Perils of Complicated Patterns

As readers of this space may already have deduced, I like to have a number of hooky projects on the go at once. Gives variety, which, as we all know, is the spice of life and it's practical too as some projects are portable and others aren't. Some are too hot to work on in the heat of summer and others are lighter. Some need concentration and I need to be fresh and alert, others less so and can be done at the end of the day when tiredness has taken the edge off my concentration. All are good and all mean that there is a project to suit every window of opportunity that arises.

And so long as each individual project is not too complicated I've found I have been able to juggle the different patterns required as necessary.

The last few weeks have brought home to me just how wonderful a thing, a really clear pattern is. A lot aren't. I don't mean that the basic stitches are unclear but that there are Omissions and "Lacunae" on various small but crucial matters. A case in point is the "Better Homes and Gardens Sampler Afghan" which I began a little while ago aiming to complete one or two squares a week as a way of both completing the afghan and learning some new techniques a bit at a time. It's lucky I was not aiming to finish it in a hurry!

The blocks which make up this afghan are not as simple as they may look. The instructions seem clear enough even for the complicated ones but I have done more frogging than I care to think about and this is on some of the simpler blocks as well as on the complicated ones.  Despite trying assiduously to follow said clear instructions my blocks have not entirely satisfactorily resembled the pictures. And often this is not because I have miscounted - always a possibility with my numerically challenged brain - but for silly little reasons such as the omission of directions as to how to tie in a new colour. To "end off" (as directed) meaning "and pull the yarn through" or "end off" meaning "no longer use the old colour and proceed with the new one while leaving the final loop of the old colour on the hook as the beginning of the new stitch"? With a simpler, single body of crochet this doesn't seem to matter so much, or hasn't in my experience, but with these complicated blocks that constantly change colour and where each colour plays an important role in defining the shapes and design of the block as a whole, it certainly does matter. A defining circle needs to look like a defining circle not like a circle with a squashed fly that has sat down heavily at one point on its circumference. In the past, trial and error have usually arrived at a satisfactory resolution if it hasn't been clear in the pattern but with this, trial and error have not always solved matters.

The problem is not just with the instructions for ending and changing colours either. Some of the blocks, like the one in the pic above, include rows done at an angle which then require edging along their sides. It may well be my inadequate crocheting skills - I am the first to admit I am a relatively newbie crocheteuse - but for the life of me I have found it almost impossible to get such edging even because it's not absolutely clear where to put my hook in for each stitch. A number of attempts at this have resulted in what I can only describe as reminiscent of the impression taken by a dentist of a shark who has been in a number of prize-fights and not yet re-grown a number of missing teeth. There are no step by step pics and one just has to puzzle it out as best one can. Having done my best for the umpteenth time the finished block is also most reluctant to lie flat. I haven't yet blasted it with a steam iron - this may well be the answer. I do hope I shall not have to frog it yet again.

I am not the only one to find the "Better Homes And Gardens" instructions slightly sketchy. Crochetbug found similar issues when making this afghan and has most helpfully got notes on her blog here to assist the befogged frogger and these have rescued me on more than one occasion. Thank you so much, Leslie!

Crochetbug, however, is a virtuoso crocheter and has far more skill at her disposal than I do to resolve some of the rather basic problems that I've encountered so ...

... to end off or not to end off - that is the question both in a micro sense of the yarn in various rows and a macro sense of the project as a whole. I am wondering whether to admit defeat on the original plan and reduce my sights from blanket to cushion cover. We'll see.

I have seven completed blocks so far. It may be some time before they double in number let alone multiply sufficiently to make the whole blanket.

In the meantime I am giving heartfelt thanks to all those who, in varying formats, give patterns in clear and simple language without unnecessary complications or basic omissions - thank goodness Lucy's instructions for the complicated flower petal cushion here were, so long as I kept counting carefully, limpidly clear to follow - thank you big time, Lucy! And now that the top of my flower cushion is finished (just the back to make now), as is also my Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land Blanket (apart from the edging) (I'll post pics of these when the last full-stop, hooky stitch has been made in each respectively) and I feel I have made enough face flannels for current and immediate future needs, I have had to start something new, that is blisssfully straightforward, as therapy for my stretched brain, if nothing else.

Although you can't see properly from the pic, this, for a change, does actually look reassuringly as the end result is meant to look. I'll show you more when a few more feet have elapsed! Any guessses as to what it is?! Clues are in the typos!

In the meantime I shall try to Keep It Sssimple!

Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land ... Finally!

