Progressing Slowly But Surely

As you can see the Lacy Duster coat is progressing slowly but surely. I have about another 10" to crochet. At the moment the bottom edge stitch is looking a little frilly but it will sort itself out after it has been blocked and hung on a hanger.

Charlie's new hooded jacket is also progressing slowly. The reason for the slowness is that I was at a Christening for most of the day yesterday.

My niece picked me up dressed in a summer dress and bolero type cardigan and was making fun of me dressed in my coat and my shawlette. After waiting outside the Church in the cold for a half hour before we could go into the church no-one was laughing at me then. The street that the Church is on has to be one of the coldest in my town as the sun never shines on the Church any more due to the planners allowing a multi storey apartment complex to be built right across the road from it. The street not only has no sunshine now it also is like standing in a wind tunnel. We all had to wait outside the Church for the Sunday Mass to finish before we could go in and it over ran.

Some guests at another baby's Christening were dressed in strapless flimsy dresses as if they were going to a Summer wedding and a few of their children were literally blue with the cold and shivering. Child abuse for the sake of fashion in my opinion. It wasn't a warm day even in the sun and to bring a child out without a cardigan or coat is just plain madness in my opinion. The Church wasn't that warm so they could not warm up once they finally got inside. I have been inside the Church several times for Weddings and Christenings and whilst it is a lovely Church it is always cold even in the middle of Summer.

Hopefully I will catch up with my knitting and crocheting tonight but now it's time for a warming cup of coffee and perhaps a sandwich for my lunch.

Busy fingers from now until Christmas

My niece is off work this week for half term so she has been busy shopping for wool for the family for Christmas. The grey is destined for her sister's long aran cardigan. The red is for Cinnabar for herself, The black for Auntie Claire's shawl and the blue and orange for some Moroccan style slippers. I will certainly be kept busy from now until Christmas.

My niece also got some T shirts for baby Charlie as I have been invited to his christening on Sunday and wanted a bit of a present to take with me. I asked her to get them for me as I didn't know which size to buy for him.

I am hoping to finish off the half finished premature cot blanket to go with the other two in the photo. I will give them to Vicky tomorrow as she is collecting blankets for Bliss Charity which is the charity nominated by National Knitting Week. I have already given her two to post off for Bliss. The Noras also raised about £40 from Vicky's Knit In at her house last week. Well done everyone.

The Breast Cancer charity night at the Kings has raised approx £400 but I haven't got the exact amount as yet. Well done everyone there as well.

I had a lovely surprise phone call last night from my eldest great grand daughter. She was telling me that she had used her 3rd birthday money from me (along with some other birthday money) and she had bought Baby Annabel and she cries. Her little sister wanted to chat and her speech is really clear for one so young. She is only 18 months old. I will try to see that Father Christmas brings some clothes for baby Annabel.

Tomorrow I am going back up to see Janet from DKY at Bolton Market to collect some sock wool. Something else to finish off before Christmas. Has anyone got any matchsticks for my eyes? I am going with Vicky and hopefully meeting up with Sylvia and possibly Kath for a coffee.

I had better rediscover my knitting and crochet mojo PDQ )pretty damn quick) as I have so much to do before Christmas. Off for a strong coffee to give me a bit of caffeine.

I seem to be unable to type a title to the blog today so I hope it will save anyway.

I finished off the 2 baby crochet jackets in time for Emily's (my youngest step great grand daughter's christening) on Sunday. These jackets were my own design loosely based on a jacket I had seen in a Candi Jensen book. She had used chenille with a fabric border and purchased frog fasteners. I like the style but not the use of chenille for a baby and I am not much of a sewer so the fabric border was not to my liking.

I just used double knit and crocheted a stitch I had used in a previous garment. It is 1 relief treble around a treble post and then one normal treble. The next row is double crochet all across. Followed by a row similar to the first but alternating the relief treble and the treble again followed by a row of double crochet. The 4 rows form the pattern and it makes quite a chunky fabric so I used a 5mm hook with the double knit so the jackets would not be too stiff to wear. I used one of my previously finished baby jackets for size and just crocheted these jackets to the same measurements. Unfortunately as per usual I didn't write anything down so if I get asked to make any more jackets then I will have to wing it once again. I made one for each baby but the photo is of the smaller one.

The frog type fastenings were my own design. I made a centre ring and then put 3 petal shapes into the ring and then put a chain loop where the 4th petal would have been. I then went around the chain loop with double crochet. I made another the same for the other side and crocheted a ball in double crochet stuffed with a minute amount of wadding to form the button.

I have now sort of mastered my digital camera that my son bought for me last Christmas so maybe in the future my photos on here will be crisper on the details but as I haven't yet mastered the flash it may be a while!

Today the rain seems to be holding off for a little while so I may be able to get into the garden and sort out my veggie plants in the grow houses. They have been sadly neglected of late what with the rain and all of the buidling projects in the house. I still have to put the storage stuff back into the loft. I purchased some storage boxes and bags so my stash of buttons, ribbons and yarn will be nice and dry as well as clean when it goes back into the loft space.

I had a little drama on Saturday evening. I had just got into the shower when my smoke detector started screaming at me. I checked (dripping wet from my shower) but there was no fire. I had to ring the fire station as they had fitted the detectors with the warning "do not touch them yourself no matter what" It got quite exciting after that as they sent a fire engine ( they had to in case they got called to a fire whilst at my house) and I had the pleasure of 2 extremely handsome firemen who removed the faulty detector and replaced it with a new one. They said that dust had gone into the detector. It must have happened when I had the loft re-lagged and boarded but didn't trigger the detector until a few days later. My neighbours were all concerned as it was 11.15pm and they thought I had a house fire!