Intermittent blog posts the second (and a finish!)

Firstly, I have finished (and washed!) my housemate’s blanket. I absolutely love it, and don’t really want to give it away. *sigh* But I’m sure he’ll enjoy it, which is the important thing. And I think I have enough yarn left over to make me a scrappy crochet blanket. I’m thinking hexagon, because apparently my brain really likes hexagons. Ooh, I could do that mathematical half-hexagon thing. Hmm, that would involve quite a lot of sewing up, I think. I will think on that some more…

But now this has been finished, I really should get back to the alphabet blanket. *sigh*. It’s nearly finished, so it really could be quite a lot worse, but I don’t want to. I really want to start knitting Cockatoo Brae, but the blanket really should get done first…and if I save it, it would be a rather fun (and slightly stupid, given that it’s 4ply yarn) option for NaNo this year.

So at the moment ~I’m being fairly good, and I plan to continue embroidering the last few letters on the Dick Bruna blanket.

Not too much left to go! I’ll get there eventually…

Intermittent blog posts the first

I was asked a curious question today (don’t worry, crafts will come soon enough, and I promise to not drown this blog in maths stuff!). I was asked whether or not I was still happy that I’d decided to do a PhD, and was I still happy that I’d decided to do it at York. The answer to both of these is unequivocally yes, and while my future is still scary and un-defined (job applications are really awkward!), getting to this point is amazing, and I love it.

 

Anyway, on to the crafting! Most of the time, I’ve been working on my housemate’s birthday present, and I have 9 squares finished

and a 10th nearly finished. I have also decided on my next blanket (when all the other presents planned so far are finished!).

One of my friends recently got a job, which is amazing, and so naturally I decided that she deserves the next blanket I make 🙂 I sent her attic24s washing line of colour palettes to see what she liked, and then narrowed it down to the Harmony blanket, which I sent her a pic of to confirm that she likes it. She does, and I can’t figure whether she’s oblivious about the fact I’m going to make her one, or whether she realises I’m going to make it, but is playing dumb, so I get to feel amazing about it all 😀

Either way, I can’t wait to get on with it 😀 However, my shoulder has really started playing up, so I’m trying to limit the amount of time I spent crocheting This is rather difficult to do, since it takes less than a row to upset it on the longer rows. *sigh* I’m going to start yoga again to try and deal with it, but it feels different to the crunchiness which was sorted by yoga last time. Any tips, lovely people???

A medley of crafts

Hi all! Life suddenly got very technical here for a while, and while that hasn’t stopped (and won’t until I finish the PhD and (hopefully) get a job in August…) I have managed to wrangle a few minutes to talk to you about crafts 🙂 Which I’m sure you’ll all agree is more interesting than the maths and teaching I’m also busy writing about!

So, what have I been up to? I’m still having fun with the attic24 blanket, it’s amazing! I’ve not completed 6 squares and sewn them together (I know far better than to leave them to the end!)

And there was one final craft session with the DIYSoc at Uni. This time was lino printing, and we were all given a bag to embelish

This was rather amusing really. Everyone else made a few stamps and then reused them, so they were stamping very early on. But I wanted to make a statement, so I opted to cut out one big stamp, and use it once. Much harder work (my shoulder still dislikes me for that!) but I think it was worth it. I know I couldn’t’ve managed such an awesome shape (although I did want it the other way around!) with just a few shapes.I also deliberately didn’t touch it up with the paints afterwards. I’m thinking that I’ll maybe embroider them, or add some sequins or something. Thanksfully *not* a craft I want to keep doing, but it was definitely fun trying it!

I’ve also jumped off the ‘Christmas presents before other crafts’ train, and cast on for a pair of socks. Thes are incredibly lazy socks, since I’m doing them one at a time (I’m not quite sure why they’re lazier in my mind, but they are!), but they are definitely my destress project. Which I didn’t realise how much I needed until I cast them on just a few hours ago, and hey look, a blog post!(And you know you’ve been writing too much technical stuff when you immediately try to reference something for that…*facepalm*)

The colours are much more vibrant in real life, but it still gives some indication as to how awesome these socks are going to be 🙂

 

I should probably also mention that I’m planning on starting reading blog posts again soon! I stopped because I didn’t have the time, and then I started deleting them from my inbox because I couldn’t deal with having so many unread emails! But I’m figuring that I should wrangle the time to read all about your awesome crafting/lives even if I don’t have the time to reply to them all!

Crochet Blanket

So, I started getting a little bored of the Dick Bruna blanket, and decided to have a little fun, and break out the new yarn 🙂

A while ago, I decided I wanted to crochet a blanket for my housemate’s birthday (it’s his 21st), which, naturally necessitated a trawl through ravelry. For a while, I was taken by this one, but then decided to go with attic24s latest, a log cabin blanket, after I looked up a bit of the history (they used to be given to children when they flew the nest, so it makes perfect sense to make it for him!) So I ordered the yarn, and it sat around for a while because I was being good and trying to get the Dick Bruna one out of the way, and then the other day I decided I’d had enough and I was going to start crocheting damn it!

I piled all my lovely yarn in a crate, because it needs to be contained somehow and I need to be able to cover it in something until the housemate leaves on Sunday! It’s all so pretty!

And so naturally I had to immediately start crocheting 🙂

I think it’s pretty darn adorable 😀 So far I have 4 finished, so I’d better get back to it now…or not actually, the housemate’s come home. It feels rather strange having a secret project again 🙂