This week has been so different from the run of previous ones where Summer seemed to have decided to have popped along to the UK early for a week at the end of March and then disappeared again for good. It has been Hot And Sunny pretty much all week and it's been delicious! I've spent as much time outside as I can. One of the huge advantages of working from home is that even work doesn't have to stop play if you see what I mean. Not all work can be done out in the garden but quite a lot can so it has been! And I have so needed to feel the sun on my skin making vitamin D like there's no tomorrow and engendering that sense of bien être that comes from spending hours outside. I know all the risks about not using high factor sunscreen and the perils of acquiring a face that looks like a wrinkly old walnut but after such a long time deprived of sun there has just been something so therapeutic about being able to bask in a bit of it. Basking is not perhaps quite the right word as it's been quite a busy week but you get the gist and even among the busy bits there have been some basking moments.

Here are a few of them that seem to me to have captured that new arrival of Summer from wherever it has been hiding in that far-off Sunny Land of the childhood song that gave me the name for my new (and nearly finished) blanket:

Ice and sliced lemon in tall glasses of fizzy mineral water (lots of these this week)

The first Spanish cherries of the season in a blue bowl in the evening sun

Watering my aromatic Moroccan mint in the greenhouse where it prefers to reside but where the heat this week has been a bit much even for it

Surveying the beginnings of my annual "basil forest" emerging fast also in the greenhouse, despite only being planted a week ago because I didn't feel like it when it was so cold and wet and I don't think the seeds would have felt like it much either

Blueberry muffins in summer dresses of pink stripy tulip papers

Breathing the heady scent of the wisteria flowers hanging like sweet, perfumed bunches of grapes outside my study so that even at those times when I have had to work inside, the scent of Summer has still wafted through the open window

Crocheting together the completed squares of my Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land blanket outside in the sun - how could I not this week?! It's not quite all assembled yet but nearly so. I think it will need a border - something nice and scallopy so finding a suitable pattern is next on my little list of hooky to-dos!

Amazingly it's the weekend and the sun is still here! 

Hopefully with you too wherever you are - enjoy it while it lasts 

because, if you are in the UK at any rate, it may vanish without trace! 

Happy Sunny Weekend Everyone!

Complicated Hooking & Simple Cooking

Most of my time not taken by work has gone into my various hooky projects in the last little while and keeping my head not just around work, but also around the requirements of various patterns developing in tandem, has taxed my powers to keep on top of the complicated quite a bit. As a result, not so much time has gone into cooking and when it has, it's only been on simple things. Even though the weather is still pretty uninspiring in the UK and not very summery, at least we have moved into that zone where the season brings stuff to the fore that makes simplicity serendipitous.

As the weekend is busy workwise (and I shall probably want to spend what time is spare on the aforementioned hooky complicatedness) this mode is set for the next little while.

I don't think anyone's gone hungry with the "simple cooking" routine although one or two lapses of culinary concentration have resulted in some surprises at meal times.

Here's a quick look at what's been happening in my kitchen:

1 Yoghurt-making - I make a lot of this or rather, I start this off and it makes itself a lot. Making your own is cheaper and greener than buying it all the time and it also tastes substantially better than the commercial variety - milder and less sharp. All you have to do is boil up milk, let it cool to blood heat, stir it into a couple of spoonfuls of the previous batch and leave it in its insulated jar to get on with it. As I always have milk in the fridge, it's never not possible to make it even when I've forgotten to go shopping. Good for breakfast or the basis of pudding when there isn't much else.

2 Rhubarb - historically I haven't really liked rhubarb all that much but there's been a great patch of it that's been growing like Jack's Beanstalk in all this rain and looking accusingly at me every time I open the back door. I gave my friend Sarah a couple of armfuls of it a) to salve my bad conscience about not using it and b) so that she could fulfil a desire to make rhubarb jam but there was still a mighty lot there so I thought, in order to deplete the patch a bit further, I would just quickly chop some up and shove it in the oven with a duvet of soft brown sugar - yes, it does need that much to cut the tartness especially for some of those more tree trunk-like stalks. The idea was to leave it to stew at a low temperature for half  an hour or so. Unfortunately I forgot about it and it stewed for much longer than I intended - about 2 hours. When I retrieved it however, it was a happy mistake as it was sitting beautifully softly in its own reduced juices, which had turned a sort of rhubarb toffee colour which was what it tasted of too. Not quite so sure I dislike rhubarb now, so I may try to replicate the error.

3 Muffins - these shouldn't really be seasonal but I feel they are somehow. I don't make them in the winter but all the time in the summer. Sorting through the freezer revealed raspberries, blueberries and blackberries from the garden or the "Pick Your Own" farm down the road, frozen and squirrelled away last summer but not used over the winter. Perfect for muffin-making because using them from frozen means they don't get mashed up in the mixing. It's now muffin-season again and I want to use up last year's fruit because it won't be long before I shall need the space to freeze this year's. They are also dead simple and quick to make so Raspberry-and-Blueberry Muffins and Blackberry-and-Apple Muffins have been filling my cake tins and being wolfed at hungry moments. Who says it's odd to eat Blackberry-and-Apple muffins in May?!

