Oh boy did I start these in the wrong order. This is the second completed baby blanket of 2012 (certainly not to be the last!) but it is in fact for Baby Number 3. I started this blanket first (with a sizeable break for Jack’s blanket) which was a daft thing to do when I had the most time to complete it. I’m now trying to get a wiggle on to make Baby Blanket Number 2 (for the second baby due) as I only have 6 weeks at the outside to get that one done.

Today though is a ta-daah/finally finished moment for this sweet little blanket. I whipped this up in record time even for me and it feels like it only took a day to make even though it really was longer than that. Just doing the pointy picot border takes me a day!

I’ll get the yarn details out of the way first of all, sometimes I think they must get missed if they’re tagged on at the end of the post. It’s Stylecraft Special dk again, in the same 17 colours that Lucy used for her Granny Stripe blanket. This is no coincidence, as I copied hers almost exactly. I buy my yarn in a local shop, but it is available from lots of good stockists online, you just have to google for them. Try: Masons Needlecraft, and also Country Crafts as well. I use a 4mm hook as this is the recommended size for dk weight yarn. A few people have asked me for “hook size advice” lately and the best thing you can do is check on your yarn label as it will tell you what size to use on there. As a general rule of thumb I use 4mm for dk, and 5mm for aran. I never work with chunky.

You can read about the start of my blanket here.

I had masses of ends for ages because I lost my one and only needle (Mum – did I leave it at home? Please start a thorough search of the house immediately and let me know. Just kidding!). Fortunately my lovely friend gave me a new one and I was able to get them all done. It was quite therapeutic actually, doing all my ends in one go after they’d been flapping about at me for ages.

When it had grown sufficiently stripy, I added a border. I didn’t used to like putting borders onto blankets, but now I love it. I love the finished, completed, DONE feeling you get from it, and the tidiness of the edges afterwards. Lovely.

I also LOVE the pointy corners you get when adding a border.

So there it is! One stripy baby blanket for our good friends. (who don’t know that I’ve made it and it will be a surprise when it arrives – LOVE that feeling.)

How absolutely lovely to have some blue sky in my crochet photos! Ahhhh. Flipping cold though – but I’ll overlook that part ;-)

All creative credit here should go to Lucy because I copied her colours completely, apart from one Aspen stripe that should have been Aster (can’t read my own writing) and the final two stripes because I wanted to end on a warm tone. All I’ve done is just make the blanket shorter but I had pretty much no creative input into this at all. And you know what? It felt GOOD and just the thing to work on when you don’t want to have to think about anything, if you know what I mean.

xxxx

An early night, a late wake-up and a morning spent in bed with a cup of tea and a box of the good stuff.

Just what the doctor ordered :-)

(That’s if doctors are aware of the medicinal properties of crochet & a cup of tea.)

My latest trip home was for a sad reason and I don’t want to lose sight of that, but it would be wrong to be unappreciative of the unexpected family time that it brought me. I’d like to use this “On My Camera” post to remember all of the moments that I may otherwise forget but wish to hold onto.

So we have …

- waiting for the train to take me four hours down the country

- Wintry trees on the drive to Brackley Antiques Cellar (got a nice old milk bottle that I forgot to photograph and then couldn’t bring back on the train.)

- Lindor eggs from Waitrose (still have one in my bag, saving it for a bad day at work!)

- My mum baking: a Victoria sandwich for me (she makes the best EVER Victoria sandwich cakes!) and a gigantic chocolate cake for her belated birthday cake. That’s my hand for comparison.

- Many cups of tea

- I made hundreds of biscuits and experimented making them with a piping bag after the KitchenAid mixer smoothed the mixture to smithereens. They were lush.

- Rialto stripe blanket coming along nicely

- Another cup of tea while doing the RSPB Big Birdwatch. I love snuggling up to the radiator that’s under the window and watching for birds. Reminiscent of the time we did this when I was living at home.

