Mother's Day Projects

Its Mother's Day today and I did actually get a card from one of the children: as they are all lazy teenagers now (I do still love them though) I had rather feared that I would get a grand total of zero cards, but at least one of them remembered! As for my own Mum, I made her this cross-stitched card ...

... which arrived safely in Northern Ireland, and which she loved :) Good daughter brownie-points for me today!

I have lots of yarny projects on the go. But first another small finish: I mentioned previously that I had made a little sheep for a lady's church group; well little sheep now has a little friend ...

I decided to use a different pattern as I couldn't face doing all those amigurumi bobbles again. Speaking of bobbles, I made some bobble squares for the Ukraine blanket project that I'm contributing to. I sat in the garden making them while we had a few days of glorious sunshine last week.

The stack is getting rather high now ...

... 18 high to be precise. I kept going until I ran out of wool ... this is all I had left from 3 full balls ...

... I'm just waiting for my friend, who is also participating, to finish her squares, and then they will all be sent off to Amanda, to be joined into blankets, which will be raffled off in aid of Ukrainian charities.

My adventures in sock knitting continue. If you remember I had tried to use DPNs but had struggled. Lots of you had encouraged me to persevere, but I am not good with persevering lol, so I bought a circular needle called Sock Wonder by Addi and gave that a go. Well, what do you know, I am actually now getting somewhere.

Are you impressed ? I am! I'm not a good knitter so this is a big challenge for me, I'm very slow, and I hate doing purl stitches, so doing the ribbing is annoying me, I just want to get to the part where you just knit knit knit, in the hopes that I'll speed up a bit. But its looking pretty cool if I do say so myself. I thought I had mucked up once or twice but it seems to look okay, so I guess it sorted itself out (pretty sure it wasn't me sorting it out!!). I have a long way to go, and of course this is only the first sock, and I will need two (oh god the thought of casting on again and all that ribbing aaarrrgghhh) but I'm really chuffed with my progress. Due to the annoyance of the ribbing I can only face a round or two at a time but I just pick it up every so often and do a bit. I'll keep you posted with my progress.

I'm still working away at my harbour blanket. I've just started part 6 but I really need to deal with the end of part 5 before I go any further.

I'm a bit like the sock knitting with it - just chipping away one stripe a day. I have about 7 stripes left to do and then the border, which is 5 rounds. Hopefully I'll get it finished in April some time. I need to get it done before its too hot to work on it!

As I am not a monogomous crocheter I have started a new project. Its a pattern simply called "Lace Scarf" which I bought as a download from a Ukrainian etsy shop. I've literally only just started it so there's not much to show you yet. The starting chain was 450 long(!) so its very wide and shallow. The stitch markers are to mark every 50 stitches in case I lost count.

I've completed row 1 which thankfully only required a double-crochet in every 5th chain. Can you imagine crocheting into every chain of 450 ??!! Shudder!!

The yarn is this beautiful hand-dyed yarn from Truly Hooked - I picked it up at a yarn festival a few years ago. Its actually a sock yarn but its very soft so will make a lovely scarf.

The wool-winder put in an appearance to wind it into a little cake of loveliness.

My only other update is that the daffodils are multiplying slowly but surely. A bit like the socks they are super-fiddly so I can only face one at a time, but I figure if I just do one every day or two then the pile will grow steadily. They are destined for my friend Helen's farm shop in Wales, and the deadline is 12th April, as her parents will be travelling up to see her, so they can take a package of little daffodil key-rings with them.

Well that's it from me, hope you all have a great week,

Til next time, 

Jillxxx

Blanket of Hugs for Ukraine

Several years ago I went on a crochet weekend retreat (I highly recommend doing this, it was a wonderful way to spend a weekend!) and met a lady called Amanda, who runs Little Box of Crochet. Amanda's daughter, Jenny, had very sadly recently passed away and Amanda told us about the blanket that her friends and customers had made for Jenny before her passing. Amanda had asked her friends to make crochet squares, crocheted with love poured into them, and then she would join them into a Blanket of Hugs. Well, Amanda's plea yielded enough squares for 7 blankets! One for Jenny, and another 6 which were subsequently raffled off for charity. Aaaaaanyway..... on Instagram last week Amanda sent out a plea for squares, crocheted with love, to be sent to her, which would then be joined into blankets and raffled off for Ukraine appeals. 

Amanda has created a downloadable PDF of instructions. The squares are to be made in a specific colourway (Stylecraft Special DK in Storm Blue, Mustard and Meadow), to a specific size (14cm square) and to a set pattern (solid colours, stripes or polka dots). I set off to my local yarn shop - Stitchery Do - where the owner, Rebecca, had set aside 3 balls of yarn for me. As soon as I got them home I set to work. First I started with solid colours and made 2 of each.

I decided I wanted to make 2 of every possible combination of colours - for example yellow and blue with a yellow edging would be different to yellow and blue with a blue edging, and so on. This would be 30 squares in total. The solids were very easy. The stripes were also pretty easy.

All the solids and stripes gave me 18 squares...

