Catch up on last weeks happenings

I mentioned previously that I wanted to get some projects that had been abandoned finished before the end of the year.  I chose two last week that had the least amount to work on to call them finished.  

The white cardigan is the Jasmine Baby Jacket, which only needed the buttons sewing on.  The pink cardigan is the  Puerperium Cardigan, all that needed doing on this one was the edging on the sleeves and to sew buttons on.

Both cardigan patterns are free and can be found on Ravelry.

This week I chose something else to try and finish and hopefully I will have that completed to show you next time.

I have also been working a little on my mitred square blanket.

This is a long term project and won't be finished anytime soon, but that's ok, I love working on it and I have plenty more mini skeins to choose from.  

Mine and Jacobs's outing last week was to a local canal trust which have toddler boat trips each Wednesday morning  for £1, well you can't get much for £1 these days so we had to give it a go.   

The trip is just half an hour with songs along the way to keep the children entertained whilst the boat travels along the canal and through a couple of tunnels.  Afterwards there are some crafty activities in the cafe.  It was something different and Jacob seemed to enjoy his trip on the banooke.  

( A Banooke is Jacobs word for a barge, we have no idea why, perhaps a combination of canal boat and barge and his little mind came up with the word Banooke 😆 )

Later in the afternoon we made gingerbread men, one had an accident, oh dear, lol

This week I took him to a local playcentre called Little Lobsters.  It's much nicer than the big indoor playcentres, everything is in one big room and is more geared to imaginative play with different sections of play such as construction, a shop, kitchen, dressing up as well as a ball pit, slide and various ride on toys.   All the children are called together at the end of the session for a sing-a-long, It's definitely somewhere I'll take him again, especially if the weather isn't good.

 

Last Sunday I had a day out to the Festive Gift Fair at the NEC with Joanne and Stevie and Bonnie.  Compared to previous years It wasn't so good, there were a lot of stands selling the same sort of things, a bit disappointing really.  The girls bought a couple of things, I came home with nothing, that must be a first, there just wasn't anything that took my fancy.  

The Grinch made an appearance though and Joanne queued for Bonnie to have a photo.

Well I think that's me just about caught up on what's been happening here.  

Last week Mark started the preparation to decorated the back bedroom so new wallpaper will be going up tomorrow, I said I would paint the ceiling so that he can just get straight on with it in the morning. Everything takes so much longer because he only has the weekend, but at least the bedroom isn't needed so I can shut the door on the chaos while It's going on.

See you soon

-X-

December 12th - How I knit my mitered square blanket

I promised last time to time to tell you more about my mitered squared blanket.  Whenever I have shown it on here I get questions about where the pattern can be found, so today I thought I'd share how I'm knitting mine.

There many different variations on the mitered square blanket, most patterns  are really just a basic recipe so that you can get the idea of how they are constructed.   The one I found on Ravelry is by Martine Ellis, but like I said there are many others out there - mine Is a mash-up of several I came across.

These blankets are often referred to as memory blankets too.  They are great for stash-busting and by using up those scraps of yarn left over from your knitting projects you would eventually end up with something practical and beautiful with lovely memories attached.  

 I'm knitting mine using 4ply yarn and since I haven't knit that many things in 4ply yarn and only this year got into knitting socks, I didn't have and scraps to use up.  That's when I started buying mini skeins to use.  Over the last three years I have amassed quite a collection of minis, some through swaps, some through yarn advent calendars and some I've just purchased especially for my blanket.

I hadn't knitted on my blanket at all this year until this month and I've loved doing a bit each day.  Each square takes just less than an hour to knit and a small amount of yarn, 5g is sufficient, less actually as I find for the size I'm knitting there is still a little left over from 5g.  

So this is how I construct my square, I hope it will be of use to those who have asked about it in the past.

The pattern is just 2 rows, one row knit one decrease row.

(Each of my squares are 48 stitches and I'm using 2.5mm needles)

 (for the decrease row, right side facing)

slip the 1st stitch purl-wise 

Knit to 2 stitches before the center maker then knit those 2 stitches together

Slip the marker, knit the next 2 stitches through the back loop

Knit to end- knitting the last stitch through the back loop.

