Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and remember .........

Have a great one!!!!!!!

And a creative 2011!!!!!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Just a few Christmasy images, taken with a phone, I really need a camera!!

All the photos I take just don't seem to get the full effect of the tree really, maybe if I had a camera they would!!!

But still these are not bad.

I also popped in to tell you about a site I found yesterday that is full of inspiration.

It's called "Whip Up" and I love it, do go visit if you are looking for last minute Christmas stuff, or just inspiration for new projects, it's got it all!!

Have a great inspiring weekend!!!

And by the way did I mention that I really need a camera?

Is he (father christmas ) even hearing this LOL

My Ripple

Here are some photos of my Ripple blanket that I took this morning.
I must say it is getting big and I am really pleased with it.

I love the colours.

I'm working on this in between other projects that I am making for Christmas.

I'm not quite sure yet just how big this ripple will end up being.

I thought 6 blocks of 24 row at first, and maybe when I get there it will be big enough.

I am on the 4th block now.

But it is lovely and soft and fluffy so far and a joy to work on!!!

Versatile Blogger Award

It seems I have been awarded "The Versatile Blogger Award" thanks to the very talented Anabel Fournier over at the "And So I Whisper" blog.

Thank you so much Anabel!!!!

It is always an honor to receive an award, but I feel really honored because It seems that Debi Y had also awarded me the award back in September.

I'm so sorry that I didn't accept it sooner Debi, and thank you so much for the award!!!!

To accept the award I have to tell you seven things about myself and also pass on the award to seven other bloggers.

Here goes!!!

1. I love to cook, but lately I have also been baking cakes again, something I hadn't done in years. And Thursday I made my own Christmas Pudding something I'd never done before.

And it turned out great.

2. I love internet to me it's like having the whole world at your fingertips. It is so inspiring to me to read other peoples blogs.

3. I love hearts & star shapes.

4. I love trees. flowers, rainbows, starry nights, hotair ballons (although you would never get me up in one).

5. I love Christmas!!!!!!!!

6. I love reading!!!! and writing.

7. I am into Scandinavian blogs at the moment I love the style, they are inspiring me no end.

I'm going to have to think about the seven blog I'd like to pass the award onto, simply because it seems that all the blogs I visit have already received this award.

Now, About That Ripple!!!

I took my ripple blanket apart again last week, I didn't like the glittery yarn afteral, so this is what it looks like now.
And honestly it will be staying like this now.
I just took the six colours I decided I was going to use and did two rows of each colour.
Then I just turned the combination around by using the first colour second and the second colour first, the third colour fouth and the fouth colour third and so on.
I found this worked very well, so those 24 rows became my first block.
I think six blocks will make a nice size blanket.

In some of these photos that grey looks more bluey, but it is a lovely light grey really.

I took this above photo this morning, the light wasn't that good really.

It's a real dark autumn day here today and very windy.

I've finished two blocks now so far (that is 48 rows).

So if six is big enough this means that one third of the blanket is finished.

I love this ripple pattern by the way, and I am really pleased that I've finally got the colours sorted out!!!

What I'm Up To

I am working on a secret project.
Secret because it is going to be a Christmas present for someone, so this means I won't be posting photos of it here until after the person has recieved it.
The plan is to make two of the things I am working on as Christmas presents.
I am nearly at the halfway mark with the first one.

I am also working on my ripple still.
And would you believe it I ended up taking it apart yet again!!!! last week.
I will be posting new photos of the ripple soon, I just wanted to make 100% sure that I had finally gotten it the way I want it before posting again.

October was a strange month for me I must say.
It seem like everything I was working on wasn't turning out right.
Maybe it was me I don't know.
Maybe my expectations were too high.
My grey blanket will end up being smaller than I first expected.
Simply because it wasn't until I'd finished all the squares that I realized that it was going to be really big.
And I'd already joined some of the squares together and I didn't like the way they looked, but I couldn't get them apart without having to pull a few apart altogether.

So this is a mini progress report of what I'm up to.
Boy am I glad that October has gone.
Because like I said it was a month in which nothing seemed to be going right, project wise then.
I am however staying postive about it all now.
And I now know that I have righted all the wrongs, and loads of lovely successful finished (and progress) project photos will follow in the days, weeks and months to come.

My Ripple

Just a few photo's of my ripple so far.

I Love, Love, Love it!!!!

