Nearly There

The Granny Stripe Blanket is almost done, at last, just a few more rounds and a billion and ten ends to sew in but I am nearly there.
Work has been horrific for the last couple of weeks, completely non-stop and I am totally exhausted, even after having this weekend off, I feel like curling up and sleeping for a week, but hey ho life goes on.
Will try to get a few photos up sometime this week of the finished blanket and some rather lovely purchases.

New Toy

The granny stripe blanket is coming along, it has grown quite alot, still not quick enough, I need to get this finished as quick as I can now.

I treated myself to a new toy yesterday and I am desperate to get it out of it's box and play with it, But I have sworn to myself that I will finish the blanket first. I know that the minute I break the seal on the box I will not be able to control myself.
 I have bought myself a sewing machine, not that I have done any real sewing since I was a schoolgirl, and that is going back more than a few decades. but let me explain, I fancied a trip to Hobby Craft yesterday and they had 20 % off everything, so it would have been silly not to really. Guess I will be going off on a sewing gig now, I have been flicking through my book of Kate Greenaway dolls this afternoon, so I may be running a few of them up in the not to distant future, or something else altogether, who knows what will happen until it does.

Good Luck to William and Kate

I didn't actually plan on watching The Wedding today, but I seem to have found myself kind of  interested in the television coverage this morning, lovely to see all the people from around the globe that have made it to London to watch it first hand. What I do want to see is the dress, will she go for elegant simplicity or the more traditional lace and flounce of past royal brides, I love wedding dresses, something truely magical about a woman in her dress.
Just to add to the theme of the day a picture or three of my baby girl on her wedding day, her bouquet was originally mine from my wedding, I added a few more flowers to it to add a little length, and though you cannot see it there is a little silk frog hidden in there, I do not really know why but when I chose the flowers I saw him and couldn't resist.

I May Need To Change My Blog Title

I can't actually remember when I last knit, it seems like years ago, I have been seduced by speed over to  the hooky side. Like many of you I pop into attic24 to see the beautiful things there, Lucy has an eye for colour that I can only envy. I am also a member of the We Love Lucy group on Rav where I discovered that you could purchase a Lucy pack from several online retailers containing her choice of the Stylecraft Special DK needed for her Granny Stripes blanket. Naturally upon seeing the pack I promptly pressed the buy now button. For a very well priced acrylic yarn I am impressed with how it feels and looks and will definitely be puchasing more.

Anyhow, the hook has been in pretty much constant use this weekend, I have refrained from checking out the colour order that Lucy used on her blanket, trying to bring my own colour sense into it, if you know what I mean. (Harry) Lots of progress has been made, the blanket is a good five feet wide and is getting very warm to be under in this weather, (hasn't it been glorious) but I shall persevere in the name of art. 

                

I hope you have all had a fantastic Easter weekend with lots of lovely chocolate and been able to get the needles and hooks out at every opportunity.

Guess What I Was Doing.

A lovely little pile of ends, yes I spent most of the afternoon sewing in ends, don't you just love doing that. Those are not all of them either, I had put a whole load in the bin a little while before. It was worth it though, when you finally do the last one I always feel like dancing around singing a jaunty ditty to celebrate. I know I am so sad.
I must say a great big Thank You to my first ever follower Clare, I cannot tell you just how excited I was when I logged on and saw that you had clicked to follow me, I walked around with the biggest grin on my face for the rest of the day, I would have put the Chesire Cat to shame. It is the loveliest feeling when you know other people out there occasionally pop in and peruse the blog.
I love reading other peoples, I spend hours hopping from one to the other, I am not very good at leaving comments, I try to do it as much as I can, silly but I feel a bit shy about it, maybe others do to.

This is what all the ends came from, it is only acrylic stuff that I had laying around in my stash from the toys I occasionally knit for the grandkids. I have made this for my grandaughter, she loves to snuggle under a blanket when she watches the telly in the evening and when she first gets up, and I know she will love this as it has lots of pink in it, and she is definitely a pink girl, though she can be partial to a little purple sometimes.
Me, I am a blue person, any shade of blue does it for me, I live and I will die in blue jeans, I even wear them at work even though our uniform is black, I kind of get away with it.

Not New Needles and the Kindness of Strangers.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the knitting needles in one of the local charity shops, another customer came in and saw me rooting through them and asked if I knitted and would I like all her old knitting needles.

I picked them up yesterday, what a lovely lady she was, she offered me a cup of tea, which unfortunately I was unable to except (I was just off out), but we chatted for ten minutes or so and she has crochet hooks and odd balls of yarn tucked away somewhere which when she digs them out I am also welcome to. I did offer to buy the needles from her but she wouldn't hear of it, she was just happy to know that they were going to a new home to be loved and used. What a haul, there are over seventy pairs, and lots of odds, plus stitch holders, circulars and needle gauges (old sizing). I had a lovely time sorting through them yesterday. In the front of the picture are some lovely old bone needles, not sure I would actually knit with these they feel so delicate, I might give them a go eventually, but for now I am happy to just hold and admire them. I am getting quite a collection of old (or should they be called vintage) needles and patterns, the needles mostly live in a large glass cup where I can admire them constantly, Mr Roadside just shakes his head in bemusement, he just does not get why I get so excited over what he thinks of as pointy sticks and string, poor deluded man.

Happy Hooker

I have been truely side tracked by crochet, nothing to show you at the moment ( theres a surprise), but have been playing around for the last couple of weeks with the hooks, teaching myself how to read crochet patterns and charts. I had forgotten how quick crochet grows, but also just how much more yarn it uses than knitting.
I have a couple of granny square blankets on the go, and several flowers in different stages of progress, just fooling around with it really. I ordered a couple, oh alright three crochet books tonight along with some aluminium hooks, I do have a few hooks, mostly metal, a few plastic, some wood and one bone one. I mostly use the same size plastic one, with shaped handle, it feeds the yarn through really well, wooden ones tend to stick to the yarn, as do metal ones to some extent, so I figured I would treat myself to a complete set, and ali ones seem to rate quite well with other hookers, and they were half price, at only a tenner for the set I thought it would be rude not to.
No plans for the weekend, just chilling with wine and good food, oh, and maybe a little crochet.