A Make a Month - January

I stumbled across the Felt Fairy's blog from Mimi and Tilly and found that they are hosting a Make a Month group. A moment of madness overcame me and I signed up for it. It means posting photos of your creations on Flickr but it means committing to making at least one creation a month. I'm determined to make it to the end of the year tho!

Here's my January Make.

It's a bit of a late Christmas present for someone I'd hoped to see over the Christmas holidays but it soon became obvious that we just wouldnt be able to get together so I relaxed with the present finishing. (what a RUBBISH friend I am)

If you've been reading my posts for a while you may remember that I was challenged with a rather hideous project back in the summer in this post.

My friend Dr Lucy bought me a ball of this yarn:

And issued 2 of us with the challenge to make something out of it. Now this photo doesnt really do justice to the truely horrible colours lurking within this ball of cheap horrible scratchy double knit.

But I threw myself into the challenge (I'm not a good loser)

And what better to make from really 80's style luminous wool than some really 80's style wrist warmers????

So I made myself these:

(They are the same length, its just a bad photo. )

I wear them to work. The kids at school love them. I often get told 'Cool gloves Miss.'

But I used less than half the ball of wool. What could I possibly do with half a ball of this delight?????

I made another pair of wrist warmers....... For Dr Lucy!!!!! Mainly for Christmas but also as punishment for introducing the hideous stuff into my life.

(I complain about the yarn but I LOVE the gloves really and often get compliments about them)

and here they are:

The pattern shows better in Lucy's. I'm not sure why, I used the same needles and number of stitches. Maybe it was my tension.

I love them.

They are in the post winging their way to Lucy. I just hope that they arrive before she sees this.

I think that if you go here you'll be able to see the fab pictures of all the wonderful things people have been making.

I wonder what I'll make for February......

Ribbit ribbit.

I frogged the WHOLE thing. Back to nothing. Started all over.

This is no more. The pink was too tight and it was just going to irritate me, so I pulled the whole lot apart on Friday evening.  

And then made it all again.

And now I have this:

I made the original chain looser than I had before and I think it's better. It's still not perfect but it's better. I'm not pulling it apart, I worked out that I've crocheted the 3rd, 4th and 5th rows 3 times now so it is staying just as it is. :)

Aren't those colours amazing?  I love this yarn. It's so lovely and soft. I cant quite put it down.

I wonder how far I'll have got by Work In Progress Wednesday ?!?!?!!

This moment

A Friday ritual from Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

 

 

Please help :(

I've made loads of progress on my ripple blanket :)

But the more I make the more I realise that the original chain in pink is too tight.

It's viscose and I cant see that I will be able to stretch it, even if i get it wet.

The only way I can see to fix it is to rip the whole thing apart and start again. :(

Please tell me there's a solution that doesnt involve starting from scratch again. :(

I'm so disappointed as I thought I'd made such good progress.

Am off to bed to have a little sulk .......

WIP Wednesday #16

This is more of a 'work being frogged' post.  :(

I was loving my ripple blanket

and had made a tonne of progress, I'd finished this row and started the next (but forgot to take a photo) when I suddenly realised that I didnt have enough wool to do 2 repeats of the pattern I was following in that width. So instead of change the width of the blanket and frog the WHOLE lot, I frogged most of it back to the first 2 rows.

So this is as far as I've got :(

Silly me.

But I love it. I love making it, I love the yarn and I love the pattern.

So slowly slowly for now. Am still working hard on my course work so the ripple blanket is a guilty pleasure.

Pop over to Tamis for more WIPs.

I've been featured!

What a lovely Birthday present.

On Monday I was featured on the lovely Sarahndipities blog after joining her link party a few weeks ago.

I posted this picture

and got chosen as one of the top 3 posts which i guess is only fair seeing as the tutorial I followed had come from that blog in the first place. :)

There are a few tutorials on there. Have a look. the hearts one was fab and easy to follow.

So thanks Sarah, for the totorial in the first place, for featuring me and for the amazing button I have now put on the right hand side. :)

Simple Sunday

My hubby is STILL in Hong Kong. :(

He's back on Thursday but that means he's away for my birthday tomorrow. :(

But I've had a lot of time to reflect and think while I've had the house to myself over the last 2 weeks.

I'm quite a good moaner, in fact I think I'm wellknown for having a good old bitch about stuff that is winding me up. But you know what, there are so many more important things in life. And really I have so much to be thankful for.

You may have heard me moan about how much work I have to do for my course (I'm about half way through a Specialist Dyslexia Teaching course and it is TOUGH!) But I am so lucky to have the opportunity to do this course (for free as the Government wanted to train more specialist teachers) and try to help children who find reading and writing and therefore learning in general so tough.

