Working My Way to Gold

How are you?  I hope that life is treating you well.  Have you been watching the Olympics?  I've tried to catch as many events as I can but it's a pretty packed programme so it's difficult to fit everything in.  There's been some very impressive performances, you've got to take your hat off to the dedication and hard work that all the participants have put in.

I thought about trying to have a themed knitting and crocheting event to coincide with the Olympics, but in the end I decided I just needed to get my works-in-progress progressing!  As it turns out, I'm actually doing a triathlon.  I have three projects I'm working on.

The first of my triathlon projects is a knitting one.  It's my Fair Isle cardigan.  I'm trying to get this off the needles because it's a summery cardigan and I'd like to be wearing it sooner rather than later.

It's slow going but I've reached the armholes on the body and one of the sleeves.  I need to work out my shaping of the armholes and hopefully hit the home straight soon.  I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to run out of my main colour but I'm putting that to the back of my mind at the moment and just concentrating on getting as much progress made as possible.

My second triathlon project is a crocheting one.  My Mandala Madness blanket has been hibernating for quite some time now.  I put it to one side whilst I had a sock blitz and then there was the stash busting blitz, so it has been sadly neglected.

Having picked it up again, I'm loving working on it.  At the moment it's my project of choice.  Such fun picking the colours for each round and seeing how it all comes together.  There's still quite a long way to go with this project, but it's a super way to use up my acrylic yarns, so it all helps to reduce the stash.

Finally, the third triathlon project is a crochet pattern I'm hoping to publish shortly.  It's for a colourful mandala that I designed last year.  Grace kindly tested the pattern for me  but I've been very dilatory in completing the pattern.

At the moment I'm working through the pattern again and taking round by round photos to support the pattern.  Every time the pattern has been worked, the variety of colours used creates a unique interpretation of the pattern.  It's such fun to play with the colours and see the effects produced.

All these projects will take some time to complete so there will be nothing off the needles for some time.  They will eventually make a significant dent in the stash, so that's good news.  I did finish my August socks last week.

Again these are toe up socks - firmly established as my favourite way to knit socks.  The pattern is called Fine and Dandy and you can see full details of this project on my Ravelry page, here.

So, now I'm back to my triathlon projects for the duration of the Olympics.  I hope you have a good week and I'm looking forward to picking up my gold medal shortly!

Lazy Summer Days

The weather is warm and the days are long and I'm feeling oh so lazy and relaxed.  There's definitely been a lull in activity in blogland, myself included.  I appreciate the efforts of those who have soldiered on and continued with their regular posts.  You have my admiration.  Every day I think to myself, I'll do a post today, but it never seems to get from my head to the blog.  So I'm making an effort today, to catch up with what I've been up to over the past two weeks or so.

Since I last posted, I've a few finished objects, plenty of works-in progress and I've had another weigh-in of the stash.

So let's get started, and here are my finished projects.  Firstly this shawl.

I just adore the colours.  I wear pink and grey more than any other colours, so this shawl is perfect for me.  I love the gradient colour changes.

The shawl is lovely and I used all of the 200g I had bought of this yarn, so it's a very generous size.  It's Ullcentrum 2 ply sport weight yarn and the colourway is Sky Pink.  It was the first yarn I bought at Yarndale last year and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to knit it up.  You can see details of this project on my Ravelry page, here.

Next up is the Block a Month Blanket I started back in January.  I decided to just crochet 16 squares for this one.

Each square is 10 inches square, so it makes a lovely lap blanket.  I added a fairly simple edging and I'm very happy with the result.  Details on Ravelry, here.

Another crochet project, a much quicker one, was these cute little flowers.

They are made from a free pattern by Ali Crafts Designs.  The pattern can be downloaded from Ravelry, here, and it really is a simple but very effective design.

My dressmaking is going well.  Yesterday I completed my pink dress.

I'm not sure that the mannequin is showing the dress off very well, so here's a badly taken picture of me wearing it.

The dress is very simple, it has princess seams, a side zip and a gently flared skirt.  It's New Look 6020 and I've made the pattern several times now - a very wearable dress.

I've treated myself to a new dress pattern, the Vintage Shirt Dress by Sew Over It.

