Tuesdays Tallies: three

Hello :-)


I had some fab comments to my last post, how about using a tea pot as a yarn holder?! Sounds hilarious but it's brilliant :D

My pretty panniers arrived but alas... They really were a case of style over substance :( Obviously intended to stay on your bike (which might be ok if you live in a lovely village and not Manchester) and no handles / strap to carry off the bike. They were also so long my heels kicked them every time I pedalled! Needless to say I had to return them :( I got a bargain pair of black bags (exactly what I didn't want!) but they're much easier to fit and have a very good handle system - so ends le pannier saga :)

I've been furiously crocheting while watching the Olympics and I've finished round three! I'm actually a little further on than that now but I thought I'd spread out my progress :)

Round three might well be my favourite...

Fab :D
My yarn arrived from deramores so I've caught up on all the rounds I couldn't complete too.

Aside from panniers and crocheting we visited J's parents allotment and I spotted these beautiful flowers - no idea what they are but the colours were stunning!

The weird mix of rain / sun / rain / sun has done wonders for my plants too. I'll have to get some new photos of them soon. Right, back to watching the swimming finals now!

x x x x

Tuedays Tallies : two

Hello, welcome back to my Tuesdays Tallies :) If you click the banner above you can visit Caroles blog and find out more about other people taking part. I'm really thrilled about how much progress I've been making after such a long break. The irony is the sun's come out & it's way too hot for a blanket!


I spent the weekend away at Truck Festival in the absence of Glastonbury this year and it was brilliant! I even bumped into someone I know from work which was really really weird. I got very sunburnt too so I'm taking it nice and easy at the minute!! I did miss crocheting though...


Last week I concentrated on making my middles (my least favourite of the process) so THIS week I had the lovely job of doing round two, which is much more exciting because I've been using more colours!


Doing round two is super quick and there's really not much to it; just some clusters of trebles.


I've realised I'm running low on Saffron, Clematis, Aspen and I'm all out of Turquoise! Luckily Deramores has all of these in stock AND 15% off all yarns :D WIN :)



So now I cannot wait to start round three... I know this really is more than "one a day" but hey ho :) I'm going to bend the rules a little and say my effort is "give it a go once a day" :p


x x x x

Tuesdays Tallies: I'm back!!

I am really excited about re-joining the One a Day project run by Carol at Gingerbread Girl because I really think I'm going to finish my hexagon blanket soon :)

My last Tueday's Tallies post was back in November but I just got so busy with Christmas and other crochet / knitting projects I decided to stop for a bit. I just didn't mean for so long!

I decided before re-joining to have a target for my blanket and having measured it out I think I may only need another 58 hexagons, possibly an extra row after that and then the border.


I also decided instead of making one hexagon at a time I'd start a mini production line...


So I very quickly hooked up all the middles I'll need!


And now I'm about to start on round two... It feels good to be getting to the end of this :)

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Me and my bike - part two

So I said my next step would be to attach a shoulder strap to my pannier. I am so glad I did (you'll see why...)

Quite a while back I thought I might make a Cath Kidston-esque bag and in the end I decided not to (the market has them for £10!!) but I'd bought all the buckles, fastenings and a leather belt to cut up, everything I needed really to make the strap.

It was a bit dark to photograph it in the making so I'll just show you the finished thing :)


FYI: Leather is not nice to sew through! I broke two needles and myself doing this part

Super strong stitching!

I was still having a bit of trouble with the bungees being too stretchy and a couple of time's I've had to stop to re-adjust etc...

Then yesterday after work it decided to pour; no bother, I was going to carry on as normal. I think I'd ridden a few yards out of the car park when disaster struck!! The bag and it's buttons got caught in the spokes and ripped clean off! :o


Fortunately I wasn't on the road so I could gather them up and put the bag over my shoulder - SEE now why I was so pleased :) Sadly bag now looks a bit battered!


I'm not too deterred, the holes can be patched and buttons sewn back on, but I think I'll be removing the chopping board and using it as a shoulder bag instead. I just don't want my things to fly off into the road under someone’s car, or worse get something stuck in the wheel which catapults me off instead haha!

