Food Net

 

I have a food net ready for market. I did the edging as part of a project at the retirement home. It's just done in simple running stitch, with a bead added on every second stitch. My sewing machine really doesn't like this fine netting, so I may use this method again in future. 

Washed And Ready To Roll

 

The sun came out, so I was able to wash the wool spun for the baby blanket. I've had to put that project on hold for a bit though, to get ready for a market on Saturday, the first since December. I knitted a pair of socks:

 Now I'm tatting flowers for a food net. I've left my preparations for the market a bit late, so I'm tatting in the evenings, which I don't usually do. I have to sew jewelry bags this week too. 

Round 6

 

I've finished round 6. The blog post said the round was suitable for shuttle and ball, but I should really have used two shuttles to get the inward chains to lie correctly. 

Preparation

 I had a message recently from a lady who asked me to knit a baby blanket, using handspun wool. The baby is due at the end of April, which is not very far away, so I thought I'd better get on with it. I sent her several pictures of different patterns for her to choose from. She chose two, both of them lacy patterns. The pattern Thine by Lyndieloop was easy to download from Ravelry and is knitted on 4mm needles, which suits my spinning style well. The pattern says 1000 yards of wool are needed, so I've duly spun that. My only problem is that I'll have to wait until the rain stops before I can wash and dry it. So I've used some  wool scraps to knit samples - the blanket won't be yellow. 

I knitted one pattern repeat, complete with nupps, after watching Lyndieloop's video showing how to make nupps with a crochet hook. Nupps are those little bobbles. The crochet hook method is fine, but nonetheless, the nupps will add a lot of knitting time. Given the deadline, I've decided to leave them off. So I knitted a second sample, without nupps. I could change my mind, but I think that will be fine. 

Round 5

 

I've been working on round 5 since Friday, two repeats each day. The pattern does lend itself to doing the flowers in a different colour, so I was tempted, but in the end decided to stick with all white. 

I've also been spinning. I have an order for a receiving blanket for a baby to be born at the end of April. I know from long experience that spinning and tatting are not a good combination, but there you go, I'm doing both. Spring 2025 is likely to be a bit fuzzy, with the odd bit of wool fibre tatted into it. 

Round 4

 

I finished round 4 on Sunday. I enjoyed the round, which was easy but with enough variation to keep it interesting.  I'm ready for the next round. 

Caught Up

 After a knit'n'natter session on Friday and a day knitting at a cricket match on Saturday, I had reknitted all I'd had to unravel. One man said to me on Saturday afternoon, "You can knit all day?" I said, 'Sure, you can watch cricket all day, I can knit all day''. 

Yesterday I finished the pullover off by knitting the neck ribbing, grafting the underarm stitches and  hiding all the yarn ends. Job done.