All Go

Oh, it's all go on the crafting front lately and it's making me so happy. My head is bursting with ideas and my crochet mojo (crojo?) has returned with a vengeance. 

As you know I started a granny stripe blanket for Angus a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I've added any rows since I last showed it to you, but that's ok, it's going to be a slow burner, this one - something easy to work on between other projects, or for those evenings when I just want something relaxing. I know that I can't work continuously on projects like blankets and that I need to alternate them with other things. 

While thinking about colour planning for this blanket, I thought I'd try this trick I keep seeing everywhere of wrapping yarn scraps around clothes pegs. I wondered it it really did help, and it does; it is much easier to visualise the next few rows this way rather than waving balls of wool around as I usually do, holding them up against each other and squinting. I found I had a much better sense of how the colours would work next to each other by using the pegs. 

I am loving the ease and simplicity of the pattern and, while summer is not an ideal time to begin a heavy woollen project, I hope it will simmer along nicely in the background before I work on it in earnest next autumn. 

In other crochet news, I became consumed recently with the making of a clutch bag, finishing it a few days ago. This length of chevron fabric was sew together, lined, zippered and taken Out-Out on Friday night. 

I need to write it all up into a proper post now but trust me, it's a beauty. It came out better than I could have hoped. 

My other current obsession, cross stitch - in particular cross stitching napkins - continues. I found four plain green napkins in the sideboard recently that I'd forgotten I had and thought they'd benefit from some flowers, it being summer and everything. (And yes, I am well aware that I possibly have too many napkins.)

I kept the stitches larger here, working over two holes in the soluble canvas, not one, as I did for these, and I like the more pixelated effect. 

I keep thinking about starting my cross stitch sampler but I seem to be having trouble. It's too dark, I'm too tired - plotting that first central stitch is tricky.

Also, I had some trouble locating the exact kind of linen the pattern specified - Zweigart Belfast Linen in Stone Grey - so I just ordered Cream, thinking it would be a good neutral colour. But when it arrived it was much too light, more of a pale baby yellow. Pretty, but not right for the colours in the pattern which are designed to be worked against a grey background. 

So I ordered more in Linen Raw, below, and it's much closer to the one in the image on the pattern. 

You can see the difference in the shades better below. Subtle, but important. I'll find a use for the cream fabric, it wont go to waste. 

I'm already kind of winging it with this pattern, as I refused to go out and buy the exact shades for every thread specified, given that I already have so many. I matched them as closely as I could by eye, and just bought two more when I really didn't have anything remotely similar. so I thought I should try and get the fabric right. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to starting this. It's a nice summer project.


The other thing I really want to do is make some hanging planters trying a macrame or knotting technique. The furthest I've got is buying this yarn and staring at images. 

What are you working on at the moment? Any crafting obsessions? 

I hope you've had a nice weekend. Ours was spent working on the kitchen (what else?) but those last jobs are done and the house is clean, the dining furniture is now where it should be and normality is slowly returning. It feels so good.