Yet Another Blanket!

Sorry for the late reveal. Things have been mental of late. However, I don't want to let this blog go as I love the creative outlet and I like seeing what other people are up to. A few weeks ago my knitting group had a baby shower for one of our members, Aileen. I was sadly working and as I had just moved to the ward I didn't want to ask for a swap. So I had to miss it.

I was still able to send in a gift though. I once again made one of those hear blankets. This will make for the third time as I did two of these last year. I did one for Swati and one for Lisa.

As with the other two ladies Aileen wanted to wait to find out the sex of the baby. As I am not a fan of traditional baby colours this was a good thing for me. I chose this vibrant orange against the white. I love the way it stands out and I love the edging. I decided not to add a round of white to it as I wanted to keep the effect.

I never learn. It took me hours to sew in all those ends. I am definitely not going to do this pattern again. I think I will look out something different for next time (as I am more than sure that there will be a next time). Something maybe without ends.

I still enjoyed making it though and I am still happy with the end result. It is a pretty pattern. The last few times I used Eco essentials cotton. This time I used the Women's Institute 4ply yarn. It feels like a cotton and goes a lot further. It's maybe just a tiny smidge thinner but it really has a lovely sheen to it and there is far less splitting.

The baby shower theme this time was Valentines as it fell round about that day. You can see how the night went over at the Stitch 'n' Bitch blog thanks to my friend, Helen.

Scottish Baby Shower

I'm not going to steal the thunder of my knitting groups blog. I just thought I would show you a very rare photo with me in it. Being the one usually taking the photo's I have been successful at avoiding the camera. Until now. So here is me presenting the lovely Lisa with her gift.

I can't take credit for the planning of this one. My friend Isabel came up with the idea of a Scottish themed baby shower. So you can see some of our Scottish goodies and our decorated table with irn bru kilts (am sure this isn't an official kilt). I can also tell you that those flags were used by my friend and her family to cheer on the athletes during the Games Road Race. If you want to see all the amazing things people made then head over to the group blog.

Lisa is the lovely lady who has runs For the Love of Yarn that I have been raving about over and over again. It was also her son who raised money for cancer research and I donated a pair of socks to the auction (did I mention that clever boy raised over £800). Well, the lady who had the winning bid likes purples and blues. It just so happened that Lisa had some of her hand dyed yarn in those colours. So I have this scrummy yarn on the pins.

You may have noticed that the Common Wealth Games have been and gone. I had wanted to be one of the volunteers but not really a good idea since it would coincide with my final placement. I also didn't watch much of it. Or any of it really. Even though I was riveted to the Olympics two years ago I found that I was just too tired or busy. So the extent of my excitement was seeing a lot of yarn bombing round near my sister's. A project that was done with school kids in time for the Games. I also have photo's of Clydes and other Games related decoration but they don't really fit in with a crafting blog.

I have nothing else to show you. To be honest I have been too tired to do much of anything on my days off. I have been concentrating on my final few weeks of my degree and that little project of job hunting. I have been reading craft pages and I still find myself on pinterest (although not quite as often). I have also been baking for my fellow nurses but as it's been more banana bread and my famous cookies I didn't think you would want to see yet more images of those.

Oh, which reminds me! Be prepared for some Great British Bake Off related posts. It's back and so far I am impressed with the contestants. Think it's going to be a good one.

Secret Project 2 Revealed.

Baby shower number 2 took place last night so I can finally show off my 2nd of 3 secret projects. You may find this blanket it rather familiar as it is really just the reverse of the blanket I did for the last baby shower. I had planned it that way all along and wasn't a way to use up yarn. In fact this blanket is a bit of a yarn eater. Sadly I forgot to note how many balls of yarn I used. I can tell you that I just had enough of the yellow and have three balls of white left over. That's not really helpful if you are wanting to make this yourself. Helpful to me though as I have a plan for that white.
 

I am not going to review the pattern again. You can read about my thoughts on it from the post I did on the first one. I will say that after two blankets I still wasn't bored of it. It was quite a nice one to work on and looks far more complicated than it actually is (that's a shout out to a few of my crafty friends who mistakenly believe they wouldn't be able to do it).

Once again, what I did not enjoy was all the ends. I was working on so many shifts and had essays and job applications to write that I did bits of this blanket whenever I had the time. That meant I wasn't going to waste it with the boring job of sewing in ends as I went. I wonder if I was expecting the pixies to do it.

