Another day, another blankie (FO)

Me again (don't faint with surprise)

After the raving success of the first stash-busting blanket I cobbled together another one, using up absolutely all of the weird textured yarn I used in the first one. 

It's not my finest creation evah, in that it's not very rectangular - something about the textured yarn made it difficult to keep my edges straight, but it's okay. I tarted it up a bit with some nice bold blue around the edge (4 ply held double) and gave it a wash. One end has stripes, and the other half is just plain because that's how the yarn worked out. 

Just like the last one, this will be donated to local charity: the Pregnancy & Parents Centre. They've got a nearly new sale coming up on Saturday (16th May!) Just in time. 

Stash and burn (FO): the story of a made-up blanket

Hey peeps. 

I'm not on a stash diet this year, I'm blitzing, I'm busting, I'm hoovering up that stash. It will be conquered. After this, everything will be different. 

Yeah. 

[Has Marie Kondo written a book about dealing with a stash yet?]

Anyways. I had a bit of a rummage in the yarn stash a couple of weeks ago, just before our bedroom was deconstructed. I pulled out some baby blue/green yarns that I cant find a project for, and got my crochet hook out.  

This is what I ended up with. 

The colours are a bit off here, the olive colour isn't quite so olive in real life - it's just pale green. But the other colours are fairly true (I will resist the temptation to tell you that it's really blue and black).

Not bad huh? It's fairly square, and should work as a baby blanket to keep someone small warm. It consumed a reasonable amount of yarn, with enough left for another blanket too. I dropped it off at the Pregnancy and Parents Centre, so they can sell it to raise money. 

I've no idea what any of the yarns are - but they are all highly synthetic and came from charity shops at one time or another. Two of the yarns are textured, so it's quite forgiving in terms of mistakes, but also slightly harder to work with because the stitch definition is, well, not very defined.  I didn't follow a pattern, I just started with a chain that was about the right length, and just took it from there. Also, don't ask what stitch I used, I have no idea!

Seeing as there was a goodly amount of yarn left over, I almost immediately cast on (do you cast on in crochet?) for another blanket. The stripes will be a bit different, because I used up most of the smooth yarns in the last one. 

In other news, I have been watching the great british sewing bee, and fantasising about having 4 hours, or 6 hours, or even 90 minutes to sew something without having to look after children or make meals or rush out to pick someone up from a party/play date/school. I don't think I've touched my sewing machine since Christmas *sigh*. I am really looking forward to the end of (my) term, and the Easter holidays, and maybe having a wee bit more time to do something apart from work. Grrrr.

Sorry. Did that last bit come out out loud? It's been a bit of a rollercoaster recently, mostly plunging towards an abyss, and hoping that at some point things might get slightly less bad. 

Still, there is always crochet. 

And knitting.

And chocolate.

And urchins like this

to keep me going.

Itty Bitty Hats (FO) (warning: contains images of very small & cute hats)

Yo ho ho me hearties.

As you (both? all?) know I have a healthy stash that I try to keep tamed and somewhat under control. Ahem.

Now and again I get the urge to use up a few scraps of yarn and make some baby hats using my common or garden baby beanie pattern. Sometimes I make the hats for people and babies that I know, and sometimes I make them just for the hell of it. After all, what's not to like about knitting round and round a few times, making an itty bitty stalk and ta-da! a hat appears? 

I kid myself that I'm stash busting when I do this, but really? Each hat probably uses 20g of yarn, so it aint going to make much of a dent. But do I mind?

Not in the slightest.

4 of these dudes have sprung off my needles lately, although I can only find pics of 2 of them. They share a colour palette, and have consumed the last remains of some sock yarn used for other projects, like these, these and this. 

I'll be donating these to the folks at the Pregnancy & Parents Centre to help them raise funds. 

Beanies and bobbles (FO)

The pink hat I lost last week is still hiding in Glasgow somewhere, but the other #9 baby beanies are all washed and ready to drop off at the Pregnancy and Parents Centre.


They look kinda cute all stacked up and ready to go...

Baby beanies (9 here)

pattern: own 

yarn: any and various odds and ends in the sock/4 ply stash

At the weekend we went to a friend's fifth birthday party (happy birthday Aisling!). I was itching to make something for her, so I spent a happy half an hour or so trimming scraps of felt to make this sweet pair of rainbow hair bobbles. I did it while watching England play Sweden in Euro 2012. There were places where my cutting was decidedly wonky; but, I just think that adds to their charm.

And, in other news (in case you were wondering) the building works are still on-going, but due to finish this week. We can't wait! Things already look and feel so different, it's hard to remember what it looked like before... 

Clickety Clack Hat (FO)

I've got another one of those bugs. You know the sort.

When you know you should be knitting something else, you just have to keep on scratching a particular sort of itch. 

At the moment it's hats. Not just any hats, baby hats. Plain and striped baby beanies are springing off my needles one after the other after the other. I'm on no. #7 now. 

7!! I've hardly managed any FOs all year, and then there's a blizzard of them... I also managed to finish those birthday socks, and gifted them a week or so back, (but failed to take any pics, doh). 

The first beanie is for my babylost friend and her new rainbow baby (kisses to you all x o x ), and the others are all for the Pregnancy and Parents Centre. If my premium bonds ever come in, then they'll be top of my list for a large donation for the quiet work they do with parents across Edinburgh. I used the centre during both of my pregnancies - attending yoga classes there and their home birth group. But it's not all yummy mummies and yoga classes, they have breast feeding support and international groups and nearly new sales and counselling and all sorts. It's a great place, always in need of funds and volunteers. And I'm hoping to help by making a few wee hats for a few wee heads. I'm just using my baby beanie recipe and any odds and ends of 4ply/sock yarn (of which there are plenty - so we all win!) I'm planning to make about 10 or 12 and then drop them off for the PPC to sell. 

In other news, I've started plodding away at Deli's endless lacey trim. I have devised a method for knitting this *onto* said garment and not knitting it separately to sew on late (seriously? sew it on?) I'm still only about a third of the way round though....