- Trying to take photos of the birds (there were two Mistlethrushes at once, oooh) and discovering a sneaky Goldfinch when looking at the photos later.

- The Big Birdwatch became the Big Betty Watch. Isn’t she sweet?

- Photographing baby Jack’s blanket (awww!)

- Having our first EVER sisters shopping day. How come we’ve never done this before? Oh yes, I moved out before Alice learnt to drive. Now she can chauffeur us  about! Excellent. As you can see, we were really helpful with scraping the car.

- I sat in the back, because I couldn’t remember the way to Milton Keynes along the back roads. Rachel did, fortunately, because Alice doesn’t have any sense of direction which is slightly scary for someone with a car … (love you really Alice! Thanks for the lift!)

- Coffee break

- Little bit of knitting turned into Alice starting some knitting and both of us teaching Rachel how to knit for the first time. She picked it up really easily and has now knit up two balls of yarn for a scarf. We were at Grandma’s waiting for my mum to come home and Rachel greeted her at the door with her yarn and needles and went: “Look! I knat!” hehe. From then on all my poor mum got from all of us was: “Help, I’ve dropped stitch/got 31/29/gone wrong HELP!”

- rosy pyjamas & crocheting in bed (luxury!)

- Double decker guinea pigs :-)

———————————————————

Sorry my blogging’s a bit sparse at the moment, I am doing things I promise! Why, only yesterday I finished another baby blanket! I am hoping for some sunlight at the weekend to take the necessary photos :-)

xxxxxxx

One of the subjects that I intentionally do not talk about on here is my job. What if they found my blog and read what I said about it? Suffice to say though, I do not have the kind of job where travel is involved, or any kind of perks, excitement, fun etc. So colour me surprised when I was asked to accompany my manager (I have a team leader who is my immediate boss and then a manager who is the next level up) to London for a meeting. Wheeeee yes please! 2 hour meeting, six hours of trains? MUCH BETTER than sitting at my desk!

I was sliiiiightly nervous about spending that much time alone with my manager, I mean she’s fine and all but I was concerned that we’d run out of conversation. But it was fine actually and had plenty to talk about.

The train ride was uneventful and the landscape became flatter and flatter as we travelled South to the Capital.

Do you know what? I really, really LOVE London. It always feels great being there and I wish it was practical to visit more. Perhaps that would make it less special though? I don’t know. Now, I think I’ve mentioned before how much I (and Andy) like buildings and architecture and the buildings in London certainly do not disappoint. That’s a slight understatement, I ignored the fact that I was on a “business” trip and whipped out my camera straight away and started snapping. Oh wow, there is so much to see. This is King’s College Library, on Chancery Lane. It’s stunning. The turrets make me think if Gringotts ;-)

Truthfully, I have never had any idea at all what I wanted to “do” with my life career-wise. Haven’t the foggiest, never have. Don’t get me wrong, I work hard and am good at my job, it’s just that I can’t visualise myself in a career, being taken seriously and wearing smart clothes. That kind of thing. During this though, I started to get little “perhaps I can …” thoughts. Hmm. Ponderous.

We arrived for our meeting and were not the only ones there. We drank the tea, scoffed the biscuits … and waited for 45 minutes before we managed to contact someone who said: “Oh I’m terribly sorry, but this was cancelled, didn’t anyone tell you?” Clearly not! There were people from three other organisations there and not one person had been told that it was cancelled. Cheeky.

So what do you do when you have four hours to spare in London? Well make the best of it of course! We walked along Fleet Street, saw the Royal Courts of Justice (look at all the arches!) and onto Strand, and down Essex Street where we climbed down some steps onto Embankment.

Here we found the Thames. (It’s not hard to find really, it’s pretty big.)

The sky was full of heavy clouds and we hoped that it would remain dry. Fortunately it did, and I love having a “dramatic” background for photos.

We walked along the Victoria Embankment, past the Obelisk and the Sphinxes until we reached Charing Cross station. We crossed over on Hungerford Bridge, which has a pleasing amount of cables and symmetry.

