A new friend and new fabric

A new lady joined us at the Friday knitting group a few weeks ago.  She fitted in straightaway but that’s really not hard as they’re a fantastic group.  They’ve helped me renew an interest in knitting and crochet with many tips (and tricks!).  

She’d mentioned she’d got some fat quarters she’d like to give me as I was talking about my new patchwork jacket.  Last Friday she gave them to me and here they are.

I wanted to say thank you and decided to offer her a microwave soup bowl cozie which she said she’d like.  I’ll show you next week - AFTER I’ve given it to her today!!!

Here are the fabrics.  First of all the front and then the back of the three bundles of fat quarters.  OR is it the back first and then the front?!?

Another project

This time sewing.

I have a small amount of this cat fabric left from other projects but it’s an awkward shape!!  It’s like a cross shape but I forgot to take a photo before I started.  There’s a sketch below to show you the ‘problem’.  There was also another small amount too.  

A dear member of the family spotted the fabric and she just LUVS cats so I thought - that’s got to be something for her.  A box, I thought.  So I cut out four sides and a bottom.  I’ve got plenty of wadding at the moment so that was brought into the equation too.  

Now I’m hopeless with bag and box making.  I cannot find exactly what I want on pattern searches so I thought I’d do what I usually do and ‘wing it’.  

So far, so good!!!

                                            

It’s finished - the scarf

Well here it is in all its glory.  On probably the hottest day of the year, so far, I finished it!!!  

BUT - I have a problem, Houston!!!  More next week, probably.

Competition time but no prizes!!!!

The competition is to spot the old git who’s tatting!!!!  That wasn’t hard, was it!!!

The photo was taken by a local paper’s photographer in Alcester library a few weeks ago and I thought it was worth sharing.  

Can you see the lady in the pink trousers with the gorgeous white hair sitting at the front?  Well that’s Betty.  She’s 97 now (waiting for a second hip replacement) and next to her holding her ball of yarn is Nicky who is one of the library staff.  Betty knitted - well, I’m not going to tell you as it says in the article which you can click on to enlarge.  

Nicky helped with the bobbles for the hats and she provides us with the thermos of water to make our cups of tea.  You can’t have a Crafternoon without a cuppa, can you?

Josephine ring/picot

Now why oh why didn’t I think of trying this out before?  

As regular readers will know I'm not that 'fond' of Josephine rings - well, not the traditional way of making them by using just the first half or just the second half of the double knot and so many years ago (14, I believe) I discovered this way of making them and abandoned the traditional way forever!!!  I've no idea where the idea came from - probably one of my older books and I've no idea if it's got a special name either.  Perhaps somebody 'out there' will know the answer!!

I find that the actual JR sits much better if this method is used so that's the way I always do mine!!  I'm old, stubborn, but know what I like and don't like!!!

A few days ago I actually got thinking about it again as I caught a glimpse of a comment online so this made me wonder what the 'bottom' jp method would look like if I did the bottom idea but made picots!!  So would these be picots on picots (jp's)?  I tried it out and here's the result.

The picture at the top was scanned using 300dpi (dots per inch) and the bottom one is 600dpi.

Can you see how that lovely twist really 'perks up' the technique?  I can 'see' earwigs made out of this idea!!!!