WIP Wednesday #29

Hellooooo and Happy Wednesday everyone.

I hope you've all had a good few weeks.

It's been a productive time in my world. You may remember that I was away last week on residential with our year 6s. A tiring but, thankfully, uneventful trip. But there was a fair bit of down time so my pink ripple looks like this now:

You might have read my confession (if not, it's below but promise not to hate me.)

Well, as promised I made a start on a Wingspan with the Lang Tosca Light yarn I found in my stash.
And now that looks like this:

I'm loving the way the colours are changing and I'm thinking of frogging a sock I started about a year ago and making a pink and purple one too.


Just before I went away I ordered some yellow DK to make a ripple for my God daughter because her room is yellow and her mum prefered the idea of yellow to pink. It arrived while I was away and I made a start. So that looks like this:

I havent got very far with it but I really love making the pink one. This is one and a half times as wide as the pink one so I'm thinking it will be single bed width. I think I'll probably just make it as long as I can with 7 balls of 100g DK. I cant wait to finish the difficult first row and start to make some progress on it.

I'm still completely EXHAUSTED from the trip which might be why I've been so productive - too tired to get off the sofa!

But I'll be popping over to the blog parties to catch up on everyone else's posts.
Have a look:

A confession

I have a confession to make.

Now, I'm no knitting expert, I havent been doing it for that long- 2 years I suppose- so really I'm not necessarily qualified to judge but......

I have NEVER understood the deisre to knit shawls.

(I know, I'm sorry. Please dont judge me)

Why a shawl? Why not a scarf? When would you even wear a shawl??? I'm more a fan of brightly coloured nonsense knitting and crocheting. You know, knitted snakes, mug hugs and scarves. Nothing 'proper'. I've never made anything I can wear that wasnt a pair of gloves or  a scarf. But I've noticed that the majority of the blogs I visit from the WIP and FO linky parties and the like have involved the knitting of a shawl at some point. And I've never understood why.

Until I saw this post.

How cute is that Wingspan????

I decided that I HAD to make my own wingspan. I downloaded the pattern and got really excited..... Until I realised that I dont have the required 3.5mm 60 cm circular needle or any 4 ply wool.:(

But then I found this beauty and remembered that the pattern does actually give adjustments for DK. 

:)

Isnt it AMAZING? I love it.
I bought it ages ago from Rainbow silks my LYS but never really had a plan for it.

However it's fate is sealed now. I'm quite excited.

I'm off on our residential on Monday (and taking my pink ripple blanket with me!) so I figured I'd order the needles I need before I go and they should arrive while I'm away, ready for some intense shawl knitting next weekend. I've also found this post which gives a few hints and tips. I can't wait to get started and for my needles to arrive.

I think I've become a shawl convert.

Oh and I've found a new link party over at http://naturalsuburbia.blogspot.co.uk. Go over and have a look. Have a good weekend everyone.

WIP Wednesday #28

oooooh, I'm so excited that I have another WIP post.

I have too much to do work wise to be blogging really but you know the old expression about wanting something done and asking someone busy..........

Anyway. I know what I'd rather be doing. :)

My ripple blanket has been coming along slowly but surely. I try to pick it up every time I sit down in front of the telly. It's coming on my 'holiday' in sunny Dartmoor next week so hopefully in a fortnight I'll have another WIP post and it will look dramatically different.

I'm on a residential trip with 70 11 year olds next week and we stay awake until we know all the children are asleep. This generally involves sitting on the landing eating nibbles and chatting until ths giggling stops. I HATE sitting down doing nothing, it seems like such a waste of time. (and usually ends up with me falling asleep)

So top of my kit list is my ripple blanket.

Pop pver to some of these linky parties to have a look at other WIPs.
http://tamisamis.blogspot.co.uk/
http://ambassadorcrochet.com/
http://www.gsheller.com/
Have a fab fortnight and if I dont see you before, I'll be back with a WIP in a fortnight.
xxx

FO Friday.

I've finally got round to blocking the baby blankets but they're still drying so I cant take any lovely photos of the blankets all scrunched up.

Here they are. Simple but effective I think.

The oatmeal one is for Ellie's baby and the white one is for Julia's baby.

Sorry the photos are so dark, I COMPLETELY forgot to take them earlier and as the weather seems to have decided it's Autumn, it's getting dark already!

