New blanket making...

Hello! Hope you're having a great day wherever you are! :) 

I have been making a new Wheels Within Wheels blanket recently. 

It is colourful and  fun, I really like this pattern, the wheels stick out for a great thick textural effect that I enjoy making. 

The pattern is by Frankie's Knitted Stuff and can be found on Ravelry.

I decided to make my wheels a bit bigger so added 2 extra rounds of colour, lots of opportunity fro colour play!  I am using a few different 8ply wools to get the colours I want, mainly Heirloom Colorworks, Baby Merino 8ply, Loyal 8ply and Cascade 220 Superwash.

I've made a couple of these before here and here if you want to see them. 

I have just started doing the background of each wheels now, I am using my favourite Silver Grey in Cascade 220 Superwash as a good neutral foil to all the colours.  I have 48 wheels so it will take a bit of time! 

 So I think that's it for the minute, hopefully I'll have the squares ready for joining soon, although I think they will need a fair bit of blocking as the corners are curling up a lot.  Have a great creative day peeps! 

Seaside Wheels within Wheels - Finished!

Hello everyone! 

I hope you all had a great weekend!   

I had a market stall at Emu Plains again, which was lovely, and then we spent a fair amount of time at the beach as the temperatures have skyrocketed in the last few days and the water was divine!   My older 2 boys sweltered it out at Soundwave Music festival in Melbourne and had a ball. It was a huge weekend in Melbourne with the White Night Festival and World Cup cricket also on, the boys said the crowds were massive! 

Today I am trying to  catch up on my huge washing pile and get things in and out before a big summer storm hits later on.  I really lead such an exciting life!!! ;) 

At the risk of boring you all stupid with more photos of this blanket,  I thought I would show you how my blues and greens Wheels within Wheels blanket finished up.  I was really happy with this make, I haven't made a blanket with so much off white before, but I love how the circles really pop in the light background.

So a few facts about this blanket : 

Pattern : Wheels within Wheels by Frankie Brown

Yarn: The circles were made from small amounts of Colorworks and Loyal DK in a variety of greens and blues.  The background was Baby Merino 8ply by Heirloom in cream.

Cot size, 42 squares.

So now I am working on something new, I started this new make before the wheels blanket, but now I can really get stuck into it!  

I will show you some progress later on I think, I'm really liking how it is coming up! 

Have a great day! 

Talk soon! 

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Wheels within Wheels update....

Hello! It has been busy around here recently! 

I have been hooking away at these circles and I think the end is in sight!  

What do you think of the cream background?  I am really happy how it is looking so far, I think the blues and greens will stand out nicely and make good pops of colour.  

My pile of squares is now much bigger than my pile of circles, and I am going to try really hard to finish them off tonight and then sew them all together tomorrow.  I am wondering if I should block each individual square or if I could sew them together and then block the whole blanket....

This fab pattern is Wheels within Wheels by Frankie Brown, I found it on Ravelry. :)

Okay,  I have to go and get busy with my hook! 

Talk soon  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Progress....

Hello! Just quickly popping in here today to show you what I've been working on recently and why I have so little computer time at the minute! 

My latest 'Wheels within Wheels' blanket is coming along nicely, I am down to the last 12 circles and then I can start squaring them up.  I am really happy with the colour palette in this one, it's starting to remind me of peacock feathers and tropical beaches :)

 This is my little suitcase of unfinished things, there is my heart blanket that I was really trying to have ready for a Valentine Day treat, but I don't think it will be ready by then :( 

I'm planning today that I will get a few a more circles finished and choose the background yarn.  It's good to have achievable goals! 

One of the things I am trying to do this year is be more realistic about what I am capable of and what can actually be done in a day, rather than setting these huge lists of tasks that never get done and make me feel bad and unproductive.   I am hoping it will help me focus on getting more things finished and stop me putting off jobs that I don't want to do.  Time will tell. 

So, onward with the day! 

Have you got anything special planned today?

It's the last day of the Summer holiday's here so I guess I had better check the boys uniforms are clean and everything is ready for the return to school routine tomorrow.  I have a lot of wool shop catching up to do when I have the house to myself again, new colours to upload, crochet classes to plan and a newsletter to write.  I'm looking forward to it! :)

Have a lovely day! 

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Wheels Within Wheels Blanket - Finished!

