Wool on Sunday...

I noticed that Janine from the Rainbow Hare blog had just written a post for Wool on Sunday. As it’s been ages since I wrote any blog post, I thought I’d make an effort to remedy that situation. I have been pondering on the fact that I don’t seem to have done much in the knitting and crocheting situation this year, but I looked through photos on my iPad and found that perhaps I’d been a bit harsh with myself. 

Early in the pandemic, I did some Christmas knitting...I made some knitted decorations. The photo is masked with a call out as some of the recipients of these read my blog. 😉

Because of the increased demand for warm items for the needy in the community, for many months I focused on joining donated squares into blankets for distribution. To this end, I also crocheted the most granny squares, I’ve done in many a year...with that ultimate goal of providing yet another blanket or two for Knitting for Brisbane’s Needy to distribute. 

In the next photo, I have sewn some donated circles on donated squares. The circles were a bit wonky and squaring them up would  have also made a square that was a bit open. 

Some more of the blankets I put together for K4BN; I used bright colors, that’s for sure! 

I think that my tally for blankets was 11...but it could have been more. 

At one stage I started a baby blanket using oddments of yarn. The plan was to make it to donate to K4BN, but a week or so after I started I found out that my nephew and his wife who live in Sydney, had had a new baby daughter about 6 weeks before. ( my brother thought I knew so didn’t bother to tell me...hmmm 😜)  So the newly started blanket suddenly became baby Zali’s gift and I quickly finished it ready for posting. 

And then there was the throw that I knitted for our parish art and craft show, which this year was all online. DH warned me that it probably wouldn’t sell as being a photo in an online catalogue isn’t the same as seeing such an item in ‘real life’, but I wanted to feel as though I was contributing to our parish’s main yearly fundraiser. And it didn’t sell which meant I could take it to Sunday Stitchers that month as my Show and Tell. And of course, I have a throw available to give away if the need arises. At Sunday Stitchers, the lovely Helen took this  next photo of me holding up the throw. 

With the restrictions on meetings due to COVID-19, our regular Knit and Natters were discontinued for a time. Eventually a very, very small number of venues were reopened with strict protocols in place and with very restricted numbers. But at one Knit and Natter, we started bringing a chair and having an alfresco Knit and Natter beside the car park of the library venue. ( With the social distancing regulations, only 4 of us could meet IN the library...so that would NOT have worked!) 

And in these strange times I decided to use as my knitting bag, a bag I bought from the merchandise counter at The Addams Family Musical. It seemed appropriate 😉😜

Wool on Sunday...

My goodness, this last month has flown by so quickly and here I am writing a Wool on Sunday post for August. And of course linking back to Janine’s blog, The Rainbow Hare here where Janine shares a pattern for knitted and crocheted ice cream cones.

I was able to donate 2 knitted throws to be sold at the annual parish Art and Craft Show. Both were sold prior to opening night, 2 weekends ago. 

One was a garter stitch chevrons rug that I had finished a few months ago and put aside until it was needed. 

I wrapped this throw around the shoulders of its new owner...

The second throw that I donated was in a honeycomb slipstitch design and seemed to take ages to finish ( but it was probably only 3 1/2 weeks work) and it was finally completed the weekend before the show. 

I took a photo of it in the sunlight...

Inside it looked completely different! 

I want to share with you a very special story about the sale of this throw. The lady who bought this, asked for it to be put aside for her when she saw it a few days before the show opened. She didn’t know the price but insisted that she had to have it, no matter the cost. N had bought one of my donated throws last year, so I was surprised when I was told that she’d asked to buy this one too. Sadly, a few weeks before this, N had lost her 18 year old son to an accidental overdose. 

The organisers of the show explained that N wanted to buy this new throw to give to her teenage  daughter on the day that would have been the deceased boy’s birthday. The 2 siblings had been very close. 

