I think I’ve got it

Current WIP count: 6

Stubbornness wins! I kept trying and trying with this joining pattern, and last night it finally clicked into place.

It’s actually really simple now I know what it’s asking for.

My problem was that the pattern uses the terms ‘same square’ and ‘adjacent square’ to explain what’s going on, but when you have to turn the work a few times (which you do) it’s a bit difficult to keep track of which square is which.

Some photos or diagrams would have helped, but never mind. I’m on the home stretch now and I can definitely finish off this blanket before the new year!

Hannah

xXx

All’s well that ends well

Everything was a bit of a disaster in my last post, but it wasn’t actually the end of the world like my brain kept telling me.

The jumper is flying along now and should be finished in time for posting at the weekend.

I haven’t seen the recipient for about a year, and have very little interaction with children in general, so I have no idea if it’s going to fit right. My hope is that it will either be the right size or have a little room for growth.

And I’m extremely happy to say that the pizza dough was perfect, which is handy as I made enough for five pizza bases!

Thank goodness it’s freeze-able.

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 25.11.20

Current WIP count: 8

It recently came to my attention that there is less than a week of November left. ARGH!

My friend’s little girl has a birthday at the beginning of December, and I was always planning to make her a jumper, so I started a Good Old Raglan (Rav link) immediately.

It doesn’t look like much yet. I’ve got loads of spangly yarn in different colours so I’m planning some big, chunky stripes from blue to purple to pink. Keep your fingers crossed that it works out as I’m imagining.

Hannah

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Cable test

I love me a good pattern test, and I love knitting cables, so when Cinna Knits put out a call for testers I jumped at the chance.

This is just over half of a mini Chaos Cables cowl and I’m loving it. I’m already mentally digging through the stash for another yarn to use in the middle of a larger version.

You guys better get your hands on this when it comes out – it’s awesome!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 28.10.20

Current WIP count: 8

We all knew it was only a matter of time before I started another blanket, and this week I found I couldn’t resist any longer.

This is the beginning of another Beachcombing blanket. My last one was in mostly blues and greens so I decided to use my hot colours this time round. I’m not totally convinced that the dark brown (showing up as black in photos) works, but a few other people said they like it so I’m going to keep it in there.

I’m starting my temporary job tomorrow – training starts at 8am sharp! Wish me luck!

Hannah

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I’m still a bit dim

But at least not imagining things.

It turns out if you keep scrolling through Diagon Ally, past the charts, there are in fact written instructions for each foot. Sigh.

See what I mean about lacking brain power right now?

So the socks have come out of the naughty corner, and as of this morning I can just about see the beginning of the foot pattern emerging.

Hopefully I have enough wits left to follow the written part and I won’t have to frog the whole sock. Do please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 12.08.20

Current WIP count: 7

The Beachcombing blanket has been languishing for a while because I wasn’t sure what to do about the border.

Of course Eleonora designed a lovely border for it, but it involves these big bobbles that look like bouys and I’m really iffy about appendages on my yarny makes. It’s far too easy for them to snag or get caught, and I had visions of one of the bobbles tearing off and unravelling the whole border.

So I didn’t want to do that, but I had no idea what to do instead. Until Monday, when I came across this video for a wavy shell border.

Waves and shells fit nicely into the seaside theme of the blanket, and it looks good – win win!  Plus it’s a bit of a yarn-muncher so that’s helping with stash mountain as well. Now I know what I’m doing it’s whizzing along and I should be able to cross this off the WIP list by the end of this week. Hooray!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 05.08.20

Current WIP count: 7

Yes I’m one WIP down, but that’s because I frogged rather than finished something.

The Havana blanket has been sitting in a box for over a year, and I realised the thought of working on it wasn’t bringing me any joy, so I frogged it.
I’m actually quite relieved now it’s gone. Maybe I’ll try again one day if I find the right yarn.

I’m also chugging along with my socks. Apologies for the photo quality – it’s miserable weather in Scotlandia today.

I sort of wish I’d gone for a contrasting heel as well, especially looking at the amount of main yarn I have left.

So these may end up as not-quite-matching socks in the end. That’s okay though; they’re only for me and hardly anyone will see the toes whether they match or not. I can’t wait to get these done and make a start on another pair for The boyfriend.

Hannah
xXx

WIP Wednesday 22.07.19

I finally managed to tear myself away from knitting socks, although I didn’t get away from them completely.

At the bottom of my wardrobe there’s been a pile of holey socks accumulating over the years, and there they would probably still be if I hadn’t suddenly hit a shortage. Yes, I wore through so many pairs of socks that I didn’t even have enough left to last a week! It was beyond time to get on with it.

You may remember the moth incident a few months ago. Well that left me with lots of short pieces of sock yarn far too small to make anything with.

I quite like the look of visible mending so I decided to use them for fixing all the socks, regardless of colour.

The first couple were done and fastened off before I remembered you’re supposed to do them inside out, but now I’m getting the hang of it and I can see the stitches getting neater each time.

I still don’t know why mending things feels so satisfying, but add in using up those scraps of yarn I thought were goners and it’s even better. I may never get rid of old socks again!

Hannah

xXx

Not really moving that WIP list along, am I?

Current WIP count: 8

I’m a bit behind with my CAL blanket, since the squares took foreverrrrr to dry. At the weekend I’d had enough and got the hairdryer out to finish them off so I could finally get on with it.

After that the boyfriend and I spent about twenty minutes shuffling the squares around until I was happy that the randomly bright-looking squares balanced each other out. It was…interesting trying to make sure the colours all worked while keeping the squares with the same pattern apart, but we got there in the end.

So now I’m joining, joining, joining and looking forward to starting the next crochet part; the border.

I’m pretty excited about it!

Hannah

xXx

Ends and ribbing

Current WIP count: 8

I’m still working away at my Beachcombing CAL

I’m even being a grown up and working the ends in (almost) as I go, instead of leaving them all to the end. That’s my task for today.

Turns out the only thing I like less than sewing in ends is doing ribbing on 2mm needles. This is as far as I’ve got:

But in my defence, I did accidentally pull out a needle yesterday and had to start again.

I will get there eventually!

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