WIP Wednesday update

Things have been a bit slow this week. I was exhausted at the end of last week - some bad nights, busy days, plus an all-day conference with a 5 am start and a late conference dinner on Friday meant that by Saturday morning I was feeling ill with exhaustion. As if the boys sensed that I desperately needed some rest, when we got back from their swimming lessons around lunchtime they all went upstairs and played happily for about an hour while I rested on the sofa. I even had a little nap! When I got up I felt marginally better and was able to admire the beautiful den they built together. :)

Still, being so busy all week and so exhausted at the weekend meant that I didn't get a lot done this week. There has been some gentle crocheting on the weekender blanket and I've made some progress on Totoro. Boy #3 was delighted when he realised what I was making and all three of them wanted to watch My Neighbour Totoro again on Sunday. I'm quite looking forward to finishing the little fella myself now!

I do have an almost-FO to show for though - the pegloom rug is off the loom! It's not quite finished because I have a bit of sewing in to do and I need to tidy up its overall appearance a bit. There are quite a few bits of fabric sticking out, plus all those loose threads, and I also need to trim the tassles, but otherwise it's all done. It weighs a ton!

As you can see, it's already been put to good use!

I've braided the ends to keep them neat, but it makes the fabric strips 'bulge' a bit in-between. I may sew them in to make the ends neater.

The boys really want to keep it in the living room, but I'm not sure yet. They like to sit there and play or watch TV and have a snack or they carry drinks through when I'm not looking, and unless they change their habits I really don't think they are ready for a rug - the last one we had was trashed after about a year!! Of course this one should be washeable, but that doesn't mean that it would easily wash. It's too big to fit into a washing machine, so I would have to bring it to the drycleaners.

I'm still pretty busy this week, but it's the Easter break now so there won't be any teaching, which is already a relief - just to have the chance to catch up a bit and work ahead to get things sorted for the remaining teaching weeks after the Easter break makes me feel a bit better. Still, it's been a hard term, this one...

I'm still feeling very tired, but hopefully I'll get round to some more crafting this week. I'm looking forward to it. For now, have some Easter craft to admire:

 Boy #2 made this card at school:

I've found a few minutes here and there to bring a bit of Easter spirit into the house too:



Some twigs from the garden - hopefully the flower buds will open. I have no idea what that shrub is called (we didn't plant it) but it has beautiful yellow blooms around Easter time). The picture of the flower (with written descriptions of the individual parts) was done by boy #1 at school.

Some Easter chicks - they don't look half as nice as in the magazine where I saw them, but I didn't have any round safety eyes to complete the look. Still, they are cute enough I suppose...

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A Year of Projects

Yarn Along

Keep Calm Craft On

Stitch Along Wednesday

WIP Wednesday - general crafting update

Life got busy again and I've not been able to update. It's funny how that works, because I still manage to knit, but somehow when it gets that busy I just don't feel like dragging the camera out to photograph anything that I'm working on. Knitting, and crochet, and weaving... well, that happens in the little spaces in-between the busy periods, but somehow photography and blog writing requires more brain space and more dedicated time, and hence get pushed to the side.

In any case, I am back (for now) and since I'm now in the much-needed and awaited teaching-free period around Easter updating should become much more regular again.

I haven't really done a proper update for ages, so I've spent some time in the past few days trying to find the right light to photograph what I've been up to.

First of all, there is the peg-loom rug:

After the initial mad dash I slowed down quite a bit, but the project is now truly approaching completion. I anticipate another two or three lots to thread on, and then I'll call it finished. Tidying up, of course, may take a while longer, because there are loose ends to weave in, little bits of fabric and thread sticking up, etc., and I've also not quite decided if I want tassels or if a clean edge might be preferable, in which case I need to thread the warp through to hide it.

Doesn't it look fabulous, though? It's HUGE!

Next on the list - the Weekender blanket.

This is progressing quite nicely. I only work on it when I'm sitting down in the living room because adding pieces as you go along makes this a pretty non-portable project, not only because of the bulkiness of the blanket as it grows, but also because of all those balls of yarn.

