Sunday, August 22, 2010

Buckets and Blankets

Tsk, tsk, you naughty enablers. I only have to write a little post extolling the virtures of the indestructible Red Heart Super Saver and I receive offers galore to send me some. (finger wagging) Don't be so wicked!

In all seriousness, thank you to everyone who offered me some of your luvverly American yarn. I would LOVE some, really I would, but I am going to virtuously stashbust for a little while. My heart sobs even as I turn you down, but I really, really have to be good. Why? Well, we celebrated our first anniversary in the Gingerbread House recently. To celebrate we had a blocked kitchen pipe and, following record amounts of rainfall, a leaky roof. We didn't have bouquets of flowers, we decided to go with buckets of dirty water instead. It was very avant garde.

In any case, in the midst of this madness, Little Sis - the recent bride - was due to turn up with her Young Man for a little holiday. While rooting out our spare pillows and duvets, I discovered a bag of yarn that had ... well, ahem, gotten lost. Its disappearance had puzzled me for a while - I mean, I knew it was around somewhere. But where? And then, after a year of living in the house, it turned up in what I thought was an empty suitcase. (Yes, yes, I know: the shame - I know how bad that sounds. It reminds me of those stories of alcoholics who hide their bottles in the toilet cistern.) It was swiftly removed from the case and the skeins were scattered among the rest of my stash.
I think I got away with it.

I spent my evenings on the sofa beside Little Sis, flying through skeins of yarn in an attempt to finish my Wicklow Blanket. I'm almost two-thirds of the way through and my RHSS stash is now teetering on its knees, well and truly busted!


This blanket is so muted and demure, quite unlike a lot of what I do. Even the pattern - worked lengthways and in rows, not strips, - is very calming. The only problem is that as it grows, it becomes bigger. And heavier. And warmer. Anyone sitting near me as I work on it gets covered by blanket. Mr Gingerbread - always sensitive to heat - keeps pushing it away, but no matter what I do, he seems to end up entangled in this blanket, like a cat. I don't know if the blanket possesses some kind of static property that sticks to him, but if he sits beside me for a couple of minutes, he'll find himself with a lap full of crocheted blanket.

4 comments:

Sue Pinner said...

Hi..love this pattern..must give it a go....on the to do list
Suz x

aykayem said...

isn't he lucky that you are not crocheting a blanket out of fluffy or hairy yarn, or from cut up strips of plastic shopping bags (that stuff really likes to share itself around ... around me, around the floor, around anyone sitting near me, around the cat, around the dog ... )
btw - I love the colours of your rug!
(but I like bright colours too - in fact I like any colours that have been put together by someone who knows how)

Paul & Carla said...

I don't think the colors of my leftover stash would come together so nicely as this! What a wonderful blanket! And I sympathize with your husband about the warmth. I crochet or knit only small things in the hot months.

Crochetin Feonix said...

I love it :) My stash isnt quite so big yet and is quite eclectic :) I am thinking a crazy afghan kinda like a crazy quilt :)