Wow it's a wild and wooly day here.  We have been without power for four hours and it has just gone back on so I can get on here and post this!

Anyway, I thought I'd show you this blanket that I finished recently while I was on my finishing off drive.  I think this was started well over a year ago, and then sat on a shelf in pieces for a long time.

I am so glad I have finished it!  I really love the random coloured rings and the way they pop against the grey, it was a lovely way to use up lots of half balls and left overs from other blankets.

Sorry about the overkill of photos, but it has been very grey here and the lighting hasn't been great for such a colourful blanket.  So I have taken quite a lot!

These two shots are before I blocked and shaped it properly, it was quite puffy and didn't lie flat.  You can see the difference in the top pictures where it is lying much flatter and draping quite nicely over the back of the couch.  This blanket really benefitted from a good blocking I think.

So here are a few facts about this blanket:

Pattern: Wheels within Wheels by Frankie Brown  (Great pattern!!)

(I did change a few things, made the wheels bigger and the squares bigger too.)

Yarn: For the centres, scraps of 8ply from other projects, mainly Heirloom Colorworks, Babywool 8ply and Loyal DK.  The backgrounds where in a medium grey, but I can't remember which yarn exactly.

Size: 30 squares, 75 x 90cm, roughly a cot size blanket.

This was a really fun blanket to make, and I think I will be making a few more of these later in the year.  

What do you think? Do you like the grey?  I think you could have a big play with colours in this blanket and come up with lots of beautiful schemes....

Anyway, I've gotta run, talk soon!

 (I'm off to see if I can add my tapestry washcloth patterns to the Ravelry site, I think that will be the easiest way to do instant downloads.....learning new things every day round here!!)  :)

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weekly stills...

1.  Finally got these sewn together over the weekend, I've nearly finished the edge and then I'll show you all, I actually really love it!

2. Colour pop.

3. Franklin has taken to spending the chilly days curled up on Max's bed.  

Wish I could do that sometimes!

4. Bit the bullet this morning and joined Weight Watchers, half a day in and so far so good!  Just had these as a treat after lunch instead of a Tim Tam (or 3)!  Baby steps....   I have been feeling pretty crappy recently so I hope getting a bit of routine into my eating and shedding the extra kilos will give me a bit of a lift.

5. Weekend reading, magazines are always a welcome treat.  Must get the new Frankie soon too.

6. My new washi tapes , so cute!

7. Quite exciting, I have been busy making my first PDF pattern!!  It has been a bit of a learning curve but it's nearly ready to put out there!  Eek!  It is a pattern for the 4 tapestry washcloths I made a while ago.  Remember the harlequin one, the spotty one, the heart one and the cloud one?  Well they are all on this pattern, so I hope people will like it.

What have you been up to this week? Any highlights?

Joining up with the other Stillers over on The Beetle Shack 

Weekly stills

Joining in with Em over at The Beetle Shack for weekly stills.

1. A tired kitten catching a nap in the shadows.

2. I have to toss up between reading and crochet before bed, crochet has been winning this week.

3+4. I have dusted off the 'Wheels within Wheels' project that has been ignored for a while, I'm determined to get this blanket finished soon!

5. This is part of my wool shop after a bit of a tidy up, it was getting pretty chaotic in there!

6. Newish shoes, so comfy and cute!

7.  Poor dahlias. Summer 2014 has not been kind to you....

8. ....But the tomatoes seem to be enjoying all the heat and creating a tomato jungle.

New blanket progress

The 'Wheels within Wheels' blanket is going along quite well, I have finished the background grey on all of the centres that I have made so far and I am really liking how it is looking!

Here they are, all laid out, I like how it is still a colourful blanket, but the grey seems to make it look the colours look more interesting, little pops of colour in a big expanse of neutral.

I want to make the blanket to cover this single bed, (our new 'day' bed in the family room), the big squares are making this happen fairly quickly!

Hope to have quite a few more completed this weekend, we are in for a cold, stormy couple of days, so plenty of time to hunker down and crochet away quite happily!

I am tossing up whether to go up to the Sheep and Wool Show on this weekend in Bendigo, I really want to go, it is about 2.5 hours from here but if it is not too stormy I think I will make the effort.

What are you up to this weekend? Something fun?

How are your WIP going? Making some inroads? or starting something new?

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PS.  Pattern for this blanket is here