A little progress

Have finally finished a few things I have been working on. Last August I decided I would knit baby blankets for three friends who were having babies in the new year. I really didn't expect it to take all of this time but designing is a slightly different kettle of fish to following a pattern. The first blanket (below) took ages. I must have started it  three times before I decided on something I liked and then discovered that all the wools I had chosen was different weights. Lots of increasing and decreasing to keep the edges straight. It took at least 3

months to get the 4 main panels right. Unsurprisingly I'd had enough by then so I had a break and made another blanket, sadly I don't have a picture of that one, and to make some Christmas things. I'd learnt a few lessons about watching the thickness of the wool so that one took a much less time and I used the same idea for this last blanket.

The pattern, roughly was 160 st. Cast onto 7 and a half milimeter needles using double thread baby double knitting. Then established a ten row pattern, 8 rows stocking stitch in the white and two rows in contrast building up a pattern as can almost be seen in the phot. Then knitted a garter stich border on the same sized needles with only one thickness of wool and sewed it all together. It has turned out much bigger than I expected but still very happy with it. It knitted up fairly quickly so I didn'a have time to get sick of it like the other one. Next off the 'to do' list is a floppy scarecrow hat for The Artist in cheap read double knitting, because he almost certainly will never wear it.

Am also very happy with my front garden. I don't often get the chance to do it all in one go, but last Sunday managed a full (if not quite uniterrupted) afternoon of weeding and mowing and above all raking. Not everyone's idea of fun I know but I love it, especially when it looks like this at the end.

It needs a few more plants in but I hope to sort that ouyt soon as I planted a load of seed this afternoon. Rather than out of packets these are seeds I collected last year while out walking the dog so I'm not sure what I will get or even if they will all germinate but As the back garden is currently  abuilding site there is little point planning anything specific, so this is a good year to experiment a bit.