A new take on an afghan for a baby girl, I couldn’t get baby pink so opted for this slightly deeper pink instead. It will shortly be off for a new life with a friend of the friend that I call Julie – hope she likes it!
I’ve set up a Flickr page as well – although a lot of the pics will appear on here, I’ll add some of John’s creations as well! It’s here if you want to take a look! Although I think that just takes you to the Flickr home page – anyway, I’m easternsparkle on there as well!!
Happy New Year everybody! It seems that this years ‘thing’ is to have a photo montage of the past 12 months – I tried to choose one photo per month but found that was difficult as some months I’d taken more than others but here is my contribution – in no particular order!
2010 was a good year, we had three great holidays, I completed loads of crochet projects and I learnt to quilt – mostly self taught and through books but also with help from Nicola both remotely and in person! I haven’t blogged as much this year but I’m getting the impression that this is a natural progression from newbie blogger to feeling more comfortable with only the occasional update. 2010 also saw us become empty nesters as both boys left home which has taken some getting used to – as Son 2 has so recently left it’s something we’re still learning to cope with! In my mind I have a post prepared about what I miss about him – I’ll try to commit it to the keyboard in the next day or so!
Today we’re off to friends for our belated Christmas/New Year celebrations – before I go I just need to finish quilting my latest project so I can show them!
Here’s to another great year in Blogland – hope it’s a good one for all of you!
Bonkers busy week at work, been feeling completely shattered but, strangely, in a good way! I’ve been asked to help another department out of a bit of a sticky situation whilst still keeping my own stuff going as well, but it’s OK at the moment – probably a touch of adrenalin rush!
After revealing my ‘Blanket of Love’ last week I knuckled down to finish the blanket that I’d agreed to make for Julie – she’d seen the pink & blue baby afghans I’d already made and asked for the pink one if I didn’t need it. To be on the safe side I made another just for her! This one is a little different because I used UK double knitting (I think it’s 8-ply elsewhere but don’t hold me to that!) and a larger hook – then when I was almost finished realised that I had done too many rows of pink between each white row – should have been three but me being all clever didn’t bother too look at the pattern properly! So, to use a good old Suffolk description, it’s come out huuuwuuuggg (can’t spell check that!!) but it’s pronounced just the way it’s written, with soft ‘Gs’ at the end!!
It’s a bit difficult to square it up because of the weight!
I joined the centre blocks as I made them which I think has given a neater finish!
I’ll leave it to Julie to decide which one she wants as I know she will have to post it overseas!
So what next? I’ve got to have something lap sized to do in the evenings, all those years I spent just plonked in front of the TV now seem such a waste now that I’ve rediscovered the life of a hooker! I thought I ought to use up the odds & ends of yarn in my stash so this week have been making random 6 inch squares from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks I’ve only used block number 117 ‘Granny in the Middle’ so far and tried to keep to the colour order but I don’t think I’ll have enough scraps to maintain that. I think the whole idea of the book is to mix and match anyway so I’ll give it a go!
Oh yes, almost forgot that the hoarder in me surfaced again last weekend and I did actually order more of the Kool Kotton I used in the baby afghan, this time in Mint Green which I thought would be a little different – I was actually quite surprised when I got home to find the package last night!
No – don’t worry, I haven’t done anything wrong or mischievous – just finished the latest hooky project!
When I had finished the Granny squares I had loads of yarn left over and decided to make a wavy blanket – I saw a pattern here but at first look it scared the hell out of me and I didn’t think I could manage it! The lovely Janet then copied a pattern for me that was very similar so I opted for that, with a variation (the pattern said double crochet (US single) but I opted for treble crochet (US double)). I was a little concerned at first to see holes appearing but then I realised it was because I’d varied the pattern slightly – eventually the holes became the guide for the pattern and helped to keep it on track!
It ended up a perfect square – don’t know how!
It’s not perfect by any means but it’s kept me occupied for a few months!
I’ve enjoyed making the blanket but was in a hurry to finish it because it is becoming too warm now to sit with it over my legs as I work! So the question is – what next? A while ago I decided to start building up a stash of yarn so that, in an emergency situation(!), I wouldn't have to go for days with nothing to do. We don’t have a particularly good source of yarn in Ipswich so I have to buy it when I see it! I was bemoaning this fact to Janet on Friday and she pointed me in the direction of a shop in Woodbridge, just a few miles away. Yarn heaven! I want that shop – it’s run by a very nice middle-aged man who really needs to let me get my hands on the shop! It would be a goldmine – needs a real good tidy up and sort out and I could see the people flocking from miles around, although saying that about five people came in in the ten minutes or so that I was there.