But the story gets even more poignant. A former teacher of both siblings ( Year 1), who heard the story insisted on donating a quarter of the price so that when N came to collect and pay for the item, it would be less of an impost for her at this sad time in her life. Such a wonderful act of kindness. 

With that knitting commitment out of the way, I’ve now gone back to joining donated squares into blankets for charity. ( a number of the granny squares have been made by me at Knit and Natters) 

So my next month’s Wool on Sunday post should contain photos of these completed blankets. 

Wool on Sundays...

Once again joining in with Janine from the Rainbow Hare blog for Wool on Sunday. But I'm not writing a post about my knitting projects.

This week I'm writing a post about the lovely knitting that a man called Rob does for K4BN (Knitting for Brisbane's Needy). Rob regularly drops off finished items to me so I can hand them in for him. The previous time he left a bag full of items I asked him if he would like some donated yarns. People often donate big bags of yarn. And it so it was a month ago I was able to get 2 bags of 8 ply yarns for him that had been brought along to the Scarborough Knit and Natter. 

Today Rob dropped in 3 items he has knitted using some of that yarn...all adult sizes which is wonderful!

And he also brought over a rose from his garden for me...how lovely! 

And the Rose has the most beautiful fragrance.
Thank you for all those enquiries about how my foot/ankle is healing. I guess every day there is improvement. I still have the 'dirty toes' bruises and the foot is still swollen but no where near like it was a week ago. I still have the 'ring of Saturn' around the ankle and that part is still quite sore. On Wednesday I report to my GP who will organise some more X-rays. 

I still can't really walk without the moon boot. So it will be interesting to see how things go during the coming week. And it all happened 'in a flash'...

Friday Night Sew In...

Wendy over at Sugarlane Designs is running FNSI now, so firstly many thanks to Wendy for organising this great event.
Last night, I spent some time sewing up some more donated squares into a blanket for the needy. I had a strict time limit on this...only until 7.30!

And then it was time to grab my 2 cubes of Christmas fabrics and sort through looking for fabrics with smallish designs on them. Then I cut out some long hexagons. By then it was time to sit down in front of the TV and watch the second episode of Broadchurch on ABC1, and stitch! How good an evening is that! I stitched away through another few shows until just before midnight!

This will be either a table runner or table centre

Why not use the link to Wendy's blog and the 'sign in post' to visit other FNSI ers and see what lovely things they were working on.

Random Stuff...

When I was in New Zealand, I bought some items as gifts for my girls, some friends and of course some items to give my wonderful neighbour and her family, to say thank you for collecting the mail and feeding Eduardo. And I also bought some yarns and fabrics as souvenirs for me! :-) I spoiled myself buying beautiful NZ mohair, some alpaca and also some balls of  merino and possum blend yarns...yum! :-)

I bought one more skein of mohair but it is now a scarf!

I bought a smallish amount of patchwork fabrics from a number of stores along the way... I know that some people try to avoid buying random fat quarters, preferring to buy larger amounts of less variety, but I usually find some project in which to use my oddments collection.  

Now this fabric panel came in the mail last Friday...a birthday surprise from my SIL in Melbourne; it's full of whimsy with those angels! :-)

Now look at these goodies that I bought from Maree at our bloggers meet on Sunday. I had decided to use variegated threads to embroider my framed hexagons from Designs by Fee. And these lovely threads fit the bill perfectly! Now I just have to get the right fabric to transfer Fee's designs to, and I will finally start on that project... and it must be about 8 or 9 months since the first mail out of those :-/ lol (have finally ordered some hanky linen to work the embroidery on )

Beautiful embroidery threads

 My main project goal at the moment is to sew as many blankets as possible out of the small mountain of donated squares that have found their way to my place!  I have like an assembly line...I'm double crocheting a firmer edge around these rectangles and bundling them into groups of 30...then I will sew the bundles into a blanket. So I have one full bundle of 30 and another pile started. When I run out of all the regular sized shapes, I'll start on the more irregular ones...that's where the real challenge is!