So I'm crazy busy at the moment, for a few reasons work is tough and I have my guide unit to run too but you know what?

Life could be so much worse. We're both healthy and happy and at least in this time of austerity and job insecurities, we're both lucky enough to have stable jobs.

Anyway, better go. Am off out for a Birthday dinner with my mummy and my brother. See, life could be a lot worse!

WIP Wednesday # 15

I love Wednesday posts.
I love popping over to Tamis to see what beauties everyone else is creating and sharing their excitement. There's always such a wide variety of project, progress, colour and success. I love it.

So, as I said earlier, I broke over the weekend and didnt get my coursework done. But I did seem to feel that it was ok to put my MASSIVE pile of work on hold and start a MASSIVE new project. What better way to spend my time than crocheting a ripple blanket. ?!?!

I'm quite unashamedly stealing Lucy at Attic 24's design and copying her. I followed her tutorial to make the ripple and CAN NOT recommend it highly enough. It is fantastic. Have a look.

So here is my WIP:

The yarn is so soft it will make an AMAZING blanket. Can't wait.

But really should be writing about Multisensory approaches to dyslexia and Psychometric testing and other non-crochet related nonsense :( Nose back to the grind stone :(

Laters............

Ripple pictures

I couldnt leave that last post with no photos. (and I STILL havent finished that work!!!)

I'm making the blanket out of this amazing Sublime Bamboo and Pearls DK. I bought it from Black sheep wools ages ago with the idea of making a ripple blanket but obviously it was sensible to wait until I was snowed under with work before I took on a massive new project ;)

It's a bit of an odd mix of colours but i'm hoping that it will look good when they're all put together.

It's going to be incredibly wide. I'm not sure I've got enought wool yet but i'll see how it goes.

The green isnt such a mushy pea colour as this- honest. i just took the photos quickly now under a lamp so it's not a great representation.

Look! I can crochet a ripple!

I've followed the tutorial on Attic 24.

I'm hoping to follow this pattern of rows.

I'm quite pleased with myself - if only the coursework lesson planning had gone so well.

Going back to work now to try to get it done before a nice early night :)

After my last post I got a text message with a photo of some rippling going on. It turns out that my friend Dr Abbe who was involved in the knitting challenge you might have read about a while back had also decided to start a blanket. Maybe we can encourage Dr Lucy to join in too. Maybe Abbe will send me some picture of her progress to share with you too.

See you Wednesday for abit of an update hopefully.

Crochet guilts

Hubby is away for  16 days on a business trip to Hong Kong. :(

I lived in Hong Kong for a year teaching English after I'd finished my A-levels and would give my right arm to go out there with him. He insists that I wouldnt actually spend any time with him as he's always in meetings but that would be fine by me. I'd spend my time shopping and looking up people from my time there, eating Dim Sum, visiting the markets, going to the top of the Peak to look out on that iconic view of the harbour, visiting the big Budda on Lantau Island...... I'm sure I'd cope without him.

But I'm not there, I'm here.  :(

I've tried to use the peace and quiet to get some course work done but my head is now killing me. I'm not a good student. I am SO easily distracted and dont cope well in my own company. I like being with someone even if their presence isnt really essential to what I'm doing. I've hit a bit of a wall with the work. I was hoping to get to a certain point then stop and do a little crocheting.

But I didnt get that far :( I started my ripple blanket last night. I'm following this pattern from Lucy at Attic 24. I've got one and a half rows so far so hopefully I'll get some photos up for WIP wednesday.

I'm really annoyed with myself for not getting this work done so far and am determined to get it done by this evening.

I'm finding it all really hard and all I can think is that time is running out to get it sorted but my brain really hurts. :(

So now I just have a constant feeling of guilt. Guilt I'm not working or guilt i'm not reading one of the many books I have to plough through. I have Crochet Guilts. :(

WIP Wednesday #14

My first post of the new year! Happy New Year everyone.

I didn't do a collection of all the things I made last year as there weren't many of them and I thought it would depress me. ;)

My knitting work is progressing REALLY slowly at the moment. I'm back at work and it's all a little crazy - I've been asked to move year group and my Course work is going to really take off this term - the deadline is May 14th - I have SOOO much to do :(

I'm finding it all a little stressful to be honest and my lovely hubby has just gone away to Hong Kong for 2 and a half weeks on business so I'm sulking all alone at home. He does all the cooking so I'm going to be a little hungry. Is it possible to starve to death in 16 days???

Anyway, really this is the extent of my WIPs, a little progress on the baby blanket.

I'll keep ploughing away at it.

Pop over to Tamis to see some more WIPs - hopefully everyone else is making the progess on their projects I'd like to be making on mine.