Somebody stop me........

Last week I had a dose of startitis which I haven't had in a good while so I must be feeling more like my old self again!

Firstly I cast on a hat, I made one over Christmas for a gift and I loved it so much I thought I could use one myself!

So I cast on another....

Next I cast on a shawl - something in the name called out to me and I knew I needed to make one. The yarn for this is really warm and woolly so just right for the cold at the moment.

It is called 'Southwold in the snow' and by now you should have guessed at my seaside obsession!  Although I haven't been to Southwold it is on my list of must visit soon places, my only worry is what might be left of the beach huts! I know how badly the beach huts in Cromer suffered in the December storm and many haven't made it past the pile of matchwood stage. Having said that the town has worked extremely hard to bounce back and the sun is still shining even though the weather is bitterly cold!

Sorry I felt the need for a real seaside picture at this point (taken at Christmas I might add).

So as I have been working on my 2 new projects I sat a pondering over my lack of progress on the kaleidoscope blanket and wondered just what it was that these new ones had that the blanket didn't? The blanket is bright and cheery and the colours just sing so why have I been drawn to the more muted colours of the other projects? My conclusion is that it isn't the colours it is the yarn as although the blanket is bright and lovely the yarn (it  is also 4 ply) is thinner and silkier and not woolly and warm! Given how cold and grey it is at the moment I can only assume that my mind / body feels the need to work with the warm woolly yarn and once again I am driven by the seasons for my knitting habits!

Hopefully next week I will have finished something to keep out this cold and moved back onto the cheery colours that make me smile! Sx

Kaleidoscope Blanket

Last week saw the arrival of the yarn for the January to March portion of my blanket and I shared with you the jewel colours which remind me so much of a tin of quality street. This week I have a little progress for you but not an amazing amount. Time was a bit restricted for me as my sister was staying with us all week so Mum and Dad could have a bit of a break.

This is where I am up to! After this 'round' of triangles is done there is another round and the rest of the little filler circles to add as well and then month 1 is complete. I am not expecting to receive the month 2 pattern until part way through February so I should have finished this months progress by then I hope!

I don't have a great deal of other progress to report on as I am sure you don't really want to hear about the mountain of washing I am working my way through today - I don't really know where it all appeared from suddenly as I thought I had actually got a grip of the mountain that had gathered previously! More soon, Sx

As requested!

After my last post Barbara asked for more details on my Rams and Yowes blanket so I thought I would oblige. I bought it as a kit back in February 2012 and I must say that the price has gone up significantly since I bought it! I cast on after doing the on-line road test for continental knitting as this blanket uses stranded knitting,each row uses 2 colours of yarn with the strands held at the back of the work. Importantly this blanket is worked in the round so there is a set of 5 stitches which are worked to give somewhere to work the steek and also somewhere to change the colours over when required. By using both hands to knit it means that each hand carries its own colour of yarn and so makes it quicker and simpler to knit. I got part way through the tube and had to stop as life got too complicated and exhausting to give it the attention it deserved and I stuck with much simpler knitting. After Ted died it has taken me the last 6 months to get my energy levels and concentration back to something nearer to what it had been - who knew that extended sleep deprivation would take this long to recover from? Over Christmas we went away to Norfolk and the sea air worked some of its magic on me and I finished the tube part of the blanket.

Sorry but I don't have an extra blanket picture to show you but these seagulls made me smile!

This is where it gets tricky as you have to work 2 lines of crochet in order to prevent the steek from unravelling - thankfully the designer, Kate Davies provides detailed tutorials on how to work these and the tube then becomes a flat piece of work. Next up is the picking up stitches part which seemed to take me forever, partly because I had to redo some of them to get it to look correct but that was my lack of technique and nothing more! Now I am working the border stitches but the whole thing doesn't look much yet as all of the border stitches sit on 2 long circular needles and everything get scrunched along as you work - when  it looks less like a messy pile I will take more pictures to show you.

In the mean time I can show my newest project:

These lovelies arrived yesterday!

And I wound them straight away. They are the first quarters' yarns for the kaleidoscope crochet blanket club hopefully I will have more to show you on this soon! I will try and be back again next week with some progress for you. S x

New Year New Start!

Happy New Year to you all out in Blogland! I hope that 2014 is a good year for us all.

After the terrible year I had last year I was more than happy to say goodbye to 2013, it started badly and ended not quite so badly! My apologies for the lack of posts but I shall try very hard this year to get back on track. It has taken me 6 months to start to feel a bit more like my old self again and although I miss my furry friend every day life is beginning to move forward bit by bit. You might be pleased to hear that my knitting has started to slowly pick up pace again and I can see progress in projects that I am working on rather than the painful slow work that was last year.

So with that in mind I will show you some progress I made over the holidays - you might remember my excitement at starting my Rams and Yowes blanket back in 2012? Well this was where I got to over Christmas:

I did my first steek - so I must have been feeling better as I cut my knitting! Thankfully it worked and I spent the following week picking up stitches which is my least favourite thing to do but I persevered and am now knitting the border.

I will leave you at this point as I only popped in to wish you all well and say that I am back again (hopefully) for 2014. More soon and thank you for still being here! S x