Ripple blanket

It's been a while since I had some completed crochet to show you but, at last, my ripple blanket is finished!

Ta-dah! The pattern, of course, is by the lovely Lucy at Attic24. I adapted it slightly by crocheting three rows of colour in each stripe rather than two to make the stripes bolder. The colours were my own choice and I used her method of organised randomness for the order of the stripes. Basically you use your set of colours once and then put them into a different order for the second set, and so on. It really works and is such a simple way to make the colours look spontaneous when your personality is anything but!

The border is made of 3 simple rows (one of trebles and two of double crochet).

The yarn is mostly Stylecraft Special DK which I bought from Black Sheep Wools - luckily they're only a half hour drive from me but they also do mail order. For those who are interested, the colours I used are:

1432 Wisteria, 1390 Clematis, 1084 Magenta, 1061 Plum, 1425 Emperor, 1062 Teal, 1708 Petrol, 1302 Denim, 1019 Cloud Blue, 1203 Silver, 1724 Parma Violet, 1725 Sage, 1068 Turquoise

plus a green, purple and blue from other ranges but I can't find the ball bands to give you those.

I've loved making it and feel a bit bereft now it's finished. I definitely prefer blankets made in rows as there are far fewer ends to sew in! A pity then that my next blanket will be made up of granny circles. Not my choice!

Chickpea saw the Kissing Kaffe design by Amanda Perkins in a magazine and fell in love with it. I think she was expecting to be able to snuggle up in it this winter. Ha, ha! Highly unlikely given it's taken me over a year to make the ripple!

So far I've made 3 circles just trying to get the tension right. Luckily the blanket has lots of circles of different sizes so the ones which were too small won't go to waste. The dark pink will be the prominent colour when it's finished. I'll keep you updated with progress.

More ripples on the local lake. It looked beautiful yesterday in the late afternoon light and this photo really doesn't do it justice.

We were meant to be visiting the Scarecrow Festival at Tatton Park today but the Highways Agency conspired against us. The motorway junction was closed and the diversion took us to another closed junction, whose diversion took us to yet another closed road. We gave up and went home, feeling very fed up. It's still on next weekend but it's a busy one for us so there may not be time. If not, I'll have to content myself with photos from previous years like these from 2016.

Hope you had a lovely and less frustrating weekend! x

This month I've been...

Celebrating...at Mum and Dad's Golden Wedding party. This was taken before most of the guests had arrived. It was a lovely evening full of fun and laughter.

Admiring...the beautiful autumn colours. The photo of the rudbeckias was taken yesterday after a heavy shower which is why they're so wet.

Harvesting...elderberries to make elderberry gin. It should be ready just in time for Christmas cocktails :-)

Auditioning...fabrics for my latest journal quilt. I'm a tad behind as this one is for June!

Tidying...my fabric drawer after pulling out all those fabrics. So satisfying but, alas, unlikely to stay this way for long!

Starting...a new crochet blanket. The pattern is Maybelle Square by My Rose Valley. The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK.

Continuing... to crochet my other blanket. Stylecraft Special again.

Walking...in Tatton Park.

Listening...to the bellowing of a stag as he marked his territory.

 

Strolling...through the woods today and hunting for interesting fungus.

So that's been my month so far: a curious combination of lethargy and busyness. Apologies for not having been around much and for not visiting your blogs either. I'll try to do better into November. However, there's still a few days of October left and I'll be back later in the week with a Halloween treat. x

Woollen woods

Hello, how are you? It's a long bank holiday weekend here in the UK so there's the added bonus of an extra day off - yay! I've just been sat outside with my first cup of tea of the day, enjoying the warm sunshine. It's one of my favourite things to do in the spring and summer, soaking up the quiet and the birdsong in those moments before the hustle and bustle of the day begins.

Well, I was planning to give you a different post today as there's still lots to tell you about from my two weeks off. However, I was watching the local news last night and there was a report about the Woollen Woods exhibition at Rufford Old Hall which we went to see last Sunday. So, I'm going to show you photos from that instead.

The exhibition is in support of the Campaign for Wool and the woods have been decorated with felted, knitted and crocheted fairies, flora and fauna. The owl above was my favourite and I also love the hedgehog you'll see below - after seeing the news report, it turns out they were made by the same lady. It was a wonderful time to be in the woods anyway as they were full of bluebells and spring flowers.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. If you'd like to see it yourself, the exhibition is on until 30 August and will be added to over the months. However, even if you're not planning to be in Lancashire, there are other Woollen Woods exhibitions taking place around the country - Cumbria, Nottinghamshire, Devon, Isle of Arran and County Antrim, Northern Ireland - the website has links to the locations and there are links to some free patterns for the Rufford event here. I'll show you more photos of Rufford Old Hall and the gardens another time.

It's been a crafty weekend here in the Home Jules household. I've been madly stitching to complete my April journal quilt in time to show it at my quilt group on Wednesday. We're also having a charity night and I'm demonstrating my mug hugs again - four times! - so I need to make up some samples.

Later, we're going out to a restaurant as it's Chickpea's birthday tomorrow! Speaking of whom, she's just appeared so it's time to put on the kettle and make another brew. Have a lovely day wherever you are. xx