It also provides a good view of the famous skyline:

I should add here that there were loads of helicopters about which was a bit weird, but I found out later online that along the river at Woolwich there had been a terror practice in anticipation of the Olympics with loads of helicopters, army boats, snipers etc. I sort of wish I’d seen it! (Although with the knowledge that it was in fact a drill, otherwise I imagine I would have panicked just a little.)

It was just after three pm by this point and the sun was beginning to retire, providing a blue sky and silhouettes in some directions and amazing cloudy shadows in others. I like this spiky tree.

The London Eye also provides pleasing symmetry. I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to take a photo from this angle, but I like it.

What I didn’t like about this part of London is all the people dressed up in costume trying to get money from you. Leave me alone!

Past the Aquarium (I would love to go there sometime) and onto Westminster Bridge now. Do you know, even though I’ve seen this building thousands of times in pictures and on TV, I have never noticed the gorgeous green glass tower in the middle?

Perhaps it’s just not been photographed at that time of day much? Just one of those small moments that made me grateful for having seen it at that time and for the sequence of events that meant we were there at that time. (Google Maps is telling me that this is the Victoria Tower. Probably quite famous then. Heather, go and educate yourself please.)

Pretty hungry by now though (I was anyway!) so I made an executive decision to pop to the handy Tesco and get some orange juice and a packet of crisps. Refuelling was necessary!

Apparently the Big Ben Tower is leaning and will eventually fall over.

After a LOT more walking we reach St James Park and I see some big swans in the distance. Upon (slightly) closer inspection they turn out to be Pelicans. Wow! We walk through the park and over the bridge. It’s getting pretty dark now that we’ve reached the Mall but it’s still exciting because this is the first time that I’ve seen Buckingham Palace in the flesh. I wonder if the Queen is in. I can’t help but think of the Roald Dahl book, the BFG.

More walking (legs getting tired now, could do with a nap) and we reach Victoria Station. Enough! I say. It is time for dinner! I am going to keel over. Ah, look, a handy Wetherspoons.  So we ate there, with a view of the trains, before getting a very crowded tube train back to King’s Cross to get the commuter train back to Leeds. We have a table seat and VERY LARGE youngish man in a suit squeezes in next to me and starts playing with his blackberry and his iPhone. Do people not realise HOW ANNOYING iPhones are when you are texting or emailing? you know, when each button makes a dull “bink” sound? Turn the sound off, man! So I got my knitting out. That showed him. Then I fell asleep.

I’m not sure how I managed to get through work on Friday (didn’t get home till 10pm) but after work had finished I slept for eleven hours!

Certainly an unusual day, but a good one none the less.

Thank you for your handcream suggestions, I have bought a few to try and will let you know how they go. The ideal option would be to leave work (!) because it’s caused by the aircon. It always clears up after a few days away from there (and hand cream).

Another thing, my sister Alice is now blogging. Go and say Hi :-)

I wonder how many of my blog posts are titled “Saturday”? Sometimes I feel a bit like a child at school tasked with a “What I did at the weekend” writing exercise and worry that you will all get bored. Weekends are the best though aren’t they? Two whole days of not being at work, not having to wake up to your alarm, you can go OUT, see actual DAYLIGHT … you know the score. This time of year especially I appreciate the daylight at the weekend. I felt uplifted today when I walked home as it was not quite dark by the time I got in. Spring is a’coming!

So this Saturday I was woken by my alarm at 08:30 and groggily looked at my phone to see a text from Lucy asking me for a quick coffee at 9:15. I tend to run about two to three hours behind the Attic 24 schedule because I don’t have any children and thus have the luxury of sleeping in if I want ;-) However I did want a hot chocolate and a catch up and managed to shower, dry my hair, get dressed, have breakfast and put a load of washing on in the space of 45 minutes and was ONLY seven minutes late to the coffee shop. That’s pretty good going I think!