Slipping the 1st stitch and knitting the last stitch through the back loop on both the knit row and the decrease row creates a nice neat edge which makes picking up stitches for the next square much easier.

For the direction of the decrease I'm using one of the templates by Ellie of Crafthouse Magic which you can find on her Cosy Memories tutorials (part 3), on youtube. 

I feel no particular rush to finish my blanket, it's been in the making for at least two years and although It's been very neglected this year I still love it and enjoy knitting on it as much as when I first started it, half the fun is choosing the next yarn colour.

-X-

Knitting my way through June

 This year is whizzing by, how can it be the end of June already!  

There were a couple of things I wanted to do in June, one of them was finish my Autumn Dream stitching, (that didn't happen but, I'll talk about that another time).  The second thing was to knit a square every day on my mitred square blanket.  

That sort of happened, I managed to knit 25 squares so I'm calling that a success. 

I really love this blanket and the whole process of choosing a new colour to add.

All the minis from my Advents have been sitting on the coffee table since Christmas!  It was supposed to be somewhere to put them as I opened a new one each day, and six months later they are still there, lol.  They look pretty though.

My blanket lives in a basket which I've been keeping in the sitting room this month so that I can pick it up each night, there are also lots of minis in there too.

This is how big it is now, yeah, still got a long way to go.

This will eventually go on my bed, I reckon it needs to be at least another 6 or 7 rows high and it's only about a 1/3 of the width, so at this rate I should be done in about ten years. 

As much as I love it It's going to stay in the basket for the next month as I have other plans for July.

-X-

16th December - Plans for my Advent minis

 It's just rained and rained all day today, a perfect day to stay in and get some more things crossed off the list.

I wrapped two more piles of presents, I put my audio book on and they seemed to get done in no time, so another two sacks ready for Santa to deliver :-)

This afternoon I put some Christmas films on and sat down to finish Jacobs stocking, I'm so glad that it's all stitched now just (just!!) the making up to do, I plan on tackling this on Saturday, I have everything except piping cord and bias binding which I'll get tomorrow.

I was sorting through my advent minis this morning and remembered that I hadn't shown you my mitred square blanket in a while.  This is where I will be putting my lovely advent minis in the coming months.

 

I love everything about this blanket, it just makes me smile whenever I look at it :-)

I keep it folded in this basket along with all the minis I have yet to use and it sits in corner of my bedroom.  When I have knitted a square the remainder of that mini then gets put in another basket.  As yet I haven't used any one more than once, but I might if I think it will look ok.

I'm using one of Ellie's designs, (Crafthouse Magic), she has some free printouts on her youtube tutorial for how she does her squares, (although I'm not knitting my squares how she does hers), mine is just the basic mitred square that you can find anywhere on the internet.

I remembered to take my advent photo in the daylight today but I picked up the wrong one and opened another Mr & Mrs Rabbit yarns today instead of one of Ellie's, must have still been half asleep!

Take care and I'll see you tomorrow

-X-

A post of many things

 Another busy day spent in the garden making the most of the lovely weather.  All is nice and tidy now so tomorrow I plan on having a day off.

While I've been off work like many people I've taken the opportunity to have a good sort out.  I do have a clear out on a regular basis but the small bedroom where I keep all my crafting things had become a bit of a dumping ground.  I have a tall cupboard behind the door which holds mostly stitching related things, and a chest of drawers which is home to all my knitting/ crochet, yarn, needles and what not.  Those weren't too bad but my threads and charts were in a bit of a muddle.  I had two baskets of threads from finished projects that hadn't been put away and charts I'd stitched mixed in with new charts.  

I spent a whole day the first week I was off and sorted it all out, now I can find things and I'm forcing myself to put away threads when I've done with them!

All my threads, those in boxes are in floss bags and on a ring.

I don't have a big stash of stitching fabric so that fits in quite neatly.

The bottom two boxes have ribbon and trims and a mixture of different craft items

Buttons and needles, the tartan tin is full of buttons too 

These two boxes are charts, one for the ones I've stitched and the other is mainly free charts

The little suitcases are ribbon and trim

I have a small shelf above the chest of drawers, the two file boxes are charts to stitch

I sorted all my mini skeins into baskets.