Righting Wrongs part1

It's nearly a couple of weeks ago now that I finished all the squares for my grey blanket.
And at first I was over the moon at having finished.
And then it dawned on me, (yes sometimes I am a bit slow you know lol) why am I so over the moon about this I thought.
I still have to sew the whole thing together as yet.
That is 120 knitted squares and 40 crocheted and I am not a hand sewing person at all.
What came over me to not think of this when I started the project I thought.
Well I did sew four rows togther and then I was bored with the thing.
Well I decided to go into what I will call Scarlett O Hara mode thinking to myself, "I don't want to think about that today, I'll think about it tomorrow."
So I decided to just get on with my ripple blanket and leave the grey one for a while.

Now this is the yarn I had bought awhile ago to make the ripple with.
However I decided not to use the grey ones, just the two creamy colours, the light brown and the pale lemon colour.
Well, I fell in love with these colours that I had seen online and I really wanted to use these for the ripple.
But I thought I'd better not buy them, no it would be better to use up colours from my stash.
The glittery ones are 45% wool and lovely and soft and fluffy, and the glitter, I love a bit of glitter.
And the cream one is 50% merino wool and is also lovely and soft.
Well I started the ripple and I love the wool it is so lovely to work with and it looks good too.

I then added a beige colour from my stash and it didn't look that bad at all, it's in between the two lemon colour stripes.

Then I added this colour from my stash.

It is called beige but it is more like a bluey mauvey beige (a strange colour altogether really lol).
I had a strange feeling about it but I went on.

Here is a close-up of the bluey, mauvey, beige thingy.

It was a bad move, but still I went on, some people never learn.
I had generated the stripe pattern over at the random stripe generator by the way and there were nine colours in the pattern.
So this meant that I had four of the colours that I had bought for the ripple and a cream colour that is nice and fluffy.

And then I was using colours from the stash for the other four colours.

Then I came to the point in the pattern where I had to join in another colour and I did this one.

And it was even worse than the other one I'd added.

I didn't like it at all.

So I had now come to the point that I entered Scarlett O Hara mode about the ripple too!!!!

I just didn't want to think about it too much, and it had started off so well.
So this is what it looked like on Sunday when I decided to go into Scarlett O Hara mode.

To be honest I hated it, yes I used the H word!!!

Well to be honest I loved the beginning.

And I loved working on this pattern too.

So on Monday I decided to order the four colours I'd fallen in love with online.

Thay came yesterday (but you already knew that otherwise I wouldn't have had a photo of them would I).

And today I pulled the ripple apart.

Up to the first beige I added that is the point I am showing you here.

So it doesn't always pay to try and use up stash, at lest that is what I've learn from this.

Well I've started on one of the glittery colours instead of the beige and I love it.

This is going to be a great ripple, soft, fluffy and glittery.

It was too dark to take any photos of it later today, but there will be plenty in later posts.

Some Weekend Inspiration

Crochet Bunting

Remember this?
It's my Tiny Heart Crochet Bunting see post here.
Well this week I found a site with a wonderful tutorial for granny triangles and a tutorial for making the most wonderful bunting.
The blog is Carina's Craftblog.
The granny triangle tutorial is here.
And the bunting tutorial is here.
Please have a good look around on this blog because this lovely lady as got some great stuff on there.
And wonderful clear tutorials.
I love the colours she used for her bunting.
I have not posted any of Carina's photo's here because of her copyright, go take a look.

Have a great and inspiring weekend!!!!!

Chris

Ripple

Because I have discovered that it is better to sew the squares for my grey blanket together in daylight, this means I can work on my new ripple blanket in the evenings now!!!!!!
So yesterday evening I did, and this is what it looks like so far.
I am pleased and it is very relaxing to do.

Did You Know?

I don't know if you know this but I read this online a couple of weeks ago.
Garter stitch knitting has a two to one ratio.
Now that means that you have to do twice the rows as stitches to get a perfect square.
My grey blanket knitted squares had 25 stitches and I knitted 46 rows.
So this means although they look square they are not.
To get a perfect square I should have done 50 rows because I had 25 stitches.
Well I wanted to try this out and see for myself.
And it is true.


Here are two squares I knitted in garter stitch.
The one on the left is one of my grey blanket squares so it is 25 stitches and 46 rows.
The one on the right is 20 stitches and 40 rows.
Now they may both look square but the one on the right is perfectly square.
How can you tell?
Apart from measuring it that is.
Well you can fold it into a triangle and then you can see it.

This one isn't perfectly square see the bit that is over there on the left hand side?

But when folded the little green one makes a perfect triangle and is perfectly square.

I didn't know this when I started making my grey blanket but I will remember it in the future.

This only applies to garter stitch as far as I know.

And it works for any sort of yarn and number of stitches, as long as you do twice the amount of rows as you have stitches you will get a perfect square.

Grey Blanket Update

I promised photos of my grey blanket over the weekend but I didn't get around to posting.
But now here is my update.


