Friendship Blankets

This evening at the knitting group I'm in I receive my first square from one of the members. I'll take a pic. tomorrow and post it here.

I, also, passed out the flyers and I believe some will go to a local community centre and another to a Guild group. Fingers crossed I will received some more squares in the next few weeks.

I'm about 2/3 through my third square. I may have to take some time off tomorrow to do some h*******k.

We had a little bit of excitement tonight at the hotel where we meet. One chap knock out another person with just one punch to the face. The puncher took off with a mob of men after him. He jumped in his car and took off, but a number of people took his car number. It was so easy to remember, a place name plus one number. I'll sure he will get a visit from the police.

The person on the receiving end of the punch was out to it for several minutes. He was taken away in an ambulance, but by this time he had come around. Police were at the hotel for quite awhile. Taking statements, I suppose, and viewing security tape.

Then, blow me down, when I went to the local supermarket, a woman had had a fall and the ambulance was called to her, too.

Square 2 for Friendship Blankets

I finished the second square yesterday. The patterns top and bottom are supposed to look like boomerangs, but I think a good imagination would help. I made a mistake working out how many rows I had to do before and after the pattern. It was clear when doing the top pattern that it was going to be too long, so I undid some rows from the base of the square and re-knitted them.

Granddaughter's blanket

Today I'm adding the blanket I finished in time for it to be my granddaughter's 2008 Christmas present. It's the saffron cables pattern from an Interweave magazine with arms added.

It took 18 months to knit as it was too heavy and warm to have sitting on my lap over the warm months of the year.

A couple of things I would do differently, but I won't go into details here.

Friendship blankets for Vic. fire victims

I knew I wouldn't write much on this blog when I started it, but I didn't think it would be months.

For anyone who stumbles upon this blog, I would like invite those who can and wish to, to join many of us in making 30cm/12" squares to be made into blankets for the Victorian bushfire victims. The picture is of my first square.

Full information about this is found in Ravelry

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/packages-down-under/518406/126-150#147 and in a Yahoo group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FriendshipBlankets4VicFireVictims/

A blog has also been started to keep participants up-to-date with information about this project.

http://blanketsoffriendship.blogspot.com/

It has been asked that the squares be in 8 or 10 ply, machine washable wool preferably but synthetic will be accepted. As all the squares are not going to be exactly the same size, wool can be blocked to the size wanted. Knitted or crochet square would be great.

If quilters want to contributed, that's fine too. Just see the information in the above sites.

Now I have restarted, I will gradually post what work I have done over the last few months.

Try again

Today is a repeat of this time three weeks ago. Ned to the kennels this afternoon and pick my aunt up and bring her back to my home. Hopefully this time, my aunt and I will leave tomorrow for our delayed holiday to visit my sister.

It's raining today, which is going to be a nuisance trying to pack our luggage (and half my house) into the car. I always take too much, just in case:-) This comes from having a caravan and being able to take loads of stuff that doesn't matter whether it is not used.

I guess there will be no more posting to my blog until I return, in about two weeks.

In Between Socks

I've completed the first "In Between" sock. The first photo has the view as others would see it and the second view is how I see it looking down on it.

Ned has managed to get into the photo as well.

Blanket, socks and holiday.

I've recovered from my bout of viral meningitis. Feeling fine now. Plan to start the delayed holiday next Monday.

Managed to get quite a bit of the blanket-with-sleeves project done. Almost finished the main part and I've started one of the sleeves. It's getting on to weighing 2 kg.

I've also started another pair of socks. I'm calling them the "In between" socks because I am knitting them when the blanket's weight makes my thumbs ache. I've just started the second sock.

The start of sock 1.

The lace pattern is taken from the second pattern on page 72 of the Japanese book "Knitting Patterns Book 250". I think I will do this pattern again, but alter the last 12 rows so the whole pattern will look like a goblet, with a more defined stem. I plan to called the socks "Stacked Goblets".

I did a rough count of the socks I've knitted and these are, I think, pair no. 22. Seven pairs have been given away as presents. I started sock knitting 18 months ago, so I think I going quite well considering I have knitted other things as well in that time - and not small items.