Somewhere over the rainbow

I should have my Rosie Elmer blanket finished and ready to show you, but oh no!  No, almost as soon as I blogged about it I started 2 new projects haha!

A friend from my WI is having a baby in the next month and I'd been thinking about making her a blanket, although she's made a couple being a knitter, but I just couldn't let it go.  

I grabbed left overs from my Bright Stripes blanket with a few other colours to make a rainbow.  I love it!  

I think I made my foundation chain a little too long so I'm not sure now if my stripes will be horizontal or vertical, but we'll see how I get on; I've got about a week to finish.  Isn't it jolly!

I don't know if any bloggers in the UK saw the solar eclipse on Friday but here's my contribution ♥ Admittedly not the most amazing photo but it's a nice reminder of a (probably) once in a lifetime opportunity.  I was soooo excited, I have to admit I didn't actually do any work at work until around 10am...  It's just fantastic to see the universe at work, we know the Moon orbits our planet and we orbit the Sun (or we wouldn't have seasons!) but normally it happens so gradually we just take it for granted, but to actually see-the-moon-moving-in-front-of-the-sun was phenomenal!!

A little more down to earth, we did a bit of DIY for the cats last weekend.  There's no way for them to go out when they want and we think they may have had access to the outside in their previous home. Dizzy for one gets very restless and I think he needs to stretch his legs.  The only problem is we had no wall space leading to the outside, other than under the kitchen sink...

★ Build me cat door hoomans ★

I know this makes it look like I did all the work...  Good camera work J!

But actually my dad did 97% of it in his very pro looking railway jacket.  We really would be lost without him

★ Stoopid hoomans making holes in walls.  Feed me ★

So now they can come and go as they please, although Dizzy is stupid and insists on pushing the flap open with his paws, so his head doesn't get close enough to the microchip sensor to activate.  We've had to put it into training mode until he gets used to it, but he'd better figure it out of we've spent a lot of money on a normal cat flap!

He might be stupid (sometimes) but he is very photogenic! 

x x x x

A bedside rug and a runaway cat

I've just had a very stressful early afternoon looking for one of the cats who wandered off and didn't come back!  I'd been painting in the yard and Dizzy has been getting braver and braver, testing out the walls of the neighbours yards and then he just vanished.  Let me off, I'm a new cat parent, but I panicked after a bit and spent nearly an hour looking for him in tears, on my bike, which I fell off and then I came home and J said "he came back!!" Of course he did, I'm just incredibly stupid hahaha!

Enough of cats for now, time to talk crochet.  Tunisian crochet no less

♥

Tunisian crochet has been on my radar for far too many years without actually happening.  I can't be sure where I first saw it, most likely one of the blogs I follow or groups I'm in on Ravelry and I immediately fell in love.  It makes a really lovely textured pattern, which is also solid and perfect for making a new little bed side rug.

I made this bedside rug using normal crochet years ago, although it was meant to be a blanket, but I suppose it doesn't really go in my bedroom which is purple and cream.  I'll definitely find another home for it in another room, but I'd like to make something new for my feet in the mornings ♥

The best way to knit anything wide is to use circular needles so imagine my joy when I discovered I could get an interchangeable crochet hook for my Knit Pro circulars!  It basically makes it one giant tunisian hook.

I picked up some beautiful purple Merino, probably a little extravagant for a rug, but it was half price!  I've been after some cotton or cotton-like purple yarn for ages but it's been difficult to find a variety of shades I wanted.

I made a start that weekend but I warn you that Tunisian crochet is s.l.o.w progress.

I think I've now done approximately 3 inches and it still curls an awful lot so I'm hoping that some blocking and a nice border will fix that up.

I wasn't sure what kind of pattern to go with but having mocked up these two I definitely think I prefer the first because it's less fussy looking ♥

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Well I hope you're having a lovely Sunday and you've had nice weather like us.  It's a shame we didn't go out to enjoy it, but I'm just glad I have my daft cat back.

x x x x

Missing? Hooman you so stoopid.  I only in next doors yard.  Feed me. ★

Bright Stripes

I'm really excited about this new project.  Our friends are having a baby soon so I've started a new blanket.  I'd planned to start in January anyway but I hadn't realised they're due a little sooner than I thought!  I didn't really have a design in mind and wanted some inspiration so I looked through my favourite blogs and hit upon Heather's pram blanket for Tiny Tin Bird on her blog Little Tin Bird, it's just lovely!

I headed into the City to buy the same Debbie Bliss colours she used, because why reinvent the wheel when I loved everything about it, but alas Abakhans don't stock it!  I'm not sure why I thought they did.

