I am still alive! When I started this blog, I didn’t used to do *that* much crafty stuff – hence the name. Then I gradually got more and more hooked. At the beginning of this year I was trying to post every week (or so) and now look. A month’s gone by and not a word. Well, it’s been a busy month I guess – I went to Venice to see a friend, (and ride in a helicopter) and work’s been busy. But enough of that.

Knitting! I’m absolutely in love with this pattern, by Jared Flood (which you can see above). It’s pretty clear I’m not alone – if you look it up on Ravelry you’ll find everyone else loves it too. It’s such a good beginners pattern! It’s just knitting and purling – and watching the patterns form is really addictive. I’ve seen some people stress with getting to grips with the chart – but just incase you’re going to make it, I think the most important thing to know is that every row starts with knit 3. Once you understand that, you’re off. It’s really so nice to knit.

I followed the advice of other Ravellers in terms of yarn, and I’m making it in Cascade 220 wool, in charcoal grey. I bought the yarn a while back, but have been forcing myself to finish this first…

This is the Waffle scarf I made, with the massive ball of yarn I got for Easter, from my mum. It’s not a brilliant scarf, but it’s certainly the very best I could do. It was also really good practise for getting to grips with knitting. I used an adaptation of a simple repeat pattern on Ravelry – and you can find it here. If you dig about to see what other people think, everyone says the same thing – it curls up at the edges like crazy! Still it’a great pattern for a beggining beginner.

The Guernsey Wrap needs to be blocked to within an inch of its life, I believe. That’s what everyone says – and it should make the edges nice and neat. I’ve got a hell of a long way to go before I get there, but I’m excited to see how it all turns out. So stay tuned.

In other crafting news – I got a Kindle for my birthday. There are two things about this (well, three if you count me telling you how much I like it). The first, it stopped me train tatting which is very bad. That said, recent busy times at work have made me start again. Sometimes when my head is whirring with the day’s events I can’t read a book, digital or otherwise. That’s when train tatting comes to the rescue. It’s brilliant for calming a buzzing brain. I’m making a pattern I make all the time, so all I have to do is count. It’s perfect.

The second Kindle thing; I need to make it a case! Trouble is, knitting has just eaten up my weekend time. I also have lovely fabric I got for Christmas which I need to make a crafting bag/tidy with. There’s just never enough time, is there?

EDIT: PS – By the time I came to start the wrap, I’d forgotten how to cast on. The pattern suggested the Long Tail method, which is handy, because my mum taught me that. Or it would’ve been handy if I could’ve remembered it! You Tube helped out – and this video is quite good.