“Another unseasonable season” – a line from the song Roses in November by Tret Fure on her album Roses in November. The song is from 2018, but it sounds very current. We do have roses still – and having deadheaded the rose bushes last week some flower buds are getting ready to burst. It’s a very odd feeling going out for a walk in only a cardigan at this time of year.
There are at least three designs that I’m working on at the moment, and it’s so frustrating that I can’t share pics of these with you. But I can tell you that they are going well. I’m also hoping to get the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack up by the end of the month!
Back in 2013 I started a Beekeeper’s Quilt. This is a design by Tiny Owl Knits. Each of the hexagons is intended to be stuffed and I did indeed stuff them to start with, but I didn’t like the overall effect, so I created lots of ‘hexiflats’ instead of ‘hexipuffs’.
The idea of this blanket was to use up leftover sock yarn. I ‘finished’ the blanket in April 2014, but of course you never really run out of sock yarn leftovers, so I carried on making hexiflats and kept them in the bottom of my leftovers bag.
Last weekend we were moving the furniture around, doing a bit more of a deep clean in one corner of the lounge, partly in preparation for the great rearrangement of furniture that will come in two weeks’ time (hint: we put the tree up on Advent Sunday. Yes, it is that soon!). Having moved the bag of leftover sock yarn I thought it would be a good idea to check on the hexiflats. There were quite a lot more than I thought – 173! These hexagons are more than ready to be joined onto the blanket. The joining process is really straightforward and my plan is to get them added on this week.
Llandudno Promenade, one of my shawl designs, is having a make-over. There’s nothing wrong with the pattern, but it currently uses a yarn that is 450m/100g and the minis are 90m/20g. This isn’t the most common length for 4ply mini skeins (which is 80m/20g), so I’m re-knitting it on slightly smaller needles and will adjust the pattern where necessary so that it will work with more widely available mini skeins. I also really like the colours of the new yarn – I’m using RiverKnits’ Nene Minis Turquoise Gradient and Garthenor Organic Presseli. I think these colours match Llandudno Promenade far better as well!
My fine spinning is definitely getting more consistent – it’s not completely the same all the way through, but when it’s plied it will be a really nice yarn to knit with. This is blue faced Leicester wool dyed by Sealy MacWheely, that I bought at Wonderwool in April.
This afternoon I signed up as a designer for the Fasten Off Yarn-a-long 2022. Last year’s event was a lot of fun and I hope that this year will be even more so! FOYAL runs from 25th November until the end of December and involves lots of independent knitting and crochet designers offering 25% discount on some or all of their Off-Ravelry designs as well as lots of online social interaction. You can find out more on the Fasten Off Yarn-a-long website.
The Safe Space cross stitch is really coming along now. It’s amazing how much progress you can make when you do a bit each day (shock, horror!). There are another 9 blocks/flags to do and then the ‘Welcome’ sign in the middle with the blackwork section.
Do you remember me telling you about my embroidery floss storage? I tried to do the second drawer for my Anchor threads, but I had to re-do it last week. There were two reasons for this. Firstly this drawer is deeper than the top one and the dividers needed to be taller. I hadn’t noticed this before I made them and the fuller sections were trying to overflow onto their neighbours. Secondly, the cereal box I used just wasn’t the same quality cardboard and the dividers were floppy. It seems trivial, but it made a big difference. If you are going to try making similar drawer dividers I highly recommend the boxes that Harvest Morn Bran Flakes from Aldi come in. (The bran flakes are fantastic too and one third the price of Kellogg’s!). I used the fronts and backs only. One box was enough for the shallower top drawer but I needed three pieces of card for the deeper middle one. It’s a lovely little old chest of drawers that Mum has passed on to me and I really enjoy using it for my embroidery threads.
That’s all from me for today. The Welsh learning is continuing on Duolingo and I’m trying to use it a bit, but the thought of actually speaking to someone is scary in case they then launch into a whole conversation that I can’t follow! Anyway, here’s a true sentence about me in Welsh: Dw i ddim yn bwyta cig, ond dw i mwynhau llysiau. – I do not eat meat, but I do enjoy vegetables.
Take care one and all. Until next week, K x