Knit stitch blanket ta-dah

It's a happy but bittersweet moment finishing this blanket.  It's been so enjoyable to knit and completely different to anything I've made before.  I'm probably repeating myself, but I've always loved stripes knitted in garter stitch and I've always wanted to make something at random, with no pattern or pre-planned colours.

I think I've done pretty well!  2 weeks ago I took some some last photographs before finishing.  Again, with no real idea of how long I wanted it to be I decided I'd stop when it looked right.

I spent the rest of the week knitting rows and rows of stripes until J agreed it was long enough.  Hurrah!  It should be long enough to last for a few years hopefully and not just the baby months.

Because it's garter stitch it's really stretchy so the ends I'd attempted to sew in just came out.  I totally decided to cheat and sew on a fleecy border like bias binding, only I didn't cut it on a bias so I guess it's just binding :-)

And so it's done, I love it but I will miss knitting it! ♥

Ta dah ♥

It's a little wonkier than I would have liked but I'm pretty sure my friend isn't going to be laying it out flat very often.  It's going to be folded, tucked, chucked, dribbled on...  So I'm not too worried.  Sewing onto knitting wasn't actually as hard as I expected although it is quite stretchy.

The reverse I still quite like.  It's got more stripes to it than the front, just the way it works when changing colours, which I can't really explain

And so it sits rolled up in the obligatory sausage roll shot, waiting to head down South

I've missed my friends baby shower, one of the things which makes me sad about living so far from 'home', but I'll be seeing her in a few weeks and her baby might have been born by then so it's very exciting! ♥

The border is lovely and soft and it was a brilliant way to secure the ends.  I wish I'd taken a photo now, but basically I sewed the fleece on one side using zig zag stitch, and sewed right over the ends so they're not going anywhere.  Then folded it over and sewed it onto the back.

It's so fluffy that in some places you can't even see the stitching although it was a total nightmare unpicking it when it went wrong!!

So that's it, another project off my needles.  I'm working on a couple of other things at the moment, including my first piece of knit wear!  Aran jumper lovers stay tuned!

x x x x

Sun, stripes & silicone

Bye bye January, what a lovely start to February!  The sun is shining and we have beautiful blue skies ☼

I'm feeling pretty upbeat today, last night I re-grouted all the tiles in our bathroom so it looks sort of shiney and new (even though it isn't), redid the silicone behind the bath taps which I'd messed up the weekend before and I put paint stripper on our bedroom door frame which looked like it had been painted about 20 times.  Huzzah!  I then celebrated with a mug of mulled wine ☺

I've been making good progress on my knitted blanket, I just needed a day like today to photograph it.  If anyone can think of a good 'name' for this project please let me know ♥

I'm really pleased with how this is turning out because it's the first completely random item I've knitted or crocheted.  I've tried in the past to use colours at random but I've always ended up with a repeating pattern.  This is very much out of my comfort zone but I am loving it!

When I took this photo I thought I'd straightened out all the rows, how wrong I was!

I wanted to make a start on all of those pesky ends because I know it's going to be really boring doing them at the end, but unlike crocheting where I'd just weave the end into something like a treble cluster, these garter stripes are very stretchy and the ends just kept coming out!  

I decided to rip of that Mama's and Papa's blanket (I'm not going to link to it, but I'm sure you'll easily find it!) and sew on a fleecy border which I can tuck the ends into nice and securely.  It should be nicer for the baby to use and will be a lot less tedious for me!

I bought 1/2 a meter of an off white fleece, it cost me less than £3 and there should be plenty so I really can't wait to get the knitting finished.  It looks like I'm going to miss my friends baby shower because we're busy that weekend, but I'm trying to plan in a trip soon after his arrival ☺

The rest of my plans for this weekend consist of a lot of DIY!  Painting and paint removing, putting up blinds and skirting and maybe visiting some DIY stores.  Oh how grown up (boring?) we are now haha!  Hope you have some lovely plans for today

x x x x

Stripey stripes

Good news my lovelies, my RSI which I was telling you about last year is much much better again.  Hooray!  How long it will last I'm not sure but I've been really good with my crafting and haven't been overdoing things and I won't be setting myself any unrealistic deadlines in a hurry that's for sure!

So with that in mind I've given myself plenty of time to knit up a blanket for one of my oldest friends who will be having a baby boy in March ♥

Now I don't like gender stereotypes and I'm not the kind of person that thinks girls should wear pink and boys should wear blue (although I do love pink myself).  I don't like the shelves in toy shops that categorise cars for boys and dolls for girls.  I don't mind if other people do but that's just my personal opinion.

I tried really hard to apply this ethic onto this blanket (I really did!) but it is h-a-r-d I tell you!  I have wanted to use Stylecraft because it is beautiful to work with (important), lovely and soft for a baby (essential) and I have a tonne of it (useful).  The problem I found was a lot of shades from my stash have been used up like Meadow green and I was a bit concerned that too much pink and people will just assume my friends child is a girl, which wouldn't bother me but they're not me you see.

So after playing around with loads of colour combinations, some very terrible, some very retro (which I'm sure friends husband would hate) I have admitted some defeat and am knitting a blue blanket for a boy...  Well it's got yellow, red and purple in it too.

So far so good though.  I quite like that the 'back' is even stripier than the 'front', it took me a few rows to realise that the colour changes needed to be in even rows, but once I got around that it started to work out nicely.  I even painstakingly sewed in a different colour (following the knitted stitches) and ripped out the original just because I didn't think it looked right.  Yikes!

I'mn knitting on my circular needles for extra length and it's just plain old garter stitch because I just think it looks fabulous, especially in stripes.

A nice shot of my new white goods as well.

I also have a yarny confession...  Actually does this even count as yarn?  It's recycled t-shirt yarn!  I think it might be factory left overs and I've seen it on the internet before but never in the shops.  These were from Hobbycraft on 3 for 2 so about £12 for all three.  I thought it might make a nice floppy snood but actually it goes very thick, so it might be more handbag or pouffe material.  We will see!

Hope all is well in your world!  Much DIY has occured here as well, I'm looking forward to boring you with photos soon ;-)

x x x x