My sanity blanket is completed.
I am so please with it.
Not only is it squishy and warm, but I am damn proud of the way my own hand-dyed yarn holds up against the store bought yarn.
I really think that you can’t tell which stripes are professional yarns and which ones I did. But I may be a little biased.
See if you can tell!
My blanket just keeps on growing!
It’s gobbling up yarn so quickly I was forced (at gunpoint) to go and buy some more. Fortunately it’s on special (yay!) and $2 a ball. So I grabbed all the white they had. Then I went on a dyeing spree.
This time I experimented with dyeing 3 skeins at once. It was a vague attempt at dyeing a cohesive collection.
I’ve named them after Blood Red Shoes song titles.
Night Light was inspired by this picture I took from the balcony one night.
We do get some gorgeous sunsets.
I also experimented once more with separating colours using jars. There’s probably more technical ways to do this, but I’m having fun figuring it out for myself.
Some of the yarns from my previous dyeing adventures have been knitted up and look awesome, if I do say so myself.
My only regret is that I used two variegated acrylics that I just had in my stash and thought I could use them up.
They haven’t got the same drape as the pure wool. It’s probably something that only I will notice, but I will have to accept it. There’s no way I’m ripping back all of that work!
I’m totally counting these as ticking off my ‘Dye a yarn collection’ goal for this year.
I’ve decided what to do with the yarn I dyed.
This blanket fulfills two main aims.
A) it shows off the colours of the hand dyed yarn really well &
2) it gives me loads and loads of mindless, therapeutic garter stitch.
I need the mindless repetition of doing the same motion over and over like you wouldn’t believe.
There is stress coming out of my eyeballs, bruises emerging from me trying to quell the pain in my arms and legs, things to organise, things I can’t organise and the only way I’m barely sane is that repetition of knitting.
I’m vaguely working on a pattern.
Cast on a bucket load of stitches (200 odd. I did attempt to do math and make a pattern but decided to go for simple)
One row solid, 3 rows variegated.
And when I’ve finished with one colour I start with the next.
It is guzzling yarn! I’ve stopped at spotlight to buy more (Moda Vera pure wool 50g) and dyed that up, but I’m estimating I’ll need at least 9 more balls.
But the next 6 are dyed and ready to go.
These gorgeous flowers are growing in our front garden on the tree that our passionfruit vine grows on. I decided to try and use it as an inspiration picture.
It gave me a chance to experiment with dyeing methods. And it looks so pretty!!! I’m absolutely kicking myself for not taking a picture of it all skeined up. I can’t believe I don’t have one on my phone! I’m very disappointed with myself. Unfortunately my favourite skein has become tangled whilst winding.
So it’s current status is sitting in the naughty corner (exactly where it is now) until I can work up the energy to untangle it. Hopefully without having to cut it. That would really annoy me.
My crochet blanket is coming along like a house on fire.
That’s a pretty bad analogy considering all the bush fires in Australia at the moment.
But it’s coming along really quickly.
I’m bound to slow up soon.
At the moment I’ve got the squares memorised.
I still think I’ll be lucky to finish it this year but I’m making a go of it.
I only have two WIPs left!!
And I’m up to the sleeves on one of them!
But I have two left (not including a pair of socks that I intend to frog) because I finished off this beauty.
I even made my bed for the occasion. (Slightly more difficult as HeWhoFishes and I both aren’t good at sharing a blanket. So we have one each. Which pretty much throws the whole making the bed thing out the window. At least it does in my head.)
Ive finished my 10 stitch blanket. I know I was saying a couple of weeks ago it will probably take me a few more years to finish but it’s done.
The secret? Make it smaller.
Now this isn’t just pure laziness. The idea came to me when I was cold at the office. I am always cold. I do have a heater, but I don’t like using it all the time. So I was using a cardigan as a lap blanket and my wheely chair kept running over the sleeves. I started thinking about patterns and what I could quickly whip up when I remembered my 10 stitch blanket was just about big enough.
I worked on that steadily over the weekend and finished it. Just in time too. The circular needle broke with about 15 rows to go.
I also made a video about it. Particularly how I do the corners. It’s a bit different to how the pattern says but I think it’s easier. Special thanks has to go to HeWhoFishes for being a lighting and camera man. I couldn’t have got the close up shots of my hands without him. Also as a non-knitter he said he understood what I was doing, so I think I did an alright job of explaining myself.
Making a tutorial was one of the goals I set myself for 2013, but I never imagined I would film a video.
To finish off the blanket I added a simple crochet edge.
I’m really pleased with it. But I don’t think I’ll be making another one soon. And certainly not one in sock yarn!
I’ve picked up my ten stitch blanket. I’m thinking that when I get to the next corner I might make a video to demonstrate how to turn the corner. I’ve shown it to some one in real life, and have had a few questions.
I’m now half regretting making it in sock weight yarn. Its now over a year old, and looks like its 3 more years away from being a decent size.
I also did some work on my gentle waves afghan. I showed you this in my video blog for Knit & Crochet blog week, but I’ve actually taken some photos now. It took me a few trys to start. I’m not that good at reading crochet instructions yet. But now that it’s established, its pretty mindless. Which was good because I’m still dieing loudly and building blanket forts.
I have managed to watch 6 seasons of 30 rock in 3 weeks from my blanket fort. I now need to find a new sitcom to fill that void. With Arrested Development being a netflix only production, and netflix being unavailable in australia, I was very happy to find a workaround .
Since then I’ve been discovering all that netflix has to offer. (And will quite happily take recommendations!)
I’ve been trying to not spend money on etsy. There are so many lovely things that I want. I think I have about 8 items in my cart that I’m pondering. Metal stamped cuff with yarn trinket? Yes Please!
There was no decent football to watch this weekend, as my team had a bye week. That always feels a bit weird.
So everything is a bit all over the place. But at some point it will all sort itself out again.
But finally I was cleaning out my spam comments and found this gem.
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And last but not least – Knitnrun4sanity, you are the lucky winner of my favourite tea! I’ve emailed you this morning. Please let me know if you didn’t receive the email. Congrats hun!!
Day 5 4KCBWDAY5
And now for something completely different….
This was so much fun. I didn’t think it was going to be, but thank you Knitting And Crochet Blog Week (I still have difficulty saying that) for getting me out of my comfort zone and in front of a camera. This was actually quite scary, not to make, but uploading it for all of you to see (although I do take comfort that it probably won’t be found by anyone but other knitters who are mostly non-judgemental).
So say hi to me and my couch!!
My first ever vlog, where I find out just how often I say ‘pretty!’, that the train noise is actually pretty loud (I’m so used to it), and I really do have a short attention span.
So this ticks off number 13 in my 13 in 2013 challenge – crochet a granny square.
If I’m honest, this wasn’t exactly the outcome I expected.
Actually I’m surprised I kept this quiet for so long.
This is my granny square.
For reference, that’s our queen size bed that its resting on!
So I can add ‘can do the triple crochet stitch’ to my list of skills.
There were a few smaller granny squares that I did before starting a giant blanket sized one, I may share them at some point.
But for now I’m just going to sit back and feel impressed with myself.
Seriously I made this!
This is by far the biggest item I have made.
I feel accomplished.
The 10 stitch blanket is finally finished!
And just in time. My new niece was born this morning in the early hours.
So I missed the free postage (my parents flew over as they’re on the other side of the country) but it will get there safe and sound.
I included the washing instructions on a photograph of the blanket (thank you photo). And I was I inspired so I did a congratulations card using a photo of us.
So it’s finally finished. I can cast on something new now!!!
polka-dots & sparkles 