I am drowning in crochet!

The thing with this "Spring-along" is that they are making a cushion and I want a blanket.  There are only 19 flowers in the cushion and over 150 in the blanket.

The next problem is the yarn I am using.  There is NO WAY I can justify buying yarn with the size of my stash.  That yarn has to be used.  The problem here is that what I have is thicker.  This means that the finished flowers are bigger and therefore do not look the same as the ones in the image above.  But, I have come up with a solution to this problem.  Just change the pattern, slightly!!

It will still be slightly different than the original, not that you can notice,  but I will be using up that wool and be feeling very righteous about the whole experience.  That still leaves the problem of how many flowers I have to crochet,  I will be drowning in flowers for a while yet.

A little Mole

I have no charcoal knitting wool in my stash.  Looking at Julie's blog I think I might need to buy some soon.

These look the cutest little fellows (girls and boys) and I just can't wait for the pattern to be released. 

Well maybe I can wait.  I have to get that crocheted blanket finished before I start something else.  I will have to crochet quicker.

 

Knit and Crochet along

I have such a stash of woollen yarn that when I saw the Knit and Crochet along the Arne and Carlos were hosting I decided to join in.

Of course in all that stack of wool that I have in the cupboard I didn't have one ball of yellow, which I need for the centre of the flowers!  That is just "Murphy's Law", so I had to buy a ball of wool, just one, but if I like this I may have to buy another.

There are supposed to be 270 flowers in the throw, mine is going to be as many as I can make out of the one ball of wool which at the moment only stands at 70.  I will have to buy another ball of wool.

And my wool will not match those used by Arne.  They are using Rowan, which costs a fortune here.  No, mine is going to be what is in the stash, mainly wool from Bendigo woollen mills.

Crocheting the centres is kind of mindless, so I am doing 10 at a time and keeping a record of the total on the outside of the bag.  The other reason I am doing this is because all my flower throws have disappeared.  How can something so big just vanish?  I think if I look in the homes of my children I might find them.

I noticed that that knit-along bit is a continuation of blocks they started a few years ago.   There are 28 in the file of past blocks.  I will collect the patterns and keep them for next year I think.

This is a free download on their blog.

Good to know other people have UFO's.

Set backs

This week does not rank very highly in my ratings.  Things are just not going my way at the moment.  Maybe I am being tested to see how resilient I am?

I am still having trouble with my health.  I have a growth on my thyroid gland that is driving me up the wall.  The doctor recommended all these scans etc but do you think I can make an appointment?  Not on your life.  The problem is that most of these scans need specialist equipment and the surgeries that have them got flooded, in fact two of them got flooded.  There is another one on the Gold Coast but I have to wait a month for an appointment.  I also have to get an ultrasound done and there is more than 2 weeks wait on that because so many people are away sick or are a close Covid contact.  Frustrating!!!

Next is my husband.  The less said about that the better.  He is a man so that explains quite a bit.

And the third thing is that my work was rejected.  All that time and effort I put into knitting a cardigan for my grand daughter only for her to put it on and say, "I can't wear this it prickles too much".  I used a yarn which was bamboo and wool so it wouldn't prickle.  I thought I would try her sister.  Same response.

So this very nice cardigan that took ages to knit, not to mention the cost of the yarn has gone to Vinnies.

I hope the heavens have someone who they have earmarked it for?

WIPW

I have got carried away with the Arne & Carlos videos and am knitting Easter Eggs with my scrap wool.

Arne knits the European technique which is beyond me but Carlos knits the English method, thank goodness.  I  would never have thought about knitted Easter eggs until I saw this video.

 

I am also having to do my own housework as my cleaner has Covid, that is so time consuming.

WIPW

Most of my efforts this week have been with the drawing program.  I have made some progress and can now set a grid for the graph and get it to print.  The trick was to be a bit like Gandalf  when he was trying to open the doors to Moria, I follow a strict procedure, which wasn't in the instruction manual!  I have class kits to prepare for upcoming classes.  They do take time and the classes keep getting bigger.

I have also finished lengthening the arms and body of the cardigan that I knitted for my grand daughter.  It now sits on the blocking board.

