In which real life catches up with me...

Although not in quite such a sinister way as that title makes it sound!

It just been a busy few weeks - both with work and with my social life... which, apparently, isn't dead! Or maybe it's the walking undead... I'm not entirely sure!

Anyway, it's all culminated in a dramatic case of start-itis! I seriously keep getting part way through something and then having a brilliant idea for something else which I decide to start immediately. I think this is where knitters have slightly more restrictions than crocheters - a knitter has a finite number of needles (unless you go out and buy more, and I see podcasts where people do that) whereas a crocheter can just stick a stitch marker into the working loop and take that hook over to another project!

This week's new starter was inspired by my WIP from a couple of weeks ago... which is totally still a WIP!

Yes, it's another Snowdrop Shawl! This one with a variation that was inspired by Martina Behm's Brickless shawl - and seriously, there are 2 things that inspire me to try knitting: making my own socks, and Martina's design page on ravelry!

So, I inserted a couple of rows of a lace effect every few solid rows - I was unsure the first few repeats, but I have to say that I do love it.

One thing I don't love so much? The yarn!

It's Drops Delight, which is 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon (intended for socks) and is fulled singles, in the purple/turquoise colourway. I've worked with Drops yarn before - I adore their Alpaca, which is soft and generally lovely to work with.

This became the bane of my life within the first half ball! It's squeaky, which I've never encountered with a wool before, but the main issue is the thickness - it varies from wire-thin to super-bulky thick over a relatively small space. 

Please excuse the lighting - this was taken at about half eleven at night.  But that *points upwards* is not even the worst bit I came across. I didn't get a photo of the worst one because I was too busy cursing and cleaning up bits of fibre as the yarn drafted apart in my hands! 

I shall be finishing the project - not least because I have three balls of yarn that I do not want rattling around in my stash any longer than absolutely necessary. But I suspect this may be offered out to friends/family who will appreciate that this looks pretty without remembering the hassles that were involved in making it.

My other thing recently has been stash building... which I have now officially (mostly) stopped since I am saving for a wheel! *does a happy dance* I headed over to Shunklies studio a few weeks ago with some other ladies from Ravelry for a fun-filled day of playing with fibre. We learned to wet felt, how best to use a drum carder and I got to play on a couple of spinning wheel, which was my main aim for the day.

Aaaaand I may have spent a ridiculous amount of time since then considering wheels and costs and which has the most benefits over the others. I think I've settled on one I prefer over the others, but it all does depend on how much it costs to get my car through its MOT next week!

So.... just a few of my stash additions... although at least two of them are specifically for the Tour de Fleece in July!

Which is really just another reason to buy a wheel - think how much I could get done for the TdF, and stash dash...

Speaking of, Stash Dash 2014 starts tomorrow, and all my current WIPs (assuming I get them finished in time) count towards the total! My very quick guesstimate yesterday, assuming I get certain projects finished and manage my minimum on a spindle for the TdF, puts me at just over 3.5K... only another 1.5K to find :(

FO Friday

Inspired by Tami again, here's a couple of projects I finished this week...

I finally finished my Gingham inspired cushion. Took a little longer than expected, mostly because I headed over to my parents' for a few days and got distracted by other things!

I simply joined the front to the back with a round of single crochet and then added a quick shell pattern to the edge. The buttons came with a copy of Mollie Makes and I added some loops of chain stitch to hold everything closed - this is the one part I'm not sure of and might end up unpicking and changing around. 

Overall, for a first attempt at crocheting both the front and the back in different patterns, I'm quite pleased! It's not perfect, but I know what to improve on my next attempt... namely making sure I've got the same number of stitches on both the front and the back!!

The other thing I finished off this weekend was a small crochet frame. I've had the frame itself made for a couple of months, but I wasn't completely sure what to do with it. Then inspiration struck... of course it did so at about 10.15 at night, and it had to be done there and then, no putting it off until a more sensible time the following evening! And so, a small crochet flower, some rusty embroidery skills, a few buttons and some gold thread later, I ended up with this...

I kinda like it! I'd probably go for a more neutral fabric pattern next time, as it's a little busy for the background, and I'm not happy with the placement of the red flower, but for a spur of the moment attempt, I'm kinda happy with it!

Cross Stitch Craziness

I may have been tempted to pick up a needle and thread again... the project is totally adorable though.

Image from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery 

It's a monthly subscription, so while I have January and February to keep me busy (along with March's coming tomorrow), it's not going to eat up all of my crafting time! The pattern you receive is wonderfully detailed, and much much better quality all around than some of the (very expensive) cross stitch kits I've bought in the past, and comes complete with yarn options and details for people that might be new to cross stitch. Its so nice that I'm considering some of their other patterns!

Not like I needed another WIP or anything *facepalms*

Planning and Inspirations - part 1

For my first blanket I started with very little prior planning - I knew what yarn I wanted to use, and I had a basic stitch pattern that I loved and I threw myself straight into it. And generally, apart from a couple of frogging events, its going pretty well; I like the random way the colours work and it's fun stopping every now and then to plan the next few rows... really I just love plonking down random colours next to my most recent row and trying ever weirder choices.

And, while I've got a few very nice blanket patterns in my Ravelry favourites, I wasn't actually intending on starting another blanket until my current one is finished. Then my brother's fiancee made a comment about buying new soft furnishings for their flat, and an idea took hold...

They're both pretty easy to buy presents for individually, but are a moderate pain to buy joint presents for - so I figured I'd make them a nice blanket... even better since she's always cold and wearing multiple jumpers etc. I also figured that since I work slowly, if I start making it now, it should (hopefully) be ready in time for Christmas.

I knew more or less what colour scheme I wanted - their living room is mostly neutrals, so I wanted colours to fit that, with a couple of deeper reds or maybe purples for contrast.

My first port of call was Design Seeds. And after spending a quite frankly ridiculous amount of time browsing through things, I picked a few that were close to what I wanted - none of them were exact, but between them, they gave me a good idea of what I wanted and, more importantly, how they would work together.

Clockwise from left these are Winter Hues, Puppy Tones and Bicycle Tones.

Seriously though, Design Seeds should probably come with some sort of warning - just like TV Tropes or Wikipedia's random page feature, it's very easy to loose several hours of your day just browsing through the website... that and you come away with more ideas for colour schemes than you have time to work on!!

My next stop was comparing these colours to those available in the Stylecraft Special DK, giving me the following colour selection:

There's a couple of additions I may make (white and the new gold that was recently released), but overall I'm happy with it as a starting point for a blanket.