Enjoying the Sunshine

There are times when I feel that I devote too much attention to the weather - but I'm British and that's what we do.  So yesterday was gorgeous and unbelievably hot and sunny.  Yes, I should get outside and do some gardening.  Well I made it outside, but somehow the gardening just didn't happen.  It was far too nice to worry about gardening, instead I sat and read and did another row of knitting... and another.  So the gardening never got a look in.  But I did get my first suntan of the year!

Anyway, enough about the weather, let's move on to more important matters - knitting and crochet!

This week has been another productive week. I'm in such a good creative place at the moment, everything seems to be flowing along.  Firstly, the socks for April were finished. I used the yarn Grace bought me for my birthday.

I endeavour to try something new each month with my sock knitting.  It's just over a year since I started knitting a pair of socks each month and I feel I've still got so much to learn.  This month I was trying a new heel.  I find I'm drawn to toe-up knitting rather than cuff-down, so I'm trying to find a heel that works best for me with this method.  So these socks were knitted with a Fleegle heel.

And I must say I loved it.  It was a great heel to knit, I loved the process.  I'm not sure about the finished look of the heel yet.  I think I need to explore some more styles of heel before I settle on my perfect sock "recipe" but this is one that I will knit again.  You can see full details of this project on my Ravelry page here.

I've got the sewing machine out at the moment.  There's a dress in progress, but still a way to go with that.  I'm taking a leisurely approach to sewing it up so that it doesn't feel too stressful - it just means the dining room is littered with fabric and sewing patterns.  In between sewing the dress, I ran up a work-in-progress bag for one of the shawls I'm knitting at the moment using leftovers from last week's Dottie Angel dress.

I also found a sample of some crochet flowers I had made years ago that was hanging around, being idle, so I put it to use as an embellishment for the bag.

I should then have been concentrating on completing one of the two shawls that are on the needles, but there was a distraction!  And I blame Meredith - yes, you Meredith.  I sat drooling over your South Bay Shawlette and saw that you were making another one (and had got Lynne to join you).  How could I resist making another one myself.  It is a great pattern, so easy and it grows quickly.

 I had some lace weight yarn in my stash that needed some attention.  I knew it wasn't enough to make a full sized shawl, but there was still enough to make something of a decent size that would satisfy my South Bay Shawlette distraction.  And here it is.

It took two evenings to make and used up 27g of Regia Lace.  It's just the right size for a doll or Teddy Bear and I know just the bear who would appreciate it.  So I'm gifting it this weekend to someone's well-loved and cherished companion.

The squares for my crochet blanket were also completed this week.

I have 11 squares in total now, only 5 more to go to get the size of blanket I want.

So that's it for now.  The sun has come out again, so I'm off into the garden - to actually do some gardening this time.  Then later it will be back to the dressmaking and in-progress shawls.  (Actually yesterday I started a new crochet along for a blanket, but I'll tell you about that another time).  I hope the sun is shining for you.  Enjoy your week.