Greenway

I hereby declare this afghan as finished.

The pattern is called Greenways, and is from the book 'Comfort Knitting & Crochet Afghans'.

  I used stash yarn in DK weight (and a couple of times holding double fingering weight). The plan was to get rid of the DKs I've had, but I've still got a lot left (are they breeding somewhere? I don't know) I just decided that this is it, it's big enough. It's a good 160 by 140 cm.

 I quite enjoyed making this and I do love the end product. I still need to give it a bath, which will be a PITA, as a lot of the yarns I've used are handwash only, meaning I will need to do it in my bathtub.

Flowers and Butterflies

Last week I was in the mood for some paper piecing.
I started out with a couple of butterflies. I've found a free pattern here and started sewing.

Then I thought what to do with them, and decided on a smallish wall hanging, adding some New York Beauty flowers and a sun. I've made those patterns myself, as I couldn't find anything in the size I've wanted.
Finally, I taped off an area on my design wall and added background fabric until I've got to the size I wanted the wallhanging to be. The flower stems and the leaves are applique.

(sorry for the somewhat blurry pic)

My brilliant idea for hanging it was to use two safety pins and a knitting needle. It works!

What's on My Knitting Needle

Several project are currently ongoing.
Main focus project is the Blue Sands Cardigan.

 I'm using Wollmeise DK in Blue Curacao, QED and Dora. The yoke was tricky with a lot of stuff happening at the same time, but the instructions are super clear, so there was no issue and a careful fitting (so I don't pull out the needles) shows it's a pretty good fit. I'm about 10 cm into the main body and there are long, boring rows of stockinette. Perfect for TV knitting actually.

Second project is socks (because, well, socks can be knitted anywhere and anytime, so it's always good to have a pair going)

Again Wollmeise, this time in the twin quality. The yarn is leftover from other projects, and the colors are Wolke and Wasserratz.

Project numero 3 is a stole. The name of the pattern is actually 'Stole'

Nothing very exciting, really. Just 10 knit, 10 purl for 380 stitches each way. As I'm using lace yarn (picked up in Nuernberg last year) it's a light projct to carry around.

Finally, I've also got a crochet projct going (actually, already since October). 

I've been trying to get rid off some of my stash yarn. And looking through my stash I've found several skeins of blue, browns and neutrals. Searching through my books I found this pattern called 'Greenways' and I thought this might work well with what I've got. I'm working this as a stashbuster/scrappy project, using everything that's halfway to DK weight yarn. 

I really love the scrappy look. 

The width of the blanket/afghan is 140cm and I've already got 150cm in length. I guess I'm going until I'm at 170cm.

Braided Rug

Last year in February I made my first experiment with braiding fabric into cord and then sewing it up to make a rug. The result was okayish (the rug refused to lay flat), so I planed on a second attempt using not t-shirt yarn but cotton fabric (my thinking was that the reason the t-shirt rug didn't lay flat, was because the t-shirt yarn is a bit elastic, which may have contributed to the problem. It turns out that's only part of the problem. Even with non-elastic cotton, the tension you use for feeding the cord to the sewing machine is tricky to control)
So here's braided rug number 2.

It does lay perfectly flat, though some pulling and stretching has been required after washing it in the bathtub.
Hurray!
The final diameter is 70cm. If my math is correct, I've used circa 30m of braided cord.

I'm seriously in love with my new rug.
I put it in front of my bed, so when I get up in the morning my toessies don't land on the cold floor.

Halfway There

I'm currently working on two quilts. One is the Trellisquilt, which has reached 20 blocks so far, the other is a Double Star quilt, which also is at 20 Blocks.

If I go for a 6 by 7 layout (72" by 84") I'll need 42 blocks, which means I'm almost halfway there. I definitely need more reds, yellows and purple.
Long time, no socks, so here's a new pair I've knitted while I was in Dublin.

Pattern is called nine-to-five (a free pattern) and the yarn is some hand-dyed sock yarn I've picked up at the Wollfest in Leimen last year.