Saturday 31 August 2013

West Ham Blanket

  When I was in London, I was chatting to my Dad about his work.  He's a carer and does a lot of great work with his clients.  I asked him whether it would be inappropriate for me to make a lap blanket for one of his clients-he said it would be fine as long as I'm not looking for payment or future business which of course I said I wasn't, this is a donation.  One of his clients has a degenerative condition that has some aspects in common with Parkinsons although it affects the mind first and he spends a lot of time stationary.  So Dad called his wife to ask whether it would be ok for me to make a lap blanket as a gift for him and she thought it would be a lovely idea.  The gentlemen was a big fan of West Ham football club (and Brentford to a lesser degree) so I decided to use the strip colours as the base and crochet over the top his initials.  I sketched it out and showed Dad-told him that I had plenty of those shades in my massive yarn stash (seriously, it's getting out of hand) and said that I'd make a start on it once I got home.  The gentleman may not react much from it but it should provide a good talking point that helps visitors engage in conversation with him.
  I got home a week yesterday and started it last Saturday.  As work was closed until Wednesday and Myf was away, I had plenty of time to get the squares done.  By Thursday, it was finished!  I've never made a blanket so fast from start to finish :-)  I posted it off yesterday morning so hopefully it'll be there by Tuesday.

So what do you think?  I really like how it's turned out.


Friday 30 August 2013

'Neapolitan' Baby Blanket

My work situation over the past couple of months has been a bit of a nightmare as I've had less than 5 hours a week.  If I'm unable to find another job before next summer, I'm really worried as to how we're going to cope.  My plan is to make a decent stock of blankets for sale and either put them up on ebay or amazon or create a facebook page for them.  I have a lot of cool blanket ideas-I just need to balance making them with being able to sell for a mutually reasonable price.

So here is the first one to go into the stock cupboard-it would make a lovely gift for a new baby!



Friday 23 August 2013

Having a Hoot

Hello everyone!  Sorry for the long absence-I've been back in London staying with my parents with Myf for a holiday but I've finally made it back home so it's time to catch up!
Remember the little giveaway last post?  Well, I decided to make these little owls from this post here.  Aren't they cute?  It's a lovely pattern but there were a couple of issues with it-she mentions a couple of times 'pulling on the yarn tail' to close the circle hole but the pattern starts off with a chain of 4 and I haven't been able to close the little hole you get that way so I think she means starting off with a magic circle.  Also, in the third round, she tells you to put 3dc into each space around when she actually means 3dc in space, skip the next space, continue around so that you have 14 groups of 3dc around.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, those are pretty minor problems with it and overall I really like the pattern so please do give it a try!

So the lucky ladies received a little owl each and have said they really like them :-)  My sisters were a little late on the comments for the giveaway but I made them one each anyway because I'm lovely :-D And of course I had to make one for me and a couple for my gorgeous Myf.  Only trouble was, their little ones got very excited over the owls and this caused a bit of a problem so naturally I offered to make a special one for each of my nieces and nephew!  One of the nicest days of my holiday was being able to meet up with my lovely sisters for a family picnic with our parents and our children!  I got to give them their little owls in person :-)  Wasn't able to take a photo of the owls as I had a little mishap with my camera...it's fine now but I dropped it into a pond!  Anyway, here are some photos, hope you like them!



Apparently, the collective name for Owls is a 'Parliament'.  Isn't that cool?



The little one in the photo above is one I made with crochet thread for use as a key ring for my spare key.  I'm planning some more as soon as I have some spare time!