Sydney Stitches & Craft Show

Hi Blog

I went to the Stitches & Craft Show yesterday! Granted it wasn't the big one, that's held in September, but still, it was good.

As usual though, not a lot of stalls on wools and needlecraft. Well, there was plenty of cross stitch, but as far as knitting and crochet goes, there was 4 stalls. I bought from two. One was representing yarnsgalore.com.au, the other....hmmm I can't remember.

The first stall I bought some silk blend yarn. I've never worked with it before, and it just felt so beautiful I had to buy some. So, I bought 3 balls at $12.50 each. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, because 3 balls isn't a great deal....I also bought a unique set of crochet hooks. I'd not seen anything like them before. They are double ended, with a cushion in between the ends, on each end is a different sized hook. There were sizes from 2mm to 10mm in the 5 hooks! They're an Asian brand, and the wrapping was all in Japanese, so I couldn't tell you what brand they are, but they were great! $60 for the set, which is fair enough I guess, seeing as though it had all sizes.

The second stand saw me purchase 3 balls of a mohair blend. It's so soft! There was a shawl there, crocheted from the same yarn and it was divine. It took 3 balls to make the shawl, and if you bought them, they gave the pattern for free. Of course I bought them! It cost me $36. I'm busting to get started!

I also bought a couple of Harmony Guides to Stitches. I bought 220 more crochet stitches, and 440 more knitting stitches. They cost me $50.

All in all a good day, but still the Stitches & Craft show was dominated by scrapbooking and patchwork. I spent all in all 4 hours walking around, seeing many new crafts that I'd like to try. I'm still wanting to have a go at Tatting, but I can't follow the patterns, and I need someone who already knows to show me how!

Best get back to hooking now...I got none done yesterday because I was frazzled by the show.

The "too hot" doily

Hi Blog,

It's been so hot here on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia lately that I haven't been able to work on my favourite ripple blanket.

One day last week it got to 41 degrees celcius (106 farenheit), and I just couldn't take it anymore! But I couldn't give up my crocheting either, so I pulled out some thread (Size 20 Twilley's verigated) and a small Boye hook (1.5mm) and started on a doily out of my Pineapple Doily Book.

This is the third doily I've made from this book, and I'm pleased to say there are no errors in this pattern! I'm wishing I didn't make it in verigated thread though, because it takes away from the pattern I think.

I did enjoy making this doily though, and it took 2 balls of thread to make it, which helps with my Stashbusting score in the Crochetville CAL. I had been very bad and ordered 20 balls of yarn from a craft co-op that my sister belongs to, along with an new set of tunisian crochet hooks. 20 balls of wool put my stashbusting score at -40!!!!! Now I'll be -36, which means I'm slowly redeeming myself.

One good thing is the fact that its slightly cooler here at the moment. So I can now work on my ripple again. I'm really enjoying it, I just wish it would go quicker so I can move onto one of the other progects I've got planned!

Things I want to start:

* A knitted jumper (I've never done this, and would love to try)

* Crocheted socks

* Hexagon motif baby afghan

* Some bookmarks

* An afghan for my mother (not sure of the style yet)

* A crochet scarf.

That's quite the list I want to start! Good thing is though, I have the yarn for all but one of those projects. The only thing I need to get is yarn for my mother's afghan, as I'd like to make hers in a lavender colour, given lavender is her favourite scent, and flower.

Anyway, back to it!

Mandy

Keep on rippling!

Hi Blog

I thought I would take a few stat's on the progress of my Crochetville CAL. I finally measured it's width and found that it's 290cm wide! Almost 3 metres! I'd not actually measured it's width before this. I also timed myself, and found it takes me 45 mins to do one row, and I'm up to row 122, that means I've spent 91.5 hours on this afghan! Amazing, especially seeing as though it's not even half way done. I started out with 450 chains, and am using a 5.5mm hook. See pictures below, it's so wide, I can't even fit the whole width in the camera shot.

A New Rug for my Lounge

Hi Blog

It's been a while since I've written and that's because we've had such a hectic Christmas. DH's kids came to stay for 9 days which left us in total chaos! Not to mention leaving us broke, I can't believe how much those kids can eat.

One of the main outcomes of their visit though, was me deciding that I needed to make a rug to cover our new lounge suite. A couple of months ago we splurged out on a new suede suite and it's a lovely taupe colour. Within a couple of hours of the kids being here, they'd gone swimming in the pool, then plopped themselves on the lounge completely soaking wet with chlorine water! I hit the roof! As a result, for the rest of the visit, I had blankets over the lounge to protect it. The ones I had were crocheted (by me years ago), but they didn't go with the colours of the room at all.