Instead I had the lovely task of sewing them all in at the end. I guess I had about 100 on each side to sew in. I stopped counting when I got to 40 and wasn't even halfway up one side.

I still don't think this pattern looks like hearts. It's still pretty though. I also edged it the same way I did with the last one. Just a border of single crochet stitches in white and then in yellow. If anything it just makes it neater.

The baby shower itself was a success but I will tell you more on that next time. I am also still working on secret project 3 (not a baby shower gift) but I'm also going to be starting on something not so secret.

Baking and it's not Banana Bread!

Yep, that's right. I attempted a recipe I hadn't tried before because I had actual time to pay attention to what I was doing. Banana bread I can now do in my sleep. It's an easy option that takes 10 minutes to have one in the oven and another waiting. When you have made dozens of them it gets a little boring. I was desperate to try something new. I have a few recipes on my iPad and the cherry cake seemed like the simplest. That is it took fewer ingredients.

The folks were away and I was entertaining my sister so it seemed like the perfect time. Plus, I love cherry cake and my sister is partial to it too.

While the recipe may not use many ingredients it certainly used up almost every dish in the house. At one point I had three different mixtures in three different bowls which had to be stirred together a bit at a time. Who in the world has time for that? I am not going to lie. I was very tempted to cheat and just shove it all together. However, when a recipe tells you to have eggs in one bowl, flour in another and sugar and butter in yet another there is a reason for it. It made it all light and fluffy. I am sure disaster would have struck had I went with my initial "lets just shove it all together and see what happens".  I am sure a cake I have made in the past used a similar method and I remember being impressed with the results then. Can't for the life of me remember what it was mind you.

You then place the rest of the cherries on top of the cake. Sounds bizarre, I know, but the mix rises and envelops those cherries. So also worth doing. The end result was might tasty. Not just my words but also the words of my sister. In fact she wants me to give up my nursing career to open a bakery (not going to happen). I got the recipe from Waterstones as an ecard. If you are looking for it though you will find it in "The Baker's Daughter" by Louise Johncox. Very easy to follow and I might have to add this book to my wish list.

As you saw from my last post the baby shower has been and gone. In fact mum to be is no longer mum to be. She had a beautiful little girl yesterday. The baby shower itself was a huge success. My crazy (but lovely) friend decorated the room and brought along some Indian foods. Soon to be grandmother had also cooked for the occasion. Both mother and daughter were dressed in traditional Indian clothing which my friends mum had made herself. Confused yet? It was a lovely event and you should head over to my knitting groups blog to see my friend (she was beautiful) and all the goodies our group made for her. 

In other news, my last piece of course work has been handed in. This means that I can relax a little. You would think I would have got my craft on as a result. The truth is I have been mostly sleeping or watching DVDs. I am struggling to settle on anything. Perhaps I don't feel right not having work to do. Anyway, this little tag is the only crafting I have done this past week and it took me far longer to do than it should have. Next week I will get back on operation baby shower 2.

Do you remember the charity event my friends little boy was having to raise money? His mum ran an auction event. Between that and his other fundraising activities he managed to raise over £850. It took him just two weeks to do. Now that's impressive and not surprisingly my friend is very proud of her wee boy. I did win some hand-dyed sock yarn on that auction. I love those colours and I plan to knit myself some socks with it. Whenever I get the chance to do that.

Meanwhile I thought I would leave you with some more images from my mum's garden. I've been looking after it this week so I think I deserve some of the credit (because watering it a couple of times is the same).

Baby Shower 1.

I can now reveal one of my secret projects. The first baby shower has been and gone and this is now in the hands of the mum to be. I decided on a baby blanket. Hardly original for me. If it's not hats and socks then it's baby blankets. This time though I decided to try for something different. First of all I put my crochet skills to the test. I wanted to try a new pattern. Remember the hearts crochet I mentioned on my bucket list post? Well I hunted down the pattern and it turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. It's made up mainly of trebles, chains and a few single crochet in there.

To be honest I don't actually think it looks much like hearts. It's still pretty though and I am happy with the way it turned out. Even if my sister did call it my fried egg blanket (was not amused by that one which just made it all the more hilarious for my sister). If you are interested you can find the patter here. It is in dutch but I just used the chart at the bottom of the page.

