WIP Wednesday 157: Old Time Spree

Spiral Tarot

Blogger is being seriously glitchy today, so let's see how far I can get before I lose patience and stomp off .....
                                                                    
 At the weekend, Mini Diva dragged me to some kind of wildlife exhibition thing which was being held in a kind of community shop - a concept I haven't seen here before, where several crafters/upcyclers have a section of space to display their wares for sale, the person at the till takes the money, notes down the relevant seller, and gives them the money for the sale at a later date. Kind of interesting, and a good way to cut costs, a more inexpensive way to achieve a 'shop window' for one's crafts. This shop is right by the regenerated area of the docks, but on the wrong side ie.the busy main road without parking, not where all the new trendy bars and restaurants are. I wish them the very best - Winter is Coming.

Anyway. While I was there and checking out the two soap sellers, and the prices on the fashion yarn scarves, I literally stumbled over a basket full of ...... vintage and retro knitting and crochet patterns ! 

I know, right ? Karma does not often reward selfless maternal devotion almost instantly - so of course, it behoved me to plomp down on my butt on the carpet and spend a good half an hour going through the leaflets while Mini Diva drifted around giggling at the vintage clothes. I know you will be as amazed as my DH that I only came home with 5 leaflets, for which I had paid the princely total sum of £1.00/$1.55. Even I didn't realize how thrifty I could be. Don't worry, I'm sure it's just a temporary aberration.

Let me show you my goodies:

 

 

Two patterns for a bedjacket, indispensable for your frail and fragile modern woman.

Unfortunately, no pipe; but we do have the square chin, white teeth, shawl collar and pockets required by a Man Cardigan.

 These super-cute baby cardigans. Shame that I didn't notice they are for skinny 4ply yarn until just now.

 

Mini Diva just laughed at me for this one; as she said, it's crochet so tiny she doesn't think I'll ever make anything because my eyes are rubbish.

And just to show I am not totally lost in the mists of time, I did start a new project this week:

 

So far there has been much resigned sighing, rather than the usual naval swearing. I may be mellowing ......

Go see proper things over at Tami's Amis ....

WIP Wednesday 149: Crochet on Parade

Muggy, warm and cloudy, with the promise of thunderstorms later today - not a day for high-level physical activity. Like I have any of those at any time - pah.

Instead while I wait for the yarn fairy to arrive with yarn for the stripy baby sweater and crochet hooks for the crocheted baby blankey, I was a good girl and did as I promised - I got on with a few more squares for my Summer Garden Blankey.

It'd been a while, so not only did I have to find the pattern, I had forgotten exactly what was the plan.

What do you mean, wing it ?

No. I'm still perfecting how to do spontaneity. Watch the following clip from 1:27 ....






Like Colonel Hathi, I may have a rubbish memory, but here's the plan: each set of colorways will have 10 squares with light inners and dark outers, 10 squares with dark inners and light outers. That's as far as it goes, I haven't yet got an overall plan or pattern for how all the colors and squares will go together - there's loads of time for that yet. Please to notice the classy seagrass (or something) pretty basket. It's actually too small to hold all the squares ....

There seems to be a preponderance of blues, somehow. I may have to split those off to become a separate blankey for Mini Diva, who has been blue for a while, as pink is soooo for babies. There also seems to be a lack of orange/yellow in the color scheme - but do you realize how hard it is to find those colors in halfway decent acrylic and simultaneously that they're not so bright or fluorescent they burn your eyes out ? Neither is there any kind of brown, but I am told that this would be as boring subtle as including grey.

So anyway, nothing will get done while I sit here chatting with you, much as I enjoy it.

Yes, I do.

If you still have some free time, pop over to Tami's Amis to see what everyone else is up to....