Here we are at another Monday, and another whole week till the weekend! It was sort of light on my way to work this morning, so it’s starting to feel like spring is actually on the way at last! I’m looking forward to warmer days soon. I’ve been pretty busy this week. We’ve got a new TV - a flat screen at last, instead of our old huge bulky one - so we rearranged the living room to give us more space now we can have the TV wall mounted. It’s opened the room out a lot and makes it feel a lot bigger.

This weekend the Hairpin lace has fallen behind a little, because I’ve got swept away with Magrathea! Magrathea is nearly done! I used around two and a half skiens of yarn to make the body, which was 17 repeats long. Then I joined the fourth skien right befor starting the lace border. I didn’t want to have to join a new skien during the lace, so I thought this way would be best - which didn’t work out because I found a large ugly knot and had to cut it out, but I managed to get the join in the middle of one of the diamonds, so it shouldn’t show too badly. I’ve only got a few more rows left to go, so hopefully it’ll be done by the end of the week and I’ll get it blocked.

The blanket has been going along fine, although it was very ignored yesterday, after I’d started working on the border of my scarf! I have the colours all planned out, so I know which strips I’m doing when. The third strip is underway and I quite like the colours so far, although the pink is very hard to photograph well! The true test will come after this strip, when I move into other colours, and start to get a feel for how the colours will look together. I chose this colour scheme by putting all of the colours into a colour wheel, then taking every third colour , round and round in circles. I have 19 colours, so using every third number let it go round nicely, moving the pattern over one colour every time I went round.

The most exciting thing about being nearly done with Magrathea, is that I can start thinking about what to cast on next! I’m off to London a week on Thursday. I’m going there and back by train, which is a seven hour journey each way! That’s 14 hours of knitting time, with no distractions! I’m going to treat myself to a new audio book for the trip, and I’ll work on a Garter Ruffles Scarf on the trip! I’ll be making it with the Debbie Bliss Andes yarn my husband gave me for Christmas - it’s replacing the two options I had in my list before, because it’ll make better use of the yarn. It should be uncomplicated enough not to give me any problems - important when I don’t know if I’ll be able to get internet access on the train - but the short rows will hopefully keep it interesting. As for the next week or so, I should be good and work on my Childhood Memories shawl, but it’s another crochet piece, and I’d really like to have some knitting on the go, along with the blanket which is crochet. I’ve also been longing to do something with my Stash Addict yarn for ages! the blues and greys are gorgeous, and some of my favourite colours. So, I’m going to give in to temptation and cast on for Henslowe.

The Revised List

Scarves and Shawls

• Lacey Crochet Scarf <- Finished
• Iris Crocheted Shawl <- Finished
• Shawl Collared Cowl <- Finished
• Urban Shells <- Finished
• Elise Shawl <- Finished
• Betula Ring <- Finished
• Recuerdos de Infancia <- In progress
• Magrathea <- In progress
• Happy Lavender Scarf <- In progress
• Mochi Neck Warmer <- Frogging first Betula Ring for yarn
• Branching Out - Patons Smoothie DK
• Garter Ruffles Scarf - Debbie Bliss Andes
• Henslowe <- Stash Addict yarn
• Usoa Shawl <- Drops Fabel
• My Kind of Town Cowl <- Wendy Serenity Super Chunky
• Sunderland <- Wendy Happy (Cinders)
• Long Nights Cowl <- Finished
• Blue Lagoon

Amigurumi

• Knit Bunnies x 7 <- Finished
• Realistic Octopus <- Finished
• Sheldon Turtle <- Have yarn
• Tilly the Panda
• Finola the Fox
• Chester the Dog <- Knit picks yarn

