Tag Archives: bighook

May1

FO in 5 days

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Nicola

This is huge (about 3 feet across and 12-13″ deep) but thanks to the super bulky nature of the crocheting it only took five days. (Edited to add link to my Ravelry project page so you can see the changes I made from the original.)

I fitted so much stuff in there, you wouldn’t believe! And it makes a great footstool/extra seat/storage for off-season blankets, extra pillows, whatever. You could stash extra bedding in it for your guest room. Yarn stash! Christmas cushions! You name it.

Because I started out using up older random yarn (including frogged yarn from a cardigan) and ended up using some nicer stuff (Willow Wash in my two favourite colours and some Red Heart With Love variegated) I actually prefer the colours in the bottom part which will be hidden while in use.

And now it’s late and I really do need my beauty sleep!

May1

This is one heavy project

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Nicola

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Huge, heavy, but oh-so-colourful

Close up – especially love the variegated with the three solids

Experimental stuffing

I knew it was big. But this took

5 crochet/knitted blankets
2 shawls
I commercial throw blanket
2 thin quilts

It occurs to me it would be good for storing spare pillows too. I might have to stuff some in as well as the blankets to get it nice and firm.

I will do some decrease rounds next. The pattern just says to do one decrease round and then make a drawstring. But I’d rather reduce my stitch count first.

It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday and I must get out and walk today. I was hoping for at least some sunbathing yesterday but instead Tai Chi Man and I cleaned out the cold room, tidying, vacuuming, relabelling the storage containers, and then I had to make dinner for all five of us (ds1 came over).

Today is May 1st, a new month and a new motivation for raw foods. Tai Chi Man and I plan to eat raw for the month of May. I am hoping to see increased energy, joints feeling young again, clothes fitting a little looser. I have my holiday in June visiting family as extra incentive.

Here goes!

Mar25

Hanging basket

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Nicola

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The beauty of having a Ravelry queue is that if you ever run out of inspiration for your next project you just visit your queue and see what you added to the list of potential projects. I do keep it fairly controlled – I know some people have thousands of things in their queues – but mine is only five pages long and periodically I will weed the list so it doesn’t get out of hand.

This morning, I noticed the Hanging Basket pattern, which is not in English on the blog but is written out in full on the Ravelry project page. It’s very simple and with multiple strands of yarn, or one strand of a super bulky, it’s really fast.

I started it while waiting for ds2 to get ready to go snowboarding. The drive is about an hour, and I managed to get a lot done despite being squished in the back seat with a man-sized son on one side and a snowboard on the other (we only have a small car, so we have to fold down part of the back seat). Tai Chi Man and ds1 were in the front. Son number three once again didn’t bother to go. That was his last chance for this winter.

Conditions were perfect, with the temperature at the village elevation being around zero, and the snow was not too icy so there was plenty for the board to carve into. I fell down a few times as usual, and I’m sure I’ll feel the full extent of my sore bits when I try to get out of bed in the morning!

I quit the slopes before the men, so enjoyed some more crochet time in the lodge. And the basket was finished!

It’s a good size but I haven’t decided where to hang it yet. I used two strands of worsted and three of DK and a 10mm hook. It would be fun to play with the pattern and make different sized ones.

So that was my day. Work tomorrow but thankfully not Sunday (it’s one of the three days per year that the store closes).

Mar25

My new rug!

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Nicola

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I’m so happy with this. I love the colours and the squooshiness and how it brightens up the spot in front of my washer and dryer.

I think it weighs abut 5lbs and it certainly burned through a lot of old DK and worsted acrylic that I’d had lying around for some time.

Happy Easter/Ostara/Friday to you all. We are celebrating by going snowboarding en famille. We could tell that yesterday people were getting into the long weekend mood because lots of them were leaving work early and creating traffic havoc! I hope it is peaceful where you are.

Mar23

Home day!

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Nicola

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Utility room rug WIP

What do you do with a home day?

So far, mine looks like this:

get up a little later than usual
have a slow start to the action by messing about with email, Facebook, Ravelry etc on my iPad
eat breakfast (toast and marmalade, mmm!)
put away laundry, do more laundry, clean bathrooms and kitchen, water plants (discover aloe vera is definitely not thriving since I divided it up and repotted, so put the pots in timeout on the deck)
enjoy some couch time with my crochet and my video lectures (Chinese Thought meets Modern Science)

Plans for the rest of the day include:

prepping dinner
tackling the table runner/placemats sewing project (even if I just get this started, I will feel better about it)
going for a walk and maybe even picking up some dumbbells for an actual workout

I have to confess that one of my favourite emails to receive is the Google Calendar notification that tells me, “You have no events scheduled for today.” But as you can see, I’m not doing nothing!