4 Sweet Breakfast Rolls - I've got a bee in my bonnet about salt-consumption at the moment sparked by one of those scaremongery articles that pop up periodically about such things. I don't want to be a zealot about it - life's too short, with or without salt - and I still want to use some salt in my cooking but I am aiming to reduce it a bit and this goes for one or two salty habits in others. H's salt consumption in particular is scarily high when I totted it up - he's a Marmite fanatic - he'd have it at every meal given half a chance. Recently breakfast has, without variation or exception, been Marmite on homemade bread or toast and this boy doesn't do Marmite in thin scrapings, we're talking Thickly Spread. Fine up to a point but add in the inevitable teenage devastation of bags of Kettle Chips, dry-roasted peanuts, ham, bacon, salt-sprinkled scrambled, poached and fried eggs etc, etc and it's beginning to look a bit salt-heavy. Also I need to use up last year's jam before I make any this year. Answer - Sweet Breakfast Rolls that are a bit like brioche in consistency and which Do Not Go With Marmite but need a spoonful or two of homemade jam and not much else. The dough is a normal white bread dough with added eggs, UNsalted butter, milk and some sugar and you glaze the rolls with more egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds before baking. Very simple and very good and has proved an acceptable substitute for the Marmite toast routine, temporarily anyway. The only snag being the number of said rolls consumed at each sitting. Making bread you might say is not Simple Cooking but I cheat and get the breadmaker to do the work and then shape and bake the rolls once it's done the strenuous business of mixing and kneading. What a time-saver this little ruse is and frankly I doubt we'd eat homemade bread all the time if I had to make all of it by hand even though it's fun to do it like that on occasion.

5 Earl Grey Fruit Loaf - I remembered late yesterday that I had promised to make a cake for the church fête today. Aaaaargh! Why do I never remember these things until the last minute? Repeating to myself "Simple is Best" I wondered what could be rustled up last thing. Nothing fancy or requiring icing which can be tricksy to transport for both seller and buyer and something that could be packaged up nicely and will sell easily. Fruit cake is a winner on all fronts except that it is not the simplest or quickest cake to make on the block. Enter Earl Grey Fruit Loaf which tastes like fruit cake and behaves like fruit cake; it is a fruit cake but doesn't require any of the hassle of fruit cake to make. You soak dried fruit with some soft brown sugar in Earl Grey tea, ideally overnight but what is a microwave for if not for speeding things like this up?! You cool it a bit (if using the fast forward mechanism) then you stir in flour, spices, a dab of orange oil and a couple of bantam eggs and tip it into two small lined loaf tins and bake. A piece of cake you might say! Once cold, they can be wrapped in cellophane and tied up with a bit of raffia and a sprig of flowering rosemary and look OK to take along to the cake stall. Forgot to add the labels before photographing but too late now - they've gone!

6 Asparagus - miracle of miracles, the asparagus that was planted from seed two years ago has actually produced spears that can be picked in the vegetable patch. They are still rather thin but the flavour is something else entirely, even compared with the stuff from the farm shop. It needs only a few minutes steaming, a sprinkle of coarsely ground black pepper, a swift, sinuous swirl of green olive oil on top and it sings all by itself! Supper doesn't get much better or simpler than that.

Which is all to the good because while the cooking is simple, there's time for hooking that's complicated! More of that in due course!

Needles & Natter Conversation 3

This is the third of my series of posts of conversations with some of the members of the Needles & Natter group that I am part of on Thursday mornings. Hope you enjoy!


Hello to .... Natalie! 

Natalie with her favourite old red Viking Husqvana sewing machine
which she got as a present for her 18th birthday.
"The other machine is for when No 1 machine is on holiday or on strike"!

Natalie is an artist who trained at Loughborough Art College where she specialised in textile design and printing furnishing fabrics. She worked in the furnishing trade for "Textra Furnishing Fabrics" for almost ten years as a colourist and designer before having children. The arrival of children meant a new phase in her work - less working for other people and much more for herself, (as much as time and energy allowed). Now as well as her own art-work, she teaches workshops for adults including mosaic-making, printing and curtain-making and combines this with her work with pre-school children at Kennington Playgroup and as a child minder. "The constant throughout has been doing my own art-work alongside whatever I've done." Natalie lives in Kennington just outside Oxford and she is instrumental in organising a group of Kennington artists who hold two exhibitions a year. One is coming up shortly for "Oxfordshire Art Weeks" and is open from Thursday 24th May to Sunday 27th May 2012.

