OCEAN

A very quick and short post today ….. I have finished my latest blanket, a gift for my younger son. It's called OCEAN because that is where he loves to be. I wove in the ends and added a couple of rows for a narrow border this afternoon, and am SO happy with it! I think I have managed to complete this in under three weeks. I know some people crochet much faster than that but usually a blanket this size would take me a few months!

Not my usual choice of colours, being neither very bright nor pale and interesting, but I think it's just right for a chap who likes the beach and the sea - what do you think?

I now have some new wool which is making me drool. I just have to decide what the next project is going to be. I don't really need another blanket  - even though Ocean will be posted far away - but I have some lovely patterns which have been calling to me! Though I'd like to do a shawl, if I could find a pattern not too difficult for someone who has most only crocheted throws and cushion covers. The wool is Double Knitting but is very fine, and is gently variegated. I'll show you when I decide what I'm going to make with it!

I expect you'll all be getting frantically busy in the run up to Christmas. I am happy to report we have actually got the decorations (very restrained) up and the tree lit up with fairy lights. All looking fairly festive here. Hope you are feeling the Christmas spirit, and not feeling too stressed out with organising things. I've read quite a few blog posts, and a number of articles recently urging people to not get drawn into the over the top hype, and then feeling inadequate compared to the 'people' in the adverts. Remember everyone will experience some stress, some joy, some disappointment and some happiness. I hope you have more of the good stuff than the not so good stuff!

Colouricious!

I know. There's no such word. But there should be! I am feeling quite intoxicated by colour, at the moment. I bought a book called Rainbow Crochet Blankets by Amanda Perkins, and I have truthfully been drooling each time I opened it! Her use of colour is masterful despite the blankets being fairly un-complex (mostly). She uses her own hand-dyed 4-ply yarn though her company The Natural Dye Studio was dissolved in 2015, and you can no longer purchase that yarn. She does, however, give a variety of suitable alternatives in the book. I just can't wait to get cracking on something from within those colour-saturated pages!

However, I shall have to wait a while as I'm hooking away madly trying to finish OCEAN, the blanket I'm making for my son Kit. (It's alright, he sussed out that it was for him, darn it - I was sure he didn't read my Face Book statuses!)

It's coming along nicely, and I am enjoying hooking it, but I'm going to have to put a double border round it in two blues, to balance the colours a little better - at the moment I feel the greens dominate, which is not the effect I was intending.

These pretty little beauties are just two-row grannies hooked from a stash of cotton yarn I found a few weeks ago lurking in the sewing room! It is half Rico Creative Cotton, and half something else which I've no label for, and it splits a bit so not as nice to use as the Rico. But I really love the shades, they remind me of a spring flower garden. I think I need another four then I can join them and make a cushion cover. Hmmm, what to make the back from…..

Another chance to see the two Mine and Jim's Summer House blankets, these are made in a Rico cotton blend too, can't remember the name I'm sorry. They do look lovely draped over the arm chairs down there and we both enjoy wrapping them round our legs as the weather has got colder.

For those of you who haven't seen it before, this is the first of my two Ripple Blankets, made from Lucy Attic 24's pattern. Once you get the hang of rippling it is so soothing to work. I'm wondering now whether I ought to have made Ocean using ripple. Ah well, it works well with the two treble patterns I think.

And last but not least, this gorgeous - though I say it myself - scarf I hooked using some beautiful Noro 4-ply yarn. I just love it. Though I have to confess it is cobbled together from two uneven pieces so it has to be draped in a very artistic fashion so you don't notice the wavy sides!

So as you can see, I am heavily in love with crochet at the moment. That's way it goes with me. I'm all over Facebook with it, and have managed to snare a few people into becoming addicts too. I am spending far too much time reading crochet blogs now and I have discovered the many wonderful crochet podcasts. Don't go there unless you want to develop a very late night watching habit! I hope you've enjoyed the new work and the trip down memory lane with the older stuff. Happy hooking until next time!