So yes, we had a lovely chatty catch up and a bit of a peruse of Inside Crochet magazine (Third place guys! Thank you for voting :-) ) who said lovely things about me (and er, overlooked the fact that I was meant to write that paragraph and never sent it in, sorry Inside Crochet mag.)

After saying goodbye (it was a quick coffee after all!) I went and bought three different types of hand cream to try and combat my lizard skin on my right hand. Seriously. Weird dry skin from a combination of cold weather, and aircon & handdryers at work. (Does this count as TMI?) I bought a Cocoa butter one but having now tried it I can’t bear to have it on my hand because the weird chocolatey smell weirds me out. Yuck! Any tips for dry skin? I’m moisturising like crazy and always wear gloves outside but I’m fighting a losing battle.

After the hand cream adventures I hopped on a train to Leeds to meet up with Rach for our monthly/6 weekly get together. I like to get the train to Leeds because the countryside is pretty and it gives me a decent chunk of time to spend in Wildhearts worship (that means listening to my Ipod for those not fluent in Geek.)

Oh and do you like my bag? I went shopping for shoes (I hate shoe shopping) a couple of weeks ago and came home with a pretty bag.

My hair was looking halfway decent, which is nice. All my best photos happen when alone on a train. I know that’s a bit odd but it’s true: apparently I look my best when on a train. Also weirdly young.

Me and Rach always meet in Neros because it’s opposite where we used to work and we both like to reminisce about the years we spent working together :-) Fond times.  We stayed for ages in Neros until I became so hungry that I almost ate my own arm. So I badgered Rach into going to Wagamama (conveniently across the street!) and we took a snowy photo on the way.

When I still have to travel somewhere, snow makes me nervous.

Mmm, Yasai Yaki Soba <3

The snow settled really quickly in Leeds, I was quite surprised as this was only an hour or so after it started snowing.

I slipped my way to the station and made my train with three minutes to spare. I like that because I hate waiting for trains but equally I hate running for them.

I wanted to get a cool photos of the ECML (that’s East Coast Main Line for those not fluent in Geek) train coming into the station through the snow but I fumbled too much with my camera whilst wearing gloves and just made a wonky mess of it.

Back at home and although that looks like snow, it was crunchy like weird hail. By the time I arrived at my house though it was proper snow and we enjoyed watching it fall that evening :-)

And of course this laid the way for the snowy sledging day on Sunday! (this is why I don’t like to post out of sequence!)

There you have it: That’s Wot I did at the Weekend.

Ahhhh SNOW! Now that my travelling up-and-down-the-country is over for a while, I am not feeling so anti-snow. It was even quite exciting watching it fall yesterday. I knew that Lucy and her family were heading out to the park for snow-time so after I got Lucy’s text (“Get your snow boots on!”) I trudged along the canal, with my camera, to the park.

It was very pretty. There’s been freezing fog as well, making it so that you can’t see the hills, or the church even. As if you are in your own little world, really.

I think that the colour and appearance of snow is really dead looking, very bleak and well, lifeless. When I look at these photos I think of the soft quietness of snow and how is dulls everything around you. What you can’t tell is how LOUD and BUSY and ALIVE the park was today! SO many people whizzing up and down the slope, it was fantastic. I love how adults pinch their children’s sledges and become all daredevil about it and go down super fast, to the admiration and dismay of their children. (My dad used to go down in a plastic kayak, but the less said about that the better. Oh the embarrassment.)

Snowboots! What mine lack in stripes, they make up for in fleecy lining. Mmmm, love my snowboots.

We spent a while trying to encourage Little B to make friends with the snow, which worked for a short time until he’d had enough and we retreated to the Attic for a cuppa. Well, a cuppa and several books on trucks and Things That Go, that is. I don’t mind, I got a good half hour of Little B snuggles (oh broody!) which made for a pretty good morning :-) (… and Lucy thinks I go round to visit her! hehe.)