I just have to sew on the button then.  I hope she likes it.  I have put the left over wool away so I can add more length if I need to.  That is the advantage of top down knitting.

I have another lot of knitting started.  This one for my cousins new grand son.  I am knitting this in light blue.  I have almost forgotten how to read an old fashioned pattern, I am far more used to charts these days.  I got this pattern book in Toowoomba.

All other sewing is on hold until I finish the current lot of teaching.

I don't have the right yarn!

Wouldn't you know?  Julie releases a new pattern and I don't have the yarn to knit it up.  Even though I have boxes of yarn.

These little ones are just so adorable.   Besides the ones I want to knit as gifts I think I should have one for myself.

I have been reading "Blinky Bill" with my youngest grand daughter, Jasmine.  She loves these kind of toys.

This book was her father's, who loved the stories as well.

So, even though I am itching to get started I have to get some more yarn.  Bother!!!

Where I live and planning some more knitting

I am a bit stiff and sore after digging a new flower bed but it is spring and time to get things in the ground to grow. 

My 'feral flowers' this week are all from the bush with the exception of a few lavender flowers I put it for their perfume and a couple of azalea flowers for colour. The rest are considered weeds.   The crucifix orchid also come in a pink, purple and yellow but it is the orange ones that have gone wild.

It has been a sad week with the death of a childhood friend across the border.  There was no opportunity to see her again or talk to her but that is COVID.  My cousin, who is also across the border has cancer, caused by the drugs she was given when she was treated for breast cancer a number of years ago.  Our mothers where first cousins who were brought up as sisters and my mother died from breast cancer and her mother survived.  We know that we carry the gene and Beverly has been the unfortunate one who got the very aggressive form.

Her daughter so wanted children but after years of IVF treatment finally gave up.  Now at 44 years of age she finds herself pregnant.  I just gave away all my baby wool stash thinking I would never need it again.  I should have known something like this would happen.  I can order more wool on-line to knit her a hap.

A Hap is a Scottish shawl that can be used for a babe or an adult.

This pattern is from Shetland Traders.

The Danish Royals left hospital with their twins wrapped in haps.

This pattern is an old Paton's one that I have used before.  You can still get it on-line.

But we know the new baby is going to be a boy so perhaps a blue hap would be better?

The baby is due in January so I might look at knitting it in 1ply yarn?   I can get that from Bendigo Woollen Mills or from Scotland.

J & S knitting mills have a good article about haps.

And as an extra I see that Julie Williams from Little Cotton Rabbits is going to put out a koala pattern.  I must get that.

I need to get my current knitting finished so I can get started.

 

WIPW

I am working on my Kogin class.  I started with an edge to edge design but as I stitched it out realised that the counting would be too hard for some people.  With this in mind I extracted the centre design and have just stitched that part, to begin.  I am also using the very last of my old cotton.  (The manufacturers reduced the metreage in the skein for the new cotton.)  And you know like all older threads it tends to knot, so I will be happy when that is used up.

The knitting is back out of the bag again.  This is being knitted in one piece, no seams.  I put the sleeve onto 4 needles as I think that it will be easier to manage.

The native grass that I planted near one of the bird baths actually has flowers.  So pretty.  I will have to think about that as an embroidery design.  I have that AGM to night and will be glad to see the back of that.

WIPW

Well as you can see from the last couple of posts I am drawing patterns for new embroideries.  I haven't been able to put my mind to this for ages but that Japanese fabric gave me so many ideas.  Then, I walk the dog twice a day and this takes me through the bush.  I never actually 'saw' some of the things that have now claimed my attention.  Amazing what one little thing can start.

So I am working on another small embroidery, this time of some gum leaves.  I was taken by the fact that the colours were the same as some thread that I had in my thread box, this is a Stef Francis thread.  The leaves are just gum leaves but the shapes and colours caught my attention.  It may not work out, but I will give it a try.

My knitting is still here.  It has been unpulled and re- knitted a number of times but now I am up to the sleeves.  As the weather is on the turn I think this will be for next winter, so I have made it a little larger.

And I'm still working on the backing for the quilt.   I have to use the left over fabric so it will be almost another quilt!