One project finished...

and another one begun ~ after a few false starts 😏

You may remember my post last month, my lovelies, bringing you up-to-date with my crochet projects.  Well, I've finally finished the gift blanket I seem to have been working on for ever 😉  

The yarn is Hayfield Bonus Aran Tweed in the shade Honeycomb; it's a 6% viscose, 20% wool, 74% acrylic mix.  Corner-to-corner works up pretty quickly and I felt it only needed a very simple edging, so just added two rows of half trebles to finish it off.  I'm very pleased with it 😊   

My new project is using up some more of my yarn stash ~ I'm making a sweater for Beverly 😳  As you can see from the photo, this is King Cole Drifter double knit, in the shade Ohio (a 69% acrylic, 25% cotton, 6% wool mix).  I bought the yarn from Wool Warehouse a long time ago and it seems to have been discontinued.  It is, as the label boldly declares, a very soft yarn indeed and is lovely to work with.

However this is the first time I've ever attempted an actual garment ~ apart from some very simple dolls' clothes ~ so I'm not too sure how long this will take to finish 😄

It's a simple pattern (Yarnsmiths Cedar Sweater), though, comprising of rectangles with very little shaping so fingers crossed it won't be too traumatising!  Having said that, I still managed to get myself into a bit of a muddle with the gauge swatch 😏  The pattern calls for a 4mm hook but when I made my swatch I had too many stitches across the row.  So for reasons that I cannot for the life of me fathom, I tried again.....using a 3.5mm hook!  Naturally, I ended up with even more stitches and I'm a tad embarrassed to admit that it took me a few minutes to realise that I actually needed a larger hook 😳  I tried again with a 4.5mm hook and thankfully it was third time lucky.  I still hadn't finished being daft, though, because instead of making my starting chain with a 5.5mm hook, I used a 5mm one instead ~ then found myself wondering why the bottom edge was resembling a banana!  I also managed to mis-count the starting chain, and ended up one stitch short. I managed to add an extra stitch, though, by somehow fudging an additional chain ~ don't ask me how I managed it as I've no idea to be honest!  Oh well, I got there in the end 😉

Do you like my stitch markers, by the way?  They are cute little teapots in lots of different colours 🫖 I'm adding one at each tenth row so that I don't have to keep counting from the beginning.

The pattern uses Yarnsmiths Merino DK Superwash yarn in four different shades but I wanted to use up some more of my stash, hence the King Cole that I'm working with.  I got Beverly to choose which yarn she liked the look of, and this is what she selected ~ green is her favourite colour.  

And finally, I thought you might like to see the lovely carnations that Adrian bought me last week.  I ordered some pink ones from Tesco with the weekly delivery a few weeks ago, but they were quite disappointing in that they didn't seem to last very long.  These came from the Co-Op, though, and their flowers generally last quite well.  Pretty as Miss Schlumbergera's blooms currently are, it's still nice to have some cut flowers in the house 😊