Toasty toes

I started radiation treatment this week and this will continue every weekday for the next five weeks.  Chemo will continue weekly.  In between hospital visits I have a lot of time on my hands and I am very grateful that I feel well enough and have enough energy to hold knitting needles and crochet hooks and apply my foot to the sewing machine pedal.  All of the above done in a much slower manner than usual, but I am not complaining.

I have just finished another ripple blanket.  This one is for John and me and will keep our toes warm on these cold winter nights.

I have been thinking about the positives of my treatment and, amazingly, there are quite a few.  I do have more time to myself, although admittedly, not always with enough energy to do much.  My hairless state means that the morning ablutions take much less time as I don't have to worry about washing and styling my hair.  I no longer have to shave my legs.  My fingernails have grown stronger.  I am reading a LOT of books.
I have met a lot of lovely people.

Last week I joined a very exclusive club called The Chemo Club.  This is a club run by a local gym for people undergoing cancer treatment.  Twice a week for an hour the club opens its doors so that we can do some gentle exercise under supervision.  I have never been a gym member so I don't know what the atmosphere is like when 'healthy' people are using the facilities.  However, I doubt they have as many laughs and there is as much camaraderie as the ladies in this group have.  As we peddle away on the bikes or pound away on the treadmills, everyone swaps stories and offers encouragement.  What great therapy.

Mum liked the blanket so much she put in a request, so now I have another one on the hook.

Waterlily ripple

My eye was drawn to this beautiful patch of new nasturtium leaves growing in Melissa & Stewart's garden and they reminded me of lily pads.



While Little C slept, I worked on my latest ripple blanket and as I worked it occurred to me that the colours of the blanket were those of a waterlily and it was the perfect match for the leaves so it will be called waterlily ripple.

Stacks of grannies

I saw this beautiful bunch of gerberas when I was shopping yesterday and they immediately reminded me of my rather messy work basket and the grannies which are stacking up in it.





I had some yarn left over after I had finished the gelato ripple blanket and decided to make some granny squares with it.



I doubt that I will have enough to make a decent sized rug, but there might be enough for a small lap blanket. They are a good project for the summer because of their size. When the temperature starts to soar into the 40s it is much too hot to have a woollen blanket draped over my knees no matter how lovely the colours are. I can spend the summer months stacking up my grannies and then, when the weather turns cooler, I can sew them together and keep myself warm at the same time. At the moment, all I can think about is keeping cool.

Farewell friend

The gelato ripple is going to its new home today. Luckily for me it is staying in the family so I will be able to continue to enjoy it.

I am going to miss my evenings of bright colours which have been filling me with summer cheer during the winter months. Now I need to convince another family member that they need a ripple blanket. I think Melissa will be my next target.

The colours of summer (in the depths of winter)

I have long wanted to join a quilting group and have finally decided to do something about it. The Western Australian Quilters' Group is having its monthly meeting next week and I am hoping to get there. (I was hoping to get to their June meeting but, instead, was in bed with that awful ear infection.) Members are asked to take some hand sewing and, presumably, you sit and stitch while the meeting progresses. I am really not sure what happens, but all will be revealed next week. I have one small problem with this in that I don't currently have any hand sewing. The hand work I am doing at the moment is the gelato ripple blanket and it might raise a few eyebrows if I crocheted during a quilters' gathering. Perhaps it would be suggested politely that I join a different group.


So I raided the fabric stash and quickly put together a small quilt which is now ready for hand quilting. It is larger than this - the picture shows only one corner.



In the process I noticed a remarkable similarity in the colours of the blanket and the new quilt.

I have also begun to cut out another quilt in these fabrics.



There seems to be a theme going on here. I think I must be longing for the warmth of summer and am trying to capture rays of sunshine in wool and fabric.

Gelato Ripple

When I made my first ripple blanket I had no idea that I would create ripple envy. Mandy has been giving it covetous glances for a while, more so now that the evenings are getting cooler. As I enjoyed the process so much last time, I agreed to make a few more waves and off to the shops we went. We came home with a bag full of beautifully bright coloured yarn which remind me of being in an Italian gelateria.

Now I have ripple envy and will find it difficult to part with this gelato ripple when it is finished.

Rippled out

My ripple stitch blanket is finished at last.

I had to put it away over the summer months because it was just too hot and heavy to have draped over my knees while I worked on it. I could not believe how heavy it became. I am sure that when I brought the yarn home from the shop it didn't weigh nearly as much as the finished blanket does. I am fascinated to know how the crocheting process can make such a differece to the weight.

I was so enjoying the calming effects of bobbing along on my little waves every night that I was sorry to see it finished. In fact, I didn't feel ready to finish so I decided to make a hot water bottle cover with the left over wool.
Now I am ready to finish. In fact, I am all rippled out.

Surfing

My first wave smashed against the rocks.
My second attempt was a nasty, tightly curled little wave which this surfer was forced to dump before it dumped her.
Finally I figured out how to catch a good wave and now I am a happy surfer spending my evenings creating and surfing along on many colourful waves. I had been beginning to doubt the claims that this would be a very relaxing form of crochet, but once I understood the difference between a treble crochet and a double crochet and that I should be using the former rather than the latter, my stress levels were reduced. It didn't help that in some of my pattern books a treble crochet is called a double crochet and a double crochet is a single crochet. Surely it can't be that hard for all pattern makers to stick to the one standard. Enough complaining, it's nearly time to head back to the beach to enjoy another evening of catching waves.

Making Waves

My previous attempt at a crocheted blanket was a dismal failure. I don't think I was ever sufficiently motivated with the project and I would work on it only briefly before putting it away again. I suspect that the colours weren't helping: black, white, red and yellow, more like the colours of a football jumper really. It was called a granny blanket (I think the same thing is now called an Afghan). Maybe the grannies rebelled about being labelled in this way. In the end the moths put me and the blanket out of our misery by eating huge chunks of it and I was able to throw it all away without feeling too guilty. So it is with some trepidation that I am starting this new blanket. After seeing the ripple stitch blanket on several of my favourite blogs and being convinced by the writers that it is a most relaxing form of crochet, I decided to give it a try. As usual, I am late coming to the party and I haven't been able to find the patterns which were posted at the time and are now no longer available, so I am more or less making it up as I go. After several hours work last night I do not have much to show for it except this little wave. I hope things improve tonight as, so far, it has not been the relaxing experience I was hoping for. However, I have chosen some luscious colours and I am hoping that these will be all the motivation I need to keep going.
Why I am trying to make waves I don't really know. It is two weeks to market, there is still a mountain of work to be done, the printing of our new fabrics is only days away and we are still trying to finalise them and I am trying to create waves. Some people never learn!