I worked on my mitred square blanket quite a lot the first couple of weeks I was at home, these first two baskets are what i'm choosing from

  

Once I've knitted one square I'm putting the remaining yarn into this basket.

Some of the skeins were larger so I will probably use those colours more than once.

I love this blanket SO MUCH!  It's so addictive too, once you have knitted one square it's so hard to put it away.

So that was all a few weeks ago now, this week we had another birthday.  My daughter, Stevie-Leigh turned 26.  I have no idea how that came to be, in my mind she is still 16  :-)

Of course, you still have to have a cake made, even when you're 26 and can't have people round to share it with. 

I made my usual plain sponge and made the icing with biscoff spread.

Baking has been another lock down pastime for a lot of people, me included.  I found a recipe card this weekend for a marmalade and fruit loaf.  I had everything I needed so made one of those too.

It's more like a light fruit cake than what I would call a fruit loaf, but it's nice.  If anyone would like the recipe you will find it on the 'recipe tab' on the top of the page.  If you try it let me know what you think.

I received a lovely card in the post yesterday from Jo.  Thank you Jo.  

I haven't had a letter though the post for a long time, so yes, it was lovely to receive a hand written note and a cute card saying hello.  It made my day :-)

Well, that's another week done, I wonder how much longer we will have to wait until more shops are allowed to open?  I don't know about you but I hope that the first places to open are hairdressers.  I think if you have long hair it wouldn't matter so much but when you have short hair things can change pretty quickly, especially if you have hair like mine which grows out as well as down!  And we won't mention the root problem, (and no, i'm not ready to go grey yet thank you very much, lol)

I hope you are all staying safe and well and trying to find the positives of staying at home, it's for a good reason, we have to beat this horrible virus so that we can eventually lead our normal lives again.

Take care

-X-

There's a long way to go yet

This week I thought it was about time I started adding squares to my mitred square blanket.

I made a very small start on this before Christmas but I now have all those gorgeous minis from my Advent calendars to start adding.

It's got a lot of growing to do, If I can I'm going to try and fit in one square a day until the end of the month, although, once you get going it's very hard to stop at one square, I love dipping into my baskets and choosing the next colour. 

Like the rest of the world I've bee following the news on this coronavirus, It's very frightening how quickly and how far it has spread in such a short time. 

I think we must all do our bit to ensure we are keeping ourselves and our family as safe as we possible can and to try and minimise the spread.   

We have decided that unless it's absolutely necessary we won't be visiting my mum, if we are out shopping and work we can't be sure who we have been in contact with and would hate to think we have inadvertently taken something into her house.  We will drop shopping to her and leave it in the porch from now on.  Better safe than sorry!

I am not one of those people who has gone out and done enough shopping to fill a small bunker, I am just doing (or trying to do ) my normal shopping.  I have always shopped for cleaning supplies once a month, I know how much stuff we get though in a month and it gets replaced every four weeks, luckily had just done that at the end of last month, so we are ok for those things for a while yet, I will not be going out to buy more before I would normally shop again  Personally I think it's appalling how people have been selfishly loading their trolleys with all this stuff, I dislike unfairness.

My daughter could not get any baby formula last week and had to ring round every supermarket until she eventually found some, and they had only got four tins!.   This week there are no nappies or wipes to be had, (yes she knows there are alternatives for these things), but If people are going to clear the shelves then It's only right that supermarkets limit the amount you can buy.  

At the moment we are still going into work, although we have all been given the means to work from home if, or when the time comes.  Most of the the lads in the office are up and down the country to different sites and meetings etc throughout the week, it's really only a matter of time until someone has it.  I've decided that from tomorrow I'm not signing for any deliveries, I will ask the driver to sign my name for me, you don't know who's hands have touched that machine and I will be asking visitors to use the antibacterial gel as they enter and leave, just sensible precautions.

I hope that wherever you are you are keeping yourself and your family as safe as you can.

Take care

-X-