They measure about 60 cm by 50 cm (24 inches by 20 inches - ish!) so will be good for the baby when it's new born and then maybe as a lap blanket as it gets a bit older.

Coursework has taken prioroty the last few days as I had coffee with some of the other course ladies yesterday and they kind of scared me so the ripple hasnt made any progress.

oh well.....

Roll on August!!

Pop over to Tami's for some other FOs.
Happy weekend everyone.

WIP Wednesday #27

You may have seen that I started a new project over the jubilee weekend. I've done quite well with it but it's been a stop start process.

I had chosen these lovely 8 yarns.......

And just after this photo was taken:

I added a row of the red on the far left hand of the first picture.

However, when crocheted up it just didnt look right. that red yarn was just too orange. The others are all more pink.

So I ripped it out . And the 2 rows I'd done after it. But never mind It will be better in the long run.

And this is how it looks now:

And these are the colours I'm left with:

I'm now a bit worried about the coral-y colour on the top row but it looks ok in the flesh. Its the 6th colour up in the picture of the blanket above. I think it looks ok.

So I'll see how it goes. I'm glad the red didnt make the cut and that I had the guts to pull it all out, otherwise I'd have carried on and regretted it later.

Thanks for all your lovely comments on the yellow/pink debate. I think I'll carry on with this for now anyway. Mainly because I spent AGES yesterday clearing out the spare room and have realised that thepicture below is becoming a bit of a reality and that I therefore need to use up all this pink before I even consider buying any more yarn.

Anyway, it's Wednesday so I'll be linking up with Tami, Kristine and Ginny but that also means the end of the Bank Holiday jubilee fun so I need to get on with some work. Hubby is back at work so I'm all alone with only my yarn to distract me. I have reports to write and essays to create from somewhere.

:( I will be popping in on some WIPs to distract myself later. Have a good week. xxx

A new project.

I've been making progress (not on my coursework but lets not go there - I'm feeling guilty enough as it is)

Baby blanket 4 is FINISHED!!!! It (and blanket 3) needs blocking so hopefully I'll be able to unveil them on Friday. I'm really pleased with both of them. They're pretty basic patterns but hopefully they'll be useful. Blanket 3 is for a special friend, one of the lucky 6 who came to our wedding and blanket 4 is for my Canadian colleague Julia. She's fab. She lives in my home town. We car shared for just over a year so I know her quite well. In fact I went all the way to Canada when she got married 3 years ago. She and her husband are 2 of the nicest people you could ever meet, they're just so friendly and always seem so happy to see you. So keep an eye out on Friday, I'll be posting pics then.

But I've started a new blanket. I LOVE my ripple blanket that I started a while ago but it kind of ground to a halt. No particular reason other than I got bored. I have a ridiculously short attention span.

I wanted to make my God daughter another, larger blanket for snuggling under on the sofa. The baby blanket I made her was oatmeal as we didnt know if she was a she or a he. So I wanted to make something nice and girly.

I was inspired by this ripple blanket on Crochet with Raymond and thought that a colour themed blanket would be nice so I ordered 8 balls of red and  pink DK. And here it was when I started it on Friday: (with a Cath Kidston cuppa!)

Here are the balls in one of my Cath Kidston knitting bags - my SIL bought this for me for Christmas and I LOVE it. In a fortnight I'll be on our annual trip to Dartmoor with 70 11 year olds. We have to stay awake til they're all asleep so there's a lot of sitting around chatting in the evenings waiting for the dainty sound of snoring children so it will be coming with me to keep me out of trouble.

And here it is now:

The only problem is that my God daughter's room is yellow. Her dad is amazingly artistic and has painted an incredible silhouette mural of yellow bunnies and chicks on the walls. So now I'm thinking that although I wanted to go all out girly, perhaps I should go with shades of yellow instead......... hmmm. Perhaps I'll have to shelve the pink one - perhaps until I have a pink baby of my own ;)   I guess I'll have to let you know what I decide as I'm not convinced either way yet. (about the blankets that is, not about having babies, I'm pretty sold on that idea already)

Pop back on Friday for a few FOs. :)

I hope you're all enjoying the Jubilee celebrations. I love a bit of British patriotism.

I'm joining up with a new link party tonight. Pop over and have a look:

handmade harbour