I used the same cotton I had used for my mood blanket. Rico essentials cotton. It was a bit splitty but I had the same problem with it before so I was aware that it was going to happen. I had a little leftover so I tidied the edges with some double crochet. I thought the fan edging I usually give to anything I crochet would be too much. I am pleased to say that mum to be liked it. Just two more secret projects to go!

Oh, and can I count this off my bucket list as something different with crochet? It was the image I used when listing it. However, it might be cheating as I already did the crochet frames under that listing.

Still All Hush Hush!

 Everything that I am working on just now is hush hush. EVERYTHING! Which makes for some very dull posts. I have finished my dads socks which you would have seen by now but technology has failed me. Or I have failed it. My two month old laptop ended up with so many viruses that it had to be wiped and reloaded with everything. When you have a phenomenal number of photo's on dropbox this takes forever. I could have used my dads computer but I was determined that I would be using my laptop now that it is well again. And can I just say that if I had went with the anti virus programmed that I normally use (and I am using once again) in the first place this would never have happened. In other words it's the last time I listen to my dad even if he does usually know what he is talking about.

Now that I have passed that rant. I did actually make it along to my knitting group for the first time in a month. Which was nice. It was also nice not being the one organising everything (sorry Helen). I worked on my secret cross stitch (of which I have given you a sneak peak) and chatted. The downside is that there are a few things coming up that I am going to miss. Our annual challenge, the end of our charity event and a baby shower.

Speaking of my knitting group how pretty is this teacup and saucer? One of the ladies makes candles in vintage sets and sells them at her craft fairs. I love it and as much as I would like one for myself I thought it would be a perfect gift for my wee granny who loves the unusual. She will be wondering why I have got her another teacup and then she will be 'oh, it's a candle'. So she has her socks and this candles. Any ideas as to what else I could get her?

The baby shower I am going to miss is going to be a little different which makes me doubly gutted to be missing it. The lovely lady in question is going to be wearing traditional Indian dress for the event. Her mum has come over for 6 months to look after her. She made these beautiful beaded bands for her to wear. The one at the top goes round the abdomen. The red is worn as a headband. The two smaller bands are worn round the arms. Another friend did put it on but I don't want to completely steal my knitting groups thunder since Helen has been writing that blog in my absence. I will sneak a picture of Swati in her full regalia. I am sure Helen won't mind.

So between secret projects, final placement, essay writing, studying and applications I have managed to fit in some relaxation. The sun has actually come out here in Glasgow and to make the most of it my sister and I made our way to a bear garden. The one we normally go to was closed but we managed to find a very quiet one nearer to where my sister lives. Which was nice.

There has also been time for walks. I couldn't resist this cheeky duck. Obviously this wasn't his first photo shoot.

Lastly, I have some news. I am looking for crafty guest bloggers. I have a few talented friends signed up to do a one off blog post for me. This is to prevent  boredom setting in for those of you who read my blog. Since my projects are gifts and I can't spend as much time on them as I would like things are going to be quiet around here. I don't want that to happen. Then I remembered just how talented my friends are and some of them don't even have their own blogs (and they should). Maybe this could entice them to start one.

I am looking for other crafty people who would like to guest blog though. It doesn't matter if you already have a blog. Maybe your blog isn't craft orientated and you would like to talk about something that doesn't quite fit in with the feel of your blog. Either way I would love to hear about a post you would like to write. It can be on anything craft related. It can be a story, a tutorial, a bit about your favourite craft, advice to other crafters, a crafting disaster story, about your crafting business, anything. Just leave a wee comment and I will get back to you.

Last Guilt Free Lazy Day.

This is my officially the last day I can be lazy without any sort of guilt creeping in for the next three months. I would be lying if I said that I hadn't been lazy for the last two weeks. Since I have a hard slog ahead between now and (hopefully) qualifying as a registered nurse I'm not going to feel bad about it. This afternoon I lazily drank some green tea and flicked through some magazine my mum's friend passed on. I enjoyed the peace and quiet although didn't get much inspiration from the mags.

I haven't been too lazy craft wise although I have no finishes to show for it. I ordered some more yarn for the second baby shower project. I am waiting on it to arrive. I had to order it as hobbycraft no longer stock it. They do however, stock a new range. The Women's Institute have brought out their own yarns which seem to be exclusive to Hobbycraft. On the plus side they are made here in the UK. I confess I have a fascination with the WI. They have a reputation for being filled with crafty women so of course it appeals to me. Not that I have read that much into it. It has been a distant fascination. Anyway, the yarn is a good price and there are quite a few varieties. I picked up a couple of the 4ply to put away for Christmas socks.

