A new shapeless knitted thing…

I really need to start knitting things that I can wear outside the house!

It’s not too bad, and the yarn is just some cheap acrylic (£1.25 for 100g) so I wasn’t expecting it to be beautiful. It’s just a bit too big, and a bit too stretchy. The colour is lovely though, which is why I bought the yarn in the first place.

The pattern is Alpine – here on ravelry – and I used Yarnfair double knit I bought from Wilkinsons of all places.

Here is how it’s supposed to look:

Image by Berocco.

And here is how mine looks:

I lengthened the body and sleeves and should have really put in some waist shaping but I forgot! I also added buttons down the front. More details are on my Ravelry page here. I think it needs a stiffer yarn and I could have knit it a couple of sizes smaller. I know a lot of knitters would have frogged it and re-knit but I have the attention span of a mayfly so it’s staying the way it is and I WILL wear it!

It looks much better with a belt but it’ll do for around the house.

Beccy

Needle felting–just stabbing wool with needles?

Well, if it’s me doing it the answer’s yes. I’ve seen youtube videos of people making lovely things but for now I’m just stabbing stuff.

You see, before Christmas mum did a bit of needlefelting. Or rather, she sneaked in on a workshop being held for students and pretended to be working whilst actually having a go herself – training and development people! Anyway, she enjoyed it and didn’t manage to finish the piece she was working on so I bought a load of needles and roving for her for Christmas. I also forced my little brother to use a sewing machine and make a needle case – look at this!

He chose the fabric, the fancy stitches, the felt, even the thread colour. He sewed it all himself and I was very impressed.

Today we finally found a few minutes for mum to show me how it’s done (ish).

Wanna see what I made?

Nope, I haven’t got a clue either. It’s a bakewell sushi, um, with a tail. I got a bit carried away adding bits of wool here and there and forgot to actually look at it. Still, it was fun!

And anyway, mum’s is weird too.

I think I need to do a bit more to get the hang of this, but I like it!

Beccy

New Year lists…

I don’t know about you, but I need lists. I write a list every day and without them I wouldn’t get everything done. It’s like a written nag. Sometimes I cheat and add a few things I’ve already done, just to make myself feel better. Does that make me a bit odd? Probably. But if I don’t I find my free days slip away and not much gets done.

So what I need is a year list – a bit like a life plan but definitely not a set of resolutions. No-one ever keeps those. Ok so I need to add the obvious:

• Get out the Wii fit and lose those 6 (or-so) pounds that have crept on over Christmas and/or eat less.
• Tidy my ‘creative space’ (the inverted commas denote temporary dumping ground).
• Sort out lots of things to send to charity.
• Decorate a room or two.
• Become a millionaire.

But what else?

How about becoming self-employed. Wow! That’s a bit scary, did I write that out loud? But really I should be finding a way to use my degree and ceramics training properly. It won’t help me become a millionaire (or even better off than I am now) and I could become a less angry person – I’m not a natural employee – but I’d probably just end up transferring the anger to the tax-man.

A few more problems with that idea: A) I would need more money, B) I would need more time and C) I would need less fear.

What I need are baby steps – maybe ‘procrastinate less’ should be on the list? Maybe I should add ‘be more pro-active’. Are they the same thing? Perhaps I could combine the two and ‘pro-actively procrastinate less’.

‘Spend a regular amount of time in the workshop each week’ should definitely be on there. Barbara Cartland said (I know, an unlikely source) that you should never wait for the muse to arrive, because it never will. You just have to work. She was probably right too.

Hum. It just all seems so big. A few years ago, before I did my degree even, I decided that I was going to make ceramics and sell it through craft galleries. That was the big life plan that never really transpired. It was never the right time, there was always something else that needed to be done first.

I should probably just get off my backside and do it.

In the meantime, the Mollie Makes blog recently had a feature on making a granny square a day – that means that by the end of the year you have loads you can sew together to make a huge blanket.

Sounds good! I might start with that. After I’ve written this list.

Beccy

The baby blanket is finally finished!

At long last. I always underestimate how long these things are going to take. It was supposed to be finished by October, but the birth date came and went so I decided to make it for Christmas instead. At least it’s still Winter!

The worst was weaving in all the ends – look at this!

Anyway, on to the finished blanket.

It’s a bit less wonky in real life (although I think I might have added an extra stitch into that border somewhere), but I needed to take photos quickly! Mum wove in all those ends for me since I did all the crochet. She’s a godsend!

The final size was about a metre and a half by a metre, but I forgot to measure it before I wrapped it up.

I’m pretty pleased with it, and I hope Lindsey and David like it too!

Beccy