So I took myself off to spotlight during their stocktake sale and purchased 40 skeins, in two colours, of new yarn. The yarn is Moda Vera 'mandorla united'. It's a 55% merino 45% acrylic blend. It has a tension of 12 stitches x 12 rows to make a 10cm square. Recommended needle 7-8mm. I bought colour 53 and 51, both dyelot 1. It's a lovely soft yarn, but very chunky.

I asked DH for his opinion on how I should make the rug, and he had been really impressed with the blanket I had made for Dad, with that patchwork affect. So, rather than crochet the rug (which I had really wanted to do), I began knitting it. I'm using 20 stitches per row, and squares of 30 rows each (giving about a 19cm square). I'm using a standard moss/seed stich. Knit 1, purl 1 to end of row, turn, purl 1, knit 1 to end.

It's knitting up quickly, but I'm still dividing my time between that and my ripple CAL from crochetville.

Last night I also made another Crochet Australia purchase. I couldn't help myself. I bought:

- 5.5mm Brittany Crochet Hook

- 4.5mm Clover Aluminium (Arthritic PEN style) Crochet Hook

- Ultimate Book of Scrap Afghans booklet

- New Wave Ripples booklet

I'm so hopeless. DH is going to wonder what on earth I need all this stuff for. I've been dying to try the Arthritic hook, my hands hurt when I crochet so I'm hoping this will help. And the Brittany hooks are just beautiful! I love wooden hooks.

I'm trying to be good with my eating too. DH and I are so desperatley trying for a baby, and my insulin resistance isn't helping our cause. So if I can promise to eat better, than hopefully I'll get somewhere quicker. Also, I would love to loose another 20 kilo's or so. I wouldn't recognise myself. I've done it before, I'm sure I can do it again. I just must be strict with myself!

Take Care

Mandy

My Ripple CAL Progress

Hi Blog

I've taken some updated pictures of the progress I've made for my ripple CAL, at the Crochetville website. The pictures are a bit grainy, because they're taken at night in a poorly lit room, but you get the idea.

You can't gauge the size of the afghan from the photo's. I had it draped over a queen size bed, however, there was heaps laying across the floor where it's far to wide for the bed.

I've also started a knitted project to protect my new sofa set, but I'll take pictures of that later.

Mandy

Crochet purse attempt

Hi Blog

I haven't written in a while again...I've been so busy. So much has happened. Not least of which is DH has bought himself a new car. Well, it's a second hand car, but new for us. It's a 1999 Jaguar XKR Sport. He's always wanted one. The picture is one of another car, but ours is exactly the same. I'm so proud of DH, he's worked is absolute behind off over the years, and deserves to have something he really wants.

My ripple is coming along slowly. I've swapped from doing 3 rows white and 1 row colour to the opposite. 3 rows colour separated by 1 row white. As jumbled as it all looks, I'm enjoying making it.

On the weekend I stopped and made a little crocheted drawstring purse. I just wanted to do something a bit different. I used Twilley's No20 cotton in a purple verigated colour. I also used a 1.75mm hook. I'm quite pleased with the result. It only took me a few hours to make, and it gave me some practice on my thread crochet, which I only rarely do these days.

Lately, I've become obsessed with knitting magazines. I'm not much of a knitter, but I would like to learn how to make garments. These magazines also have all the latest yarns in them, and I love reading about yarn, and seeing what's out there. One disappointing thing is the magazines are all either English or American, and we just can't get those yarns in Australia...unless you order over the internet and then the shipping costs are ridiculous!

Oh well...back to the grind, no work no play later...
Mandy

My ripple progress...YARN Bargain

Hi Blog

I got such a bargain today! I went to Spotlight to buy a replacement hook to use for my ripple CAL on Crochetville. I had been using a plastic hook, and the yarn would drag, and hurt my hands. I needed an aluminium hook. Well I found the perfect one! It's a Birch hook, with a lovely big handle. You can see it in the picture with my progress on my ripple.

This ripple is so massive! It's king size wide, and started with a foundation chain of 450 stitches. It's so wide it'll hang down the sides of my bed when it's done. I just hope I have the staying power to finish this one. I'm not really selecting colours at random either like I had wanted to. I'm trying to mix the warm and cool colours up. Not to many yellow tones together, and I've actually deliberately bought some other odd colours to make the odd colour-ness of it better. So much for it being a purely scrap-ghan though!

Anyway, while I was there, they had some Red Heart Baby Soft Yarn. I've never seen Red Heart Yarn in Spotlight before. They were such big skeins! 170 grams. And guess the price? $1! Yep, that's it $1! So I couldn't help myself and bought 15 skeins. I don't know exactly what to do with it yet, but I'll think of something. My poor husband rolled his eyes when he saw me come in with yet another massive bag of yarn.

As for my eating habits...and the diet side of this blog...well, I had pizza for lunch....need I say more?