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Sunday 23 October 2016

Autumn Frost blanket

As promised here is a photo of my latest finished project.  It measures 46 inches x 36 inches and it's very heavy.   Warm and cosy though!

Can you see my fire pit turned into a raised bed of cyclamen.  The soil,  the flowers cost almost £50 but well worth it for that instant change of colour that brings a smile.

Oh well,  I'm off to bed ready for work tomorrow.   Night night x

Saturday 22 October 2016

Lace knitting craziness

   Hi, before I start talking about Lace knitting, I wanted to show you a photo of Tipsy which was taken the other evening.  Do you think she was trying to get Franks attention while he was reading his book?

Now, I have been spending the last few weeks thinking about my knitting experience and how I can progress so whilst knitting on my Autumn Blanket and crocheting on my large crochet blanket, I have been thinking about Lace.  I love Lace, I love the idea of a beautiful Lace Shawl around my shoulders or even giving it as a gift to someone special for a special occasion.  I have also hoped that one day, I can have a beautiful lace table cloth set out on a table with a large vase of flowers in the middle.  

I have spent a few weeks looking through Ravelry.com and Knitty.com for some lace patterns that will be for a beginner but I ended up having a light bulb moment, I have a book called Victorian Lace Today on my shelf that has only had a glimpse through when I bought it a year ago from the British Heart Foundation Charity Shop, in Romford.

I have fallen in love with some of those patterns but unfortunately, I do not think my skills will ever

reach that level.  The Author of this book, Jane Sowerby, actually explains a lot about the history of Lace knitting and I cannot imagine the work she had to do to get the patterns written down.  The Victorians, apparently, did not write their patterns down much and if they did it was very ad hoc, so for Jane to actually decipher patterns completely blows my mind.  

So today, after spending a bit of time sitting on my bed with my books and magazines, I finally decided on a shawl called A Curved Shawl with a Diamond Edging.  It only has two charts, a main chart that only has a 12 row repeat and a chart for a border that you can either knit and join on or join it as you go along.  We will see how it goes first!

So, I decided to use my Sublime Lace (two strands together) which is an Extra Fine Merino Wool in the colour 0402, which is a beautiful Pink Shade.  You can see the colour in the picture above and can you see the little bit of knitting that I did!  Well, it is crazy to think that took me one hour to do which consists of only the cast on (after 4 times of trying different cast ons) and only one row of the chart.   I had to go back to the Technique Page to try and work out where I was going with reading the pattern and finally, once I got the cast-on that I could work with, I then took a bit more time trying to understand how to do the repeat pattern stitches which are indicated in the bold black lines.  

I am such a plonker and realised where I had gone wrong with reading it and now, I have put it down and writing this blogpost.  Anyway, we will see how it goes and if it turns out that I am not a Lace knitter, I will just use my substantial stash of Sublime Lace for a summery and bright blanket.  Keep watching this space for any progress.

The Autumn Blanket I have been working on is finally finished and below is a photo of it close up.  

I will take a full photo of it tomorrow when the sun comes out.  I could have taken a picture today but we wanted to go to Homebase to get some soil and some Cyclamen because we decided to fill our Fire Pit.  I just wanted the last bit of colour before the weather turns really dark and I go out to work in the dark and come home in the dark.  So below is a photo of our bit of gardening on a Saturday afternoon.


You will be able to see it better, and the blanket, tomorrow.

Bye for now!