Finished and Photographed

Finally the PC has decided to play (without me having to spend anything on a new camera) so here it is, Dudley's new dog bed!

Made using French knitting it took me ages but got rid of ALL my scraps! I finished it off with a few rows of double crochet just for some different edging.As you can see Dudley's quite pleased with the finished product!

Still Hooking!

The Eye of Jupiter Blanket has been taking slightly longer than anticipated, also due to protests from the other hlf that we are now approaching the status of 'Too May Blankets' I've had to rethink the design. It's now an Eye of Jupiter dog bed and is driving me insane, there really is nothing worse than having to single crochet things together...

I want to start making some other things but I'm determined to finish the dog bed first. This is why I have a distinct lack of finished items to blog about.

I'm off now to take some deep cleansing breaths before I start single crocheting again. The dog better bloomin' like it!!

French Knitting: Not As Sexy As It Sounds

It really should be sexy but it isn't. It's actually the kind of craft where you can completely switch off. You've probaly done it as a child, you use the plastic thing below and wool. You don't have to think, it's a great way to wind down.

Here are my instructions on How To Do French Knitting:

Start with a slip-knot around one of the prongs with the tail end of your wool through the centre, wind the long end of the wool once round the other prongs, turning the reel as you work. Once you've gone round them all wrap your wool around the pins above the loops already on your prongs. Use a blunt needle (French knitting kits usually come with a plastic pin) to pick up the bottom loop on the first prong and pull it over the top loop. Repeat this and keep pulling very gently downwards on the tail end of your original loop to work your knitting through the plastic jobby (I'm sure it's got a name).
So far I've made this:I've decided to make a rug/blanket/artwork kind of thing. I'm going to join it in a circle as below.I've lots more to do to get it big enough to qualify as a blanket. It's about 80cm in diameter so far. I can't help thinking it looks a little like the Eye Of Jupiter from Battlestar Gallactica.

Move along, nothing to see here...

I've had a very busy weekend, gardening in the spring sunshine (you remember sunshine right?) then going to the beach to watch the dog run round like a crazed lunatic. I meant to take some pictures of the baby hats I've made but by the time I remembered it was too late to be pratting about with the camera (at least that's the excuse I'm using).

The rest of the time I've been frogging. I now have just the vermilion vest creation disaster thing to frog and that will be it. Yarn recycling can commence.

I've also unpicked my French knitting experiment, I was making a vertical striped blanket but I've decided it will be better as a circular rug come blanket come circular yarn artwork piece.

Now it's time for my MAJOR FRUSTRATION OF THE WEEK ALERT: Remember this blanket? The culmination of a decade and a half's laziness? Well the Other Half only went and found a square I'd missed! One solitary bloody square. What the heck do I do with that? And don't you dare say another blanket!

Le Knitting Francais

As long as I remember I’ve owned a pink plastic French knitting spool. I’ve always been able to do it, I learned so long ago it’s almost as if I’ve known how to from birth!

How I wish I had one of these instead of my pink plastic one:

When I found my 14 year old square blanket I also found the French knitting spool along with a couple of metres of rope I’d obviously intended to edge it with. I chose a crocheted edging in the end but didn’t want to destroy the hard work I’d put in on the pink spool so decided I was going to carry on.

But, what do you do with French knitting? Other than make several meters of brightly coloured rope?! I’ve started joining it together into another blanket (you know where you are with blankets) with a crocheted slip-stitch but other than that I’m at a loss.

I’ve had a look on the internet and came across this site which has lots of lovely spools but not much to do with the. Does anyone out there do French knitting?