A Busy Couple Of Days

I have had a busy couple of days. On Friday my friend came with the Patons Crystal with cotton that she had bought at the Black Sheep Sale. I know that I am supposed to be on a no buy at the moment but when she phoned to tell me about it and that it was reduced from £19.90 to £4.99 a pack now what is a girl to do? I can't resist a bargain like that.I have not decided what I will make with it as yet so at the moment it has gone into my stash.

I have finished off the little pink jacket. The pattern that I used is Little Princess by Laura Gebhardt and is from the book Crochet for Little Babies that I bought from Amazon a few weeks ago. The jacket is part of a set but although I have made the jacket twice now I haven't got around to making the matching dress. The wool is 100 grams of unlabelled pink fleck acrylic double knit.

I have almost finished a lilac bolero but on Friday my hopes of crocheting for a baby girl hit a setback. With fostering you can never be sure which baby is arriving or if they are arriving until the very last minute, The 3 month old baby that was due to arrive at the foster Mum's is no longer coming so I am keeping my fingers crossed that when the call comes again for another baby that it will be a girl. Otherwise I will have to crochet like mad in blue!It's all part of the uncertainty of fostering and is another reason why I take my hat off to people who do foster. I know that it is something that I could not do.

On Saturday I did some food shopping and then I had a furry visitor for the night. My son and daughter in law were going out so I had Buster overnight. He is such a loving soul that I would dearly love to have him with me full time but as I cannot walk him then it isn't fair on him. He is coming back next weekend and possibly bringing Skye with him. I will have to wait and see if I have one dog or two. It hasn't been decided as yet. The couple across the road have offered to walk Skye for us if she arrives. She will go with them whereas when they tried with Buster he refused to go. He is more clingy than Skye due to the fact that he was a rescue dog who had 3 owners ( 2 of which ill treated him) before he came to our family at the age of 7 months. He can't get put in kennels when they go on holiday as he gets stressed and all of his hair falls out.

I have started another All Shawl with some of the oddments that I got given. There isn't enough of the Sirdar Sea Pearl to make the shawl in one colour. I choose the All Shawl pattern as it is so easy to make and it suits having the bottom pattern done in another colour. I will put this shawl away when it is finished. As I mentioned before I am aiming to have a few ready by Christmas time to pass on to old ladies. I will keep crocheting a shawl here and there before Christmas.

I have decided that the wool that I bought from Purplelinda isn't suitable for the crocheted Baby Surprise Jacket. As you can see on the pattern it needs a wool with longer lengths of colour to give it the striped effect and the James C Brett wool that I bought only has about a 4" colour sequence so will turn out flecked rather than striped. In knitting it would be a slight stripe but as treble take up quite a bit of wool for each stitch then one colour would only make a couple of trebles hence the spotted effect.

I am hoping to go into Bury on Wednesday so will have a look if there is something there will a longer colour length in a neutral colour as it may be for a boy.

The sun is shining today although it does keep going dull and is quite windy. It rained overnight. When I let Buster out in the middle of the night his coat was quite damp when he came back in. I have washing on the line so I hope that the rain stays away until it has all dried. Now I will have to dust and hoover and try to get rid of all the hair that Buster so kindly left behind when he left.

All Stitched Up

Finally the boy's sweater are stitched up but as you can see from the photos not yet blocked out. It seems to take me hours to stitch anything together. Drop shouldered sweaters are easy to make but I mess about for ages lining up the sleeves and making sure that both sides are level. I always sew my sleeves in flat before sewing the side seams for this reason. I have seen too many lob sided bunched sleeves, when I had the wool shop, that haunt me whenever I have to stitch anything together.

The wool that I used was James C Brett's Rio Double Knitting Shade RT 23 which although mostly acrylic has 20% wool which gives it that woolly look and feel.The colour has come out a bit pinky looking on the photos but is actually beige with a dull green and pale chocolate mingle.The pattern that I used is a Sirdar Snuggly 3735 which I think looks quite a boyish design despite Sirdar putting embroidered lazy daisies in the middle of the diamonds a touch which I didn't think the boy's mum would appreciate. The pattern also has a cardigan and some baggy trousers again adorned with lazy daisies. The reason that I knitted both sweaters in the same colour was an economic one as I can make 2 sweaters from 300 grams whereas if I made them in different colours I would need 200 grams for each sweater.

There is still snow outside although the sun is bravely trying to shine but there is not enough warmth today to melt the snow so once again I will be staying indoors. I will try to decide my next project to start tonight. I think it will be a crochet one but time will tell when I look at my patterns and my stash and see what inspires me tonight.