A November craft review

Work, life and all that often leaves little time to fit in creative projects. I have a terrible habit of having several things on the go at once rather than focusing on one at a time. As a result, progress on each of them is not exactly lightning fast. Large projects like crochet blankets seem move along incredibly slowly.

Being freelance and running my own business, I often have deadlines and targets to meet and its easy to let those thought processes creep in to projects I am doing for relaxation and enjoyment. It can also be difficult to keep the momentum going – how many of us have works-in-progress at the bottom of a wardrobe or cupboard or tucked away behind the sofa. Out of sight, out of mind.

Something I’ve seen on other blogs is review of either a project, a year or a month. Seeing the way something is developing over time adds to the satisfaction of the journey to make it and the destination when its finished. When I look back at my Attic24 crochet-along blanket, which I only started on the 8th November I realise that it is not bad going to have already completed half the coloured stripes.

So here is a little review of things I’ve done this month, mainly for my own little record but I hope you enjoy it too.

So what did I achieve in November?

Take a look! Even I was amazed to collect together some of the photos I’ve posted on my blog and Facebook page in November:

Crochet and jewellery making have featured a lot. These crafts have taken up most of my available hobby time:

• Publishing my first pattern and tutorial for Iron Man fingerless mittens.
• Starting and working on my Attic24 CAL blanket
• Progressing my seascape ripple blanket
• Planning an autumn hexagon blanket
• Making three silver band rings for my project at Leeds College of Art (I did the evening class in silversmithing and jewellery making there)
• Making some sterling silver and glass earrings that I hope to sell to raise money for Marie Curie nurses
• Trying out some settings for my sea glass finds
• Setting a cabochon of lapis lazuli into a bezel and making a ring
• Going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate and buying an extreme crochet hook and a pompom maker
• Crocheting a pair of fingerless mittens in cream and gold

Reviewing my crochet blanket progress

I’ve also had a bit of fun putting together a little review of the progress on my two major blankets. First the seascape ripple. I started this back in October or even September and went wrong first time around. Rather than pulling everything out (the mistake wasn’t obvious in a few rows but it would have been eventually), I made a ripple infinity scarf to match my fingerless mittens made from a patter in Simply Crochet magazine. I restarted the seascape idea in October and its working out nicely now:

My Attic24 CAL blanket is steaming ahead

In just three weeks I managed, somehow, to finish 40 stripes:

The colours of autumn this November

Its also good to recall what has happened in the world around. I’ve been noticing the autumn colours this year while planning my autumn chunky hexagon blanket and its nice to see a little combo of garden and local countryside:

And finally…

Lest we forget

This November we had Remembrance Sunday in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1. I remembered my great-uncle, Oliver Strangward in my blog post that Sunday…