It started with a box of Stylecraft. I had thought that I needed to purchase another batch of Stylecraft for the impending baby blankets that I needed to make but when I had searched every corner of my home, I realised that I only needed to buy three new balls. Money saved! Fabulous. (I should point out that finding yarn in every bag/space/corner of our home is something that I enjoy, but is enjoyed less by Andy.)

When I got up on the morning of December 17th, I knew exactly how I was going to make Jenny’s baby blanket. I had been toying with the idea of making an Elmer blanket for a while, since seeing that she’d bought a little Elmer toy for the nursery. When I’d tried to translate his colours into yarn, however, I discovered that Elmer and his squares were incompatible with any yarn colours and whilst his squares looked good on him, I didn’t feel that I could make a blanket out of the same colours and have it look good. With that in mind, I decided to be inspired by Elmer, but do my own thing with the colour choices. So, this is my Elmer-Inspired Baby Blanket.

Solid Squares are very therapeutic to make. I started churning out a few squares (sewing in both ends and trimming as I went) and then chucking them into my yarn bag. I didn’t pay any attention to how many of each colour I had, when I got bored with one colour I’d just move on and make some out of another colour. When I had a decent amount of squares I laid them all out on the floor and arranged them a bit until they looked good, and started to sew them together. I LOVE crocheting squares together, it’s one of my favourite things to do. Joining-as-you-go is good for instant gratification, but joining together afterwards is FAB. If you are going to use this method, I heavily suggest making all of your squares first and then join them all at once. So, take your first two and join them along one side, and then join the next two to that, and so on, until you have one long line of granny squares joined just along one side. Do this with all of your squares until you end up with five or six lines of “two squares joined together along one edge”, and then start joining those together. Then when you have joined all of them (it will be flappy and holey by this point) join them all along the other way. THIS way, you only get a few ends to sew in.

The mistake I made was that I joined all my squares, and then realised that the blanket wasn’t big enough and I had to add one short row and two long rows to my blanket.

This photo makes me laugh. On Christmas Eve, my dad was visited by the Most Boring Man In The World (this seems to be a yearly thing). Having been trapped for aaaaaaaaages with him in the past, we were wise to this and when he knocked on the door this year, me, Andy and Rachel all scarpered into the bedroom and hid there until he had gone. This took a Long Time. I made lots of squares and tried to teach Rachel to crochet (top right corner.) Ha. He went eventually and we were free again!

I made more squares on Christmas Day evening, sat in the dining room avoiding watching Doctor Who. (I know many of you will be fans of Doctor Who, but who’s idea was it to show it on Christmas Day? It’s a very long time to have to sit still and be quiet and NOT INTERRUPT THE TV on a day when you just want to chill out and laugh a lot with your family. Plus, it’s really boring.)

On Boxing Day, I took them to Grandma’s house where I finished doing all the joining, with an unfamiliar hook because this was when my good hook was still missing. We found it later in a seldom used kitchen drawer where Andy had tidied it away to. I really have no idea why, and he doesn’t remember doing it!

Ahh, all joined. Lovely! It’s so blankety now, I love it. It was difficult to give this one away, I can tell you.

Definitely needed a border though, definitely. I’d joined all of the squares with red (Lipstick), and so the back of the blanket looked fab with all the red ridges. I went once around the whole blanket with the same red, using half treble stitches. I had to invent a stitch for this, you see where the two squares meet? Usually if I am working in treble stitches, I do 1TR in the first corner space, and then do a decrease (2TRtog) between the first and second corner spaces, and then another TR in the second corner space. I had to create a 2HTRtog stitch for this one! I don’t know if it’s a real stitch or not, but it did the job. Now, it’s a bit hard to see in these photos but I then went round it with Aspen, and then Turquoise, both in half trebles. when I got to the corners, I didn’t want to make it holey so I increased a little on each round to make the border solid. I love the effect.

