Can't Make New Beginnings...

Without finishing some old stuff. I am by no means finishing everything I've got on the go before starting anything else - that would be stupid - but after finishing the Pi Shawl that featured in the last blog post I must admit I'm a little bit inspired. Yesterday was my day off but I had an appointment for my ear mid afternoon which is the most frustrating thing isn't it? Can't get stuck into anything then, before or after. I woke up early because I'd promised the Boyf eggy bread and he can't cook eggs to save his life (amazeballs at pastry though so swings and roundabouts), did my yoga, had a shower, cleaned the kitchen and then what? There was a piece on This Morning about a transgender teen that I wanted to watch desperately and I never like to miss Loose Women - both of which need full, undivided attention because of heavy brain power needed you understand. I finished my socks on Saturday evening:

 

And still haven't sewn the ends in. This next photo's closer to the colour though: 

Isn't it beauts????? It's the Icing Sugar colour in the Kaffe Fassett Regia Design Line sock yarn and, as I explained on the Facebook group, it's been the least popular colour so I took one for the team to see what it was all about and absolutely fell in LOVE! Isn't it gorgeous?!?!! I've already washed them so I can wear them again but they weren't dry this morning so I'll have to wear them on Thursday. Hard Life.

So, I'd finished them. But because I didn't think I would finish them (there was a particularly good programme about Henry the Eighth and his wives so we stayed up past our bedtimes) I didn't have anything else to make. Apart from this quick cat bed: 

 

The lovely Sue posted this blog to my Facebook on Sunday. I tried to resist, I really tried, but by Sunday evening little one had a new cat bed and it appears that she actually likes it! Which is not like cats at all is it? Although, we had to rub it with cat nip and deposit Dreamies inside to get her in in the first place but one she was in she was in! Ahhhh. I didn't actually follow the pattern (it's in English down at the bottom), I just kind of made it up and mine used a lot less yarn that hers but perhaps her yardage wasn't as good with it being a t-shirt yarn? Anyway, I used the Cygnet Seriously Chunky in Magenta - just over four balls. I am planning to come back and do some proper photos, maybe a walk through of how I did mine, which I'm sure is very similar to hers but doesn't involve reading every line...

Anyway anyway anyway. Basically I didn't have a project. I also didn't have any milk. So I went to the freezer to get some out and low and behold in the top draw was a bloody dress I was half way through! Let me explain...

You know how I love mohair? And I loved my dress?

Well, I loved it so much I bloody felted it didn't I!?!? I am SUCH A TIT! But I do have a knack for felting - it's a blessing and a curse. So. I have tonnes of mohair - loads and loads and loads. Enough to make a dress (or two or three...) but no oomph. That is until the lovely Sarah came in with five balls of the most beautiful turquoise stuff you've ever seen! I tried to make a full dress with just that but it became apparent, when I was most of the way down the dress and half way down the sleeves, that there just wasn't going to be enough. So I thought about it for a bit, consulted with a few people, and decided that my best bet was going to be to rip some down and do the skirt in multi colours. I found all the colours I loved best, put them in a bag and promptly put the dress in the freezer. Why?

BECAUSE HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO RIP BACK MOHAIR!

But I've read time and time again that putting it in the freezer makes everything easier and would you believe it?! It does! It still took my the whole of This Morning, Loose Women and half of Judge Rinder to get it to where I needed but I got there without too much swearing and with only about five small balls rather than a million.

Once it was ripped back to where I needed all I had to do was crochet it back. I was determined to take that slowly but I got it into my head that I might do it in time for the dinner that me and Chris were having to celebrate my ear'ole success and I did (kinda). I set out my balls thus:

 

Bear in mind that that was a working document not intended for the world to see... And got to it! I used the same principle as the previous dress, three working colours, random amounts of each, no particular order but making sure that over all each colour covered every stitch on a round even if it was over different rows. I wanted to use up all of the balls that no longer had a label attached which meant that I actually didn't get to use the funky blue or the greys. Ran out of space at the pinks.

I crocheted before the doctors. Crocheted whilst waiting (for an hour... blurgh...) for my appointment. Crocheted whilst waiting for the eardrops for my newly created eardrum. Crocheted whilst having a sneaky coffee at the coffee shop. Crocheted whilst waiting for the bus and whilst on the bus (in a traffic jam... yeeeeeah). Crocheted whilst Chris finished some bits and bobs of work. And finally! It was done! And it was good! Only, it was a bit too short in the body and sleeves. I didn't get Chris to take a photo of the dress because I knew I'd make adjustments but he did take one of my ear that I adorned for the occasion for the first time in weeks: 

Dinner was amazing. Baked Camembert cooked in bread dough and hunter chicken. Just like cheese, cheese, bread, meat, cheese, meat, bbq sauce. Best. Dinner. Ever. And good healing ear food if I ever had any!

Anyway, this morning on the bus I lengthened the sleeves by two rows each - should be just enough and then I used every last scrap of the pinks and purples to finish off the bottom of the skirt. This was what it looked like earlier today:

Now it has an inch or two of the dark pink colour too and IT'S DONE!

I'm gonna wear it tomorrow and I need to get a photo of me in it so any regulars that pop by are going to be pestered until they give in to my demands.



And that's that.

Love, Eleanor. xxxxx