Blanket finished....

Having said in my last post that I was setting this blanket aside, I then changed my mind and finished it.  It only needed a couple of hours work and it makes a lovely festive photo.  Here are all four sides completed in different colours.  I really like the effect and will probably do this again one day.  I followed this pattern from the What A Woolly Life blog.

There are 21 little pattern repeats along each edge.  These help to stop the strange phenomenon of a square diagonal blanket trying to turn itself into a rectangle. 

This blanket was crocheted with a new great-niece in mind. However, Hubby, who never usually says anything nice about my projects, saw it and said it should be saved for a really, really special baby.  I think the old softy (not) must be thinking ahead to grandchildren!   The great-niece won't go without.  I have a small stock of baby hats and blankets ready for all the babies that will probably start arriving in the next few years.

Vital statistics:  the blanket is 31" square and used 290g of dk yarn.

This is probably my last post of 2015, so here's wishing all my blogging friends and readers:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Knit for Winter 2015: Supporting First Touch Premature Babies

My mission for the next couple of weeks is to knit tiny bonnets for premature babies. I was recently contacted by Sunrise Senior Living and asked if I would be interested in supporting and publicising their latest  Knit For Winter campaign.  This year they are helping First Touch by knitting blankets and bonnets for premature babies born at St. George's Hospital in London.  I'm a Londoner and love to support local causes as well as those further afield.

Sunrise Senior Living very kindly sent me this yarn.  I would have used my own yarn if I had any left.  But I spent the summer knitting through my supplies of 4ply baby yarn and couldn't really justify buying more.  

I chose to knit the hats rather than the blanket as I already have a large blanket in progress.  I have set that aside temporarily even though it is almost finished.  The intended recipient won't be born until March!  So these little warm hats are needed more urgently.  I should be able to knit several with this 200g of lovely King Cole Baby yarn. 

If you fancy knitting a simple blanket or some baby hats, see here for details and patterns.

The blanket edging changes colour...

The diagonal baby blanket is still a work in progress.  I carried out my plan to knit the edging in 4 different colours.  Here is the first corner where I changed from green to yellow.  I'm liking the effect.  Next comes lilac, followed by pink.

I'm forging ahead on this blanket at the moment because a builder will descend on us soon to rip out our kitchen and install a new one....hopefully in time for Christmas! Living dangerously!

Blanket edging...and the winner is......

I have finished the diagonal baby blanket and have now started on the edging.  I recently sought opinions on which colour I should use.  The result of the very unscientific poll was soft green. This was also my choice, so I was pleased about that.  Thanks to everyone who voted.

Pink, yellow and lilac also received votes.  White received none.  A thought has occurred to me.  I could possibly use a different colour for each side of the blanket. My original thought was that green would calm down the brightness of the blanket. But now I love how bright it is and I think different colours would bring out all the lovely shades in a striking but pretty way.  What do you think?

A Wednesday work in progress....and a quick poll

This baby blanket is likely to be "in progress" for several Wednesdays!  I have 300g of this lovely bright yarn called Robin Paintbox and I am going to keep knitting until it is all used up.  This is a simple diagonal garter stitch pattern from What A Woolly Life. Here it is.

I like this pattern because the edging is knitted on once the blanket has been finished.  That means there is no sewing up to do.  My big decision will be which colour to use for the edging.  I have enough of all the colours in the blanket:

• pink
• primrose yellow
• lilac
• soft green
• and white

The blanket will go my niece who has just announced that she is expecting a girl in March.  I'd love to hear which colour you would pick for the edging.  Please see the poll to the right of this post and cast your vote.  The poll will be open until December 1st, by which time I might be ready to start the edging!

The Snowy Sky blanket...

This was finished in June but the colours, if you can call black, white and grey  "colours", looked all wrong for the summer.  So I waited until November before sending it to SIBOL.  Our weather this week is very foggy and I expect we will see snow before spring!   The amazing Sue from SIBOL will deliver it and many more to care homes for the elderly in the UK.

I enjoyed making this giant granny square.  The idea for the centre square came from the Sunshine Granny Square pattern by Theemuts Tinka on Ravelry.  One of my 2015 resolutions was to crochet a snowflake.  I decided that this square looked close enough despite its sunny name.  

The rest of the blanket was just a typical granny square and the edging was the Double V edging that I found on the Knot Your Nana's Crochet blog.  Once again, it was a new skill for me.  But it was easy and really finished off the blanket nicely.  This photo isn't very good.  I promise you that the edging looks better in real life.

Sue likes to attach a name to each blanket that she delivers and I think "Snowy Sky" suits this one.

The vital statistics are 37" x 37" and 380g of dk yarn.  Most of the yarn came from donations and bargain buys.  I have quite a bit of black yarn and like to sneak it into projects with a bit of white and variegated grey to lift the mood.

On a slightly different subject, my second cataract operation went ahead as planned and things are looking good.  Eyesight takes weeks or months to recover after surgery.  But I am already happy and looking forward to what future improvements might bring.  My crafting pace is increasing again, though I am supposed to be resting for a few weeks.  "More haste, less speed" definitely applies to recovering from surgery.  The rest of 2015 will be quite gentle for me.  In 2016, I can start firing on all cylinders again.

Quick scarf and hat....

This is just a quick post to thank everyone who has sent me best wishes for my second eye op.  It took place a week ago and it is a big relief to have both eyes finally working together.  I'm also happy that I can now read, type, sew and knit to my heart's content.  

I will definitely need reading glasses for finer work. But it's a bit too soon to order them as my prescription will continue to change for a while.  So I am making do with off-the-shelf reading glasses. However, I find that I don't really need to use them until the evening. Our energy-saving light bulbs at home might need some rethinking as even my husband finds them useless for reading.  It's all a bit of a learning curve at the moment.

I started this scarf a few weeks ago.  The hat took just 2-3 days.  The yarn is a 100% wool by Jaegar and it was donated to me by a generous person on Freecycle.  The scarf is a simple crochet v-stitch and the hat is one of my regular favourite patterns by Pyrrha Designs.  These will go off soon to Operation Orphan for their Keep A Child Warm project.  I chose to make these two items in a size suitable for a teenager.

Yesterday, I treated myself to a rummage in my bags of yarn and picked out some really pretty yarn for a simple baby blanket.  But that's another story.....