Sid stays at Peak

Gosh it has been weeks since I last posted on here but life has been hectic what with the build up to Peak 2015 at Chatsworth, the camp itself, family holiday and then having a most awful cold.

During July I went Derbyshire's Guide and Scout Camp. We were staying on the Ice Age Sub Camp and an additional camper was Sid the Sloth crocheted by one of our leaders. On the last full day I had to find another job at camp and fortunately through my connections I ended up on the Knitting and Crotchet table in the Craft Tent - well just knitting in my case. During the afternoon session Sid decided to accompany me and here he is trying his hand at crotchet.

It tired him out somewhat so he needed a rest - more of that in another post.

Guess What

Having finished the vintage thing it was time for a new, or return to an old, project, so I went armed to needlework group with a number of projects to choose from. My friends there persuaded me to start a new project, even though I was all set to carry on with an existing one - so here it is. Any ideas what it is? All I will say is, I have been doing this for just over 2 weeks and it is something topical! Oh and it could be upside down.

Done(ish)

Here is the second and last 'contrasting drape' to give it its proper title. Done already. This means the vintage thing is done apart from sewing in the ends and the robust blocking. Not sure when that will be done as I need to borrow or buy some blocking wires, but I was given some training a couple of weeks ago at knitting how to do this. Hopefully it will not be long before I do this then it can be removed from the real corner by the sofa!
Ps. I have a  new project on the go - more of that next time.

A Small Ta-Dah

Here it is the Vintage 'Thing' - done. Well I say done, it still needs to have the ends stitched in and needs 'robust' blocking which I am yet to discover - robust or otherwise. I did have a setback with it recently in that I did some 'negative' or 'minus' knitting of it - i.e. I took it to  knitting group a couple of weeks ago, knitted a row and then spent the remainder of the 2 hours unpicking, and then carrying on unpicking for another 2 evenings at home!
But this morning whilst having a  relaxing time with friends sitting in our conservatory I finished it.
Just got  to block it and knit the brown scarf to go with it now. Hopefully it could be June's finished project. Or would it be April's given that nothing was finished in April or May? :-(

Vintage 'Thing'

Here is the vintage knit that I am doing - not really sure what to call it. This is from the pattern I bought in Harrogate and is the main part to go with the red 'scarf' I posted a few weeks ago.  It looks rather lopsided but the pattern says it needs 'robust blocking' - having never done blocking before I am not sure what robust blocking is - I just assume that it means stretched or blocking to its extreme. Maybe we will see that when we get there.
Sorry for lack of posts but I have been decluttering - following a blog to do a room per week over 20 weeks - next week is the last. And also a month's challenge where you get rid of 1 item on the 1st of the month, 2 on the 2nd, 3 on the 3rd etc. - giving a total of 465 items for April - phew. I did it eventually but it was tough towards the end and it became a real time consumer with many hours spent wandering the house looking for things to get rid of. Hopefully now that is finished I will have more time for craft and blogging - and house work!

A New Talent

This post is showcasing a new talent - my niece with her knitting. My mum and I have been teaching her for some time - she did make purse with some help but the picture above is almost all her own work.
What a difference a year makes and doing knit rather than knit and purl, has meant that she can do this with almost no supervision . She is getting much quicker too and the last time I saw her she doubled the size of the project in an afternoon - such a lovely peaceful time with both of us doing our knitting.
I say double the size - it is perhaps a little more as we do seem to have gained some stitches along the way when the bag is supposed to be straight! But at least when we get to the lesson on increasing that should be a doddle! :-)

Running out of Projects

Phew at last - managed to get a picture to load. I have tried many times and since I upgraded IE it has not worked.
This cake was photographed when I had no projects to show so has long since gone so no requests for a piece - you know who you are ;-).
This is from the fabulous James Martin book of Desserts - Chocolate Coca Cola Cake - it does have  rather nice sauce to go with it but alas there was none left when I was having this piece alone and it did seem a bit extravagant to make some more just for me - yes honest, it did.
Back soon with more knitting etc. and maybe a surprise project.