A Mug For Hooks

    Which is quite apt when you think about it. Yes, here it is, the final Novemblog post. Golly it's been a fun ride hasn't it?     As promised yesterday, today's post is pretty much all about my Block Stitch Blanket which I have now finished.  Ta-dah!!👏🙌👏     I know it's not very big but, as we all know, size isn't everything and it is plenty big enough to use as a lap blanket, which is probably what I originally intended anyway.😉     I finished off with a round of half trebles which looks quite good I think.     And in the corners I put 4 stitches which I also think works quite well.     It's a shame I couldn't use the other ball of yarn but, as I said, I had nothing to pair it with. Don't worry though, I'm sure I'll find a use for it!😜     Well, I've learned quite a bit over the past month. Firstly, I have not invented Novemblog! It's actually been around for some time, but I can't find anything current for it so Perhaps I&

     I really did think that today was going to be one of those truly horrible days but, it actually wasn't.😀 Even the snow couldn't lower the overall tone, and I've never been a lover of the white stuff.❄❅❆⛄     We had sugary ring doughnuts with our morning cups of tea which was a nice surprise and made a change from the usual biscuits.🍩🍩     In crochet news, I have finished the Block Stitch Blanket! The last little bit of this final round went okay and I'm really pleased it's now done with.😌 Apart from sewing in and trimming the ends, which I actually don't mind doing. I'm going to try and take photos tomorrow for a sort of final flourish to Novemblog!👏🙌     Now all I have to do is decide what to take on as my next evening project: the Attic 24 Yuletide Blanket, or the Tunisian Crochet project I want to start. Decisions, decisions...😧😀  

    Well, I did the first three days of the month so I thought I might as well do the last three.     I have decided to finish the Block Stitch blanket.😣 The other ball of yarn I have of the same type won't go with the other two colours unless I can pair it with an other colour, and at the moment I can't find anything suitable so I'm finishing off with a round of Half Trebles. If I have enough yarn to do so.😟 And although I have done three sides, the fourth is causing me some hassles, don't ask why, I'm not doing anything differently.😧 It's just the way it goes I s'pose.     It's bloody cold here too.⛄ It doesn't do me any favours, at least we had a bit of sunshine today.

Box Of Delights.     I thought you might like to see my Yarn Crafting Kit Box. It was sold as an art materials box but with a bit of ingenuity and Fablon, my Father was able to turn it into something much more exciting and useful!😄     Most of the divisions were already there when he bought it, but he added a few more and even made the double sided inner tray, which makes for a very handy surface to place bits and bobs on, and the side with the lip especially good for anything that rolls!       He even put little magnets in the lid to hold it in place but, now I've put things in the lid, it quite often falls out. I don't really know what to do about it. I'm wondering if I should use velcro to hold things in place, or even fuzzy felt. Can you still get fuzzy felt?     The top tray holds my hooks. Well, some of them, I've got a few more dotted about the place😉, but I think they're mostly here. I used to keep my knitting needles in one side, but when I needed somewhe

    Oh what a day! It was raining so heavily this morning that I could see it coming down through a net curtain without my glasses on!🌧 Then it cleared and for a couple of hours or so we had sunshine,🌞 before the cloud and the rain came back. And it certainly hasn't been cold here either. Weird bloody weather, it seems to me that most of the year is taken up with Aprils rather than proper seasons. At least we had some pretty leaves on the patio to look at.🍂     And just to remind us that all is not lost, the Fuchsias are flowering quite nicely!     I had a slightly better time with my crochet today. It seems I do better when the yarn from the ball is quite tight up to my fingers, rather than just tight around my fingers if you know what I mean. So unpicking several stitches doesn't actually help much because it means that I end up with a lot of loose yarn! I shall try and continue with this method just to see if it really does help or if it was just a fluke.      I think I