I’m SO HAPPY with the way this blanket turned out. So happy. When I have a baby, I am going to make one of these for my pram. It’s my favourite baby blanket that I’ve ever made.

Look at the way the little holes line up! I’m telling you, I have a serious love for solid granny squares and the way their corner spaces line up.

I took it home this week to get some daylight photos of it, as the light here has been unhelpful to say the least. Washing line to the rescue! I only took two photos because it was freezing cold (and I was meant to be packing.). Thinking about it now, (now I’ve looked at the time stamp on the photos) these were taken four hours before the baby was born. Aww!

I think the back is just as wonderful as the front and I am taken with the idea that the one blanket has two different looks depending on which side. In future I may even do the joining on the front edge to leave the ridge there. I think that looks pretty.

And the photo that makes it all worth while:

Baby Jack, two days old, chilling on my blanket :-) Congratulations and well done Jenny, he’s gorgeous and I’m so proud of and happy for you.

:-)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Blanket details:

I used Stylecraft Special dk in the following colours: Aspen, Aster, Cloud Blue, Sherbet, Spring Green, Meadow, Lipstick, Pomegranate, Clematis, Wisteria, Violet, Plum, Fondant, Shrimp, Lavender, Turquoise and Saffron.

It took about two weeks to make all the squares and join them together, and then another week for me to sew in all the ends that were left over from joining. This would have been less if I hadn’t had to add more squares.

The pattern is one that I made up in my head. I can’t claim that it’s my original idea, because it’s a solid granny square and it’s hardly a new idea. I did make up the way to make it on my own without reading anyone else’s pattern. I still want to do a proper tutorial but I haven’t had time to do this lately. If you are familiar with granny square making, the basics are as follows:

Chain 4 and join to make a ring.

Chain 6, and then work 4TR into the ring, chain 3 (this is for your corner), 4TR, chain 3, 4TR, chain three. Then work 3TR and slip stitch into the third chain of your initial chain 6.

For the next and any subsequent rounds, slip stitch or otherwise bring your yarn to the front (in the corner space), and chain 6. Work 2TR into that corner space, and then a TR into the top of each stitch. When you do your corners, work 2TR, chain 3, 2TR into the corner spaces. Once you’ve worked all the way around, work 1TR next to your chain 6, and then join into the 3rd chain of your initial chain 6.

I find it easier to have chain 3 spaces when it comes to joining granny squares, and they just make the square a bit squarer looking. Always start with a chain 6, this counts as your very last 1TR of your corner, and the chain 3 for the corner space. I find it neater this way.

After reading that, you will see why I need to update my “Solid Granny Square” pattern on the left of my blog! It’s out of date and I’ve changed my method as I’ve become better at crochet.

Let’s try this again. It’s New Year’s Day! I am going to do lots of fun things and blog lots and lots and generally have a fabulous 2012!

That’s how I intended to start the year anyway. Life looked at those thoughts inside my head, laughed, and said “Yeah, right!”

January made my head spin. It has also been the longest month in my entire life. I managed about four measley blog posts. There was too much going on to allow me to blog. Something had to give: it was my blog. I generally believe that when you blog and you have people that read your blog, you do have a responsibility to actually post on your blog and to not just give a half hearted effort. In the end though, I decided that I have more responsibility to my family and to my own well being than I do to my blog and the beauty of not getting paid to do this is that I don’t have any obligation to do so, and so I can just be quiet and not post if I’m not able.

There are things that are too private to share on here, most definitely. This really is one of them, I suppose, and I feel odd mentioning it, disrespectful and a little voyeuristic. Shortly after Christmas, my great Auntie (the same lady that I crocheted a little blanket for recently), was taken into hospital. Two weeks ago, she passed away. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, which doesn’t make it any easier. Most of January has been worrying, waiting, coping, supporting and feeling a bit useless and far away. This past week I have spent with my mum and family, attending the funeral on Tuesday. It’s not been an easy time for anyone. I have not had enough space in my head to blog, and certainly not enough “happy” in my head to make good blog posts. So I’ve just said nothing, really. All my thoughts have been too tied in to everything that I cannot and don’t want to talk about on here.