I tried to remember what shade each colour was and tried to substitute with Sirdar Snuggly DK. They didn't have a yellow I wanted in that range so the one I bought it from their Country Style range instead.  As it happens Heathers yellow was much paler but I quite like the brightness of the one I bought.  There also wasn't a green that I liked, although I found some Merino later in the sale section ♥

When I got started I decided the darker red, which I'd intended as a sort of pink to off balance all the blue, didn't work and the dark blue was too dark.  I found a tiny amount of some pink Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, which isn't going to go very far but it might just help.



I started by chaining 100 using a 3.5mm (E) hook on Saturday, following Heathers method of not turning the work because I also like the "front" of the stitches.  It really hasn't taken long at all to get this far at all.  I hope it looks fairly neutral, although there's a lot of blue in there I'm hoping it's not too blue.

Now lets talk about not turning.  I already know from making my Muriel blanket that if you don't turn your work everything ends up leaning to one side (the right if you crochet from right to left), and that's exactly what Heather says happened with hers, although you couldn't tell once she'd added a border.

I thought I'd try and be clever and every so many rows I'd join the next colour slightly to the left and then increase at the end of the row, but it hasn't really helped.  After trialing a border on the stitches I have I'm not too worried because it really didn't look as bad, but I had to rip the border back because I'm no where near ready for that.  At least I know what I plan to do!

Not even sure what shape this is trying to be, and urgh to all those ends to sew...

As usual I had some assistance...  They really love this piece of cardboard!  For some reason it was left by the previous owners of our house but it's really handy for taking photos, but here you can see the reality of my livingroom; handbags on the floor, instruction manuals waiting for a home...  Real life stuff ♥

Time for another cup of tea before getting on with more stripes.  Have you started any new projects this year?

x x x x

The end and a start

I can't quite believe that it's January, but I feel that 2014 has been packed full & I'm happy to say that I don't have many regrets.  We finished decorating our bedroom in February which I never thought we'd see the end of.

We also put up blinds and curtains in our living room, painted our bathroom (put up another blind) painted the outside window sills, painted the yard and made a planter

I personally had a brilliant time at Glastonbury and couldn't have wished for a better week.  Ok there's one regret, we haven't (yet) managed to get tickets for 2015!

We had a lovely family holiday to Italy in the Summer, our lesson learnt will be to print maps as well as use a satnav...

We adopted Diz and Mogs ♥

And this happened...  But we got through the first few weeks and we have a well adjusted cat, Mogs was always perfect hehe

I made a lot of stuff!

And as a Christmas / Birthday present to me I've ordered a dressmakers dummy (which should be here by now) so I can get down to some proper sewing, I can't wait!  

I've got a blanket or two lined up for 2015 and I need to finish Dr Who, but mostly I plan to sew if possible and get builders in to rid me of my 70s fireplace...

I hope 2014 saw you right and that 2015 sees you even better

x x x x

Not bad for a morning!

I'm definitely not what one would call a morning person, but since having the cats I've forced myself out of bed at least once a weekend to feed them, resisting the temptation to lie in.  I even fed them last Saturday while nursing a nice hangover!  If I get up, I usually stay up, so this morning between 8.30 and 10am I got down to some knitting...

They're knitted up from a lovely simple pattern on a blog called Flowerpot. I've made them in the 3 and 3-6 month sizes but I wanted something in between so I cast on 20 stitches and improvised the decreases.  The yarn is Cygnet Kiddies Couture Aran.

These were for Nephew#3 but I've made two sizes for one of my best friends babies and as they're super quick to knit I can see more on the horizon...

I've finished my Christmas wrapping, apart from one thing that I'm still waiting to arrive.  Hmmm.

One of my presents to a friend is the Death Star, in all it's crochet glory!  Kinda appropriate as there's a trailer out for a new film.

My friend asked for one but I don't think he thinks I've made it (confused?) so I'm hoping it's a bit of a surprise.

I just have to say that I'm laughing at I type this, I've been feeding Moggie her favourite Dreamies and she's licking my fingers clean. And then she typed this to you all (I think it means hello)

C47 X9000DFR

She also has the last laugh as J dressed her brother up like this...

Merry Christmas if I don't post before Thursday! 

x x x x

Meow meow?

I knew it had been a while since I last sat down to blog, but I didn't realise it had been quite so long.  I haven't felt like writing really but I've been content with knitting, crocheting and reading instead. Projects definitely need photographing but all in good time.

We welcomed some new additions to our house a few weeks ago...  One who is fairly intent on stopping me from working ♥

And the other loves sleeping on our bed and waiting for her favourite hooman (J) to come home ♥

It hasn't been plain sailing and I won't pretend that it has, but they've both settled in really well now and we're making great progress.  Obviously you never know where they've come from, what their owner was like, what they ate, so it's a big learning curve for us all.  Right now Moggie is snoozing on the sofa and Dizzy is lounging near the kitchen, hoping we might feed him.

Will be back soon hopefully, with less tails of cats and more tales of knitting!

x x x x