I recently entered Linda's giveaway on her Chalky's World blog. Linda is a talented crafter and photographer and her blog is well worth a visit. I was amazed to win the giveaway and even more amazed when the parcel arrived this afternoon. It was like several Christmases and birthdays rolled into one. Here are the goodies all expertly and prettily wrapped:
and here they are after I had a ripping time opening them:
There was wool, patterns, material, recipes, cards and card-making accessories, notepaper, tissues, ribbon, a bookmark, cup cake accessories and straws, an owl and a crocheted burp cloth. In fact the parcel was perfect for a crafter who also enjoys reading, baking and loudly celebrating the hay fever season!!!!!! Pardon me while I drool. I am already planning what to do with everything. One of the knitting patterns is for a lovely baby jumper and I am itching to start it (or is that the hay fever?) I have a big blanket in progress at the moment and the jumper would be a nice little project. I think I will be casting it on very soon. Once again, a million thanks to Linda of Chalky's World.
One of the charities I knit for is Operation Orphan which is an organisation that distributes warm clothing to children in Central and Eastern Europe. They recently put out an appeal for small scarves to fit 0-5 year olds. I had the perfect wool ...a ball of pink and another ball of green. To these I added some coned yarn that I am trying to use up. In odd spare moments I rushed out two scarves to go into a parcel that is now full and ready for posting. This is my favourite scarf knitting pattern as it is reversible and very warm. I can't remember where I got the pattern from, so thanks go to the original author. Basically here it is: Double knitting wool and size 4mm knitting needles. First row k3, p3 to the end. Second row k1, p1 to the end. For this child's scarf I cast on 33 stitches and knitted until it was about 40" long. One 100g ball of yarn was enough for one scarf. I even had a little left over which would be nice for the brim of a hat.
Here are the knitted goodies that I have just posted off to Greenfields Africa which is an organisation that distributes clothing to children in Kenya and Uganda. It is well worth taking a look at their website to see all the ways they help in these countries. I have been making these items for several months. There are 5 blankets, 4 dresses and 5 hats. All, apart from the stripy blanket, are knitted. The stripy blanket was crocheted. I had forgotten about some of these items and I love some of them so much that it was difficult letting go of them. But they were not doing any good boxed up in my house. So off they went to pastures new where hopefully they will be used for a long time.
My knitted ripple blanket is finally finished and I'm really pleased with it. I called it my Ocean Blanket as I used up various shades of blue, aqua and white. It measures 38" x 32" and is gloriously warm which was a boon as I have been knitting it through the coldest May I ever remember. I am especially pleased because it was the last item I needed to fill up a box of knitted goodies which I will send to Greenfields Africa . The free pattern for the knitted ripple blanket is here . You have to scroll a long way down the page to find the free patterns but they are well worth the journey. I love knitting blankets and am already planning my next one. But that will be another blog post.....
I have now completed 26" of the Ocean Blanket and have about another 12" to knit. I'm still randomly letting the balls of wool dictate the stripes. The stripe at the top of the photo is not as green as it looks. It is more a mixture of turquoise and light blue. I completely finish one ball of wool before starting another one. That cuts down on waste and there are fewer ends to sew in....a win, win situation. It has crossed my mind several times that I am really lucky that my circular needle has such a flexible cord. It is perfect for these ripples. My aim is to finish this blanket by the end of May. There are 2 reasons. Firstly, I want to post it off to a charity in time for their worldwide deliveries. The other reason is that I was lucky enough to win the entrelac baby blanket pattern when I entered the giveaway on the Mack and Mabel blog. I'm really keen to start that pattern but I'm resisting until I finish the ripple blanket.
This is my "Keep Calm and Carry On Knitting" blanket project. It is now 17" long and I have at least another 20" to go. It is very therapeutic to knit, though a little hard on the hands as I am holding 2 strands of dk wool together. It looks like I probably won't need all the blue wool I set aside, so I am already planning my next blanket. That one will be on a slightly different theme.....possibly a heather garden. But that is in the future. For now, I am living in the present and enjoying the moment.
The next few weeks are going to be very hectic for me. I just need a mindless project to keep my knitting ticking over. I always admire the crochet ripple blankets that I see a lot of, but I am still a crochet novice and counting stitches on every row doesn't qualify as "mindless". So I was delighted when I found a pattern for a knitted version of a ripple blanket. Here is the pattern You have to scroll quite a long way down the webpage to find the free blanket patterns. It is knitted with 2 strands of dk yarn held together so it will grow quickly. It is also a very simple pattern consisting of 7 rows of garter stitch and 1 row of easy increases and decreases to make the ripples. I decided that the obvious colour for a wavy blanket was blue so I sorted through my bag of bargain yarn and fished out various shades of blue and a little white. I'm aiming for a blanket approximately 36" square and might or might not use all the wool in the first photo. The next photo shows what the blanket looks like now. It is progressing reasonably quickly as there are "only" 150 stitches per row. I'm not in any rush as this is intended to be a project that will calm me down during the hectic weeks ahead.
Eagle-eyed readers might be able to spot a colour change in the last few rows. I thought about changing colour for every 8 row pattern repeat. That would have made it look more like the lovely crochet ripple blankets. But it would also have wasted yarn or caused much unnecessary stress as I tried to calculate whether or not I had enough wool for 8 whole rows. I'm just going to keep knitting until each ball of wool is finished.....or in other words "Keep Calm and Carry On Knitting".