Don't they look fab all stacked up?!

It was then time to give the polka dot ones a go. Well. The polka dots are actually bobbles and after making 18 squares I was in no mood to start on bobbles, so they will have to wait for another day. Amanda wants the squares by mid-April so I have plenty of time to do some spotty ones.

Its a lovely project to be involved in, and I can't wait to see some pictures of the finished blankets. 

Wish me luck with the bobbles ....

Til next time,

Jillxx

Elephant, sheep and Frowen Fields

The weather has been lovely for the past few days, so today I broke out the cropped trousers and a short sleeved t-shirt ..... only for it to be chucking it down with rain all day, and very cold!!! You can see in the photo below how wet it is ..

It is however a perfect day today to stay in and craft and I've been super busy in my craft room all day. A lady had posted on my local crochet facebook group asking if someone could crochet up a little kit for her that her friend wanted - both she and the friend weren't able to do it, so I said I could help. It was a little elephant kit, from Aldi I believe, and he turned out like this ...

Super cute or what! And just when the cuteness factor couldn't get any higher, I crocheted up this little sheep for another lady's church group ...

... isn't he adorable! I tell you what though, doing bobbles in an amigurumi toy is NOT for the faint-hearted, its given me terrible neck ache, and was soooooo fiddly! The lady who wanted him had also posted on the same facebook group asking for volunteers to make her some sheep for her church project. I'm planning to do a few more for her but in a different pattern as I'm not going near those bobbles again!

I also quickly hooked up a little daffodil keyring for my friend Helen in Wales ...

 ... Helen runs a glamping and camping site called Frowen Fields and is going to be selling these in her farm shop. The Frowen Fields site has an amazing glamping pod ...

... decorated beautifully by Helen ...

... in a gorgeous location, steeped in nature.

We're having a dilemma with pricing the keyrings, its so hard to do with handmade items. They don't take long to actually crochet but each flower has 14, yes 14, ends to weave in, so another fiddly job which does take time. Oh well we will see what happens! I want to support Helen and vice-versa so hopefully a few will sell.

Did I mention before that I am making some blankets for our local hospital? They need various sizes including 25" square for wheelchair users, and I think this is also a nice little baby size too. One of my things for 2022 is to crochet one hospital blanket a month in an effort to make a dent in my ridiculous stash. I'm doing well so far, and have completed three. I managed to get the borders finished off today.

Two are in a variegated cream, brown and grey yarn ...

 ... and one is in a lovely olive, mauve and cream colourway ...

I decided to give the olive, mauve and cream one a purple border which I think works really well.

With all that crochet I fancied a wee change, so, for the first time in years, I got out the knitting needles this aftrnoon. I've decided I need to learn to knit socks. I watch the Cherry Heart podcast, and Sandra makes so many amazing socks, I want to give it a go. Well, suffice it to say, I won't be wearing new socks any time soon. Actually I hardly ever wear socks, so I don't really need to make some, but its become a personal challenge now. Its not going well. I'm following Winwick Mum Christine's Sock-Along posts and using this Sirdar Heart and Sole sock-yarn ...

... but the DPNs! OMG! Its like wrestling with an octopus, I can't seem to get the hang of it at all. The bit where it transitions to the next needle is all gappy and gapey and looks terrible. This is what its looking like on my DPNs.  A bit of a mess.

Maybe I should try a circular needle, will that help do you think ? Any and all advice from all you lovely sock knitters is very welcome. In the meantime I shall be ordering said circular needle and giving it a try.

Til next time,

Jillxx

Another man in my life

Crochet-man is now complete! If you remember from my previous post I was crocheting a little man doll for a local charity, Camp Mohawk. This is the blurb from their website:

"Camp Mohawk is a multi-functional day centre for children with special needs and their families, set in 5 acres of beautiful countryside, just outside Wargrave, Berkshire. Throughout the year the centre provides a range of activities, facilities and natural space to encourage children with a variety of special needs to play, socialise and learn in a secure and caring environment."

The charity posted on a local facebook group asking for someone to knit them a doll to look like one of their staff, members, a chap called Alan. I was very happy to be involved as my own son has an autism diagnosis, so I replied on the post saying I couldn't knit one but I could crochet one if that would help ? Well they took me up on the offer and so "Alan" was born ...

 

I followed the patterns in this book by Kerry Lord of Toft Yarns ...

It's very clever. There is a basic body pattern which you then add a mix and match head and outfit onto, there are over 20 heads and 20 costumes so a vast array of possibilities!

Alan has had a busy old week. He's played on the playstation ...

... done some crafting ...

... done a bit of cooking ...

... had lots of coffee ...

... and had porridge for breakfast...

... watched some TV ...

... played cards ...

... and even done some crochet!

But alas Alan's time with me came to an end when he was picked up by another Camp Mohawk member today, and taken to his forever home. As a thankyou I was very kindly given a lovely bunch of flowers :)

Alan has been my constant companion this week so he will be missed. But I know he will bring much joy to the children and families at Camp Mohawk. Farewell Alan!