IT'S FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At last the long awaited baby blanket is finished!!!

I managed to pick up the stitches along the side to add the ribbing on the edge. It wasnt too hard in the end and is quite neat on the front

I love it, I love the pattern and the colour. Will give it to the mummy and daddy tomorrow. Might try to make the little hat too.

I'm SOO glad it's finished before the baby arrives. The due date is June 16th so I had loads of time left  ;)

I cant wait to see the gorgeous little bundle wrapped up in it. My cousin is having a baby in October so I might have to make another one. Maybe I'll finish my socks first.

Home again, home again, jiggerty jog

Another week has passed and I STILL havent finished the baby blanket. I got back from the residential and slept lots and did washing. Last week wizzed by in a cloud of meetings and more packing with a bit of shopping thrown in. Not packing or shopping for anything exciting tho..... for guide camp.

I hear you say I'm mad, and often think it myself but I had a fab time. I love guide camp. We went from Friday to Monday with 15 girls and 5 'adults'- I use the word adult in it's loosest sense. The girls had fun, which is all that matters really. But there was no time or space for knitting. I took my camp blanket with me and managed to sew about 20 more badges on it, (pictures to follow) and ate loads of Eggy Bread.......

But now I'm home, and exhausted.......

It's half term so I have the week off work but I have so much to do I'm not sure where to start. But one thing's for certain, I'll end up burying my head in the sand and knitting at some point this week. I have reports to write, reading to do for my course (I'm officially a  student again!) planning to do and share with my colleagues and the next 6 weeks of Guide meetings to plan and organise. :( Just thinking about it is making my head spin. I think I need a lie down ;)

Crocheting

I'm back from my residential trip. No major disasters which is good considering there were 73 of the little darlings on Dartmoor.

Anyway, I think i've pretty much brought you up to date with my knitting adventure apart from....

Granny squares had always fascinated me. My Aunt made me a granny square blanket when I was a baby but it seems to be making a bit of a come back and I was intrigued.

So I did what I do when i want to kearn a new knitting thing and 'you tubed' it.

I used a few videos which I now, quite annoyingly, cant find but anyway, I got there in the end. 

I havent quite decided what to make the squares into yet but I've got about 4 now.

Once I felt I'd mastered the plain old granny square I fancied a flower or two.........

The photography on my blog is all a bit rubbish but it's pretty much all from my phone. I really need to start using my camera a bit more but you get the idea.

It was about this time that I started the baby blanket (which, I hasten to add, is nearly finished!!!!)

Baby Blanket.

Some very special friends of mine are having a baby. I wanted to make something special for them so ventured into my first bit of baby knitting.

I bought this pattern, I'm not sure if it was because of the nice pattern or the CUTE kid on it, but the wool is LOVELY so i'm quite happy.

I'm making the blanket first but have enough wool for the jumper and hat too.

I started knitting the blanket over the Easter Holidays and if you've been following my posts will know that i've been distracted by Mug Hugs and Socks.

But it's nearly finished.

I'm going away on a residential tomorrow with 75 children and imagine I'll have a few late nights waiting up for them all to be asleep so am taking the blanket (and the socks because they're a bit more fun than the blanket). I'm hoping I'll get it finished, not only because the baby is due in a month but because I'm getting quite bored with the pattern now. Its a lot of fun but it's very repetitive.

So have a good week. I'll see you next weekend. xx

Trapilho

Where was I?

Some time before Christmas mum and I were making scarves.

I took mum to an appointment in Great Missenden and wandered into Rainbow Silks. There was a knitted bag on the table there calling to me.

It was made from Trapilho Selvedge Edge yarn

http://www.rainbowsilks.co.uk/MainCategory.cfm?MainCatId=60

It is t-shirt material cut into strips about 2cm wide which then curls up on itself into a yarn about 7mm wide. I had to buy some 25mm needles but it was fun.

I'll cut a long story short because I dont have any photos at the moment but i made 2 bags.

Then I went back for more Trapilho.

And then some more.

 I made a few with the bamboo handles and sold them before Christmas. I lined them with plain black cotton.

I need to take some photos of the others really.

I also made a few of these:

because they were a bit of fun.

But then my knitting kind of ground to a halt after Christmas. I had a cross stitch I needed to finish and I think the scarves had ground me down a bit.

So that was it for a while..........

until the Easter holidays.

I've done it again.

A new week, a new project.

And this week it's socks!!!

I'm really enjoying it.

I have no idea whether they are going to cut off my circulation or keep falling down but I guess i'll find out sooner or later.

The yarn is really fine so they're taking a while to get no where but I'm away this week so maybe i'll get a chance to finally finish the Baby Blanket (I only have 4 weeks left!) and get these bad boys well under way.

Stitch and Craft Fair

Back in March of last year Dr Lucy and I went to the Stitch and Craft fair at Sandown Race Course.

Mum and I went in September. Mum bought some Sirdar Fizz that she fancied making a scarf with. Cutting a very long story short, I then found it on here:

http://www.blacksheepwools.com/

and we ended up with this:

And JayNicKnitKnacks was born.

Mum took some of the wool to knit into scarves because there was no way I was going to get through all of it.

I never kept a record of how many we made or how many we sold but it was atleast 15.

We did Christmas craft fairs at Church and at work and mum sold loads to her friends.

We have a few left that I'm storing til this winter.

This year I'll try selling some stuff again but I dont think I'll do scarves again. They were boring.

New recruit

I have just taught my third recruit into the Nicky School of Knitting how to knit.
She was inspired while I was knitting the afore mentioned Baby Blanket at an impromptu neighbourhood BBQ yesterday. (The Baby Blanket is NEARLY finished. I need to knit onto the side of the blanket and i'm not sure how to do that so it may grind to a pathetic halt) 

Anyway, after the doll and the footballer came these little treasures:

Somehow I created the patterns for these myself.

cast off in purl

k1 skpo k1 m1

cast on 40 stitches.

use DK and size 10 needles.

The doll's neck is the same as the line on the phone cases where i was able to feed through a platted yarn. Apparently K1 SKPO K1 M1, makes a nice row with some holes init.

I havent really got to grips with changing colour halfway along the row. What was I doing wrong?

So then I plaited 3 bits of wool together and then fed it through the holes to make a drawstring effect.

I made the pink one for me and Ellie loved it so much she begged me to make the mint green one.