Well, I whinged enough about the heat during the past dry hot Summer and Autumn, didn't I? Now things have cooled down nicely...to the point of needing to wear a jumper and even to turn on the electric blanket from time to time. I couldn't bear to have one on my bed when I was younger, but I find the occasional boost of warmth very soothing to arthritic joints, especially when someone has stolen more than his fair share of the doona during the night!
Having managed to get my hands on some yarn recently...I have been knitting a couple of things, more socks...(always socks)...and a big red eight ply wool blankie.
Sarah obtained a copy of the pattern from one of her crafty clients last year for me...it is a very simple feather and fan stitch with a garter stitch border. The only issue with it while I was making it was it's size. It very quickly became non-portable...a project I left at my chair rather than carry it about, unlike the socks that can tuck into a small bag and are very portable...great if you have to sit and wait anywhere.
The throw has turned out quite nicely...it is (for me, I tend to knit everything too tightly), a good tension, being quite loose and snuggly. It is about 120 cm by 130 cm and although the colour red is NOT a favourite colour of mine at all, it does add a lovely warm glow to the rather austere white blanket bedcover in our spare room.
The pattern called for 600 gms of yarn, but as I had found some well priced pure Australian wool yarn at Spotlight, I went with it despite the limited range of colours available and ended up knitting up 1 kg of yarn to make it the size it is.
The first pair of socks are almost done, they are very quick to make, after all, especially as the red blanket is now not taking up valuable crafting time.
The second blanket is a crochet square I am simply making as large as I can bear, using up three cones of ultra fine cream wool yarn that has been in my wool stash for many years, crocheting the threads together. They make about a three ply yarn this way. The centre of this throw is a small amount of multi coloured hand spun wool that was not enough for any other project. Here it is, so far...
Well, that's about it from a cool place for now, I'm going to get on with my sock knitting...I have an interesting audiobook to finish as I need to return it soon to the library...see you soon!
Di xx