Hooked on stripes - and a Tah Dah moment!

Hello again!

You may have noticed I haven't posted for a while; there are several reasons...

1. After Blogtoberfest and the Photo-a-day challenge I thought you might all be sick of seeing me on here!

2. After Blogtoberfest and the Photo-a-day challenge I was a bit sick of being on here! Actually, not sick of being on here at all, I just overdid it a bit and ran out of interesting things to post about!!!

3. With the builders here (yes, they are STILL here! But let's not dwell on that) it's been difficult to concentrate on anything at all (lots of crafty stuff has got done though!)

 Anyway, here I am, I'm back, and with lots of crafty stuff to show you!

First, my Tah Dah moment...

I started this sampler blanket as an excuse to try out lots of different stitches. A lot of them are the ones Little Woollie has used in her crochet-along blanket, but some are from my crochet book.

Unfortunately some of the stitches I used pull up too tight and so my blanket has a bit of a wiggly edge!

I've tried to minimise the wiggle by adding quite a wide border.

I'm quite pleased with it.

Not quite sure where it will be kept, as I only made it for fun and practice and the colours don't really go with my furnishings! I expect it will end up in Miss M's room! Shhh, don't tell her!

Of course, the sampler blanket is stripey which is probably why I enjoyed it so much!

I realised when I was looking through my crochet book for stitches which would work well for stripes that I actually LOVE stripes.

And then when I thought about it I realise I really AM hooked on stripes!

I can't walk through a clothes shop without being drawn toward the stripey jumpers.

There are quite a few in my wardrobe!

My chairs are stripey!

And clearly Karen understands my need for stripes as she chose the fabric for my project basket

and my hooks and scissors bag!

I tried to remember when this passion for stripes began...

Certainly not when I was at school and my summer dresses were stripey! Yuk!

I seem to remember having quite a lot of stripey wallpaper in my last house. No risk of that here though, the walls are far too uneven to take a stripe!

Anyway, back to crochet....

Looking at all the gorgeous colours all of you use I decided to take the plunge, step out of my comfort zone of carefully matched colours, and SPLASH OUT ON COLOUR!

I ordered a ball of every colour (except black and white!) from the Stylecraft DK yarn I like to use. This is just a few, there are more than 50! (don't tell Mr B will you?!)

I decided to make a scarf using every colour (Doctor Who style, for those of you who remember when Tom Baker played the Doctor!)

 I started it with the colours I already had, and continued with the new colours when they arrived.

You can certainly see the difference between my very conservative taste and the new bright colours!

I thought I would continue it and use all the colours once more, and that would be about the right length for a scarf. I'm still trying to decide whether to do them in reverse order and have a symmetric scarf with all the bright colours in the middle and the 'me' colours at both ends.. (ooh, there I go again, trying to step back into my comfort zone!) ..... or to just mix up the colours in the second half.

What do you think?

I've also started a small stripey blanket because I am enjoying crocheting the multi colour stripes so much - and they don't need much concentration with the builders around; having said that you'd be shocked at how many times I've had to unravel rows! 

And I've had a go at making a circle (stripes again of course) but haven't managed to make one yet that will lie flat! Any tips welcome!

And I've started making a scarf for Miss M. She loved one of the patterns in my sampler blanket and asked me to make her a scarf in that pattern.

I said 'Stripes? Which colours? '

Miss M said 'Just plain pink please!'

Oh well, I suppose not everyone is as hooked on stripes as I am!!

Have a great weekend xxx