I forgot to show you the finished baby blanket for my youngest grandson. Here it is:

Jet-lag, well I certainly know what that is now. It's falling asleep at 5pm when your son-in-law is talking to you! It's been over a week now since I got back and I woke up this morning at 4.30am, can't wait to get back into the normal pattern of things.
Speaking of patterns, I have come across this website which may be useful for those of us who like to crochet. I like to crochet-just don't have the brains for it, but I still keep trying!

http://www.craftyarncouncil.com

The weather we have been experiencing lately has blown all the leaves off the trees in the garden. This weekend is supposed to be sunny-we shall see.

My knitting machine, I have moved it to the other side of the room, along with the sewing machine. I am thinking of making a move on it sometimes soon, just hope I am not going into another one of my 'can't be bothered' phases. This happens now and again, I lose the enthusiasm and move on to something else like reading.

My Ebay shop has gone into bankruptcy because I have lost the will to keep it stocked up after a customer bought a genuine Beswick ceramic horse from me. She then replaced it with a similar fake one and sent it back, saying I had sold her the fake. She got her money back from Ebay (although I did send them photos and made a complaint-they always side with the buyer and not the seller).

This had me at first livid, then down-heartened, now I am thinking of shutting down completely.

Sorry to be a moaner today, it's not really me-I am most times a jolly person.

One bright spark has been seeing my little grandchildren over the New Year, they always bring a smile with their antics.

Wishing you all a great 2012.

Just got back from a trip to California to see my sis, she is 78 so I thought I had better make the effort, last time I saw her was ten years ago.

New Years eve I was down by the Thames to watch the fireworks along with-according to the media-250,000 other folk. Well, it did not look anything like that to me, a quarter of a million people lining the river banks would have looked a whole lot more than I saw, and all for 12 minutes and £50,000 worth of ooh and aah.

During the next few days I shall try to do something on the machine-things should have settled down by then, doing a New Years Day family dinner was definately not a good idea-I keep nodding off due to jet lag.

Have a great 2012 everyone!

S

Whole day wasted

Here today I have wasted the whole day dithering around trying to work out what sort of edging to put on the cot blanket I have just completed!

I did start by using a pie crust edging, but after a few inches of that I got a bit worried that baby might catch his little fingers in the loops. So off it came, then I thought I would just use 30 needles to knit a long strip and gather it here and there as I sewed it on-after a few rows I gave up on this idea as well. Now I have found something called 'double mock crochet braid', perhaps I shall try that now. 

My grandson is 4 months old now, so perhaps he can wait for a while yet-until I get my brain sorted out!

He looks like he is ready to give me a box round the ears too!

Aaargh!!! Silly old moo I am, started a baby blanket for my latest grandson in a lovely pale blue 4-ply. Wanted to make it for his cot, so off I went merrily swish-swish-swish and what happens on the 650th row? Ran out of yarn! Oh yes, YOU have been there I know. I could not get it wide enough on the machine with only 200 needles as I wanted 260, so decided to do two panels of 130 each and 700 rows should be enough. 

Now, what shall I do? Make another panel in a darker shade of blue or perhaps white? Or shall I do a wide enough trim all around in the darker blue-maybe I can find a pattern for that somewhere. I am not too good at crochet but might have a go at it...probably end up in a worse mess than now, but I am certainly NOT frogging all those lovely rows of tuck stitch-no way!
The pieces are 55cm wide.

Perhaps someone would have an idea??

Using my Knitmaster 700

It has been in the loft for the past 3 years. Then I decided, hey, I might as well get it down and start using it. The 'getting down' bit was the most difficult part but with the help of my boys I finally managed to get it all set up. I remembered it would need a good clean and oil so I started on that, then I had to keep going up and getting all the accessories for it. The ribber nearly had me thrown face down the stairs when it caught in the corner of the banister but I finally made it.
There were many pieces that I could not recognize, small bits of metal and plastic. Sometime soon I will get them photographed and put on here, maybe someone could help me out with identifying them?

Here is the set up, the sewing machine was given to me by my daughter also about three years ago so I got that down and placed it near the knitting machine.

All set to go, maybe a blanket first just to get used to using this machine? The punch cards are all in a blue box under the sewing machine so I found one which is a tuck stitch (card No.4). Then I e-wrap cast-on 100 stitches and knit 5 rows st.st using the last row to unlock the punchcard. I then knit 500 rows in the tuck stitch pattern, then another 5 rows st.st. It took me about 45 mins to do that piece. I did a bind off, left the piece to settle while I made a second identical piece. These I will join together with a flat stitch after which I will find a suitable edging pattern to do all the edges with. Photographs to come in my next post.