No socks Monday

Believe it or not, I don’t have any socks on my needles right now. Gasp!

What I do have is a serious case of finish-itis. I’ve sewn in all the ends on the baby jumper and my Diagon Ally socks, and I’ve been super focussed on the boyfriend’s jumper. It’s odd not having the slightest urge to start something new.

However, I have hit a bit of a snag with one finish. Earlier this year I mentioned completing my Roses for Grandma blanket before 2021. All of the squares are finished and now it’s on to joining them together.

But I can NOT understand the joining instructions. At all. I’ve tried a few versions of what it might be trying to say, but none of them turned out useable, never mind correct.

There are no diagrams in the pattern, no notes on Rav, and no videos on YouTube that I can find, so I’m a bit stuck. I don’t suppose anyone else has made it before and can help me?

Hannah

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FOs all over

Remember that test knit cowl I was doing the other day (or maybe ten years ago. I really can’t tell) with all the cables? Well I finished it.

Then I kept going and made an ear-warmer.

And then there was just a teeny bit of yarn left so I finished up with a headband.

They are SO warm and cosy.

I also managed to finish the jumper in time for posting tomorrow, and I love it.

Although I was mad at myself when I got to the end and realised there were 32 ends to sew in. Single-colour jumpers from now on!

And finally, my Diagon Ally socks are finished. The pattern isn’t as obvious in the darker yarn, but I still love them.

Blocking to follow when I’ve sewn in the ends and we’ll see what effect it has on this cottony sock yarn.

This brings my WIP list down to a slightly more sensible 6. I feel like I might have given myself a case of finish-itis; crossing all these WIPs off the list felt good and I really want some more of that. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Hannah

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FO Friday 14/08/20

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.

Hannah

xXx

Sock it to me Monday 20

The shortie socks ended up not quite matching, as I suspected.

I would really rather have got a matching pair out of it, but I’m not too disappointed – I can’t remember the last time I used every last scrap of a skein!

The yarn was Lilac Blossom sock from JK Fibers and I got a long pair of socks and these shorties out of one skein, which is more than I expected. I wonder where I got the idea that one skein is just enough for one pair of socks?

Right now I’m working on a second pair for the boyfriend, using the yarn he bought in Dunoon. So far it’s turning out much more green and less purple than it looked in the skein.

These will be basic socks (Ravelry link) again, and then for the next pair I’m going to try a new-to-me pattern. Probably Hermione’s every day socks, but we’ll see.

Hannah

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Sock it to me Monday 14

I finished my first pair of Pride socks and I LOVE THEM!

They turned out slightly more mismatched than I expected (although they’re not actually different shapes – the right side just wouldn’t lie flat), but I think the similarities are enough to tie them together as a pair. Plus they’re comfy and soooo toasty.

 

There’s still plenty of month left so I made a start on the second lot of yarn I was considering.

These are not going so well.

Curse you, accidental colour pooling.

The yarn did look fairly rainbow-y in the skein, but now they feel more like Hogwarts Houses socks.

Not that I’m against Hogwarts socks, but I was really aiming for a more Pride-y look.

I suppose the spiral stripes look kind of cool, so it’s not really a disaster. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the other sock turns out the same so at least I have a matching pair of not-quite-rainbow socks.

Once this pair is finished that’ll be me out of rainbow-like yarn so I shall finally start my first Rose City Rollers. I’m pretty excited!

Hannah

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Sock it to me Monday 13

I finished the boyfriend’s socks, and this time I’ve even sewn the ends in!

He’s very happy with them, which makes me very happy too.

I’ve already frogged and restarted my pride socks three times (I just couldn’t choose a pattern) so they’re only this far along:

I’ve only ever used this yarn for amigurumi before and the colours came out looking quite random, so I’m pleasantly surprised to be getting regular stripes this time. I did say I wanted to try some self-striping!

Now the frogging has stopped it’s going pretty quickly, so I think I might be able to make two pairs this month.

Aren’t socks fun!

Hannah

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A froggy finish for a Friday

Behold – a flattened froggy bookmark!

