Bags and Blankets

So. The bags that were done in secret are all done. They should be popping onto doorstops tomorrow morning and my aim is to have you all knitting and crocheting a storm over the weekend so lots of photos on Monday ladies!

 

For those that opted to collect in shop, they're all here waiting for you.

THERE IS A MISTAKE IN ONE OF THE PATTERNS! We only realised once they'd all been sealed up. Luckily, it won't affect anything at all and it's in the experienced knitter's bag so you should all be fine. It's to do with the yarn amounts on the second project. I can't tell you what's wrong without spoiling the secret so I'll tell you later. The pattern's been updated so anybody that buys after Monday will have the right thing. Sorry folks - bloody nightmare!!! 

I am so pleased with these! They are so sweet! We had great fun putting them together but I didn't expect that to take all of Monday and all of last night too! Chris is one of those people that can only hold one instruction in mind at a time so I was doing something that he couldn't do and having to stop and start to show him all the stuff that he could actually do. But we got there and we're both really proud of them and today we're having an evening off to eat stew (from a chicken cooked on Sunday - that's eight meals we've got out of that chicken - how!?!?!?), rewatch Jonathon Creek AND (hopefully) finish this blighter:

 

Yes, it's not finished and it's on my bed. Whatcha gonna make of it?

haha

 I've not really got a name for it - I started it a. long. time. ago. during a crochet lesson when I suddenly had the biggest urge to knock up a quick granny square blanket. Quick. Now. This photo:

 

 Was taken on 13th of May 2013 and I seem to remember that I'd already been doing it a little while before then but I've been through the blog and I can't find where I talked about it. Which is silly because I've definitely spoken about it... I wanted, originally, just to make one blanket. And then I realised that to get the colour range I wanted I'd need to use a lot more balls and if this was to be an easy and quick project I didn't want to have to work out how many of each colour I'd need so I ended up just crocheting the whole ball (getting about 15 squares out of a ball of Pricewise DK) and assuming that in the end I'd make three or four blankets. Now, that was a great plan and I chugged along. At this point I was happy. I put it together like this:

 

And I was pleased! I used this photo all over the place - on the blog, on rav, on the facebook, on banners - all over the place! There weren't enough colours, I'm sure you can see, but doesn't it look gorgeous?! I remember my sister saying that the idea was horrendous - especially since I'd been using the Acid and Salmon which are both pretty horrific neons. When she saw this photo she admitted that it was bloody brill. 

And then, for a very long time, I did nothing.

I'm not sure what made me pick it up again, but some time August I got it into my head that these two big old bags of squares needed putting together, bugger whether there were enough colours. So I laid them out in Boyf's front room and got to it:

 

 I was still in love, and glad that there were a few more colours. If I'd have carried on I'd have made many many more yellow/orange squares. I took photos at this point, because there's no way I could have left the squares hanging around this like - poor Boyf. But because it ended up being 22 squares by 17 (I think) I also gathered the squares into length ways piles and tied them together. It came together slowly, probably because it is just such a big thing and couldn't be carried everywhere but I took it to Wool and Wine in Beeston (and did nothing) and to the races in Chester (and did loads).

 

In fact, I think I got all of the 'verticals' crocheted together that evening which meant that I could do the 'horizontals' at my own pleasure because the 'verticals' keep everything in position. I'm afraid I've no idea when I got the horizontals done but I do know that I sewed in a couple of ends at the time and then put it down again... That is until last Monday when I'd finished my to do list by half 12, went to Iceland (the shop) for the first time (wasn't impressed...) and then settle down to get those ends sewn in. I gave up after a while because.... boring... so I started the edging. 

Now. In my head the edging was always going to be white. I bought up a load of white dk when we last had a sale for this very reason. However. This white acrylic dk has been mostly lost. It must have done because I can't have used nine balls on crocheting the thing together (although it used much more than I was expecting...). So, I had a look at the stash I've been building at Chris's house and all I could come up with was red, a lovely soft cherry red. Still acrylic dk mind but it is nice. I'm not convinced that it looks as good as white would have done and I'm a bit stuck as to whether a project like this deserves the absolute best or whether, as it was a project where I used up a lot of ends, using up ends (that I'm unlikely to use in other projects) was a good and fitting idea. Hmmm. Let's see if I have a photo:

 

 Not the best photo - can you see it? I'll see if I can get a better one in the morning. Still not convinced but I'm going to carry on for now. I LOVE this blanket and I LOVE using it and I know my happiness will increase exponentially when it's finished. So I'd better get on with it...

At the moment, and I promise I'll stop boring you with this, I'm crocheting the blanket until I want to use it, then I'm breaking the yarn, finishing it off and using it, then I'm reattaching the yarn when I want to crochet again. This is the only way that I can think that I can use the blanket and at the same time finish it... Versace doesn't seem to mind anyway:

And speaking of Versace, she's started doing a very strange and refined thing - drinking from the tap!!!

 

Oddball. 

And separately from all of this - it's Small Business Saturday on the 6th. We'll be doing something, rest assured, but I'm not entirely sure what yet...

And with that, I leave you my lovely crafty friends. I'm not sure entirely what to do now - the bags have taken up the last three/four weeks of my life and I'm at a bit of a loss. I do need to get them separately onto the internet now and I've done a few of them including making some banner type photo montages but when I got to the easy knits banner which clearly shows knitted items and I'd labelled it as 'crochet' I knew it was time to take some time out. And I'm glad I did, nice little rambling blog in a way that I haven't done in a long time.

Love Eleanor. xxx