The sock blanket is finished and I love it.

I spent so long deciding the placement of the squares; randomly, tonally from the centre, tonally from a corner, opposing… Then I crocheted them all together in the sort of pale sea blue colour, finished the edging in the grey and realised the blue made it look more disjointed.  So carefully unpicked the joins (with the edging till in place) and re crocheted the joins in the grey.  Much better.  The colours are fairly random, being left over oddments from numerous projects and I think the grey does bring some sort of cohesion to it all, and I love the lacy edging, just what I’d pictured in my head.

With it being sock wool it is really quite soft and lacy to the touch, I love it and want to do another one with lots of different patterns again, but all in cream, that would be lush!

What else…

Another good friend is pregnant so I am crocheting a blanket.  For some reason I couldn’tfind a pattern I liked or a stitch.  After lots of samples I decided on this one.

I wanted a pattern that was lacy but not too lacy, not flowery, not too simple or too complicated, and found this in my old copy of Vogue dictionary of crochet stitches.  It doesn’t have a name but is a fairly simple 4 row pattern.  I’m doing it in a lovely and soft 4 ply, 3.5mm hook. 

I want to do this: (link here)

in this wool:

those eagle eyed will spot 2 balls re wound.  I did 2 lines to test the tension and hook size, though the 4mm was too big so went down to a 3 1/4.  I gotdown to the armholes and it was too small, aaarrrggghhhh!  But like I say, every cloud… so it means I can get on and finish the baby blanket without any distractions, as I want to do the cardy!!

Lastly for today, we are away camping next week for the school holidays and everytime we go I pack all our clothes/bedding/towels in bin bags as space is a premium and proper bags take up space.  So I made 4 large bags out of an old duvet cover, they fold up small and carry a suprising amount and are washable so can carry the muddy and dirty returns back home too – sorted!

I’ve finished it!

I love it!

And the skin is slowly starting to regrow on my thumb (from all the cutting).

Initially it was going to be a basket, but I couldn’t get the image of doileys out of my head.  Originally it was a duvet cover from ty hafan my local charity shop (where I probably spend more money than if I shopped at Howells).  But now, my entry into Folksy Upcycle competition is…

And in action

There you go – doileys – but not as you know it!