Sunday May 24th

Hello friends, I hope you are all well and staying very safe. I have had a bit of a mixed week with sciatica rearing its painful head which in turn left me somewhat overwhelmed with the knitting and crochet I have on the go at present. It left me almost in tears with the enormity of it all so, being a practical sort, I set out a plan. I have divided up my projects into a daily diary of sorts. Each day I will concentrate on just one project which will allow me to see real progress which I will share each week with you all.

Monday

I will work on my beaded shawl, Flutter of the Wings. Long rows mean very slow going but they are gradually reducing and the gradient yarn is beginning to show some changes.

Tuesday

Sock day today, nice and quick progress being made here.

Wednesday 

Cowls today these are commission knits using laceweight cashmere sent by my mum. I am hoping to do all 5 cowls in different patterns so I don't get bored. This is the Fern Lace Cowl.

Thursday

Baby knits or crochet day. Again I have some commissions to finish and 3 crochet blankets, on which I will work one at a time.

Friday

Back to socks.

Saturday

Sunshower shawl day. Making some very visible progress with this one.

Sunday

Of course, its socks again, what else for the Sunday Sock.

I think that's all for this week, the wind has died away and I can concentrate again. Time to cast on the second sock. Stay safe and stay home where possible.

Mary

Find me on

Ravelry - mazbil
Instagram - The_Sunday_Sock

Sunday May 17th

Hello friends, I hope you are all hale 'n' hearty this 8th week of lockdown. Things are certainly odd at present with the streets quiet and empty. We are both keeping our heads down and staying indoors as much as possible. I have never been so glad in my life to have a hobby that I can do safely in the comfort of my home, I am even delighted with myself for amassing a healthy, (ahem, huge), stash from which I can draw both inspiration and comfort.

I decided during the week that the time had come to do a little something for me so I rifled through the stash and picked out some yarn to knit myself a couple of shawls.

The first is in a combination of yarns from The Border Tart. Lindsay is a specialist in indigo dyeing and I have chosen two beautiful skeins to knit myself the Sunshower Shawl by Ambah O'Brien.

The top, pink, yarn is her new Lush, this mixture of Merino, Silk and Cashmere is so buttery soft and just pure lush to knit with. Beneath is one which has been marinading nicely for a while until it told me just what it wanted to be and is a blend of BFL, Silk and Cashmere. Together they are knitting wonderfully.

I am a little further along than this now but the rows are getting very long and taking a while.

Talking of long rows brings me to the second shawl. I have cast on Flutter of the Wings by Lily Go. I have knitted this beautiful pattern once before as a swap project and the recipient loved it. Now it is time for one for me. as I have mentioned it has very long rows as it is a bottom-up shawl which means for the size I am knitting it started with a cast on of 505 stitches. I have chosen a beautiful green gradient yarn for this which is a cotton - wool mix.

 Not the best picture as it was taken indoors in the depths of winter. I have teamed it with some beautiful silver lined blue beads which make the knitting very slow going at present.

As you can see I am using the tiny crochet hook to add the beads. I do have a Fleegle beader but have mislaid it as it has been about 4 years since I last beaded anything.

You can just about see the beads here.
Sadly the knitting doesn't look like much just now but hopefully, soon things will become clearer.

I think I have bored you enough for this week, next week  will have some sock knitting updates and of course some shawl progress shots.

Stay safe, stay home and stay healthy.

Mary

Find me on

Ravelry - mazbil
Instagram - The_Sunday_Sock

Sunday 10th May

Hello friends, it's been a while. Sadly things got pretty tough for me at the back end of last year and the start of this, lots of weird illnesses and such which took my mojo flying right out of everything including my crafting for a while. Happy to say now that things, albeit in the very strange circumstances we are now living under, are much better. Even happier to say my knitting is progressing apace and I am getting lots done.

My main focus is on knitting socks for Operation Christmas Stocking 2020, this is a wonderful cause dear to my heart where us knitters knit a pair of socks which are then given to a homeless person along with a free foot treatment from a podiatrist in Edinburgh. The charity Crisis coordinates it and my dear friend Carol is collecting the socks this year to pass on to them. So far I have completed 4 pairs and am about to finish the fifth.

I use a very easy free toe-up pattern, Milkshake, by Fiona Tulloch and team it with the highly popular Vanilla Latte pattern, also free, which seems to make it go faster than just a plain sock. I have tweaked the latter pattern so that it is centred on both the front and back. My plan is to fill a box with socks to give to Carol when we can next meet up.

Another major project for me is knitting cowls. Sadly my mum is unable to knit anymore so she has sent me a box of gorgeous laceweight cashmere which I am slowly knitting into cowls which I will send back to her to distribute as she pleases. The softness of this beautiful yarn is making my heart sing as I knit with it and I can only hope I am doing the yarn the justice it deserves with the patterns I have chosen.

Finally a bit of a fun knit

This is my Fiddly Bits cowl. It is again a free pattern which uses up all those leftover bits of yarn you have in your stash. It is a very simple tube and the beauty of it is no ends to sew in as they will all be hidden inside when the two ends are Kitchener stitched together.

That's all for this week, hope you are all well and staying safe

Mary

Find me on

Ravelry - mazbil
Instagram - The_Sunday_Sock