A Hooded Shawl

As I have mentioned before my son asked me if I would make a shawl or something with a hood for my daughter in law to wear when she is reading in bed and gets cold shoulders. As you have already seen I have made her a chenille knitted shoulder shawl but I decided to try to make something with a hood. I used the Triangle shawl from Contemporary Crochet by Sys Fredens as a base for the triangle shape. I used 2 x 200 gram balls of James C Brett Marble Chunky bought online from Purplelinda. It is a lovely soft acrylic chunky yarn that comes in a variety of shaded colours.

I then added a crochet edging as I think that the shawl as per the pattern looks unfinished without one.

Then I made a basic hood. Instead of sewing it to the shawl I decided to stitch buttons to the hood so that the shawl can be worn with or without the hood. If she wants to wear it over her dress then all she has to do is unbutton the hood and it's a normal shawl once again. I just used loops within the crochet as buttonholes.

I got these yarns in the Black Sheep online sale. I have ideas for yarn mixing for Christmas presents and for one of them I wanted themes of beige and brown so I am starting collecting bargains in fancy yarns to use up with some other yarn from my stash. The pink balls are just for frivolity as I love the colours.

Why exercise books and coloured pencils? I am going to try to be more organized with my pattern writing. When I am designing and altering patterns I have bits of paper scattered about the house which I invariably lose and then when I want to make something again I can never remember what I did. The books came in a bargain pack of 10 so I will use each one for something different. One will be for designs that are, as yet, still in my head, another for actual written patterns and another for my machine knitting. I am sure that there will be different categories as I go along.

I am still organising. Why does flat pack furniture have to involve so much sweat and tears? I am a woman so I did try to follow the instructions (unlike a man) but as they were just diagrams which didn't really help much there was a bit of unladylike cussing before the pieces finished up looking like this.

Yes I did notice that it said SHOE rack. However living in my little doll's house which has a hall the size of a doormat I needed somewhere to store my collection of scarves, hats and gloves. They were previously on a rack that was too small and finished up as a great tangle of scarves and I could never  find the right one when I was going anywhere. Now they are quite tidy and as the rack is on wheels it give me access to the meter box which is behind it. As it isn't very wide then there is just about enough room for me to pass by to the staircase and to open the front door. Gosh one of these days I will look tidy. I am sorting rooms out bit by bit.

I still have to find a permanent home for my little drawers and flat trays which hold my haberdashery as at the moment they are in my front room by the side of my chair making the room look messy. Perhaps I need to find room in my dining room as that is now a work room with 2 knitting machines and cones of wool stored in there. I could sort out my bookshelf that is filled with baby wool at the moment and make some spare room on there for them.

I still haven't got started on knitting lace on the knitting machine and every day I say to myself - Today is the Day but it never is !

Next week I will be taking part in this event (info taken from Artyarn website - link in my blog title) I am not sure which days I will be riding on the Metro but it sounds like a great deal of fun.

June 6th - 10th - Stitch n' Ride, Manchester City Centre (UK)

Join ArtYarn on a Manchester Tram and be part of a new performance based commission for the Lost & Found festival (via Manchester Contact Theatre).

More information will be released soon, in the meantime if you like the sound of this then e-mail for more info at: info@artyarn.org to get on the list of performers.

Venue: A Manchester Tram, Manchester city centre

 

Rachael's blog is well worth a visit as it is always full of very interesting things happening in our local area. I have been lucky enough to take part in quite a few of her  projects and hope to continue doing so in the future. She is a real inspiration to me.

 

The day is a wasting and so I must occupy myself with something. As my Mother used to say. "The Devil makes work for Idle Hands" Is it any wonder that I fill my days? I think that my Mother (and my Aunts) scared the hell out of me when I was a child. If I sit doing nothing I feel such a sense of guilt .