Wool on Sundays

Yes it's that time again; the first Sunday of the month means joining in with Janine over at The Rainbow Hare's blog to write a yarn related post. Janine's post is a tribute to Easter and features a lovely visual story of two knitted bunnies and a beautiful knitted daffodil. Here
I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done during March. I finished the rainbow colours baby blanket that I had just started in the last Wool on Sundays post. It was the same pattern as the other 2 baby blankets that I'd made earlier in 2018. The mum may have been born in the 1980s but she is so much a 60s girl, so a 'rainbow blanket' was called for.
When we took the parcel over to my neighbour's place, we each enjoyed a cuddle with baby Willow...

The new mum loved the rainbow colours...

( the shelf behind has lots of yarns as H uses yarn to make Dreamcatchers which she sells at the Markets)

And what goes with a rainbow blankie? Why, a unicorn of course! Lol

Also this month I have been knitting yet another baby blankie using a pattern I purchased from Tin Can Knits. It is only half way through but deserves its own blog post. Let's just say that a lot of 'frogging' or reverse knitting has gone on in the last few weeks...maybe even 'some hair torn out' type situations too 😉😉. So just a little peep at the back...once again I've used Patons Cottonblend. Sharmayne from the Country Fragrance blog told me of some other brands of cotton that she recommends. And one day I will buy some Bendigo cotton; it was the 200gram balls that put me off a bit originally; especially as I wanted to use lots of colours.
The back of the latest project...
The pattern is The Bounce Blanket by the Canadian company, Tin Can Knits. 

Wool on Sunday...

Regular readers would remember that for a little while I've been linking with Janine's Wool on Sunday on her Rainbow Hare blog. I've 'met' some lovely fellow knitters/crocheters this way and it's such fun thinking up yarn related posts to write. Janine has published 137 Wool on Sunday posts which is phenomenal! But from now on, instead of being weekly, the WoS posts will be monthly.  

So...my latest yarn themed post...

There must be something about January, because this time last year I was writing about my big push to lessen the number of the bags of donated squares in my sewing room, by joining them into blankets. And this year has seen the same frenetic activity. The blankets go to Knitting for Brisbane's Needy ready for distribution when the weather starts to cool down. The weather has been rather hot here lately so in the last 2 weeks, the air con has been turned on, and the TV turned on, and I've just sat and joined the stacks of squares/rectangles that have been donated to K4BN.

You might say, I've been on a roll...
This was the one that I put together last night and crocheted a border on it this afternoon at Sisters of Stitch. ( which is held at a council library with air con!) My DD1 crocheted the majority of the 36 squares in this blanket.

 The 11 blankets I've made this last fortnight, folded and stacked...lots of people have contributed squares to enable me to make so many blankets.

 

 

Yesterday DH helped me collect some bags of yarn/unfinished knitting projects from a young woman who had gone to school with my girls. This woman's mum had recently passed away and Amanda remembered that I belonged to a knitting charity and asked if the group would like her mum's yarns etc. So we picked up all these bags, and the yarns are gorgeous. Lots of lovely items will be made for the needy, that's for sure, as I will give out yarns to my 'outworkers' and also take bags of yarn to Knit and Natters.

( There is a possibility that that big stack of blankets will be used in one of my 'yarn bombing' photo shoots, sometime soon. )
So now the bundle of squares to be joined is quite depleted...

But I've been told there are some bags of squares for me to collect, so some more joining coming up! lol

Wool on Sunday...

Once more linking up with Janine of the Rainbow Hare Blog Wool on Sunday. This week Janine shared photos of a magnificent ripple stitch throw that she had crocheted and writes about her latest project...another throw.

I mainly knit throws these days and try to have a stash of main colours on hand. These are usually navy, black, grey which contrast well with bright colours. Most times I like to use wool for these main colours and the first preference is yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mill, a proud Aussie firm. 



I was lucky enough to visit BWM a few years back and saw the yarn ready for dyeing

Sometimes, I prefer a good quality acrylic yarn and have used Red Heart, Panda etc, but my absolute favourite is the British brand, King Cole. ( discovered while on holiday in the UK) Earlier this year, a friend sent me an email with a voucher from a UK company called Love Knitting. The voucher gave 10% off an order plus  free postage for my first order. So I took up the offer. Within 10 days my parcel arrived! 

And look how beautifully the yarn was packaged...organza bags!

And this is the project that I've been doing, using this lovely yarn...

It's yet another slipstitch pattern...a favourite of mine, honeycomb. 

The greenish yarn is an eBay buy from quite a few years ago. It's Robin Napoli which I suspect was discontinued many years ago. I bought 20 balls of it and after all this time, still had 17 of those balls left. ( I spent far too much money too...got carried away! Lol) So it was time to use them all up. 'Doing the maths', I suspected that the 17 balls wouldn't make the throw long enough, so after every 4 repeats of the pattern, I am doing one repeat using a contrast colour. 

The Robin yarn is rather lovely with little 'nubbly' bits of turquoise and aqua contrasting with the teal.

This throw is not intended for any particular recipient; it's just knitting for pleasure and to use up some beautiful yarn that's been in the stash too long! Mind you, the throw might end up being donated to the annual parish arts and craft show in July...you just never know! 😉