80

I don’t usually put personal ‘stuff’ up on the blog or on Facebook.  Mainly because I don’t think I’m interesting enough.

Well last week I hit 80 years old.  My lovely neighbours across the road took me out to lunch, gave me presents including flowers (see pictures) and that was lovely.  Another neighbour invited me round for a drink in the evening and we decided to have a ‘knit and natter’ evening.  BUT it turned out it was a surprise party with lovely friends and neighbours.  I was absolutely gobsmacked and had a MEGA evening with pressies, flowers and lovely nibbles’

Friday it was back to normal or thereabouts!!!!

Saturday more flowers arrived from friends who live ‘round the corner’ and my daughters plus other family all turned up with 3 out of 4 grandkids plus one girlfriend.  The weather was amazingly warm so we sat in the garden.  Around three o’clock they told me we were going out.  They ‘marched’ me into town to one of the big hotels where they’d arranged afternoon tea with Prosecco as well.  It was WONDERFUL 

We came home after and again it was warm enough to sit in the garden until it was dusk.  My son in law produced an amazing chilli con carne ‘out of the blue’ which was great as I’d not been told that any of this was happening.  WHAT a joy to be 80.  

I’m not sure what the family think but I’ve told them that next year I’m going to be 80 again.  Again and again and again.  THANK YOU to you ALL for an amazing birthday.

 

On the ‘home run’ - but

Still a long way to go.  That’s the problem with projects like this.  You start from the middle and things go pretty quickly but as you get further out there’s more and more work needed.  

Here’s the next part.  As you can see I’ve added in four small seven hex motifs to make the whole thing rectangular.  I think the cloth needs to be a little longer but the depth is fine.  Now to work out the next part.  The end is in sight and my winter project will be done before winter has arrived. 

That’s the problem when you get addicted to a project.  

I’m round the bend

Well you all knew that anyway but I’m also ‘round the bend’ of the heel!!!  

Now it’s ‘onward and upward’ I hope!!!!

Next time you hear about the sock I’m hoping it’ll be finished with just one more sock to make!!!  Liz has two legs so that means she’ll need two socks!!!!

Now stitched but more decisions needed!!!

I’ve got those four large motifs done and stitched down.  Mainly because I stayed in ALL day on Saturday!!!

As you can see I’m now ‘squaring it off’ and hope that it will soon become a rectangle to fit my table.  There’s still a long way to go, though.

A message but not in a bottle!

Life last week was a little ‘stressful’ so not a lot of crafting got done but I still have things to show you!!

First of all was this lovely message from Anita who said

“Thank you Jane!  For having this project online, it inspired me to make a miniature baby blanket.”

This cheered me up no end as it’s a rare thing to hear from people who use my patterns.  If they were in book form I’d know whether they were popular or not from whether people were buying the books but doing things for free leaves you in a sort of vacuum.

Ah, well, back to my vacuum with thanks to Anita for cheering me up!!!!

Another scarf

You probably don’t remember but I had two big balls of yarn that I knitted this scarf out of.  Well the scarf only took one ball so I have another ball left to deal with.  

This is the start of scarf number two!!!  I’m using exactly the same pattern as last time as I found I could remember it pretty easily.  I’m only doing this when I’m at Friday knitting as I can work on it and chat at the same time!!!

Looking back and looking forward!

Now it’s time for another lot of decisions over the patchwork.  If you look back here you’ll find the inspiration for my project - except, of course, that mine is mainly blue!!!

Now I have to start thinking about the length of my cloth as the width is ‘almost there’ and I’m hoping to add a border onto it too.  

The top picture shows the motifs that will go in and which will hopefully start making the cloth rectangular.  Playing with the motifs before I actually sew them on you’ll see from the other pictures that I’ve got a few choices to make and also need more of the ‘seven hexagon’ smaller motifs too.  Obviously these will be using other fabrics so choices on that will have to be made too!!!

Sock failure

A total failure on this sock has to be reported!!!

I was bumbling along doing pretty well but on Thursday evening I picked up the project and accidentally managed to pull off stitches from both ends of the circular needle.

As you will all know - undoing and re-doing things never phases my wonderful BC3 so I thought that would be easy to resolve.  

NO WAY.  I was halfway through doing the heel and there were wrapped and unwrapped and slipped stitches all over the place and some of the unravelling had gone down a few rows so the only way forward was to go backward.  I unravelled back to before the heel and have now started knitting it again.  Well almost on this picture!!!

Patchwork and another ‘round’ done.

Well this part is finished.  If you look back here you’ll see I’m still addicted to this particular project!!!  It was going to be my ‘winter project’ but I’m now doubting if it will last that long!!!  

Problems resolved

As I’ve mentioned before I am making another pair of socks but this time I decided to use a different pattern.  

After the last post about this new sock (here) I didn’t realise that the heel part would be so very different to the last pattern I used.  I had several days when I didn’t do anything because I didn’t understand the pattern!!!!  

Finally the ‘penny dropped’ and I finally got partway round the heel.  Here’s a picture of where I’m at now!!

