WIP Wednesday and Yarn Along

I've been making solid progress on the sofa bed afghan this week. I finished the first third of the blanket, and laid the pieces out on the lawn to check the size.

The gaps between the squares are estimating the width of the
join-as-you-go final round of grey on each square

Lengthwise I think it will be ok; there will be four more rows of squares giving six in total. Widthwise however, I measured it up and don't think it will be wide enough with just four columns, so I have amended my plan and added a further column to one side:

Yellow are the squares I have completed so far

This does mean overall progress has slipped back again, from 33% complete back to 27%. But it is worth it to have a blanket that will be fit for purpose!

I think I will also add a border around the whole thing once I've joined everything together, which will add a few inches to the overall size. I will have to figure out a stitch pattern to use for the border, but before I do that I will have to calculate how many stitches I have on each side.

It's been a while since I linked up with Ginny's Yarn Along, because I haven't been reading lately. I found some time in work last week to pick up my kindle and start reading again, and read my way through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I'd never read it before, although I have seen several film adaptations of the story (Tim Burton's being the most recent). It was an enjoyable read, but it only took me a couple of hours! I have started a much longer book now, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Still on my free classics kick! I recently watched the BBC adaptation, so I can vaguely recall the story but not enough to spoil the reading of it. I haven't got very far yet, and imagine it will take me a little while to get through it as I find Dickens quite hard going at times.

Snappy Happy Monday

Unexpected flowers in the garden

More unexpected flowers

I love fuschias

Saw a hot air balloon flying really low over the motorway

Went to our wedding caterers for a tasting session

Year of Projects update - 29th July

The weather has been rather warm here for the last week or so, so knitting shawls and cardigans has been far from the top of my list of priorities! This hasn't halted progress on my list though, as I have finally got around to doing the finishing on my Capucine hats.

The first hat was knit exactly according to the pattern, but gauge issues meant it came out really small. As I'd cut the yarn between stripes instead of carrying the yarn up the side of the work, I couldn't really unravel and re-do in a larger size. It's perfect for a young child, so I will just save it up and give it to someone for Christmas.

For the second hat I reworked the pattern to make it bigger. Unfortunately, this was only a partial success. The circumference is better, but I should have knit more rows before joining in the round and starting the decreases.

All is not lost, however. I can also give this one away and start a third one, using different colours:

The remainder of this lovely bright green and the black I used to make Jamie's gloves. I'm not sure whether I will do stripes like the first hat, or something slightly different. That will depend on how much of each colour I have left I guess! But I will do this one later in the year, as I am quite keen to get back to the Cwtch shawl now the weather is cooling down again.

Further adventures in sewing

Back in June, I posted some photos of some LRP costume I'd made for my current character. Having now worn the kit for two events, I am pleased to say that I am absolutely loving it. Warm layers for such thin material, with all the benefits of being machine washable and drying really quickly once I get back from the event and discover how much mud it is covered in.

The last event (last weekend) was so hot, I ditched the skirts and only wore the giant green harem trousers. I thought you might like to see how they looked:

When I got home, I decided what I really needed was to make more giant harem trousers. While very tired, I declared that I actually wanted a bright yellow pair, but when I later found myself in the fabric shop common sense took over, and I decided to purchase colours that would go with the rest of my kit.

I still have plenty of the batik fabrics I used last time hanging around, so I chose plain colours that would match that. I've got another waistcoat in my costume box which I really like, so I'm going to reverse engineer it and make new waistcoats in the same style but using the fabric which matches the rest of the kit. It's this red waistcoat here:

But I will be using the gorgeous batiks here:

Plus the really lovely blue one I used for my second waistcoat:

They all contain the right shades of purple to match the purple fabric I've bought, and the teal one is a nice contrast.

A few more successful goes at making the really simple stuff, and I'll be just about ready to try something a little more complicated.

FO Friday - Bees

Back in April last year, I made a couple of amigurumi bees for Jamie. We hung them up on the edge of the stairs and they had a merry old time getting in everyone's way as they walked in and out of the living room. When we moved to the new house, there wasn't a similarly irritating place to hang them, so they found a home on the light fitting over the dining table.

The only photo I could find that showed the bees
was this one from my amigurumi comic strip!

The light fitting has space for four bees, however, so recently Jamie has been saying that we need more bees. As the weather has been far too hot this week for working on any of my other WIPs, I decided to dig out the black and yellow acrylic and make some more bees.

I have run out of white though, so these bees have natural coloured wings. I think that's ok though, as it means we'll be able to distinguish between the original bees and the new bees! They haven't yet found their way up to the light fitting yet, because I don't know where my invisible nylon thread has gone. It's been "put away" somewhere during the move I am sure.

Nothing quite like small amigurumi for a quick crafting fix!

Getting into the Olympic spirit

A little while ago, a suggestion came up in The Blog Hub group on Ravelry that we put together a team for the Ravelympics Ravellenic Games. At the time, I thought "that's a great idea" but as the discussion kind of dropped off, I never actually remembered to do anything about it when the time came to sign up. So I ended up missing the sign ups altogether!

In fact, it was only when I saw the whole outrage at the US Olympic Committee for forcing them to change the name to avoid the trademarks that I was reminded about it. As I'd missed the chance to get properly involved in all the fun and games on Ravelry (and with my enormous list of YoP patterns to work through, I didn't really want to add anything else to the mix) I thought I would make something in support of the Games (of both the sporting and knitting kind).

I took inspiration from the Friendship Ring square I made last year and modified the pattern to include five rings joined as per the Olympic Rings logo. I then surrounded them with two rounds of natural coloured yarn and added a loop to easily hang the rings over the edge of my bookcase.

They have been doing a sterling job decorating the scoreboard of our work Olympic themed team building week we had the other week, when the torch came to Reading and Bracknell, but I have brought them home today to hang up in readiness for the opening ceremony on Friday.

Return to basics

On Sunday afternoon I found myself lying on the sofa, recovering from a hard couple of hours work mowing the lawn with a strimmer. I knew I wanted to craft while I watched TV, but didn't want to knit more of the Cwtch Shawl, or go back to picking up stitches on Eleonora, or weave in all the ends on my first Capucine. I briefly toyed with the idea of starting something else from my list (!), but then my eye fell on the big basket of WIPs next to the TV stand. Spilling out of it were the four giant balls of yarn for my Sofa Bed Afghan and I realised that granny squares would be ideal TV crafting on a relaxing Sunday afternoon.

So I've been working on those this week.

It's getting tricky to photograph them all together! I laid them out as they will be in the final blanket (there's an extra round of grey to go on each square, but I'm joining them all together at the end to save on sewing). It's going to be pretty big I think, hopefully big enough to cover the sofa bed.

This is how it will look

I've got 10 big squares and 38 little ones to do. Fortunately the little ones don't take very long. I may hit a stumbling block before I finish, as I will run out of the grey yarn before the others, as that ball was already part used when I started this. I'm hoping I will be able to get my hands on it when I need more!