year's Christmas puddings last week.  It's always nice to spend time with her making the puddings ~ plus, of course, it saves my poor 'ole arms as she kindly "volunteers" to flex her 30-years younger muscles doing the heavyweight mixing 😉 We had to use two mixing bowls this time around, as my "giant economy size" bowl sadly bit the dust after developing a crack right across the base.  Still, I can't really complain too much as I bought it in a charity shop and did get a fair amount of use out of it 😄

 The photo above shows the first pudding after it's seven hour ~ I know, right 😮~ steaming.  I must confess that I'm a teensy bit concerned that I may not have added quite enough milk to the mix this year, so it's fingers crossed that the puds aren't too dry!

If you would like to try out the Larkin family Christmas pudding recipe, here's a link to the post from 2020 ~ enjoy!

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)         

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)         

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)         

A Make-A-Month 2022: September

A blanket for Ellie

A stitch and a scarf