Talking about balls of yarn... we have a problem:

There have been complaints (from D), and the boys have been playing football with the yarn, which led to more complaints (from me).

I also have a confession to make... That's not all stash yarn...  I've been buying yarn. Yes, I hang my head in shame, but it was unavoidable (or so I tell myself...).

I initially wanted to make the  blanket completely from stash, but quickly realised that unlike with the granny square blanket, where I was able to mix yarns from sock-weight to aran quite freely, with hexies you can't really do that. This means that I don't have enough yarn with the same or similar weight to complete an entire blanket. I am still using bits of stash, and I intend to use up as much of the mountain of cheap acrylic that I've acquired as I can, but I tell myself that since it will be a big family blanket and the acrylic was very very cheap it wasn't too bad a purchase, even if I broke my own rules about stash enhancement...  

It's funny about the acrylic, though. I really used to loath the stuff, and even now I don't think I'd want to knit any garment from it, but for blankets it's great, because it wears and washes well and it's not scratchy or tickly. Plus, it's so cheap. I bought most of those huge 200g balls for £1,20 each! 

Anyway, enough self-justification, moving on to the next project - the Acer cardi. 

This is very slow-going. I really think I'm going to love the finished cardi, and I love how the yarn knits up, but I don't love knitting with it. It's splitty and it's black, making it almost impossible to knit in the evening or when I can't give it my full attention. In our household that means almost never! Then my old (and cheap) cable needle broke and I had to go out to get a new one. 

I splashed out a  bit on that one, but they didn't have the cable length I wanted in any of the cheaper versions so I ended up with an interchangeable cable needle. Oh well, at least I can add to it whenever I need another cable needle and it does look quite pretty!

Last but not least, I've started a little Amigurumi pattern. Do any of you know the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbour Totoro? It's a Japanese anime film and the boys love it (and so do I), and this little fellow is Totoro, who is a kind of forest spirit. I think boy#2 and boy #3 in particular will like this one. :) 

I am truly crocheting this one from stash - the blue/grey is a bunch of Rowan All-Seasons Cotton that i still had lying around from a project years ago, and I have some off-white recycled yarn that I am using as the accent colour. 

Shared with:

A Year of Projects

Yarn Along 

Keep Calm Craft On

Stitch Along Wednesday

Peglooming...

I need to tell you about another thing I've  been up to during my prolonged silence... I've been peg-looming! 

You might remember that for Christmas D gave me a beautiful peg loom that he'd made himself. Although I wanted to start a rug there and then I didn't want to rush into this project without considering:

a) the size of the rug

b) the right materials (the string to use, the fabrics)

c) that I had enough fabric

d) where to work on this presumably quite lengthy and also quite bulky project

e) a good time to start the project so it wouldn't languish in the corner of the room, half-finished because of other more pressing commitments

I did fairly well with most of these points. I waited until I had enough waste fabric (the moment came when our childminder arrived with 2 bin bags full of old bed linen that she had sorted out and offered to me for use in the rug), I sourced and bought enough strong string, I considered the size of the rug that I wanted, I found that the dining room table was ideal for the task, and that when not in use the project could be rolled up and tucked away quite nicely against the wall of the dining room. The only thing I wasn't so great on was timing. 

Of course this is not usually my strong point, so this is not too surprising. 

That said, this rug-weaving is a lot quicker than I anticipated. 

It's also quite messy. The dining room isn't looking its best... 

The boys thought it was hilarious and they played 'cave' under all those sheets all day (believe it or not, there is a boy under there...). Ocasionally one of them crawled out and helped me rip strips of fabric. I think they quite enjoyed the fact that they were allowed to rip fabric to pieces...

Bus as I said, it's fairly quick as a project. This picture was taken a couple of hours after I started:

I at least waited until a relatively free weekend about three weeks ago to start this. It's not finished yet, but I suspect that if I hadn't been quite so busy these past few weeks it would be finished by now. It's taken an insane amount of fabric, but I'd like the rug to be nice and thick (this has the added bonus of really squishing that fabric together so you can't really identify all those ugly 1980s sheets anymore!).

I anticipate another two or three hours of work on it before it's done.