Waiting for the Warmer Weather

It's April, and don't you just feel that it should be a bit warmer outside?  Apart from one sunny day this week, I don't feel particularly drawn to the great outdoors yet.  I did venture out to eventually cut the grass for the first time this year - guilt had got the better of me, and it desperately needed doing.

So it's been a quiet indoors week (although I love the indoors and love the luxury of not having to venture out if I don't want to).  I'm hoping to get these socks off the needles today.

Aren't they lovely and colourful?

As part of my stash busting blitz, I gathered together all my bits of aran weight yarn and decided to make them up into a Sophie's Universe blanket.

The colours aren't very inspiring, but I don't knit with aran weight yarn very often, so I wanted to clear the stash completely of these pesky bits and pieces.

I didn't have enough to do a full Sophie's universe, you can see the one I made last year, here.  Instead I kept the central square shape and just added as many borders as I could.  I like the effect, the colour combinations work quite well, even the hot pink and bright red work well together - they give it a jewel-like colour scheme.

It's just the right size for a lap blanket. so I have it by my side on the sofa, ready to throw it over my legs when it goes chilly in the evenings.

So that's a very welcome reduction to the stash of 650g.

Last week I popped into Liverpool and bought some fabric to make up a "proper" version of the Dottie Angel Dress (you can see my prototype, bedsheet version, here).  From the prototype I had learned that the armholes on the pattern are quite deep, so I adjusted for this.  Also the point at which the ties are attached to the dress were a little high.  I needed to lower the point of attachment to allow for my more mature, gravity affected body!  This time I also wanted to make a two colour version.

And it all went well, I didn't bother with the patch pockets, but I did add pockets in the side seams.

This will be a lovely comfortable dress to wear, when (or maybe, if) the weather gets warmer.

I also bought more fabric for one of my other favourite dress patterns - because you can never go into a fabric and haberdashery shop and only buy what you went in for!  Maybe later this month I'll get started on that one.

For now, I'm back to my socks - and then there's the shawl, the cardigan, the crochet square etc etc etc.  Don't you just love being surrounded by so much craftiness!  Have a good weekend.