Instead I've decided to invest in some proper panniers but this hasn't been easy! My main requirement has been to get a bag that's as practical off the bike as on. Basil make some really lovely ladies pannier bags and the shoulder bags in particular seemed ideal; they've got a zip pouch on the bag that conceals two hooks to clip onto your rack. The only downside is they're a little on the small side.


The double pannier bags however are much larger and only cost a bit more for the two. The downside to these is they're permanently attached meaning you can't use just one, reviews suggest they're a little fiddly to attach to the bike (but my pannier rack has a spring loaded section which I think could slide over the bag fixings) and they don't come with a shoulder strap and even if they did I think they'd be clumsy to carry.


That said, I've bought a double pannier bag anyway! Amazon had them for about £56 but Evans Cycles have a £10 voucher off a £50 spend so I have them for about £52 (and I might get some cashback through these guys at Top Cash Back so I'm just going to see how they attach and carry about; if they're no good I can return them to the shop for free.

What a drama eh? As soon as I can collect I'll be taking some more photos and hoping that they're everything I ever wished for :)

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Me and my bike

This right here is my bicycle. It may not look anything special and it's certainly not as beautiful as this, this or this, but I've had this bike since I was in Primary school and I'm now 26...

I do quite enjoy telling people that! My Dad decided if he was going to buy me a bike he'd make sure I could grow into it... Well how I ever rode around the streets at home when I was 10 I'll never know because I've only just raised the seat and handlebars!

Anyway, I digress. My bike has made a come back! From being used as a kid and left in our garage for years-and-years-and-years it finally made its way up to Manchester where it's lived on our balcony a little neglected until finally my bike found it's purpose!

I've started riding to work as most of the time I'm in town and it's not very far. I've even started to go further afield and now I pretty much cycle everywhere! My bike's got new road tyres, lights, a bell, mudguards and more recently a pannier rack for bags - but alas I had no bags and to be honest, most pannier bags I've seen are either pretty ugly or pretty but expensive.

I decided to make my own bag and eventually settled on a Haversack from an Army Surplus shop; there are loads on ebay and mine was only about £10. Agreed it's not floral and pretty but it's quite practical and should be durable. It's only going to get wet and muddy anyway!

The original rucksack strap loops have made an excellent place to attach bungees instead of putting proper hooks onto the bag.

And to make the bag more rigid I cut up a new chopping board (J was not pleased about this part!!) and that's attached through the bag with buttons. Not so pretty on the inside, but much prettier on the outside!

It was while looking for suitable buttons in my stash that I came across these little flowers I bought ages ago. I had planned to maybe embroider something on the bag but these have saved me a lot of effort and trouble; I love them!

And now I have one almost-finished pannier bag. I think I need two! Seriously, it is so much nicer to ride without a rucksack and this bag is a little tardis!

My next step is to sew on a shoulder strap for normal carrying, this was after all my original reason (excluding money) for making a bag as most I've seen are great easy to carry when you've finished riding.

Ta dah :)

What do you think? Should I add any more embellishments, buttons, ribbons, some crochet perhaps?

Thank you to everyone who liked the knitted bunting (and that it wasn't clutter *J* !!) especially to Hawthorn who emailed twice - the second time to say she was going on to Ravelry to get the pattern and start stash busting - yay!

I've told myself off for not being a good blogger and replying to my lovely commenters - the only people I can't email are "no reply" bloggers so if you haven't had a "hi! hello!" from me that's why :) Thank you's sent and karma restored, time to click "publish" on this post :)

x x x x

Mini bunting ta-dah!

What?! What's this! Another ta-dah post? Something must be seriously wrong with me...


If that's sounding a little too smug or conceited then fear not, I'm about as surprised as anyone that I've actually been finishing stuff off this year. And to add a touch of reality to this post I thought I'd let you know I just got soaked on the way home from work (on my bike) because I'm on two wheels until my car is fixed - in a nutshell it won't start.


But enough about things on wheels! Knitting / crochet / yarn is where we're at...


Here's the all important details:
Pattern: Knitted Bunting Party Flags by Audrey Wilson
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK (see end of post for colours!)

And now for the good bit!


^^^^^
Done!