    I didn't know whether or not I would do a post today, but in the finish I thought what the heck! I've not had a particularly good few days, in any regard, and certainly my crochet hasn't been going too well. Just when I think that I've done a good few treble groups I notice one stitch that is just too loose in that left leg! It's such a pain! One day I will figure out what's going wrong and everything will be sorted. Until then, enter swear words of choice here!👿     I've also been doing a bit of ye olde Christmas shopping on the internet.🛍 I don't like shopping. Physically or virtually. And don't get me started on supermarkets. The only decent one I've ever known was Somerfield, and that disappeared donkey's back.       One thing that I've been looking at for myself is Blocking Boards or Mats to block crocheted squares on. I don't know what is considered the best sort or which would suit my needs best, so if anyone has any advi

    The last couple of evenings of crochet have gone quite well, and although I didn't get quite as much done today as I did yesterday, the stitches are looking even and I'm not really having as much trouble as I was when I first started the round. Perhaps I just need to do a lot more treble practise!     The keen-eyed among you may have noticed a sneak peak of my Yuletide Blanket in my first Novemblog post. Well, today I finally got round to doing some more to that. I'm not doing it exactly as directed in the Attic24 pattern but that's all I'm saying about it for now, and you'll have to wait for the project to grow a bit for more photos.      I'm also starting to think about Christmas Crochet.     It's funny to think that for the past two years I have started Christmas Crocheting in January, only to have to stop because it isn't working or to start something else! This year I'm definitely going to get some of it done!

My Terrible Trouble With Trebles.      Despite the fact that I have been crocheting for a few years now, I do seem to have a strange problem with Treble stitches. I know how they are formed and I like to think that I am relatively even when doing a row but, it’s how they look that irks me. Especially when doing groups of three for Granny Squares or Block Stitch.     Looking at them, the left leg is very often loose and saggy and the right leg always tight, sometimes too tight, and I end up pulling this leg out a bit and the left leg up a bit with the loop on hook, before completing the stitch. Working on a Granny project, the third treble is invariably done several times until I am happy with it. And very often I will unpick several stitches to get back to one I don’t like the look of, just to spend ages redoing it until I feel confident it looks like the others.😖      I am aware that this constant reworking is down to my perfectionist streak and my OCD, but knowing

    Well , it's day 3 and I don't have very much to tell you. I haven't been very successful in finding any yarn to use on Ebay, but I may have just a thought that I will have to look at in daylight tomorrow to get a real idea of how it will look.     I started the next treble round of the block stitch blanket and it did not go well. In the space of an hour, I got about 12 trebles done. I do seem to have an issue with this stitch, I'm unpicking more than I make all the time! I'll take some photos tomorrow and show you what I mean.😪

     Wow! My 2nd post already! Yes, I know, I really am spoiling you! 😄      The weather has turned noticeably colder over the last couple of days, and in response I reached for one of my project bags to do some evening crochet. And it was such a relief to be doing it again! Finally my hands and fingers had something to do, and I was really pleased with what I got done in the hour or so I spent on it! I just hope the next round - all trebles - goes as well!😔     The project in question is my Block Stitch blanket that I started some time last year. I remember that when I last did some I was getting a little frustrated with it, what with all the trebles and the fact that I couldn't think how I was going to make it much bigger than it already was, given what yarn I had left. And the yarn is weird. It's supposed to be Double Knitting, but it's much thicker than most other dk yarns I know and I'm having to use a 6mm hook with it! I naturally work tightly, and can even wit

    Last year over on the Attic24 blog I learned of a thing called Blogtober. I'd never heard of it before but it sounded jolly interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lucy's daily posts, and it was one of the reasons that I thought that I would definitely like to start a blog this year. Well, as with the whole Granny Square Day thing, I completely forgot about it until I clicked onto Lucy's first post. "Oh blow!", I thought, sort of...😇 To be honest it was probably just as well because I'm no-where near as interesting as she is, and if I'd just started posting randomly it would have very quickly gotten dull as ditch, which would've just pissed me off as much as it would've bored you lot to tears, or worse - BBC programming!💩       So I've come up with a new "thing" - Novemblog!👏 Actually it probably already exists, but as I'm not social media savvy, I shall never know! And although you could just stick the word blog at