What type are your needles of choice? "Sewing machine - I've always had a sewing machine. I had my first one when was I was six. As a child I used to make and sell mouse finger puppets which I designed as collectables - it was quite a good little earner!  I grew up making many of my own clothes sometimes out of insane things such as when I made a stripy, short-sleeved top with pockets out of a pair of men's pyjamas! I still make clothes, even my sister in law's wedding dress and I make curtains of course. My sewing machine doesn't feel like a machine but is just an extension of me really. Knitting is beyond me. Crochet is a very new skill that I've only learnt recently. It was something my maternal grandmother always used to do. My other grandmother knitted and had a knitting shop. I can remember very clearly my maternal grandmother being able to whisk something up with her hook almost while you waited - it was fabulous. You know, if it was cold and you wanted to go out, she would virtually hook up a hat before you went out to play! She could crochet anything and did - clothes, accessories, household furnishings, you name it. I never learnt how to crochet from her which was so silly when there was someone so gifted to hand. I decided to go on a crocheting course really as a way of remembering her and because I felt cross with myself that I hadn't learnt from her before she died. I may take up knitting one day but not yet! Having learnt how to do the basics with crochet, I can now follow patterns and I've even made something I designed from scratch." 

Tell us about your current WIP. 

"My most recent WIP has just reached completion - it's a crochet bag. I wanted to make something without a pattern and have a go at being creative like my Granny who never seemed to use any pattern at all but just designed as she went along. It had to be simple in shape, as this was my first design attempt, so I just started with four granny squares and then added extra stripes by way of borders round the sides and at the top and bottom. I added a scalloped edge, that I'd learnt how to do on my gloves, on the bottom and a picot edge on the top. It's made from all up-cycled wool, some from Orinoco and the rest from jumble sales and unravelled jumpers and things." (Ed: Orinoco is an Oxford-based scrap store which sells all kinds of art and craft materials very cheaply) "I've put in a fabric lining which I hand-stitched to the outer bag and I inserted a zip so that things don't fall out. The Needles & Natter group helped me work out how to join the bag together and how to fix on the handles. I have a commission now to make another in autumn colours highlighted with some blue for a friend from South Africa. I hope I can remember exactly what I did with this one!"

Can we have a peek? 

Natalie's crochet bag made from her own design and up-cycled yarn

What recent projects are you most proud of completing and why? 
"These fingerless gloves which involved following a pattern for the first time. I'm especially proud of circumnavigating the fingerless bits and the fact that they actually fit!" 

Natalie's first crochet project - fingerless gloves...

... finished just in time to throw a snowball or two!

What's in the pipeline next? 

"I am just finishing a series of pics which are a combination of art work and crochet. I've been inspired by the way crochet has evolved and is evolving from something quite fuddy-duddy and exclusively the preserve of elderly grannies to something that has become cutting-edge and mainstream in many designers' work, whether that's in clothes or home furnishings. I'm really interested in the decorative element of crochet as an art form and how it's used in the textile industry. Echoes of crochet have found their way into much of my art work - I use borders and frames in my work a lot and I like to replicate the effect of crochet and lace using ink and collage. I am excited about the idea of painting and crochet intersecting and seeing what the synthesis produces. There's just not enough time to do it all!" 

Lino print with crochet edging being added along the edges

What top tips would you give someone starting out with their needles? "Don't be afraid of having a go. And may be have a lesson to get started. It's very different when you actually have someone there to show you how to do something. The Needles & Natter group is great for this as well as for keeping you going with things. I have to say I never read a manual for anything! The idea behind my workshops is to offer these kinds of hands-on opportunities for people to try things out. I've got a couple coming up on styrofoam printing, on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th May 2012 from 9.30 - 11.30 am. It's only £10 per person and all the materials are provided. If anyone's interested, feel free to contact me via my website." 

Tell us about what's in your fabric / yarn stash! 

"Ah! Now you're talking! Where to begin?! My fabric stash is enormous! I have loads of vintage stuff - fabrics that belonged to my grandparents, bits and pieces picked up from jumble sales and church fêtes - lots of tablecloths, antimacassars, and all sorts of bits of embroidery. Sometimes I get pieces which are damaged or stained, which I've picked up quite cheaply and I cut them up and make them into new things. I make bags made out of old embroidery and am hoping to get an Etsy site in due course. I have piles of furnishing fabrics coming-out of my ears and trunks with all sorts of bits and pieces. I have quite a bit of wool - mostly up-cycled wool, from Orinoco or from unravelled jumpers. Once people know I collect this stuff, they often pass on bits and pieces they don't want any more. I acquired an old, rather stained quilt like this which I nearly cut up before I realised what that it was something special - it turned out to have been made by disabled veterans after the First World War."

What are your favourite sources of inspiration? 

