Monday, July 4, 2011

Tuesday -Knitting and Quilting -ideas and effort

I often pick up yarn at Op Shops -and also find quite a lot of other haberdashery there too. Most of the yarn in this box is Op Shop yarn. When you find your yarn this way, you don't get lots of balls which are exactly the same -you have to be prepared to mix and match to make something. What you do get, however, is often good quality yarn at a fraction of the price in the shops.

That is why I saw this book as a real treasure: Margaret Radcliffe's book The Essential Guide to Colour Knitting Techniques -a bargain at just $4.95.

The book suggested that I use a circular needle for a certain project. Now, as I said, I usually try to buy all my yarn and needles from the op shop, but no-one seemed to have thrown out any circular needles so I had to actually buy some at the Big Girls Toy Shop (my name for a large haberdashery store).

I have never used one of these circular needles before , but I can see that it will be very useful -particularly as someone on the Aussies Living Simply website has sent me a link to a very sweet tea cosy which I plan to make -and which also requires circular needles.

I had some lovely bamboo yarn which my daughter had given me for Christmas, and which I had in mind for a new scarf. I will add some of my Op Shop yarns to this. Did you notice that this scarf is being knitted side-ways?

The knitting makes a welcome change from the other activity which I have been doing each Tuesday -making Disappearing Four Patch blocks. I have completed 25 and still have 6 to go. To help me pass the time I am listening to radio programmes. I think I will be adding sashing between the blocks -so once they are finished the rest should come together a bit more quickly.

I like quilting, but the repetition of the same block is my least favourite thing. This is what I want to do next -UnRuly Quilting! This book came today and I am very excited about it.

I won't allow myself to start however until this other quilt is completed. My one rule is "NO UNFINISHED OBJECTS!"


The only thing to do is to keep on keeping on -and then I will really enjoy breaking out and making something in which I don't need to repeat myself.

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