Other Things

• Tote Bag <- Finished
• Windschief Hat <- Finished
• Snowbaby Hat<- Finished
• Skaði Fingerless Gloves <- Finished
• Hairpin Lace Blanket <- In Progress
• Genevieve <- In Progress
• Faceclothes/Make up pads <- Drops Paris
• Cap Sleeved Top <- Freedom Sincere
• Calorimetry<- Have yarn
• Phone sock/cosy <- Finished
• Pin cushion
• New Era <- In trouble!
• Needle book <- Trying out entrelac (leftovers of blanket yarn)
• Scissor case

Well this week, I haven’t got too much done. I had a disasterous time with my second New Era glove, which you can read about here. They’ve been banished to the bookshelves for a while, until I can face frogging them - they could be there till autumn! I did manage to finish the hairpin lace strip I was working on last week, as well as a second one, but I haven’t started the third strip yet. I planned out a few different ideas for a blanket and you can see more about the blanket here. My husband chose the pattern he likes best - it’s the middle one on the left in this image, so I’ll be starting that tonight. You can see in the photo, that I’ve joined the first two blanket strips together - they are really easy to join, so I’m going to keep joining as I go. So far I think I need 32 strips, but if I’m joining as I go I can either stop early, or put in some more colours.

Last night I picked up Magrathea again. I’m really glad to be working on it again, and I’m going to resist casting on any large projects till I’ve got it done - everyone needs some instant gratification every now and then! I frogged back to where I’d missed a yarn over the last time, and I’ve done another repeat or so since then. I’d forgotten how soft the yarn I’m using is! It’s gorgeous and I’m loving working on it again. I’m being very careful now, and counting the lace every time I finish a row now, to make sure I’m up to the right place. I need to always have an even number of stitches, either 24, 26 or 28. As long as I can keep that right, everything else should follow on nicely.

I’m already starting to think about this years Christmas presents. For the girls/women I want to try and do as many handmade things as I can - and for the guys too, although they’re a lot harder! I have plans to try a lot of new things this year, like making soap, and I’ll definitely be blogging about them all. So this year I want to start early. I always put a small toy in the boxes I make up for friends and sisters (have a look here). Last year I made knit bunnies for everyone. This year I want to make something else cute! There’s a lot of cute patterns on ravelry like bunny nuggets, chubby chirps, owl puffs and monster chunks. Loads of things that would be prefect for using up the scraps of blanket yarn I’m sure I’ll have, and be cute and cheerful little gifts. So on weeks when I know I’m not going to have anything else finished, and I need a little instant gratification knitting, I’ll be testing out these patterns with scrap yarn in my stash! This week I’m going to make an out of yarn ball. One of my friends is having a baby this summer, and I think some of these in loads of colours would make great little baby toys!

Check out Tami’s to see what everyone else is working on!

Well, today is time for my first One a Day update, and I can safely say I’m on track! My aim is to do 50 - 100 loops a day, and last week I did 614 loops. I think that’s preety good going! Hopefully I can keep it up. I made my first strip 500 loops long, then took it through and laid it on the bed to find a length I was happy with. I decided the bast way to keep the loops from getting tangled was to do the up - like you would for the sides of the finished blanket, so I did that, which helped me to work out exactly how many loops I needed. The answer is 414! Which isn’t too bad. I’m going to keep aiming for 50 - 100 loops a day, and I’ll manage to finish at least one strip a week, so the blanket should keep growing nicely.

I made and finished a second strip at the weekend, and you can see what they’ll look like together. The black is going to be a border at each side, and the reddish brown is the first colour of the blanket. I’ve worked out that 30 more strips should make it a good size for our double bed, and if I want to make it wider I can always add extra black strips at each side. I want to keep joining the strips as I go, which should keep things neat and make it easy to see how I’m doing. So to do this, I wanted to plan the colours. I’m still not quite sure which I like best. I have one here that’s random - and that was hard to do! One is a rainbow, and the other four I made up from taking the colours from a colour wheel going round and round taking every third/fourth/etc colour. I need to see what my husband like best too, but what do you think?

Don’t forget to stop by Gingerbread Girl’s and see how everyone else is getting on!