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.