"Natalie's Roses"

"Because of my design training I am perpetually interested in furnishing fabrics and the way designs are used in a decorative way. Sometimes I move away from the decorative theme but a lot of my work could be used like that even if it's a one-off piece. When I was working for Textra I produced a one-off piece of art work that was then commissioned to be produced as a repeat on fabric and it became an M&S bestseller in their home furnishings range. The fabric was called "Natalie's Roses". Fabric is always a source of inspiration. I have a small collection of old traditional furnishing fabrics that I've inherited, including quite a few vintage Sanderson linens. Since having children, we've tended to have  sea-side holidays and I've found the sea-side a great source of inspiration as well - boats, sea scenes, sea colours, driftwood etc. But there tends always to be a recurring undercurrent of floral echoes in my work." 

Drawings from Natalie's sketch book which became ...

... this as a screen-print!

Lino print

Screen-print and collage

Some of Natalie's other art prints using a variety of printing methods:

Natalie's seaside-inspired screen-print
designed to reflect the sometimes ambivalent love/hate relationship
we have with seagulls.

Natalie's 3-dimensional seaside-inspired piece
using up-cycled vintage maps and sewing patterns,
stitching and a driftwood boat with sails up-cycled from vintage linens.

Needles & Natter sessions are always accompanied by a nibble or two! What's your favourite homemade nibble? "Chocolate brownie or any kind of cake-and-cream combination!"  

Thank you, Natalie, for sharing your needles and nattering on my blog
and for giving a glimpse into a world where what's on the needles becomes part of art and vice versa.

Queue-Jumping

I am wondering whether my various hooky projects are scowling from their baskets and muttering quietly, or not so quietly, about pushy upstarts this last week because although I already had plenty of things in progress, I gave in to two pushy queue-jumpers who leapfrogged their way to centre stage!

To be fair they haven't usurped the place of the other things for long. But, if you will forgive the pun, this week they had me hooked, in all available spare minutes.

One is my stripy face flannel project which leapfrogged ahead because a little parcel arrived containing an assortment of cotton yarn in bright colours that can take the onslaught of the washing machine's best efforts at 60℃. The yarn is "Puppets Lyric" cotton which comes in two weights (8/8 and 4/8). I used the heavier one (8/8). It costs just over £2 per 50g ball which is not too expensive, for a pure cotton yarn although it's a bit more than my beloved Rico Creative Cotton. Unfortunately you can only wash the Rico at 30℃ which is not hot enough in Mrs T's book for face flannels.

I was intending just to try one out to see how it worked but they are so easy you could virtually hook one up with your eyes closed and in the end I made five. They are about 8 inches square so they're not huge but I think they are big enough. I didn't want them too big or they take ages to dry out after use. I used a 4mm hook, (the smaller of the two sizes indicated on the yarn label) because I didn't want a loose, lacy fabric but a denser, more opaque one. I crocheted them in US single crochet, (UK double crochet) stitches in the front loops only of each row and it's produced exactly the kind of fabric I was after - nice and soft but with a bit of texture. I think they look just as fun as I hoped they would and there's something very satisfying about making prosaically functional objects aesthetically pleasing.
See what you think:

The side edges are a little bit ragged-looking although they've come out reasonably straight - I suppose I could add an edging but I prefer them plain really.

The other queue-jumper was triggered by what I wrote in my recent post here about "catchy, snaggy baskets" and the need for a crochet bag to replace them. In fact, (although I hate to admit it), Mr Jackson was right. A better solution to the catching and snagging was to line the baskets with some fabric from my stash under the bed. Not because I don't want to make a crochet bag - I do (and I will, even if it's not for yarn.) But because these baskets are better than bags as yarn containers, at least when crocheting at home rather than away, because you can actually see the colours to choose from, instead of having to delve into the depths of a bag. And as so many of the projects I like to work on, have this element of unpredictable, unplanned "choosing as I go", this aspect of the container to hold the yarn is not insignificant.

So.... the baskets were emptied, some measurements were made, a newspaper pattern was drawn and cut, the fabric stash boxes were raided, the sewing machine was launched into the breach (much to Duck's delight!) and linings were made.

And they are exactly what was needed. No more catching or snagging.

No need for expensive additional-yarn-purchasng.

Two heart-liftingly beautiful (in my opinion anyway) fabrics that were languishing in under-the-bed darkness are now seeing the light of day.

Duck got to have a go on his favourite machine.

What's not to love?

Everyone's a winner!

And after seeing Lucy's lovely new portable project bag with a new method for inserting pesky zips here, I used some of the leftover fabric to run one of these up too, for when playing hooky away, not at home.

All good apart from the fact that in trying to change the sewing machine foot to a zipper foot, I managed to sheer off part of the bracket that holds the foot in place. I will not repeat what I said! Let's just say the air took on a rather blue haze! Not to be beaten by a little thing like this however, I managed to complete the sewing by jamming the foot in place at the start of each seam and hoping it would keep going which it did (on a wing and a prayer!), for just long enough to get closure on this project.

