the “at least you don’t crochet with your toes” wrist warmers

being off work for several weeks and now  still not fully back,  has meant I’ve had a bit more time to play with fibres, though I seem to have probably spent more time waiting for new yarn to arrive, than actually knitting or crocheting.

I’ve started, and am playing catch up on a 2014 Mood blanket, which I think will be another post..

but here is a bit of it anyway (and a nice view of my bionic boot..:{)

I got out last week -and happened to have a meeting within spit of a yarn shop, so I begged the friend who’d given me a lift for 10 mins grace and hopped in! I came out with 2 skeins of Rowan Alpaca Colours to cheer me up. I didn’t pay attention to the names and the bands are long gone but I’m  guessing I have Amethyst and Garnet..

At £7.50/50g each they’re not huge (and much as I’m in need of cheering up I wasn’t about to buy more!!) so I thought I might get a pair of wrist warmers out of one of them. What follows is more by luck than judgement – I’m famous for starting an idea with no pattern, changing it half way and  just winging it, or consigning it to the UFO pile,  but this time it worked.

I chained 32, which was enough to go round my wrist  (4mm hook), worked a foundation row of dc and then joined the chain with a slipstitch and worked 13 more rows  (rounds) of dc .

I then worked another 20 rows of dc back & forth, remembering to Ch1 at the start of each row for turning purposes. 

On the next row (still dc)  I continued round so that I was back  to crocheting round again,  – 14 more rounds to match the other end.

This now gave me an opening on one side, for thumb hole, and the corresponding stitches had a different look to the Dcs in the round which made a nice contrast.

I tried it on at this point – knowing the thumb hole was probably too large, and I sewed up the opening at the bottom end -probably about 3 or 4 rows worth, you can  do this next to invisibly and it allows you to adjust the size easily.

Once this was done all that remained was to edge top and bottom and round the thumb in the darker purple, again using dc, and sewing all the ends in (:()

I said at the beginning it was all more by luck than judgement – this is how much yarn I had left at the end!

less than 1g according to my scales!

Hooking your way to happiness

Or at least to a state of mental equilibrium. I had a pretty horrid day yesterday that put me in no mood by late afternoon to do any more work or much at all  for that matter. So I started hooking, and by bedtime I’d done two beanies for the girls, one with a heart on it for Ruthy and one plain for Kate. I love having a yarn stash that can provide me with what I need  for this kind of therapy!!

I only started to crochet at all in January  (one way to keep your NY resolution is to have mastered the art  you chose to learn, by lunch time on 1st!) so I’m quite pleased with  myself! I have innumerable other projects on the hook  of course, being far more of a starter than a finisher when it comes to crafting!