Ripple Blanket finished!

Yay!!!
Remember way back in February, when Mel over at One Crafty Mumma organised a crochet blanket Ripple along? I know,it's a while ago now! I have been rather slack with keeping up with my blanket, however, I have finally finished it!

The first half went quickly, but the second half did take me a while, however I am so glad I stuck with it. The coziness of it is just lovely and it has been keeping me warm as I have been working on it!

I lay it out to measure it and my model decided to roll all over it, but it measures approx 41" wide by 46" long. A decent sized lap blanket anyway and my yarn calculations worked out really well. A little bit of the lavender left, I had to use a little of a second ball of cream which had a different batch number, but the same dye number, so that wasn't noticeable, and then I decided to add 3 rows of single crochet (with 1ch spaces) around the edge to finish it off, which used up pretty much all of that second ball. So approx 6 balls of 8ply yarn all from my yarn stash using a 5.5mm hook.
The other thing that makes this blanket special is that the yarn was added to my stash from my Nanna's stash. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to her late last year when she passed away and it has been really hard since then to not be able to visit or pickup the phone and just talk to her. Some days I still forget that she isn't here anymore and of course, the last month or so with Mother's Day and her birthday have been a little less happy occasions this year. My grandpa began sorting out the cupboards early this year and knew that she would want me to have her knitting and wool, so I inherited a yarn stash as big as the one I already had, and working on this blanket with the yarn I know my Nanna had chosen at one time or another has helped me feel closer to her, just for that bit longer.

Thanks for the inspiration Mel and I am happy to have it ready and waiting to be gifted to the right person! Have a look here to see Mel's and some other beautiful ripple blankets!

UFO Challenge

As you would know if you read through a few of my posts, I need a bit of motivation (kick in the backside!) to get moving on some projects! I love to get going on projects, but then often find I lack the time needed to finish them off (when it gets to the fiddly bits :/) and so they sit there and sit there, waiting ....
Tonya, over at The Crafty Mummy has started up a 'Finish a UFO Challenge' to inspire those of us that need some help to get these projects finished and out on display/gift them/use them/etc instead of them gathering dust waiting for the final touches.
My first UFO Challenge is 2 part
1. Finish my Ripple-a-long blanket! I have to stitch in all the ends and then I decided to add a border too as there are a few wobbles along the sides that I would like to tidy up and I think a few rows around the edge will make it look nice and 'finished' and it won't be sitting in my basket waiting for me any longer!

2. Finish piecing my cowboy quilt top. I started piecing it a few months ago and got sidetracked and the pieces got dumped in a box! I need to get them out and put them together so I can then start on the quilting. Luckily I took the picture below so I can figure out the layout of the unpieced bits again!

 Okay, so that is my plan for June! Let me know if you are joining in too and what your plans are

Slacker!

Sorry, I have been a bit slack on here lately. My little man was very grumpy in the evenings and nights last week (tooth popped through on Saturday, yay!) and then on Saturday hubby and I succumbed to the colds the kids had been trying to share with us :(
I have also been spending some time preparing for the upcoming birthday party! Can't believe my big boy is turning 7! Batman party accessories are all sorted and then I decided last night to go ahead and make the Flannel Rag quilt with the Batman flannel I had bought (with some matching plain flannel) .... smart idea to do this when my head was foggy and it was already 8pm! I did manage to get it all cut and pieced, and am about halfway through snipping the edges - my fingers needed a break, hence the blog post! I will share some pictures next weekend after the party.
Anyway, here is an update photo on my Ripple blanket ...

It's 3/4 the way there, I don't think I will get anything done this week though, but then I will be getting stuck into it as I would like to have it done by the end of the school holidays ... then I can start the next blanket!

No photos!

I have happily got a few things finished today but I took pictures on my new phone and now can't figure out how to get them onto the computer to upload! Argh! It tells me I need new software, but times out when I try to download it and then can't seem to connect as a disk drive. Thinking I may have to get hubby to check it out for me tomorrow as he is at work right now, so I'll have to get back to you with photos .... but I'll let you know what I have been up to ....
I made a little taggie blanket for a friend's new baby boy. It's flannel on both sides and I used a piece of iron on pellon on each piece so it was a little thicker and after I top-stitched the edges, I also stitched his first initial 'J' in the centre to add a little bit of 'quilting'. I was really pleased with the end result and think I will make some more of these in the future. Oh, and I also made a card to go with it :)
I also finally finished a dress I began to make for A2 last winter! It's a pinafore style and in pinwhale cord, silly me though thought maybe I could make it reversible and used a plain cord to line it, but I just couldn't get the hem right so I have ended up using binding to stitch around the bottom edge. It's not too bad, but just not really what I wanted, and of course has now ended up being a bit long ... maybe that means it will last her until next year too though?! Oh well!
There were also a couple of other cards I have made for upcoming birthdays and of course my Ripple-A-long blanket! It's slowly growing :) Off to keep working on it now, hope to be able to share some pics with you soon ...

Ripple update ....

Slowly, slowly ... I haven't got as much done this week as I had hoped because I've had a few busy evenings, but any progress is something I guess :) Here is a photo ....

Look at all those ends that need darning in! I should sit and do that one night instead of another row to make it look tidy ;) Loving how it's keeping me warm now too as it grows, perfect for the cooler evenings on their way! Back soon :)

Rippling in the car

I managed to spend about half the trip yesterday getting stuck into the Ripple blanket and here it is so far ...

Just over half-way! Well, that's if my calculations are correct! lol! I'm happy with how it looks and it will be a nice little either baby cot size or kids lap size when it is done ..... I think my little miss has been eying it off, actually! Was glad I didn't get car sick trying to crochet in the car this time as it was definitely good use of the time and I learned that I can play Eye-Spy and crochet at the same time!
I also made a start on a beanie for A1, I'd found a ribbed pattern online (need to find the pattern again so I can link) and he had been asking for one, so that was a nice change for my fingers on the way home.

Week 1 : Ripple-along progress

I have a couple of other projects to share pics of later this week , but tonight marks the end of the first weeks of One Crafty Mumma's Ripple-along so we are sharing pictures of our progress. Here are my first 14 'bands'!

I got to 13 1/2 by Thursday night then got caught on other things the last 2 days so got stuck back into it tonight and have now done 2 more 'bands'. As you can see, mine is not a pattern with 2 rows/1 band per colour. I was recently gifted some wool, so I decided to use colours from that stash instead of buying more. I had 3 balls of the yellow, 2 of the lavender and 1 of the cream, and after I crocheted 2 rows I weighed what I had done (I figured the foundation chain weight would just give me a little bit of leeway) and then used that weight to plan the pattern for my blanket. It remains to be seen whether it will work out correctly at the end!!! I hope to do 8 repeats of the pattern (yellow, lavender, cream, lavender) and then finish with another section of yellow. If I have enough I would love to have 9 repeats, but we shall see how it goes ....
See you again next week with a few more rows!