I am rather pleased to discover that this unexpected catastrophe is not the fault of my clumsiness but due to the chemical composition of the alloy used to make the part. When D inspected it, he informed me that it was made of "mazak" which is an alloy used for casting metal which, if it becomes contaminated in the manufacturing process, after a number of years swells and is prone to spontaneous fracture. For the last few years it's been very difficult indeed to change the sewing machine foot, that is supposed just to clip on and snap off. I put this down to my ineptitude or having forgotten the knack I once had but I am strangely delighted to find that it is due to this chemical spin-bowling and the fact that the bracket had swelled. Apparently this little gremlin of a reaction is well-known in model railway circles and has been the cause of pristine Hornby models, stored in conditions as carefully controlled as a serious wine cellar, (I kid you not!), exploding in their boxes!

So not your fault after all, Mrs T! Doesn't solve the problem of my broken bracket of course but that's another matter. I must now see if I can order a replacement part for my 25-year-old sewing companion and perhaps get her serviced as well. She may be a little elderly and a little cranky but she and I have travelled miles together and I don't want to replace her unless I have to.

Meanwhile I have my original hooky projects, so rudely queue-jumped this week, to return to! More on these in due course!

Triage

Today is a public holiday in the UK. This means it pours with rain, the sky is grey and overcast and it feels unseasonably cold just in case anyone wants to go out and do anything summery. Today has been no exception so apart from ferrying my son into Oxford and collecting him again there have been no competing calls to lure me away from translating some of that jumble of ideas in my last post into reality. So never mind the weather, today has seen: Lights..., Camera...., Hooky! Well actually Lights, Hooky, Camera but you know what I mean!!

I am so grateful to all of you who so kindly commented on my "Too Many Ideas" post - you have so helped me sort what was quite a chaotic jumble into A Plan Of Action! Triage at its best! Thank you all so much.

So what is on the hook / needles as a result?

Well, in addition to the Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land Granny Squares, of which I have now completed two thirds, and the Very Simple Scarf which is rapidly heading for the finishing line, two new projects are under way.

One is the Granny Square Sampler afghan featured by Crochetbug. I have managed to obtain a second-hand copy of "Better Homes and Gardens Knitting and Crochet", which contains the pattern and instructions in it, for the princely sum of £2.92 (+ postage) and have been having a nostalgic rifle through its 1970s pages.

All that 1970s brown and beige - what were we thinking of?! After an initial false start using some of the yarn left over from my recent knitted cushion which had to be abandoned because the colours were not only "Not Popping" but were "Positively Droopy & Sad-looking", I have dug out my stash of Rico Creative Cotton left over from three previous blanket projects and have managed, so far, to make 4 squares. The basic Granny Squares are nice and easy, the star one I had more trouble with (you can say that again!) and to be honest it could probably do with being re-done. I'll see how I go with the next star one though before my twitchy fingers unravel it! May not be able to do any better.

Here's progress so far:

This project has my name all over it because very few squares are the same pattern and I can go to town with colour permutations to make a picnic blanket that will be a happy riot of colour. I've used a 4.5 mm hook for these instead of my usual 4 mm. This works fine with the Rico Creative Cotton and the squares come out a nice generous size. I'm not going to hurry this. A square a day is too ambitious (all right, Mr Jackson!) but I'll probably add one or two a week and by the time we get any sun in the UK it might be finished!

The design has a rather appealing lack of symmetry in it and the squares are not designed to sit evenly alongside one another. I have't quite decided whether I will follow this or adjust it to look slightly more conventionally aligned. Crochetbug's version looks great but being a rather less skilled crocheter than Leslie, I fear mine might just look like a mistake. 

The second project now under way, heavily influenced by the encouragement and suggestions of all of you kind commenters, is the Blooming Flower Cushion to replace my has-been patchwork one, following Attic 24's brilliant pattern. I started this in a hurry yesterday, between other things - always bad news and of course I made two bad mistakes: I skim-read the pattern and my counting went awry. (Numbers and I always have, shall we say, an interesting relationship!) The result was not immediately apparent but after a few rounds I began to have misgivings and indeed on investigation discovered again the truth of that maxim "more haste, less speed". I don't know why I don't seem able to take this on board properly but I get caught out by it time and again. 

Anyway after a certain amount, quite a lot, of frogging in the wee small hours, I am back on track and it's looking quite promising. I'm using the same yarn as for my Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land Granny Squares because I will have quite a bit left over from them and I think there is enough for both if I combine it in the cushion with a bit of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino left over from some projects last autumn - fingers crossed I have not miscalculated! Which knowing me, I probably have! Never mind!

Here's what I've done so far (twice, if you count doing it once, unravelling it and re-doing it!):

This too is a project that "I Must Not Rush" especially as each round is getting bigger and therefore mistakes that are only discovered at the end of a round will necessitate undoing more and more work. After the painful process of undoing that began as the church clock down the road struck midnight last night I am more mindful of this than this time yesterday!

