Blankets and Patchwork

I’ve been quite industrious since the last blog entry and have completed the first of the baby blankets using up some wool which I’ve had a while.  When I saw the wool on Doncaster Market I thought it looked quite pretty but when I started to knit a tension square it became apparent the colours didn’t blend very well.   The white turning to grey just looked dirty next to the yellow and the orange tint went into a washed out pink colour so this wool clearly wouldn’t be for anything I’d wear.  I came across the group who knit blankets for premature babies and distribute them to hospitals in a prima magazine and decided I would happily knit up the yukky wool for them.  Apparently, they are short of 24x24 inch blankets and as I had, in a rush of enthusiasm, bought 6 balls of the ghastly stuff there’s plenty for the blankets.  As I had some wool with contrasting colours I decided to use that in a stripe and it worked surprisingly well but I still wouldn’t wear it!

One of the suggested stitches for the blankets was moss stitch, not a stitch I’ve used very much so I thought I’d give it a try.  It takes a little longer to knit than stocking stitch but produces quite a sturdy fabric and a tweedy effect with the random wools I was using.  It is also quite a wide stitch, I only needed 109 stitches for the 24 inch width.

The patchwork has also been coming along and the top of the cover is now finished.

I realised I was running low on dark materials and so enjoyed a shopping trip to Doncaster to top up my supplies.  I was particularly pleased with one of the fabrics from Knit and Stitch.

While I was taking the photos I noticed the girls in their usual position, fast asleep on Kev’s chair. 

A Patchwork for Harvest

The large display board in our school hall is changed every term according to the seasons and religious events, and it's my job to come up with a relevant idea and get it up on the wall (usually with Pat's help, especially at the top of the board.)

This year I had the idea of using real packaging to make a patchwork of the foods we all eat. A message was sent out to parents for boxes, wrappers and packets, and, when these were slow to come in, I began prowling the staffroom at dinnertime, snatching away any wrapping before it could be binned. This resulted in a unexpectedly large collection of empty hula hoop packets and tea-bag boxes, giving an accurate picture of the staff diet! All the wrappers were sliced into 3x3 inch squares using the grid ruler and an old patchwork wheel, which made the job quite speedy, even though about 400 squares were required. I interspersed these with some words from the children, hopefully to send a message other than pure gluttony.

It took nearly two hours to pin all the squares in place, while dodging the flying bean bags of a reception class PE lesson. Towards the end, I realised I was just a few squares short - the school secretary was surprised to find bags of flour and sugar being photocopied as I rushed to make up the missing squares. Finally,  the HARVEST lettering was printed in Word, enlarged and then used as a template to cut from yellow card.

I was pleased with the colourful result, which was the background for our Harvest Festival in school.
Sadly, displays don't stay up for long, and this one was dismantled over half term to make way for a Remembrance Day display.