I've joined the flags together with two rows of double crochet (that's single for you US folk!) and I've left a long tail for now until I decide where to hang it. Ooooh more clutter for my flat :-)

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Chunks!

I just wanted to pop by and tell you how much I absolutely LOVE chunky yarn - I mean seriously love!

My usual yarn is DK but I've always thought how great chunky yarn would be. Imagine how quickly you could knit up a scarf or a snood.... I was so right!

I only got hold of this yarn on Saturday (and didn't start knitting til Sunday) and look what I've got already!!


This is the beginnings of a new snood :-) I can't wait to be able to wear it, it's going to be so soft and cosy!

I bought some new 10mm bamboo circular needles from ebay (ooops, I need to leave feedback for that...) and they're amazing to use, so soft and the cable bit pulls through nicely. I realised today that somehow (I've NO idea how) I've managed to twist the snood so it's been a dilemma; do I start again or carry on?


So I've decided to carry on... My thinking is it will look interesting, and if it turns out not to work then this really hasn't taken any time at all to start again.

The yarn is "seriously chunky" by Cygnet in Barley shade 4884. I haven't paid for it yet as my mum picked it up, but I think it was about £1.99 a ball for 100g so pretty bargainous!

Oooh, it's finally stopped raining. At last :-)

Good night my lovelies!

x x x x

Another finished project. Really!!

I couldn't think of a good way to start this post, but it seemed that explaining that has done the trick! How handy ;-) Maybe it was because of the 24 hour flu I had yesterday! I went to bed on Friday feeling terrible and woke up feeling worse. Banging headache, fever, absolutely knocked out but apparently paracetamol, lucozade, sleep and good food cured me; woke up this morning absolutely normal. W.e.i.r.d!

I really wish I could show you my FINISHED (!!!) knitted bunting but I haven't taken any photos whatsoever and the place where it's hanging currently is really rubbish (not to mention unpractical) so it's just not happening. Yet.

Have a nice photo of a lazy swan baby instead!

I finished the snood I was making for my friend though - the problem is it's wayyyyyyy to small haha! I think I cast on about 100 stitches and 150 would have been much better, so rather than frogging it I've decided to pass it onto a smaller person (of soon to be 4 years) and make another one. I guess we can call this a prototype :D




Ta Dah


Never made a tension square in my life :)


My edging it totally made up but if anyone wants to know what I did let me know and I'll write out the very simple instructions :)


Some slightly dodgy joining going on here! I didn't use my circulars because they were too long.


Ted looking pretty unhappy (I think it was quite hot when I took this photo, no wonder!)
You should be able to guess by now that the yarns Stylecraft Special DK. This is my fave colour, Pomegranate, I have many balls of this yarn and it always runs out! I used 4mm needles for this snood and a 4mm hook for the crochet border. Snood number 2 is being cast on to much bigger needles so it's knitting up pretty quickly and is a lot looser so should be quite cosy.

I don't know where the days gone but it's bed time now :( Thanks for visiting, it's been lovely to have you :)

x x x x

Mostly sunny

When the sun is shining



x

Mini bunting flags

How about my little nodding Unazukin dolls!? They are cute, pointless and they nod or shake their heads! The perfect decision makers; should I buy more yarn? Nod. Should I go for a run? Head shake. Excellent.

I've been busy combining both of my loves; crochet and knitting!  Le perfect combination.  Someone (and upsettingly I can't remember who!) blogged about some bunting they'd knitted and I loved it so much so I obviously had to make to my own.  Had to.

Fortunately I book marked the pattern and it's called Knitted Bunting Party Flags by Audrey Wilson.

I started out and after only a few rows I decided it was looking quite cute as it was but I wasn't happy with the finished flags.



It took me a while to stop the edges from being so lumpy and bumpy after doing the kf&b stitches but practice really does make perfect (ok, near enough!).



I decided to do a round of double crochet to finish off each flag, and blocked them with my iron to get a flatter shape.



And because they are so quick to whip up I have quite a lot of little flags now!





Although I can't share the pattern here (you should go to Ravelry for that, it's free!) I can tell you I knitted until I had 12 stitches on my needles and then I knit 3 more rows before casting off. My needles are 3.75mm :-)

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