You bet I waited til the depths of Summer to finish off a blanket!
Despite the oodles of natural light, I cannot seem to get a true picture of the colours, but trust me when I say it’s BEAUTIFUL.
This is a Beachcombing blanket designed by Eleonora at Coastal Crochet. I decided to do it as a stash buster and it didn’t half make a dent in the mountain! According to Excel this beauty used up 17.5 skeins of cotton, which had been sitting in my stash since 2017. That feels gooooood.
Now back to socks again so I can play with my yarn without sweating buckets.
I have really been trying to make this blog a COVID-19-free space, for my own sanity if nothing else.
But it’s overtaking everything I look at, every conversation I have. There seems to be no escaping the chatter, and that combined with living with an immunocompromised person who could be seriously affected by it has sent my anxiety skyrocketing.
So I did what I always do when I’m anxious (aside from hugging my favourite person); I got my crochet hook out.
To make a little COVID-19 virus.
It might seem counter-intuitive to spend time focusing on the thing that’s causing anxiety, but crochet is magic and I felt my shoulders relax as soon as I started.
Plus it’s hard to worry about something so cute.
The pattern is from Once Upon A Yarn, I used some Rico cotton from stash, and I filled it with pellets rather than stuffing so it also works as a stress ball.
I was going to put the usual “I know this doesn’t actually help anything so please don’t lecture me” bit, but you know what? Anxiety and stress have a negative effect on the immune system. By crocheting and lowering my anxiety I am doing something to help.
So I’m away to take some deep breaths and play with my yarn some more.
Over the weekend I made a preemie octopus for someone I know, who was induced two weeks before term. While I was making said octopus, no less than three people expressed a wish to own one for themselves.
Good news: I now have gift ideas for some of the more difficult people on my list!
Bad news: I have now added 3 octopoms to my already-rather-long To Do list
But I can do this! I’ve put my list in order of priority time-wise and made a good start. Here’s my first non-baby octopus in progress:
This is wool rather than cotton, as it’s for an adult, and I can’t even tell you how much quicker and easier it is. I think I’ll stick with wool for all my adult ones, then I’ll have half a chance of getting everything done in time.
This is for a friend whose favourite colour is ‘rainbow’, so I hope she’ll like it!
What’s everyone else working on this week? How are you getting on with Christmas presents? Let me know in the comments!
I’ve managed to put down my circular needles at last, and now I’ve started working on another Christmas present.
This one’s going to be a snorlax! I’m using a pattern from Knitty Cat Crochet, and I really wish I’d discovered it before I made the doily.
Instead of the usual amigurumi increases at equal intervals all the way round, you increase in clusters with 3 sc in between clusters (the pattern explains it better), which gives this oval shape.
This could have helped with the doily problem. At least a bit. Never mind, what’s done is done!
Snorlax isn’t too big, but I’ve got a super busy week so he probably won’t be finished until next week. Not sure I’ll have anything to show this Friday – oh noes! Let’s see what I can do.
How’s your week going? Working on anything fun? Let me know in the comments!
You may have seen or heard about these preemie octopi. Octopods. Octopussies. Whatever the plural is.
They started off in Denmark, where a study found that babies in incubators did a lot better with an octopus friend – the tentacles remind them of the umbilical cord, and baby can grab onto them instead of pulling at any vital wires. They also help lower baby’s heart rate, provide companionship, and all sorts of other good things.
Of course I wanted to join in straight away. Combining crafts with helping people is one of my favourite things in the world! But at the time there were no UK hospitals accepting the octopoms, so I filed the idea away for later and got on with other things.
Fast forward to this week, and an email went round saying the wife of one of my colleagues had given birth 8 weeks early. Baby was okay, but would be living in an incubator for a wee while.
Ding! went the lightbulb above my head.
Enough time has passed that some Scottish hospitals will now allow an octopus in with incu-babies, and (I figured) even if this particular hospital won’t allow it, baby can still have it when he gets out. So here we have my first ever preemie octopus, Oliver:
Isn’t he the cutest!
I had a brief look overthis pattern, decided I didn’t quite like the shape of the body, and went off and did my own thing. I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!
Making friends
Oliver will be handed over to his new family next week, so I’ll have to wait and see what they think of him. In the meantime…. I’ve had a thought.
There are a few Etsy shops I like that offer a charity matching option, for example you buy a blanket for yourself and the shop donates a blanket to a hospice.
What do you all think of Quiet Water offering this with preemie octopodes (obviously I will learn the correct plural term before setting it up)? You get a cute little curly wurly octopus and I send one to a hospital that will accept them, to help a little baby feel better.
What do you think? Would you go for Oliver with an added bonus? Let me know in the comments!
It was my birthday last week so I have *lots* of new presents to enjoy (I am ridiculously easy to buy for), and I thought I’d share some that will more than likely end up in my shop.
First up, I got this wee phone cosy kit from Hobbycraft
The yarn that came in the kit was a bit ‘sticky’, but in total it still only took me a few hours to make this up. With some other yarn these will definitely be shop stock soon.
Of course, I couldn’t just leave it simple like that and I’m already planning a dragon scale version!
I also got a copy of Simply Crochet magazine, because it came with a free Tunisian hook
The jumper pattern using the hook looks really good, and I’m looking forward to trying out some of the other patterns in there as well.
This is my first experience with a crochet magazine since I really know what I’m doing, and it is vastly different to picking up that first magazine on a whim and wondering why it was all written in code. Ah the memories. This time I’m just excited to try all these new things, because I know just fine that I can make them.
And finally, the enormous gold-plated cherry on top:
That is 35 skeins of yarn. There’s cotton, DK, chunky, noodles, acrylic, alpaca…it would take ages to list it all. So instead I just keep taking it out and staring lovingly at it.
Isn’t it beautiful
Do you like the phone cosy? Any ideas what to make with my bumper stash? Let me know in the comments!
![20170418_173848[1]](https://quietwatercraft.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/20170418_1738481.jpg?w=1086)
Quiet Water Craft 
You must be logged in to post a comment.