So – what’s next? Needs to be small so that I can hold it – I would dearly love to try something much finer so have bought some cotton. I’d also like to make a baby afghan – I’ve found a lovely pattern but will need more yarn than I bought :(. And then there’s the scarily bright yarn I bought for Something Completely Different - I really must stop blog hopping to all of these lovely sites that fuel my imagination!
Janet to the rescue again plus this great site for free pattern downloads from ‘vintage’ crochet books
The blue is a 4-ply cotton and was the end of the lot – I bought all that was left – I need to find a white to make a lovely baby afghan that I’ve seen! I think I’m veering towards the brights for now to make Granny squares!
I’m off now – need to come up with a way to celebrate Blog-versary tomorrow – may even do a give-away, watch this space!
Oooh – it’s been an age since I did a waffly, nothing in particular post! (Just spell checked waffly and it came up wifely!!) So here we go a bit of this and a bit of that and not a lot of anything in particular.
OK first up – secret blog post. A few weeks ago I happened across, and I can’t remember for the life of me where, somebody who had just received their gift from the secret blog post. I thought that seemed like a nice idea, exchange a gift with somebody from somewhere each month – no great expense involved – so took a hop over to Notes from Lapland to see what it was all about. The blogger is a Brit living in Lapland whose name is Heather – the Secret Post Club is just a small part of her blog. Anyway – I signed up to join in and eagerly awaited my instructions. On 1 April I received the details of who was the intended recipient of my secret post and duly set about thinking what I was going to send. I decided on a book that I had recently read (A Thousand Splendid Suns – if you haven’t already done so you must read it – even if it is not the sort of book you would normally find yourself reading), a souvenir kitchen towel from the latest holiday and a bar of chocolate. The recommended maximum is £10 ($15 – ish) but it can be absolutely anything.
Poor Heather seems to have created a monster, she has a lot of people taking part now and not everybody was posting when they should so she designed a spreadsheet to add the dates that you sent and received your gift. The idea is to send mid-month at the latest – but hey, we are all adults so why should she have to chase and worry people into posting, simple rules so let’s abide by them!
Anyway – I’m digressing again. I sent my parcel and started to feel guilty/worried when it didn’t show as being received – being the type of person I am(!) I emailed my recipient to say that I had sent it and apologise for it not arriving, cursing our wonderful UK postal system. She emailed immediately to say that a neighbour had taken it and just delivered it to her – phew.
I eagerly checked the spreadsheet to see if mine had been sent and there was nothing against my name but for some reason I went to the bottom of the sheet and my name had been added again way down there – and my gift had been dispatched – with a little note apologising for the delay. Hey presto, next day I had a package – shall I show you what was in it? Shall I? Do you want to see it? Are you sure? (OK enough – I’ll stop now)
A lovely smell of lavender wafted from the envelope as I opened it – which came from the cute little heart, there was a cute little leather notebook and a broach – interestingly when I took the photo the ‘facefinder’ thing found the owl’s face!
The package came from Sara over at The Heart of Our Tribe – if you hop over you can see that she had far more important things on her mind than sending my parcel.
Moving swiftly on, our good friends Linda & John recently became grand parents for the fourth time – but this time they have a grandson, we always joke that their family just doesn’t do boys but it seems they do now. He was born shortly before our holiday and we didn’t get a chance to see him before we went away but fully intended to when we got home. Not wanting to intrude on those precious early days, we waited to make contact but wondered why we couldn’t contact Linda when we tried. And then she phoned us. Son 2 answered the phone and went from being his normal humorous self to a very serious young man. His face went grey, his eyes lost their sparkle – my heart sank. He handed me the phone. Their much loved grandson had been rushed back to hospital at five days old as the midwife noticed he didn’t look ‘quite right’. It turned out that he has a narrowing of his pulmonary artery and will probably have to have surgery to open it up. The good news is that they didn’t have to do the surgery straight away and there’s no rush to do it now – that was a relief.
On Sunday we met the young man for the first time – he is gorgeous and he has two very proud parents. And I was pleased to be able to put some of my hooky wooliness to good use. I decided I need something small to take on holiday to crochet in my spare time and this is the result!
A cot blanket – I bought the yarn before he was born but the colours turned out just right – it’s a marbled yarn so not too many ends to sew in!
Phew – I’ve just previewed this and seen how long it is so I’ll waffle no more … for now!
So I performed emergency surgery and they now look like this...
That's all for now...Oh and I think I've crocheted enough squares for my blanket!