But it's such fun to do and now that I am taking it more slowly it's incredibly satisfying to find that all the counting works out just as it ought to. Here's hoping I haven't made any other mistakes that I haven't spotted yet!

So even though the Bank Holiday has been pretty grey, wet and miserable just as British Bank Holidays traditionally are, in here it's been sunny and colourful and a lot of fun. 

I hope you too have had a good day with some crafty colour and may be even some sunshine in it too even if it isn't a holiday day where you are. And if you have seen the sun - say hello to him from me and tell him to ship himself over to this part of the world - I am longing for some hot summery sunshine outside as well as in!

PS A coda from Mrs Tittlemouse to Mr Jackson in the light of his somewhat prosaic attempts to dampen her excessive plans in my last post - "Just so as you know, those projects that are not yet off their starting blocks have not been discarded, they are just waiting in the queue!"

Too many ideas...

Q: Is it possible to have too many ideas?
A: Only if you don't have enough time to carry them out.

I don't have enough time for a quarter of the ideas floating around in my head this week.
Ergo I have too many ideas.

But which to shed and which to go with?

Last week's Eskimimi Knitting and Crochet Blog Week proved to be an almost bottomless well of inspiration. Ideas for crochet and knitting makes have tumbled about pell mell in my head ever since; some directly triggered by things I saw or read about last week, some that have been lurking there for a while. Have got to shelve some, contain others, and plunge in on the remainder. But as I say, how to decide? Work has had to take first place this week but on the back-burner a busy pot has been bubbling away. Want to have a peep at what's bubbling? I'll fish out some of the contents and let's see whether they are ready to see the light of day or should be put back in the pot and have the lid firmly clapped in place!

You'll see that as well as the ideas there's been a sort of internal conversation going on at the same time - as it were between Mrs Tittlemouse and Mr Jackson. If you don't know, or can't immediately recall the story, Mr Jackson is the toad in Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse" who visits Mrs Tittlemouse, uninvited, in the hope of a free meal and who is pressed into evicting the unwanted bees who have taken up residence in her storerooms. In what follows here, as you will see, Mrs T has the pros for each idea and Mr Jackson has the cons. As in the original Beatrix Potter story, Mrs Tittlemouse and Mr Jackson do Not Always See Eye To Eye!

So here, in no particular order, are seven of the ideas in my bubbling pot:

Idea 1 - Crocheted Face Flannels

Mrs T:  "In outrageously bright and jolly colours as I've sketched out in my notebook."

Mrs T: "Making these would be small projects so easily finishable within a small time frame. They would be a good way of expanding my repertoire of crochet stitches and experimenting with different colour combinations. And they would make nice little presents wrapped around a bar of handmade soap."

Mr Jackson: "To make these you need cotton yarn in a range of colours of a type that can survive a hot 60℃ or 90℃ wash which you don't currently have any of in that stash of yours."

Mrs T: "Not yet! But I've had a look On-Line and you can get it quite cheaply."

Mr Jackson: "As these things go. But not as cheap as not buying any."

Mrs T: "And I wouldn't need that many colours."

Mr Jackson: "So you say but I've counted up 14 different colours in those drawings you've done."

Idea 2 - A Knitted Blanket
Mrs T: "Rather unexpectedly I seem to have been bitten by the knitting bug and I am very taken with the idea of knitting blocks in different stitches and colours to make not just a cushion but a blanket. I've seen some beautiful examples this last week especially in Laura's lovely blog, My House in Africa, here. As well as posting pics of this beautiful blanket in pinks and whites Laura has also posted a very helpful guide for the would-be blanket knitter, in this case, me!, with some other pics and hints here. And, as Laura so sapiently remarks, "This would be great practice for a newbie knitter"! It would indeed!"

Pic by Laura of My House In Africa

Pic by Laura of My House In Africa

Pic by Laura of My House In Africa

Mrs T: "The seed was sown a while back when I saw Life In Mud Spattered Boots Anne's fantastic multicoloured version here. Something as sophisticated as this, I suspect, may be beyond me but a simplified version, for beginners, might be a flier.

Pic by Anne of Life In Mud Spattered Boots

Mrs T: "This would build on my somewhat tentative skills acquired from the "Dappled things" cushion project and knitting individual blocks seems a containable idea - each one being discrete and portable."

Mr Jackson: "Blankets are Big Projects. This means A Lot of Yarn - which is Expensive. It also means A Lot of Commitment - which is Ambitious. Also have you forgotten the stress of "Dropping Stitches" last week and I have to say the week before? People got very hungry several evenings running while you retrieved a dropped stitch situation because you wouldn't cook any supper until you'd fixed it."