It's the first independently designed pattern I've tried, the instructions look very detailed and helpful, so I'm looking forward to giving it a go.  Before then, I want to make a button through skirt (a bit of practice at buttonholes!).  So I need to make some time to get on with these.

And having finished my pink dress, I thought it deserved a pretty coat hanger, so I crocheted up this one, using my Floral Embellishment pattern.

It only took a couple of hours to complete and I think it looks great.

On the needles at present are my Fair Isle cardigan.

Some, but not a great deal of progress there.

A pair of socks.  No photos yet but they should be off the needles in the next day or two.

I also have my crochet Mandala Madness which hasn't made any progress and is in desperate need of some love and affection.

So plenty to keep me busy.

Finally, it's been six months since I decided to be brave and weigh my stash (inspired by Linda from Linda's Crafty Corner).  In February the stash weighed in at a bouncing 18.2 kg - wow!

After being on a crash diet for six months I'm pleased to say the stash now weighs a more healthy 11.6 kg, that's even allowing for the 850g of yarn that sneaked its way in when my back was turned!.

There's still a long way to go and with Yarndale coming up at the end of next month, I need to clear some more works-in-progress, but I feel satisfied that things are reaching a more manageable level.

Well that was a packed post!  I'll be back shortly (no more laziness) and hopefully with some more finished objects.  Enjoy your week.

And It's Over in the Blink of an Eye

The three weeks of the Tour de France just flew by.  I've spent the time, whilst watching the cycling, concentrating on my stash busting and I'm pleased to say that it's been an enjoyable three weeks.

In my previous blog post, I showed you the first six projects I had completed.  I'm pleased to say that I managed to complete another six projects by the end of the Tour.  That's one better that last year.

I blitzed the Schmancy Shawl that I had started knitting.  It blocked up beautifully.  For this project I was using up some frogged Rowan 4 ply.  You can see full details of this project on Ravelry, here.

The edging blocked out beautifully and I love the drape of the shawl.

The next project completed was a crocheted basket.  I had two balls of rather rough cotton which I used doubled and it created the perfect fabric for the basket.

Next, some mittens.  I used some beige 4 ply for the cuff lining and the main body of each mitten was knitted using some unidentified yarn that I had picked up in the charity shop very cheaply.  These should be lovely and snug when it gets colder.

Some leftover angora yarn made a colourful and fluffy yarn bag.

And some leftover lace weight wool & silk yarn became a mini shawl and a doily.

In total I used 603g.  This was less than last year but in my defence, I was using much finer yarns than last year, so I reckon the yardage used this year was higher than last year.

So all in all, I'd say that Chris Froome and I have had a very successful 2016 Tour de France.

With all this successful stash busting, I'm joining in with Linda's Stash Buster Party once again.  I must admit, it has been a great incentive to me over the last few months and I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel (or even the craft room).  Next month it will be six months since I had my stash weigh in and I'm planning on getting the scales out again to see how I am progressing.  At the moment I reckon I have busted over 6kg of stash, which is one third of my starting total.  I have a few works in progress that I'm hoping to get off the needles in the next few weeks and reduce the total even further.

In other news, we had a lovely weekend down in London visiting Eve.  We went down on Friday and came home yesterday.  The weather was hot and sticky but we manged to get out and about with Eve every day.  We had a great trip to Greenwich on Saturday - so much to see and great views across the river to Canary Wharf.

It was lovely to see Eve again and to be able to explore more of London.  There's still so much more we'd like to visit, so plenty more trips down to London  are definitely on the cards.

Well the Tour de France may be over, but we have the Olympics to look forward to very shortly.  I haven't decided if I'm going to do a themed knitting and crocheting challenge for this, but whatever I decide, I'll be glued to the television for the duration!

Have a good week.  See you soon.

Tour de France Time Again

Here we are more than half way through the Tour de France and I haven't up dated you on what I'm doing!  How lax of me.

Last year, I joined in with the Tour de France group on Ravelry and did some stash-busting.  I managed to complete 11 items and used up 768g of very old stash.  This year, although I was tempted to just work on one major project for the three week duration of the Tour (the Yellow Jersey), I decided that my stash-busting mission is still very much ongoing, so I should repeat last year's endeavours, sprint for the line and go for the Points Jersey (the Green Jersey).