I have finished all the squares now, I knitted the last three yesterday.
These are square that are sorted out ready to sew together in rows.

And these are the rest of the squares.

There are 160 squares altogether, 120 knitted and 40 granny's.

And this is it so far four rows finished.

I have found that it is best for me to sew them in daylight they look better then.
I hope to sew it all together this week and then on to the edging!!!!!!

Some Weekend Inspiration

I am enjoying myself so much knitting the square for my blanket.
So much so that I will knit another blanket in the future.
And maybe even try out different stitch blocks.
So I have been Inspired this week by these blankets.

I got the above photo from Flickr here. I'm not really into the colours of this blanket but I love the idea of the different stitch blocks.

And I don't know where I got this one from to be honest, (sorry but it's been on my computer for a while now if I find it again I will post the info.) but the idea of cables appeals to me too.

I found another squares blanket over at Flickr that I loved here.
Have a great weekend!!!!!!!!

P.S My own blanket is coming along nicely I'll be posting pic one day over the weekend.

The Ripple

Here is the yarn from my stash that I will be using for the ripple.

And Thursday evening I was quite naughty.

Yes I started on it.

I just did the chain row and two rows of the pattern to make sure it all fits and works out alright.

And it did!!!!

Looking good.

But I won't be working on it anymore now because I promised myself I'd finish the grey blanket first.

And I also plan to crochet some Christmas trees and stars to hang around the house for Christmas (in between that is).

Like these ones I tried out back in March when I started crocheting again and couldn't wait to try out.
Grandma Twinkle stars.

Grandma Tree.

Sewing it all together

In yesterdays post I said I would post a post with photos of my sewing together of the squares.
The light wasn't much better today to be able to take photos in the living room.
It's a rainy day here today and quite dark.
But these two photos are not too bad and you can see all the squares.


It's going to look great I think.

I took this one without looking standing on a little chair, it gives a better idea of what they look like.

I must say I'm pleased with this layout.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I haven't been at home much over the past three days because I had to go to work.
So I had a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon today.
However while at work I did manage to get quite a few squares done.
I finished off all the granny square I need for my Grey Blanket
And knitted quite a few too.

So here is a photo of all of them so far.

I also joined some of them together.

Now you might remember from an earlier post that I had joined the first row together.

Well I took that apart again because of the fact that I had thought up a new layout.

At the back of the squares in these photos you can see that a few are joined.

Well I have now joined the first row and also seven squares of the second row (each row has ten squares).

The light wasn't good enough to take photos of the joined rows when I was finished, so I'll take a couple tomorrow.

I now have just 17 knitted squares to go!!!!!!!!!

Now I know

In my last post I revealed my plans to make a ripple blanket after I have finished my grey blanket.

Well earlier this afternoon I took a look at my stash of yarn and I now know what I am going to do.

I've been thinking about this ripple on and off for a while now.

I am always like this I must add, that is that I am working on one project and already thinking about the next.

But I love doing it, I just love to know what I'm doing or am going to do, and getting the plan clear in my head before I start.

Well this week I was tempted, and I mean really, really, really tempted.

To buy new yarn for the new ripple project.

However I have a number of cream colours and beige and light browny colours and also a light yellowy colour that is more like a cream colour, that I could use up for a ripple.

Well when I put all the colours together in a pile I thought, this is it!

That is what I also like to have as well, a click, a feel good about the whole thing moment.

And that is what I had.

So that is what I am going to doing with the ripple.

Now If you have been reading my blog posts for a while you might be thinking and the ripple you started on then? what happened to that?

(that is the photo above)

Well I stopped with it.

Simply because the yarn I was using wasn't a good yarn for a ripple.

It was a really cheap fluffy yarn (that is wonderfully soft I must say) that splits a lot when you're working with it.

Now don't get me wrong I am using this yarn up.

Four of the colours I am using for the grey blanket are this yarn.

Now if you use it in combination with other stronger yarns it's fine, but no good to be used for a whole blanket by itself.

So I have a plan and I love it !!!!

Now back to my grey blanket.

Some Weekend Inspiration

This week I have been looking at and letting myself be inspired by Ripples.
Because when I have finished my Grey Blanket I want to start making a ripple.
I found loads of inspiration on Flickr at the Ripple Along Group.
So I made this mosaic of some of the ones I like.
Do go visit because there is some amazing stuff over there.

Flickr Ripple Along Group
And this one and the one below are the ones I really love, both made by Mia.

Mia

So like I said I first have to finish off my Grey Blanket

But I have some news about the grey blanket.

I now have just 28 squares to go!!!!!!

It won't be long now.

But I still have to sew them all together and think about the edging.
Have a wonderful weekend!!!!!!!