It's all about the Hexagons

I was having a look at the gorgeous Granny Square blanket made by Lucy at Attic 24

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2013/02/page/2/

and was thinking that as I have so many single balls of wool maybe this could be a good project to use them all up.

Then in the latest Mollie Makes

They had another granny square blanket I liked

Using a wool that changes colour

the next day in our local department store I found this in the sale

Reduced to £1.50 a ball. I know I was supposed to be using up wool not buying more but the colours were fab!!

However the granny square shape didn't change colour or inspire me so I got out a great book I use again and again

And found a new shape to play with

I had a go

It looked pretty good and hadn't taken long

But I felt they needed a border so I added a single row in white

This looked better

And defined the colours more when put together.

I now have a bit of a hexagon obsession going on

What size blanket was I going to make? I got pen & paper out and did a bit of maths...

One hexagon is 18cm so 6 hexagons are just over a metre. 36 hexagons are a metre squared. A double duvet is 2m x 2m so I would need 144 hexagons.

I make @4 hexagons a ball so I would need 36 balls in total....rush back to the shop to make sure they have enough in the sale stack.

Phew!

This one will be a slow burner I think. Its nice and portable whereas my knit/crochet jumper is now too big to cart around so I will always have the hexagons in my bag. I still need to finish the jumper now I have cracked the American crochet pattern but I also need to finish knitting the arms. A friend told me after I had cast on that she always knits sleeves together. Casts on twice on the same needle- 2 cast ons, 2 balls of wool- that way they will always be the same. A good tip for next time.

I will finish the jumper as I started it in June but these Hexagons are easy and fun to make, not sure I'll be saying that when I get to 144 mind.....

Catching up

I finally managed to redecorate by the 17th December so Christmas decorations could go up.

These are my new ones this year from Lizzy at No:32

I am very pleased with my gorgeous wall paper in the front room

Its scarily expensive Cole & Son but as I only needed one roll for the chimney breast ebay was my saviour

It just needed a mirror or picture to finish it off. I looked for weeks then Dad came to the rescue with a broken old mirror that used to hang at the bottom of the stairs when I was a child.

A bit of 'no more nails' and some new mirror fixings and it was good as new.

Wonder if my sister will recognise it when she is over next week from France?

Got Jacob a great T shirt from last exit to nowhere a great web site with obscure film referenced t shirts

http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/

Any guesses??

and Noah got the best present ever....

What could it be??

I think he's pleased :0)

Complete with Headphones.

George meanwhile got his favourite thing and built it with a little help from Big Brother

And then we got tickets for a free book event at Windsor Firestation Art Centre to meet none other than George's absolute favourite author in the Whole Wide World...

Andy Stanton!!!

He was fantastic, all the questions were asked by the children and were hilarious then we all had to take part in a book swap then Andy Stanton signed all 9 of his books that George had brought with him. George was lost for words, it was very sweet.

George's other favourite book is by Bonnie Burton, he reads it all the time...

Its the Star Wars Crafts book and is well worth a look. We have made Star wars finger puppets so far

We also spent a bit of time at Christmas fundraising for Marie Curie, in fact we will be out again this Saturday so if you see someone collecting please buy a daffodil

So what did I craft over Christmas?

I decided to make a small crocheted blanket

It was all treble crochet and I changed colours every row

It grew quite quickly as it was easy to do in front of the TV.  I wanted to do it to see if I could keep the edges straight

Although sewing in the edges was a huge bore and I wasn't very happy with the result as I could still see the thread

Finished

Betty liked it!

We had dinner at Nandos one night and look at the light shades

They look crocheted to me

Something to think about.

Meanwhile its time to kick back and relax....

Noah style!

25p plates

I bought a cake stand kit on ebay

It cost me £5.99 for 6 sets.

I had them for a while and decided to make a cake stand for my sister in law as a Christmas present.

Locally we have a second hand warehouse called the Community Furniture Project where you can donate any unwanted furniture and other things and they sell them on with a cheaper price to those on benefits. Its a real Aladdin's cave of stuff and I have bought both bunk bed frames form there as well as kids bikes, chests of drawers and my ill fated metal filing cabinet.

They sell plates for 25p each-bargain!

and look at the gems you can find! 

This is not for cake stand use but I gave it to my husband. One of the volunteers there makes cake stands and gave me some advice.

First you need a ceramic drill piece

you also need a stable surface to work on. It was recommended that I use a chopping board but put some tea towels on top to stop it slipping

Then I assembled all my resources for the stand

First you measure the plate to find the centre

then you drill BUT it is important that you have some water on the plate to keep the drill and plate cool or it will overheat and shatter.

this will also happen if there are any cracks or faults with the plate

Measuring is very important

or you end up with a wonky plate...

which gives you a very wonky stand...

Back to the shop for more plates, more time & effort spent measuring and the finished cake stand looks like this.

She was delighted and in the end it only took half an hour to make. Now I have a look in the charity shops at least once a week for more plates as I'm sure I will make a few more of these, after all I bought 5 kits.

Meanwhile our lovely dog walk started to flood

Stranded fence posts

kids wading

The Woods are now a marsh land but we keep walking..

and occasionally the sun comes out.