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Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Blanky has a Friend


DD1's Uni 'Happy' Blanky has a friend for her to take along with it on her travels. The cushion is finished. I love it, love it, love it. There will be more. I bought a £2 cushion in Asda and used the cushion pad - this seemed the cheapest available option :) and it's cheap yarn too so why not?!

Since finishing these projects I have started a cot blanket.


Since I took this photo I have added more rows and the blanky is growing. Now this blanket already has a recipient and once again will be leaving home once it is finished so I have also started buying yarn for my own blanky which I will keep and snuggle up under over the coming winter. 

I'm not ready for winter yet so I am focusing on Autumn delights of misty mornings and the quality of the late afternoon sunlight. The yarn I am going to use for the next project is King Cole Merino Blend and 100% superwash wool - I am looking forward to a different but also extensive palette to work with. We had a lady in the LYS, where I work 3 days a week, on Saturday who bought 28 different colours of this yarn for her blanket and then LucyLocket came by to buy yarn for her blanky too so it seemed a good day to start collecting my yarn too - I even have a basket for this project which I bought at Aldi, along with some Aran yarn for a cardi I will get to later. Lucy reminded me about 'little cotton rabbits' blog which was a lovely thing to remember - check out the crochet going on over there. For now I am addicted to crochet and enjoying the hooking, which is where I am off to now. An hour of hooking before bedtime, what could be better? We had Amanda from the Natural Dye studio visiting the shop on Saturday too and her crocheted blanket projects are so inspiring. 
My stripy blankets and granny squares are great brain-dead, too-little-sleep, too-much-to-worry-about projects to work on for therapy. Sadly my mum has Alzheimer's and this horrible illness is taking it's toll on my family. I shall be hooking happy colours all winter I think; many blankets needed for many cuddles all round. :s

Friday, September 02, 2011

DD's Happy Blanket

My darling daughter is leaving home to start her University course in October. I wanted to give her a present that she could wrap herself in and feel my love for her even when we are miles apart so I made her a blanket :)





This project was inspired by Lucy at Attic 24 and I used the same yarn which I got from Masons a great acrylic yarn which is making me rethink my acrylic aversion - well for some things :) This is ideal for a machine washable and tumble dryer safe blanket at a budget price and that's just what DD needs. 68 stripes (4 repeats of all 17 colours) and just right for a single bed size. I pretty much followed Lucy's instructions to the letter and love the finished result. As I had some left overs I have started a cushion cover to go with the blanky :) These bright happy colours have been a joy to work with and remind me that the right yarn for the right project is always a joy (even when it is acrylic!). it took me 1 month and 4 days to finish this and I love, love, love it!

Learn to Spin!

If you've been thinking about learning to spin I may have just the opportunity you have been looking for :)

I am teaching a day's Workshop here at the end of this month.

Scroll down on the Workshop - 'current courses' page and you'll see the 'Spinning Workshop' details.

I love teaching people to spin and we'll be starting with the basic  yarn production and move on to look at plying and designing yarn for your projects. We'll also cover different fibres and how to work with them and look at combing and carding and preping fibre for spinning. Later we'll look at wheel spinning and what to look for and avoid when choosing a wheel.

I am really looking forward to my day and hope to meet lots of new spinners, places are limited though so book now if you'd like a wonderful wooly day :)