I realise that Christmas is still a long way in the future and should not even be mentioned. As this pair of socks is for my Gran's Christmas and they are taking me forever it's better to be prepared. Having said that I am loving knitting these. It doesn't look to tidy there but I have tried it on and it looks perfect (for a colour work beginner). The answer would seem to be blocking.

As a result I am having second sock syndrome with my Gran's birthday socks. I am convinced that they hate me. The pattern is boring and it's not really looking much like the photo in the book (until you put your hand in and then it has a mild resemblance). Everyone else seems to love them though. I took them to the knitting group and they were much admired. The fact that I was muttering over the ridiculous instruction on dividing stitches for the heel was ignored. I can say the first sock is done and the cuff of the second has been started. These are meant to be my knitting group project and already I am thinking of what I can take with me instead.

At home it's still project baby shower. I am pleased to say that one is almost completed and the other started. I need yarn reinforcements (hopefully this week) to get on with it. It's quite a nice project to work on despite all the ends that needed threading. The above to 2.5 episodes of Star Trek and 1.5 glasses of wine. And that's all you are getting out of me until it's handed over.

I did also spot some washi tape reduced in price which I couldn't walk away from. I need to get back to my filofax. It's feeling a little unloved the last few months. Oh, and giant paperclips. Can't say no to a giant paperclip.

Pins I Love - Baby Makes

Before I start I should point out that I am feeling in no way maternal. Nor is this a hint. I chose baby makes this week because I the secret projects I have been working on are for two friends who are expecting. It felt apt to be putting forward some ideas for anyone who has expecting friends. I should also point out that my secret projects are not hidden in this list. So I am spoiling nothing. I could actually have had a post containing nothing but baby knits my mum has done. She is constantly knitting baby things for people in her work. Every time she says that she is going to say no and knit something for herself she caves. This has been going on for over a year now and this time she is adamant.

Anyway, I digress and posting pics of my mums knits would defeat the purpose of my pinterest post. Plus all of these patterns are free (mostly from ravelry). The first one I picked for its stripes. I love stripes. I also can't knit cardigans or jumpers which makes me appreciate this sort of thing all the more. I personally wouldn't knit the leggings but that's just me. It is a pattern by Hanne Pjedsted and can be found on ravelry. As always just click on the image to get the link.

I love this little jacket. It looks so elven and appeals to my not so inner geek. I just thin this would look fab on any baby. Boy or Girl. I also love the cables. Like a stripe I am a sucker for a cable. This is a pattern by Jujube & Lolo and can be found on their blog. Sadly this blog hasn't been updated in a few years (as is the way with blogs). I have linked the blog too though in case you are interested.

Another cardigan and this one a relatively simple design. It has a spring like theme to it which is why I like it. It's the little buttons which set it off. I also like the plain knitting. It highlight that simple can be a good thing. This is another free pattern found on a blog. This one is called Anacapa Knits. This one is still up and running.

 Baby Converse! Much cheaper to crochet this than to buy them. Especially since babies outgrow everything so quickly! Another advantage is that these can be made to match any outfit. You have unlimited colour options. I have actually knitted something similar. I got the pattern from a knitting magazine and made them for a few baby showers. It doesn't have the little logo but it is very converse like (in my humble opinion). This is a free ravelry download.

Lastly a blanket. I usually always knit baby blankets. It's safer that way. I will get it finished and I don't need to worry about it fitting. This one is of course crochet. It's also reversible which is the appeal to me. I am not entirely sure about that green but you could do almost any colour combination. This is another ravelry download. I have a feeling that it will use US terms but it would be easy enough to get that translated.

So with that in mind here are some of my tips for making things for new mums or for baby showers.

1. Don't make the first size. Not if you want the baby to get use out of it.

2. Find out if mum is wanting to know the sex of the baby and is willing to pass it on. Most of the items I've picked out are gender neutral. These patterns are sometimes hard to come by mind you. If you know what the baby will be it makes it a little easier to personalise your gifts.

3. Find out what colours the parents like. Believe it or not there are some people out there who do not like baby colours. I am one of them. A friend of mine who has had a few babies also isn't a huge fan. Primary colours are good as are unusual combinations.