Oasis knittings 2016-7

The Garelochhead Oasis "Daffodil Tea" is to be held next Saturday. The knitting group has been busy all year. G has been making, among other things, some scarves and a snood.

Earlier in the year she made a baby blanket for a friend.

Earlier in the year I also put together this cushion cover from knitted strips.

I hope it brightens up and 'comfies up' someone's chair.

G's latest finished project is a little tea cosy. There is a yellow and cream one almost finished too.

Meanwhile, M has been churning out colourful blanket strips. I have begun sewing these into what will be a lovely blanket but I can't keep up with M's output! 😀 Look at the piles I've to finish off by sewing in ends and then sew together. Actually, I think there'll be two blankets-worth!

The hat boxes

The hat boxes have needed cleaned out for a while. As is the way with storage boxes they had become more and more stuffed with stuff! The stuff wasn't hats. I use these boxes for some of my sewing and temari-making things. There is a fourth, the smallest one, which is upstairs with boxes of fabric scraps. As it happens, only the middle two sized ones got a clear out today because during a break in the very heavy rain showers, I went out to do a spot of hedge hacking.

fuchsia & rhododendron ponticum 'trimmings'

The first box I tackled contained, among other things, bits of elastic and curtain tape, old, clean wool socks that provide temari filling, and the badge off Toadlet's first school sweatshirt. When DerbyshireDaughter and DivingDaughter were at that school there was no uniform. Nobody batted an eyelid when DerbyshireDaughter went to school one summer day wearing a teeshirt of mine as a dress. Toadlet only went to the nursery class there and the reception class and then we moved up to Scotland. She remembers the deep maroon uniform colour as brown and she hated it.

old socks

I've made enough room in that box for my jar of thread bits. When I'm making temari I drop all the thread ends into a jar and it makes a pleasing muddle of colourful strands. Every now and then I have a rummage through it for a particular colour that I've run out of and need a short length of.

I like the almost nest effect

The jar with a small temari and a couple more below. Check out temarikai.com for history and more info.

So! Back to the hat boxes! The next guddle stuffed into one of them was leftover embroidery wools (loosely called tapestry wools). I think I can find a use for these at Oasis. I can wind them into small balls for M3 who likes to change the colour she is knitting frequently.

Next, all the needles came out. I have quite a collection (there are more upstairs) because I inherited some from an aunt. The packet in the bottom left corner of this pic has the price 9d on it, so its vintage is pre-1971. I have not identified the use of some of her 'needles'. Does anyone recognise the two below and know what they are for?

They were in the packet shown but I don't think  that was their original packet. I've now slotted them onto the same card as some other varied purpose needles.

The other two hat boxes will have to be tackled another time.






Meanwhile the woodshed rose, Albertine, which I can now smell if I stick my nose right into a bloom, is thriving as usual.

Oasis blankets

I am back home after the best part of a week with DerbyshireDaughter and family. That's her between the two behatted toerags, my grandsons. Toadlet is behind. I'm not allowed to go visit her nephews without her.

DerbyshireDaughter taught me how to do "mattress stitch" to join sections of garter-stitch knitting. We put together two blankets from sections knitted by the Garelochhead Oasis knitters.

Click on the photos to 'embiggen'* them.
[*made up word]

The sorting.

Blanket 1 completed

I edged it with a double row of crochet and
DerbyshireDaughter ingeniously reinforced a couple of weak spots with crochet flowers. We did the same for blanket 2. I made the 'rusty' flower–my first attempt!

Blanket 2

DD edged this one with blue and green

We think the crochet edgings 'bring theblankets together'. I really like these blankets and hope the knitters do too when I show them on Monday. I'd use either of these in a child's cot or on a pushchair.

Garelochhead Oasis production line

The blanket knitted almost entirely by 'GR', is now finished. Slightly fuzzy photo but you can see the colour arrangement. GR kept saying while she was knitting the strips that she wasn't sure the colours would 'go'. I kept saying: "It'll be fine". When she had finished and I had sewn the strips together and crocheted a border, she took the blanket home to show to her home helps and other people. The next time she saw me she told me everyone thought it was fabulous. It'll go into a sale of work at the Oasis in the spring.

Along with the hat knitted by 'GE':

mutlicoloured tassle hat

I have begun to sort through some of the strips knitted by 'M1'. I think there will be two or three small blankets for the sale out of her production line!




And then there's this lot:

DerbyshireDaughter has said she'll help me sew pieces together and crochet borders on my next visit in February.

A knitted patchwork blanket

This week I finished sewing together squares knitted by users of The Oasis Day Centre in Garelochhead. DerbyshireDaughter, who was here on a visit, then speedily crocheted an edging for the blanket. Teamwork!