The boyfriend wanted the tongue and the arms to stay wiggly, but I blocked out the legs and body, as they’ll actually be in the books.

I made a few minor mistakes when putting froggy together, but I’m trying very hard to ignore them and focus on the fact that I made a thing! And he’s really pleased with it, and it’s exactly what he asked for, so yeah I’m calling that a win.

Hannah

xXx

 

A sort-of finish

I finished my square!

So it is an FO, but obviously I haven’t finished the blanket what with the next part of the CAL not being released yet.

This is another stash busting exercise, still trying to use up the ridiculous amount of cotton yarn I bought however many years ago. I probably could have matched the pattern colours, but I have a looooot of blue shades so I started there and chose a few colours that worked with them.

I rather like it!

Hannah

xXx

A good old FO Friday post

Finally posting about the pattern test I did, whenever the heck it was.

It was the Baby Bear Bonnet pattern by A Yarny Robin, and I believe there’s a discount code on it until tomorrow (the 4th) if you fancy it.

I tested the newborn and age 6-9 months variations. First up – the newborn, which looks more like a monkey than a bear to me but still cute.

For the 6-9 months version I used some darker yarn, but after a while it started to look a bit too dark for a cute baby item so I edged it and made the ears with the same light brown used for the newborn bonnet.

I think that worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

So there’s my finishes for this week. It’s nice to cross things off the list again, but I really must focus on getting some of these old WIPs done too. Fingers crossed for some lockdown finishes.

Hannah

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Finally finishing

Current WIP count: 5

So far this week has been more about finishing off old projects than working on new ones.

While sorting through my FO box, as well as moths (UGH!!) I also discovered that I’m even worse at sewing in ends than I thought.  About 95% of them were technically UFOs because there were ends hanging out eeeeeverywhere.

I am determined to actually get them to a charity rather than sitting around the flat, so the last few days have been a bit of an end-a-thon to get everything done and dusted.

This is the pile of true FOs now:

And this is what I have left to sew in:

 

You probably won’t remember, as I mentioned it so briefly and ages ago, that I snapped the cast off of my Flax Light the first time I wore it (curse these hips). What I didn’t say at the time was that I couldn’t face fixing the hundreds of teeny tiny stitches, so it went in the naughty corner and there it stayed until this week.

I managed to catch the stitches where the yarn broke and went round undoing the cast off, then I attached some more yarn and had a go at Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.  It’s a bit tedious, what with having to lift over two loops individually for every single stitch, but boy does it stretch!

The edge looks shonky because the needle I used for cast off was too big. I keep telling myself I can deal with it because the jumper actually fits me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will end up being undone and cast off for a third time at some point. We shall see.

I did also start another hat at choir this week, until I remembered I was going to use that yarn for a Flax so I frogged it all. Hopefully by next week I’ll have some progress to show on that, but for now it’s back to those ends!

Hannah

xXx

Chonkster

I do love super chunky yarn. Look at this gorgeous hunk of squish.

It only took a few hours to make, and a lot of that was trying to get the pompom to believe it’s meant to be a sphere rather than some weird egg shape.

It’s a bit too big for me or the bf so it’s gone into my Knit for Peace box. Hopefully someone with a large head will be happy to find a hat that actually fits.

There’s still a whole lot of super chunky yarn left in my stash, so I can definitely see some more of these chonksters in my crafting future.

ETA: This is the Chunky Pebbles Hat, which is a free pattern on Ravelry.

Hannah

xXx

Final bears

Current WIP count: 7

Okay this will be the last post about Simba bears for a while, I swear. I just wanted to show the whole set of sizes all lined up now they’re finished.

Thankfully that was enough bear for now and I’ve been able to get back into Roses for Grandma properly. All the current squares are finished and I’m now making motifs again, as I decided I want a bigger blanket than first planned.

It’s not quite mindless enough to work on at choir, so I’ve also started another hat. This is strictly for choir/travel crochet so it won’t take any time away from my Grandma blanket.

I think I’m finally getting a good balance between charity makes and projects just for me. Hopefully I can keep that up.

Hannah

xXx