Crochet geckos are like pringles - who knew?

Bet you can't stop at just one!

I found this cute little crochet pattern whilst cruising Ravelrys' pattern database (as you do) & couldn't resist giving it a go. One turned into three ...

Which kind of snowballed ...

And now I have an army of the little critters!

(The purple one will be travelling down to Melbourne into the care of my beautiful daughter - she likes purple.)

It's here!

My new toy arrived this morning - a Majacraft Little Gem.

So exciting! I already have a Majacraft Suzie which I love to bits (with a woollee winder so I never have to change hooks again), but the Suzie isn't quite as portable. I live upstairs (over my garage/laundry), so every time I want to take my wheel with me, until now I've been waiting to go tail over turkey down the stairs as I try to avoid whacking the Suzie into the concrete stairs, metal railing, brick side of the building & oh yeah, my shins. It's the wheel I'm trying to protect, as it's wood is very soft & dings easily (I don't give 2 hoots about the other things, although I am fond of my shins). Thanks to the arrival of my new baby, it's not a problem anymore - the Suzie can stay safely at home, & I just sling the Little Gem in its padded bag over my shoulder & away I go!

The bobbins are completely interchangable, so I now have 8 (!) plastic Majacraft bobbins & 5 woollee winder ones. That should keep me going for a while!

What else I've been up to

If you've thought from all this talk about the blankie that I haven't been working on anything else, you'd be wrong. (but forgiven)
There are always socks!

Another pair of Jaywalkers - these are in Noro Kureyon Sock.

Yet ANOTHER pair of Jaywalkers (I think I love this pattern - it breaks up stripes soooo nicely) - these ones were made with some Lincraft "Hot Socks" I've had in the stash forever.

Then for a change of pace we have a pair of mittens! This is the silk cap I was talking about a while ago. I plied it with the leftover purple from a fibre sandwich. The purple has a bit of varigation in it too -you might be able to see a blue stripe on the middle of the left one. I like these immensely - the pair only weighs 30 grams!

And finally, a bit of fun. I stumbled across this pattern on Ravelry & just HAD to make one. I've also challenged my lovely friend D to a "ball-off". You need 6 strips - I've knitted mine, she'll crochet hers. The knitting itself was really boring (20 stitches x 68 rows x 6 strips) but the weaving made it all worthwile. I wound up raiding that big box of "got to go" acrylic yarns that I haven't gotten rid of yet to find 6 funky colours. Maybe I need to rethink getting rid of some of those ...

Fridays are for spinning

I'm still spinning the endless kilo of white (with flecks). But actually spending spinning time with it is slowly diminishing it's volume (unlike just wishing it was done - doesn't really achieve anything).

I think I'm starting to see an end to the endless white! Then I'll be able to reward myself with something pretty. Although I have been working on a few teeny projects inbetween - like some pretty blue/green silk cap that I plied with some of the leftover purple from my last fibre sandwich. Mmmm ... pretty ...

I'm also trying to do some of the Yggdrasil blankie every day, so it will actually get finished too. I'm up to the first knitted on cable braid border (which is driving me crazy) - it's looking great so far!!

I've been suffering a bit from startitis lately, so I'm trying to make myself finish some of my UFO's before I start any more - but socks don't count, do they? (Or mittens - they're small ... )

Blankie 3.0

Without frogging anything, I decided to start my Yggdrasil again using purl increases & see if it looked any better. New ball of yarn, back to the beginning. I think the purl increases look better, even though if I put the two squares side by side I can't really tell the difference (?) so I'm going to frog the knit increases square. I'm still not 100% happy with the increases, as it has this weird ridge thing just on the right-hand side (you increase on either side of a central purl stitch). I don't know if you can tell in the photo below, but I'm going to try to live with it.

I'm now into the home stretch of the middle "trees" square despite the horrible heat we've been having this past week (it's been at least 34 degrees for a week & revoltingly humid to go with it). I plonk myself directly in front of my fan, but it's getting to be a lap coverer now, so it may have to go into hibernation for a bit.

In other news, I've decided to take a leaf out of the Yarn Harlot's book & spend more time spinning. The Yarn Harlot has "Tuesdays are for spinning", so I'm going to adopt this idea as "Fridays are for spinning". My fibre stash has been growing, without much attempt made to actually use any of it & I think that has to change. Especially as I bought a new wheel before Christmas ...