It cannae just be me who does this....

Surely it cannot?

Today I find myself with my mind birling with ideas.
Creative juices a bubbling and a spiraling.
I have a need to design.

 

So I have all of this out designing a special quilt; my 'Teawagon Quilt' inspired by the lovely Jane of teawagon tales who sells the most lovely vintage fabric (oh and Jane is very cool too, she loves Morrissey, what can I say?).  All of the fabric for this quilt is from her shop so hence the name.  I have been quietly foraging pieces away in my stash for a while now. Once I have enough I'll get going as it will be sewn on my machine and therefore won't take long (I have been sewing the below by hand for months and months so anything by machine seems easy and lightening speed) but...

The ridiculous thing is that I already have three other blankets on the go, two of which are stumbling in the main due to finances. This granny all-square  from The Royal Sisters blog which is shown here as part of the 52mmmc...

  

which, even though I have a hundred plus pile of, I need a lot more wool to complete it and then there's this...

of which the top is pretty much finished but I still need to add some more white hex's to square off.  This involves counting up all the spaces and working out how many half hex's I need too. There's two thousand paper pieced hexagons on this bugger already but  I  need some more calico to make more hex's which means money. Oh and the batting but luckily I have an ancient (well it used to be on my bed when I was wee) candy stripe flannel sheet for the backing.  This 2.3 x 1.1m quilt top has been a real labour of love and I could have carried on and on, I loved it so much!!

I'm thinking of opening a wee Folksy and/or Etsy shop to (hopefully) make a few pennies to help??? Scottie dog/apple brooches anyone??

I have also started a knitted patchwork blanket from my wool stash...

You know, something for the evenings!

It doesn't seem to matter how many WIPs I have on the go (just about to start this too???) I cannot stop the need to be creative about the NEXT project.  I don't always have to start this next project straight away and I like to have a few things on the go; a bit of crochet, a bit of knitting, a bit of sewing, as I like to be able to move around depending on my mood but when a new idea strikes or there are rumblings of an idea taking seed I MUST heed it and sit down, pencil and paper in hand and design.

Hands up who else?

I see you there, get that hand up!

X

Taking the time!

Yesterday I finally decided it was time I gave a Granny Square a go!   

My knitting mojo has gone on a wee holiday and the time was ripe for a new challenge, not to mention the fact I want blankets for camping so the elusive square was calling me.  Also we are all accosted by such beautiful images in blogland it is hard to resist and I was resisting.  Thought I would stick with knitting and all the possibilities therein, not understanding crochet had the same potential for creativity.  I can crochet a little already and learned many many moons ago from my mum who passed down all she knew (which wasn't much compared to what she taught me about knitting) but all I have done in my crocheting life is rounds and rounds of stitches until the blanket reached the required size and only a few blankets at that.  Here are two I'm working on at the minute for my Biscuits' beds...

The centre of this one was found at the Christmas Fayre at my Biscuits' school but was way too small, I've been working on it for yonks but it's almost finished now.  I do love how they look, especially the top one.

Pretty basic stuff or so I thought until yesterday when I realized I already knew how to do a Slip Knot, Chain and I finally discovered the name of the stitch I can do, a Treble.  Just to discover the name of a stitch I've been doing for years was a revelation.  My first port of call was at Meet me at Mikes as I have the book and realized quite quickly I do NOT learn at all easily from words and drawings so I was in need of live action.  The lessons are amazing and for someone like me who needs to see something over and over again the clips made it so easy.  The internet, in many ways, is like having that mum, aunt or gran when it comes to leaning new skills.  I was amazed at how quickly a square comes together and in particular the instant gratification on completion of one square.  I can see now why in some blog photos you see piles them.  So here it is, drum roll if you please because I'm chuffed I finally made the time to learn, my first (and definitely not my last) Granny Square...

and then I made two more just for a practice...

The tension is not quite right as I am used to working with larger pieces of crochet so found holding the square a little fiddly and I did the learner amount of chains so the gaps are bigger than I'd like too but I am very pleased with how they came out.  I have plans now to use up some of my acrylic wool stash on adding squares to that colourful blanket in the first photo, as I don't mind crocheting with it but hate knitting with it and it's cheap but I'm sure I'll move on to cotton soon enough.  I'm wondering how long it'll be before I'm tackling a pattern and I've heard wonderful things about Lucy's tutorials at Attic24......aah the possibilities!  I didn't think I'd ever say that about crocheting.

I'm off to make some more!

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