Idea 3 - Sampler Granny Square Afghan
Mrs T: "I have fallen in love with Leslie's current WIP on her extraordinarily inspirational blog, Crochetbug, here. It's a Granny Square afghan being made out of all sorts of different kinds of Granny Squares crocheted together. I love the idea of perhaps crocheting a different block every day to make a wonderful hotch-potch afghan of all sorts of colours and patterns."

Pic by Leslie of Crochetbug 

Pic by Leslie of Crochetbug 

Pic by Leslie of Crochetbug 

Pic by Leslie of Crochetbug 

Pic by Leslie of Crochetbug 

Mrs T: "Again this idea is a skill expander. Although a big project, a daily measurable target might be a good way of managing that. And I could probably use yarn already in "the stash" so for once it might be a more economical blanket than some."

Mr Jackson: "Or not, as the case might be, knowing you. Do you really have the time to crochet one block every day? And if you don't, bearing in mind the small matter of Work and Domestic Routines, will you become dispirited and lose interest? A risk, methinks."

Idea 4 - Crochet Bag
Mrs T: "Something that's been on my list of "to makes" for a while. I Need one as opposed to Want one as the baskets that currently contain my yarn keep catching and snagging on the contents because they are not lined."

Catchy snaggy basket # 1

Catchy snaggy basket # 2

Catchy snaggy basket # 3

Mrs T: "In fact really I ought to make several, looking at these baskets, because one won't be big enough. Tee hee! These will be Really Useful as well as decorative and I probably have enough yarn to make at least one without additional purchases."

Mr Jackson: "Ha ha, I've heard the "got enough yarn in stock" thing before! And just for info, Mrs T, do you really need another bag? You could just line the baskets with some of that fabric in those overflowing boxes under your bed."

Mrs T: "Yes, I do need another bag! I've told you I do. I need three! And anyway you ought to know by now, "a girl tittlemouse can Never Have Too Many Bags, Blankets Or Shoes!""

Idea 5 - Stripy Snake
Mrs T: "A snake like Attic 24 Lucy's here. I just love it - all stripy and squishy and Completely Delightful!"

Pic by Lucy of Attic 24

Mrs T: "He looks such fun to make and I can probably complete him with yarn in stock. Also, I already have Lois Daykin's book "Baby Crochet" which has the pattern in it.

Mr Jackson: "Do you really need a snake?!"

Mrs T: "Yes, of course I do! Stop going on about "Do you really need...?"- it's getting on my nerves!"

Idea 6 - Simple Knitted Scarf
Mrs T: "The "deep sea" scarf that hopefully will turn the yarn from my unravelled Japanese flowers into something nice."

Mrs T: "I've already started this and am making quite good progress, I think (for an unconfident tricoteuse!) Slightly concerned the pattern is making too sharply pointed a triangle shape but if you think I am going to unravel it all for a second time, you can think again! So far no desperate disasters with keeping on track with the pattern instructions either so probably finishable without tearing my hair out."

Mr Jackson: "No cons that I can think of immediately."

Mrs T: "Well, thank goodness for that! Just as well, as I've already started it!"

Idea 7 - Crochet Cushion Cover
Mrs T: "The patchwork cushion cover I made for my dressing table chair over twenty years ago has sadly faded over the years in many places and is coming to pieces in others. I shall be sad to say goodbye to it but it really has had its day. The apparently random choice of fabrics interspersing the blue silk hexagons was dictated by consistency not of colour or pattern but source, coming from scraps of dresses and blouses my mother made for me when I was a child."

That pink raspberry fabric on the right was my favourite summer dress of all time
- I loved it so much , my mother even added an "allonge" of plain pink fabric
to extend its life for another year when it was really too short for me.

Mrs T: "Anyway, all good things come to an end and I would like to make Attic 24 Lucy's enchantingly exuberant flower cushion pattern here to replace it."

Pic by Lucy of Attic 24

Pic by Lucy of Attic 24

Mrs T: "Again this is something useful and needed. And I've already picked up some cheap-as-chips jumpers in a charity shop to cut up to make backings for some cushions. This would be containable as a project and could again probably be managed with existing yarn supplies."

Mr Jackson: "You keep telling yourself that, Mrs T!"

Mrs T: "I am!"

Mr Jackson: "Also that flower cushion is beautiful but it's not a sensible or practical choice for a cushion that you need to sit on. Make one with a flat surface."

Mrs T: "But I like the three dimensional flower effect."

Mr Jackson: "You're impossible, Mrs T!"

Any thoughts anyone? Let me know what you'd go for and what you'd shelve. (And don't listen to Mr Jackson who not only "never wipes his feet" but is something of a kill-joy!)

A huge thank you to Anne, Lucy, Laura and Leslie for responding so kindly to my emails asking for permission to use pics from their wonderful and inspirational blogs. xx E