Knitting A Rainbow...

 

I found this wonderful bright yarn at our local Hobbycraft store a few weeks ago, and it took me a while to decide what to make with it. In the end I chose this lacy scarf, knitted in two halves and grafted together in the middle.

It has turned out well, despite the Kitchener grafting being the wrong way round and causing a ridge down the centre - the instructions in the book were either wrong or I misinterpreted them!  This only took just over half a ball of this yarn, so I have that and another ball left over - what to make, what to make...

I'm extremely busy at the moment - unusual for the weeks following Christmas.  I have a dog portrait on the drawing board, another waiting in the wings, two painted boxes to do, two  knitted hats and some rather interesting animation pieces to knit.  Perhaps the family can learn to feed themselves for a while?

Snow Dogs Complete...

And suddenly it was finished.  I can always sense when a painting is nearly done - I start to get bored and think about the next piece I have lined up, but I wasn't quite sure this one was ready.  Turns out it was - just an hour's work yesterday and there it was, all done.  I am very pleased with how this one has turned out - I haven't painted such a large acrylic for a very long time, plus the fact that while Mr.B was convalescing I didn't paint at all for two months, I wondered if I might have become rusty.

But just like riding a bike (actually, I can't ride a bicycle, so that's a rubbish analogy) it all came back to me.  This is a private commission, heading off to Maine, USA.

Next up, quite an exciting one, a portrait of an army service dog complete with his medals in coloured pencil.  I've been looking forward to getting my teeth into this one!

Coming Along Nicely...

 

Sunflowers...

A friend of mine commissioned this and provided the pattern.  It's not something I would have thought to make by myself, but I am very glad that someone asked me to as it was a lot of fun.  It was also a fair bit of work - each sunflower is crocheted individually, and then joined by crocheting together with the green - again individually.

This meant there were an awful lot of ends to be woven in!

As with all my knitted and crochet wraps and shawls, I washed this carefully by hand and then thought I would pop it in the washing machine for a short spin to get rid of the excess water before blocking it. That was when disaster struck - the washing machine decided it did not want to spin that day, it just kept going round and round, tossing the unfortunate shawl as it went.  Despite several tries, and increasing panic at what might be happening to the shawl, the washing machine never did spin that day.  I ended up taking the shawl out and wringing it by hand before squeezing as much water out as I could by wrapping it in a towel and standing on it.  Thankfully there did not appear to be any damage other than a couple of ends had come loose, and I successfully blocked the shawl - it did take nearly 3 days to dry however!

Mr. B pulled the washing machine out and took the back off it the following day - discovered there was no way he could get into the workings without breaking various seals, so screwed the back on and put the washing machine back in it's place.  Needless to say, it was worked perfectly ever since - go figure!