Sunday round-up

This week has been a week of extreme lows and highs.
My DH had a heart attack on Monday and was taken to hospital by ambulance. After waiting in casualty for 7 hours he was finally given a bed on a ward at just gone midnight on Tuesday morning. Our eldest DD got on the first train down from Manchester to offer support. He was given a stent on Thursday and he was home on Friday.
We are trying to look at it in a positve light. He was a very heavy smoker who didn't want to give up. He used to say to me that he probably already had lung cancer anyway so what was the point (we lost his mum and dad and my mum to lung cancer) The hospital gave him a chest xray and his lungs were clear. Since coming home he's been brilliant. He's gone from over 60 a day to under 20 a day and is making the gaps in between cigarettes longer each day.
We are all so thankful to have him home safe and sound.

It will come as no surprise at all when I tell you I didn't work on my blanket during this time. I picked it up again yesterday though and made great progress.

Nearly finished with orange!

I'm just about to start with the red section. I'm going to use Stylecraft yarn in Shrimp as a transition colour.

I am beginning to question the sense in making a blanket when it is over 30 degrees though. It's so muggy in London.

DH must be grateful to be home. He didn't even blink when I told him I'd ordered more wool last night. I usually get a small whinge ou of him but I just got 'alright love' I feel vaguely cheated somehow! I've never ordered from Deramore before but I've heard good things so I'll be looking out for a package on Tuesday. That will be my purples and more blues and greens.
Cant wait!

Sunday, Sunday

All is peaceful here. I'm taking advantage of the quiet to catch up with some reading and a little photography...oh and some washing :(

My lack of yellow yarn was preying on my mind yesterday until I couldn't take it any more. Hubby kindly drove me into Welling and I had a mooch around the homeware stores there in search of lemony relief. I came away with these...

Happiness in a ball!

The orange is quite a bit brighter than it looks in the photo. In fact I'm looking at it now (it's peeking over the top of my stash bag) and I'm wondering what on earth I was thinking (I know what I was thinking. I was thinking "ohhh I don't have that colour!")
I have a few more days before I'm at the 'orange' stage so maybe I can come up with other alternatives.
Progress was fairly slow yesterday but I stuck by my target of a colour change per day.

For some reason my cat seems to be scared of the blanket.....she legged it in the house when I put it on the table. Most odd!

 I ended up feeling bad so I came back inside!
 I STILL can't get the colours to photograph true. I may have to get the photography lamps from the loft (well, hubby can anyway) Maybe not today though :)

Crochet, Crochet, Crochet

The crochet bug has bitten. I started mucking about with various granny square variations (like I usually do) but decided I wanted a project.....so after a search I found this wonderful blog and this pattern for a bag http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/crochet-bag.html

I this realised it was posted on Ravelry and there were conpleted projects for me to browse too.

After just 1 day I completed my bag. I decided to turn it into an across the shoulder style.

After a bit of thought I decided to line it. I added 2 internal pockets and after firing up the sewing machine I ended up with this.

 All I need to do know is find some sort of magnetic clasp and it can be used.

 I'm considering making another one but this time after crochetting to the required size I'll continue to crochet half the row to form a flap over.... wathc this space...

After the success of the bag I checked out Lucy's other designs and fell in love with her ripple pattern. I had a look on Ravelry to see what others had made and loved the blending of the colours in this blanket http://www.ravelry.com/projects/KnitKnatKnotUK/neat-ripple-pattern I intend to use a mix of my stash and buy the colours I don't have. I'm going to try to keep the cost down by using DK acrylic yarn. I have a couple of shops locally that sell different brands at about £1.50 a ball.

I've made the width big enough to fit across a king size bed and I will cycle through the colours of the rainbow before repeating the colours....so after green I'll start on yellow. Oh....I don't have any yellow wool....It looks like I'll have to buy some...what a pity :D