Obsessed, determined, single-minded, frenzied, stubborn...

Ha ha! Sounds like I've been reading the thesaurus again doesn't it! So what have I been up to which has resulted in my feverish and determined behaviour? 

Last Sunday, while confined to home due to the wild weather, I decided that something had to be done about the growing pile of orphan and odd sized squares that are in a box in my sewing room. Regular readers know that I volunteer to take squares that are donated to K4BN, and then sew them into blankets, throws, knee rugs and cot blankies. I Really enjoy this because it's much quicker to sew up a blanket than knit or crochet from scratch.

This lot that were left  just didn't fit with the majority of donated squares. Over time I had toyed with a number ideas of how to use them but most needed a lot of crocheting/knitting work from me. I wasn't really prepared to do that... preferring to put the effort into my own creations and selecting my own colours and yarns etc. So sewing up was the way to go :-)

Last year I made a blanket out of odd sized swatches that had been donated, and, although a lot of work, it was satisfying to get it finished into a useful item. I wondered whether new donations might have squares in some of the odd sized ones I have, but on Sunday I decided that I would wait no longer because it probably won't happen that way! lol  Firstly, 'Mrs Purist' had to overcome her 'fear' of putting knitted shapes with crocheted shapes. 

This donated  'square' is about 15 inches by 12 inches; a monster compared to the other oddments

Those pink and white blocks had been joined already and resisted all efforts to  'un-join' them!

I had other commitments on Monday and Tuesday, so Wednesday was the day! The day when I would start work on a new throw to use up these 'odd ones'. I measured and 'fiddled' with layouts. I crocheted (dc) around the shapes (rectangles and squares) in black to stabilise some of the knitted squares but more importantly  to make stitching up easier. Last year when I sewed up the odd sized shapes into a blanket, I knitted pieces to fill spaces...not this time...too slow! I crocheted squares and rectangles to fit spaces. I was determined that this project should not take up too much time... (pfft! who am I kidding! lol) I worked most of Wednesday and Thursday on the project.

No knitting this time because I wanted speed! I crocheted this large rectangle to fit beside the fluffy pink rectangle

This is a small rectangle that I crocheted to fill in a space...nice and quick!

I added extra rounds to make squares fit..

This poor mis shapen knitted square got a crocheted border and was able to fit in quite well!

The throw arranged on my table to look like it's being used to snuggle under :-)

Last night it was finished being sewn up and a black border crocheted around it, leaving just the weaving in of ends! So my stubborn determination to clear out a box in my sewing room paid off. One more item for Karen to count in donations so far in 2013.

Same throw, just turned around to show the other end...

 Now my next sewing up  project concerns some knitted rectangles that were donated to K4BN...they are all white/off white and measure about 19 cm by 14 cm...sounds like a different sort of challenge.

And just to finish off...here's the blanket I sewed together last year out of odd sized swatches that had been donated.