I’m not asking for sympathy or comments on this, so I’m going to close them.

I hope that February will be a better month and lead the way for a happier rest of 2012.

]]> http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/02/03/fresh-start-february/feed/ 0 http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/02/02/blog-swapsies/ http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/02/02/blog-swapsies/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:24:01 +0000 admin http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/?p=1413

Do you all know the lovely Cuckoo? If you don’t, I suggest that you hop on over to her blog pronto, but only if you have a bit of time to spare because I think you’ll find it difficult to leave it ;-)

I found Cuckoo’s blog about a year ago, shortly before she had her last son, Mini Cuckoo. Then I started badgering her into being my internet bloggy friend (nagging works!) and we emailed and chatted and it was fab. Sooooo, I thought, what’s the next step in my bloggy/stalker relationship with Cuckoo? OH YES I can send her a Christmas present!

Cuckoo likes pretty china and has a beautiful dresser full of it. I think that there is always room for more pretty china (Andy disagrees with me here, but what can you do? sneak them in and pretend that other people gave them to you as gifts. ) and I had spotted just the job in the antiques centre. I bought two teacup/saucer/plate sets on different occasions and then stashed them away without looking at them again. I thought that I had bought the one above, and then one that had lilac flowers on it. I’d planned to buy some more pretty bits like soaps and things but then ran out of time in the end. On the day that I came to post the gift I thought that I wished the patterns matched and that hopefully it wouldn’t be too odd to send an unmatching pair of teacups. Lo and behold, when I unwrapped the paper to wrap them up, they matched! I had unknowingly bought matching cups (how rare is that in a second had shop? Seriously?)! Hurrah hurrah, it was a good day! I sneaked in two balls of pink 4ply cotton as well, and wrapped it up in lots of packaging and sent it off to the post office. Fingers crossed hoping that Cuckoo would like it.

When I came back home, there was a parcel waiting for me!

(somewhat bigger than the one I had just sent which made me worry)

And inside it was …

A board for my hallway JUST LIKE THE ONE THAT I PINNED! How awesome is that? I was so chuffed :-) Thank you, Cuckoo.

Blog friendships: gotta love em :-)

]]> http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/02/02/blog-swapsies/feed/ 19 http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/01/29/lazy-creative/ http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2012/01/29/lazy-creative/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:07:40 +0000 admin http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/?p=1407

I think I mentioned a few posts back that I already have three baby blankets to make this year. The count was already three by the time it was November! Best get busy with my hook!

I have finished baby blanket number one, for Jenny, who is due imminently (how exciting!), but I can’t post photos of that yet until I have posted it off. I may do this tomorrow, time is ticking on!

Today I can show you my progress on baby blanket number 2. This is for the baby with the latest due date out of the three, don’t ask me why I started this one first. Armed with my trusty box of Stylecraft I got out my hook and my notebook and got cracking. As you can see from the photo above, this is a Granny Stripe, which are superfast to whip up (Jacquie described Granny Striping as like running with your hook, a perfectly apt description in my opinion.).

Do you know what makes it even faster though? Cutting out any colour order choosing! That’s right, I am doing an exact copy of Lucy’s Granny Stripe blanket! I got out a notebook and opened up her ta-daah post and with a bit of squinting and close examination I have written out the order of each of her stripes. It makes it so easy to work on mine! I am quite a fast crocheter, but I am slow at colour choosing. I’m much faster if I plan my colours in advance (as I do for my ripple) but I am even faster when I am outright copying.

I have to say though, I am loving this easy ride crochet. My box of yarn is by my chair, the order of colours is already decided and I come home and add a couple of rows while reading some blogs and having a cup of tea, and then a couple more after our meal. Fab!

Instant gratification, low effort. Love it!

xxxx