So far I have made three pigeons!

Two Coasters using my Eveline's Motif Pattern.

A pair of very red socks.

A colourful meditation mandala.  I made this up as I went along - great fun.

Some pretty bunting using my Daisy Chain Bunting Pattern.

Three coat hangers, incorporating my Floral Embellishment Pattern.

I'm currently working on a shawl.  It has an applied lacy border and I'm just over a quarter of the way along the edge.

I've also recently cast on some mittens and I'm hoping to fit in a few more small items and another shawl!  I've only got until 24th July, so time is of the essence.

Last month, I finished two more pairs of socks whilst watching the European Championships (congrats to Portugal).  Usually I only knit one pair of socks from each of the 100g of sock yarn I have, but because I prefer to knit ankle socks, I find that I have about 45g leftover.  So, these two pairs of socks are knitted with the same yarn, but for the second pair, I have knitted contrast toes, heels and cuffs.  This used but virtually the whole of the 100g, so I was pleased with this.  For both these pairs of socks, I again used the Sockmatician's Toe Up recipe, which is now firmly confirmed as one of my favourite recipes.

I entered my four pairs of socks that I knitted up during the Euros into The Sockmaticians Toe Up KAL and whilst watching his latest podcast I was very excited to hear my name mentioned and find out that I had won a skein of fingering weight yarn - Thank you so much Nathan.

This weekend, besides the Tour de France, we will also be watching the first cricket test match between England and Pakistan, the Open Golf from Troon and there's also some darts on.  It's hard work being a sports fan!  At least I should make excellent progress with the shawl.

Until next time, happy crafting to you all.

No Ends, But Plenty of Beginnings

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend.  We had a lovely spontaneous trip to Sheffield to see Grace.  Although it was still very cold and windy at the weekend we did get out and about in Sheffield.

On Saturday we visited the cathedral.  Grace has lived in Sheffield now for two and a half years, but this was our first visit to the Cathedral and we were very impressed with the interior.  From the outside it doesn't look very exciting, but inside there is a lovely mix of ancient and modern architecture, plenty of interesting side chapels and, my favourite, lots of lovely angels to spot.

On Sunday, we walked to the Botanical Gardens.

It's always good to meet up with Grace, because we have plenty of knitting chat to catch up on - comparing works in progress, yarns and discussing future projects.  For the trip, I took my Leftie Shawl.  This had been languishing at the bottom of the works in progress pile, mainly because it's a good travelling project so I was saving it for the next long car trip.  I managed to get lots done on this, more than I thought I would. I could quite possibly finish it this week - I'll have to find a new travelling project for future trips.

The other shawl I have been working on and  had intended to finish this week has been put to one side because I've cast on another Fair Isle Hat.

I want to get the pattern written up and the best way to check what I've typed up is to knit it up again.  I'm using leftovers from the cardigan I knitted Eve, so it all helps towards stash reduction.

I've also been doing some dress making - little and often, so it's coming together nicely, without any stress.

Neckline and armholes to finish off, zip to insert and then only the hem.

I've also joined in with a new crochet CAL.  This one is called Mandala Madness and it's by Helen Shrimpton.  The pattern is being released over 18 weeks.  So far the first 6 weeks are available.  Here's the pattern picture of what's been released so far.  Isn't it gorgeous.

The finished object will be a very large circular blanket.  I've only just joined in but I'm part way through the second part.

I would have made more progress but my eye strain problem flared up again - you would think by now I would have learnt that trying to read complicated crochet patterns on my Kindle late at night is not good for my eyes.  Anyway, I've had to put it down for now, but as soon as my eye recovers, I'll be back with it - but only in good light!

I've just remembered that I do have something finished after all.  I've been continuing to make my mini sock yarn sweaters to add to my bunting decoration.  Here's another 7 that have been completed recently.

So that's what I'm up to at the moment.  I'm off down to London on Friday to have a girlie weekend with Eve.  Can't wait for that.  I'll have to sort out a new travelling project for the train journey.

Enjoy the rest of your week.