I'm sorry, but I just can't

I've tried, goodness knows I've tried. This isn't my first attempt. Those who know me from last year's Etsy retreat will have seen it all before. I just can't. mix. colours. Randomness makes me anxious; I can't relax without harmony - it is all just too distressing.


I got all the way through one set of colours (17 stripes!) with an increasing sense of the wrongness of it all, and then I had to rip it all out. There was nothing else I could do. The idea of spending the best part of a year (judging by my previous ripple marathon) making something that I just couldn't stand the sight of was too much for me. It had to go. The middle one helped with the frogging - she really loved seeing how the stitches came apart: "it's like magic Mummy!".
Then, I put the colours in a more harmonious order, and I have to agree - it is like magic!

The end of an era

Ten months almost to the day.

1.8 kg (4 lbs) of yarn, equating to about 3.7 km (2 miles) in length.

16 colours with five repeats.

38,400 stitches in 160 rows.

And I'm done.

And a little bit more...

After my last post, I thought I would show you the progress on the mother of all ripple blankets. I have been working on this since May (admittedly on a slightly sporadic basis) and I am now 23 stripes from finishing. Each one takes about one and a half hours, so I make that a good 34 hours or so of solid crochet time. Then there is the sewing in of ends. Thanks to some
sage advice I received a while ago (on the no-end-in-sight ripple along) to crochet over the ends as I go, I only have about 50 loose bits of yarn to darn in. I wish I had asked sooner!


It is a lovely thing to work on - so satisfyingly heavy to sit under on winter evenings, and easy to pick up in the few unscheduled moments. It's not really portable any more though, so I can't work on it while out and about. Maybe I should get into sock knitting or something - that has to be the ultimate in take-it-with-you crafting.

Twice the fun, twice the work

I have finally finished these blankets as a present for a friend who is having boy/girl twins. OK, so she gave birth last week. I'm a little late. What you gonna do about it?

I wanted to make a gift that reflected the non identical, and yet twin, nature of the babies, and these blankets seemed the perfect thing. They are both worked in rainbow shades - one bright and one pastel. Now, I'm not one to suggest that there is anything in this gender stereotyping lark, but I do think the pastel one is especially pretty.

I have definitely got the rippling bug - these are numbers four and five, with another big bag of yarn waiting for number six. Of course, it would be nice to one day finish the monster of all crochet blankets. Preferably before next summer.

Five weeks of crafting

Lupin sent me an invitation to join a new flikr group recently, with the challenge to do a little bit of crafting, and document it, every day for a year - Crafting 365. This is the result of the first five weeks. Not quite one photo per day, but then how many pictures of the same crochet blanket can you take?


Five weeks down, only 47 to go!

Summer holidays

We are heading off for our summer holiday this week, and I realised that I need a project to take with me. Something small, portable, and simple (because, let's face it, I am unlikely to be able to concentrate on anything too complicated!).


These little flower brooches seemed like just the thing. They are crocheted from Debbie Bliss Pure Silk yarn (half price in the sales - putting it in the 'just buy it and see what you are going to do with it later' category) in gorgeous jewel bright colours. They are beautifully soft and covetable. Numbers one and two grab them and run away as fast as I can make them.

Of course, if you are taking a project on holiday, you need a little chuck-it-in-the-suitcase project bag to go with it. Here is mine, sewn from some furnishing fabric that I have had staring at me for months, and a coconut shell button that I am very pleased to have found a use for. It made me buy it - you know how it is!

I will be away from the computer while on holiday, so no more posts for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure how I will manage without my laptop - another reason to keep my hands busy.

Half done or half to go?

I am at the halfway point with my ocean ripple, finally, after many evenings spent rippling away, generating the mother of all repetitive strain injuries. I really love the way it is coming along - the colours work together even better than I had hoped, and it is already satisfyingly heavy to sit under. Luckily the weather has been pretty bad here, so I haven't been getting overheated while working away under 25 tons of cotton yarn.
So the question for the day - am I halfway there, or do I have half to go? Am I an optimist or a pessimist?
Contrary to my normal feelings, the glass is definitely half full on this one, although the sheer number of stitches to be completed does overwhelm me at times. The weather man promises more rain, so there is no excuse for not cozying up underneath and getting on with it.

Yarn to scarf in two hours

Another Etsy purchase today, again from a member of the UK street team. Snowberrylime spins this gently variegated yarn from the softest merino, and as soon as it arrived I knew what it had to become.


Number one was immediately co-opted into ball winding duty, and two hours after the parcel had dropped through the letterbox I had this scarf, from a pattern in this book. Now all we need is some bad weather.

Everyone needs co-ordinated shoes

I thought it was quite important that the baby have a pair of bitty booties to match the blanket. You're never too young to learn about accessorising.

Finished the baby ripple

I have finished rippling the all-wool baby blanket. The only problem was sewing in the enormous number of ends that you get when you change colour every two rows. And now I have to block it. I love blocking - it is like magic. You start with something a bit like a balloon that has been deflated - baggy, shapeless and disappointing, and you end up with the yarn equivalent of a fantastic multi-lobed helium-filled wonder that has every four year old girl in the neighbourhood saying 'mummy mummy mummy pleeeeaaaasssse can I have one!!!!'

Then I have to give it away. I know that was the whole point of making it, but I feel a little sad. Sending my baby off into the world - will they take proper care of it? Will they dry it flat? Will they wash it on a gentle cycle? I really must learn to let go.

I must thank all the lovely ladies over at the no-end-in-sight ripple-along for giving me such great advice on gender neutral colour choices. Of course, I ended up using my current favourite blues, greens and purples, but I can't seem to help it. When I get into the shop they just call to me. It would be rude not to listen. Also invaluable was this great random stripe generator. I guess you could say this was a community project!

A tale of two ripples

I am a whore. A fickle, cheating, whore. I love my first ripple. It is all cotton and the colours of the sea. It has been growing slowly but surely, and I have gained great pleasure watching the whole change with each new shade of blue. The problem is that now I have the new ripple. This one is all wool and is half the width. It is only five colours and is being made for a new baby. I love my second ripple. I am a crochet polygamist.



Ripple number one is now on the shelf.




Why can there not be more hours in the day?