Patchwork progression

I’m still plodding away on the patchwork cloth but still enjoying it.  This is going to be a loooong round of little motifs joined together with a darker colour.  

Two days of tatting!

Saturday and Sunday were spent in Lifeways at the Heritage Craft weekend.  

It was a great opportunity to catch up with other crafting friends.  Jane who I see at the Alcester group on a Friday and Sue who I haven’t seen for years.  We had a ‘two day gossip’ and found out that we had many mutual friends!!!

Here are some pictures taken soon after we had set up on the Sunday morning.  

Above - Spinning Jane!

An interested visitor modelling my tatted poncho

Our current town mayor (seated) learning to do braiding.

Anybody want a cupcake?

A change of scenery for today.  Believe me tatting is continuing but it has to be kept a secret at the moment.  I’ve not started on a TIAS yet and have doubts it will happen next year.  I’m doing too may other things at the moment!!  I do have an idea which I think is good but actually making a TIAS out of it is not yet happening.

Meanwhile a neighbour asked me to make a pair of earrings for another neighbour and she chose these cupcakes from the web page which is here.

A lovely diversion!!!

A new sock

It had to happen!!!  Liz decided on a lovely purple and white yarn for her next pair of socks but I couldn’t get it locally.  As she was going into the big city she said she’d pop in and buy it from the larger Hobbycraft there.  

Well this is what she got instead and I think it’s lovely.  I prefer it to her original choice!!!  Funnily enough Ruth (at Friday knitting) was knitting socks with the same yarn last Friday!!!

I’ve made a start on the new pair of socks as you can see.  I’m using a shortish circular needle and the magic loop idea which I find as good as dpn’s.  I like dpn’s (double pointed needles) but I think I’d confuse myself when it comes to working round the heel.  

Oh, this time I’m using this pattern from Ravelry as recommended by t’other Sue!!  I’m enjoying this pattern as Jo (the designer) tells you what and why you’re doing things as you go along.  

Patchwork - the centre is together.

Finally made good headway with my ‘so called’ winter project!!!  I was going to keep the patchwork to do over the winter months but sadly it’s called to me too loudly so I’ve got on with it!!!  

The top picture is the finalised middle of the cloth whereas below is just me playing with ideas for the next round of florets.  Of course I still need to decide on the centres of these two and there’s another ‘round’ to go onto the top picture but planning ahead is essential.

Finished - well almost!!

The first scarf is finished - almost.  I just need to sew in the two ends.  

This is the yarn I used and this is just a day or so into doing it.

Don’t forget - I have another ball of the same so be prepared for more!!!

Patchwork progress too.

You’ll see here that I’ve laid the pieces out to ‘play’ with positioning. I’m really enjoying this task but I do keep changing my mind over ‘what to put where’!!!

Sewing them together is going to take quite a bit of time!!!

A book you can’t afford to miss

There are very few tatting books that really appeal to me.  There’s the odd doily in the odd book but over the sixty plus years of collecting there aren’t many doilies that I’d care to tat twice!!  Must admit there are one or two that I’ve done several times but those were back in my teenage years when patterns were few and far between.

There are designers whom I respect beyond all measure like Dora Young, Mary Konior, Elgiva Nichols to name but a few but sadly these people have all died so there will be no more books from them. 

BUT we have a ‘very much alive’ designer whose every book is a ‘must have’.  Who and why I hear you ask.  

It’s Martha Ess and the ‘why’ is because she ALWAYS comes up with the BEST ideas/designs.  I’ve had the pleasure (and believe me - it is a pleasure) to have test tatted a lot of her patterns over the years and she not only comes up with fantastic designs but she also tests my BC3 too.  She has the knack of putting in little tricks that you thing ‘what is she doing that for’ and a bit later on find yourself saying - ‘oh, that’s WHY - what a great idea’.  Not necessarily a new technique but a new way of doing something.  Martha ROCKS.

So her latest book (Whimsical Tatting) is full of the most appealing designs and you can order directly from Martha herself which she’ll sign for you too.  Here’s the link.

I’d suggest you look at her other books on that page too.  You never know what you’ll find.  I’m not showing you the cover of my copy as you can see that on Martha’s blog but I am going to show off a picture from the book and Martha’s thank you too.

Finally finished

The second sock is done!!!  

I’m now looking forward to starting another pair but this time using a different pattern that Sue sent me.  

Progress on the yellow/grey scarf is going well but not quite finished yet.   I’ve also got on a bit further with the patchwork cloth too.  More about that in a few days!!!

Decisions decisions.

All I know about this new project is that it’s going to be a cloth to go over a very, very old table in my bedroom AND that it’s going to be blue to match my bed linen!!!  

Unlike Diane (Lacelovin’ Librarian) I’m not that fond of blue.  BUT I’m slowly beginning to really love it.  I actually didn’t realise how much ‘blue’ I’d got in my stash until I decided to do this cloth.  So it’s now time to consider how to put them all together.  

Remember - this is the pattern I’ve decided to try and replicate.

This is where poor old BC3 struggles with so many choices.  I’m the same about everything in my life - I’m a real prevaricator!!!