The beekeeper conundrum

In 2011 a fab little pattern came out called the bee keepers quilt, the idea being you knit lots of little hexagons (called hexipuffs!) which represent a beehive kind of look, and join them together to make a nice thick blanket. I threw my self in to this pattern with great enthusiasm, but as seems to happen, my attention span waned and the project was put to one side, over the years I have had little spurs of hexipuff making, all with great intentions which came to nothing, most people might have given up by now, but I had tons of mini skeins and part balls to use in this project and I can't let it die!

This is what it looks like in its current state, its approximately half done, a few years ago I made some calculations based on its current size and how big my hexipuffs are (well they are technically flat as I decided in the end not to stuff each one with filling, its just as snug!) and worked out how many I would need to make a blanket about 5ft x 5ft, which is a total of 729 hexipuffs. I have 364 left to make.
I haz a plan! (see this is how much thought I have put in to this!) I have worked out how many I can make in a day which is roughly 7, so 49 a week, which breaks down to roughly 7 weeks (and a few days) if I make enough.I asked my friends in an understanding crafting group to give me 7 random weeks this year in which I will make nothing but hexipuffs!

The first week is next week! I keep telling myself I will have the will power to do this, I have broken it down in to easy to manage pieces, I love the pattern, I love what I have made so far,  I will get this project nailed this year! Let  the hexipuff marathon (over 7wks!) begin!
Until next time!

Weather watching

Temperature blankets seem to be the very in thing the past couple of years, the idea being you take the temperature every day, convert that in to a colour (from a preset list) and you knit or crochet that colour in to a scarf or blanket. At first I was very reluctant to be drawn in to a project that required my attention every single day, what if I missed a day? What if I get my dimensions wrong and I end up with some thing thats far too big or skinny or unusable, a year is a long time to have some thing you don't like at the end of it.
Last year I thought about it, then dropped the whole idea. As the end of the year closed in, the discussions surrounding people starting one up started again and I looked in to the idea once more, I found a website that will give me high and low temperatures for at least 2 weeks so if I didn't do it every day its easy to catch up. And then I remembered this year is a big enough year that if I was going to do a blanket like this, it would be a year worth remembering.  I have been with my husband for 20 years this October, we both have been fans of the band that brought us together, for 30 years, and this August, that band, Runrig will perform their last ever concert and we are lucky enough to be going. It makes me happy and sad all at the same time, happy as its the first concert we have been able to go to in a long while, but sad it will be the last one ever. The band mean a lot for us both, it will be a bittersweet day!

Rainbow inspired of course

Enough maudlin! I decided to go for it, I picked my yarn, relying on my old favourite stylecraft special dk and its huge range of colours, I picked 8 and assigned them all a value, from purple to note temps less than 0c right up to lipstick for temps between 24-27c (I do have a standby colour just in case temps rise above 27c but its unlikely!) I of course didn't want a simple line blanket, I was worried about the proportions of doing a 365 row blanket! But I found a solution. Granny squares, two row tiny granny squares, the inner portion noting the lowest temp of the day, the outer row noting the highest temp. Also I will be using beads to mark birthdays, anniversaries etc as I thought it would make a nice record of the year. Plus I already know approximately how big the finished project will be. I like that kind of control!

Every day until 11/2

Nice cold day bottom left!

 Don't they look fab? I am already fascinated by the range of temps we have had so far this year, I've already had to use my colour for mid teens temps (lime green), didn't expect that, also used my purple for sub zero temps, I am sure my husband is already bored of me going "oooo new temp combo today!" its going to be a long year for him. I'm already excited that this week I get to use my beads for the first time as today is my daughters birthday. I am easily pleased! The finished blanket is 18 squares wide and 21 long, I have grey squares to mark the start of each month, with an additional one at the end of the year to make up numbers. I am looking forward to seeing how the  year pans out now, what colour combos will we see? Who knows..
Until next time!

Lets get this show on the road

So, its Wednesday and I am starting as I mean to go on! I think I will pick either a show off Sunday or  a work in progress Wednesday depending on how my week is going. Some weeks I'll just be working on stuff and some weeks I will finish things! This week is a bit of both I guess.

Last year I looked at my projects page on Ravelry and felt like I had achieved nothing, or very few projects had been completed compared to a few years ago, I had slowed right down and it made me sad, why did I not do as much? Then I remembered I have a habit of either completing projects on Ravelry and no declaring them as finished (so my list of finished objects looks smaller) or I don't put them on at all, how can that be?

So upon this, I went and found all the things I had finished, but not blocked to make them finished, including ones I had never admitted to starting. I spent a week with my blocking boards taking a beating. In my bedroom I have some built in drawers under the window which is just about big enough to block most shawls, my neighbours most think I am crackers stood in my bedroom window fiddling away on things they can't quite see.

But all in all I got 6 shawls blocked and finished (including one I finished this year, but I didn't leave it hanging around!)

Squish!

What a lovely pile of rainbow-ness! And all now logged on to Ravelry as completed, phew, my total is a nice respectable 20 projects for 2017, not bad!

So I said this week is a bit of both finished and working on, this week I seemed to have picked up my briocheveron shlanket (blame Stephen West for the name!), its easy enough once you get in to it tho I am forever trying to find an easy way to track my rows without having to remember to press a button on my row counter because I get so engrossed with knitting, I forget to do it, so I try and count rows, which isn't always successful, so I am trying a fixed marker on the first row of the pattern repeat, I can count to 14 right? I hope so.

Tale of two decreases

 I am having so much trouble with my brioche left slant decreases tho!They look so messy, no matter how careful I am being not pulling on the yarn too much, my right side in comparison look beautiful, I'm hoping it will block out straight, bah.

Look at that lovely fading yarn!

 The blue yarn is Fleablubs Mr Brightside, its a very bright and happy kind of yarn, just my thing, I have a set of 5 that go from dark blue to light, I didn't know what to make with it, until I saw the pattern I was making, but I needed more, so I decided to make my own fade set to compliment it, so the pink yarn is my own creation, it will go from pink to purple, as the blue yarn goes from dark blue to light blue, I think its going to look fab when it is done! Just need to keep knitting..

Ok so thats me for today, I have been scheming to try to come up with a way to help me finish my bee keeper quilt but I'll leave that for another post as its..complicated! Until next time!

Is this thing still on?

Ok, so 5 years since a blog post is a long time, for ages I considered doing some thing here but kept putting it off, either I procrastinate too much or wondering if people are even reading blogs any more.
But I have decided that I shall have a blog day, once a week, even if its just for me, to post about any thing crafty I have been doing that week, to help keep me motivated if nothing else. I won't tie my self to a day (But I do like the idea of show off sunday or work in progress wednesday) so I can see for my self the work I am putting in to my creations, and maybe if I feel like I have to have some thing to show for my blog, I might do more work, ha yeah I know, good intentions and all that, we shall see. But  I have spring cleaned, given the blog a fresh look and removed the photobucket icons that had gone to pot after they changed it all, now if I could just get that finished object gallery widget to stay still I will be happy!
Until next time..