It's a wrap...

I'm whizzing through this 'Flash your Stash' shawl from Simply Crochet (issue 43). I'm calling it a wrap from now on though. It's turning out to be quite a good size, definitely something to wrap round when the sun doesn't turn up for one of the many cricket matches I watch every season. In fact J is playing his next county match next week so I'll be popping it in the car for that occasion. Not much left to do now. Since I took these photos I've managed to find time to crochet a gazillion puff stitches which has given the lower half a nice bit of weight.

I haven't used the suggested yarn for this. All the yarn pictured with the wrap in progress I had in my 'Aran weight' box. The four almost 100g balls were left overs but the pale grey 400g ball I bought simply because I liked the colour and knew it would come in handy. I suddenly develop selective hearing when M asks me what I'm buying a particular yarn for. I tend to buy 400g balls when I see them on sale. It's a useful quantity and doesn't seem as indulgent as four balls of 100g, even though it's exactly the same amount! Yarn psychology ;-)

Talking of which, I don't usually get that 'one more row' urgency with striped blankets for instance but with wraps, especially the type with all the interest in the lower half, I definitely do. So I've been making speedy progress with this. Even though this pattern is mainly three types of row it looks like more because of the colour changes.

The new yarn for E's granny square cowl arrived! These are the colours she wears and likes. I decided to order from Wool Warehouse this time because they had more colours in stock of this range and also the Drops Alpaca that I needed. The yarn came in a drawstring bag which was a nice touch and also arrived much quicker than the company I previously favoured.

I've noticed that there has been much discussion about tension amongst those making the Last Dance blanket in Scheepjes Merino. Some have used a hook sized much larger than the squares have called for. I haven't had any sizing problems with any of my squares to date with random DK. However, I've made one square of this cowl and found it to be significantly smaller so I will need to go up at least one hook size. On that one square there were far too many ends for my liking so it's going to be a bit of a faff but I could probably do the ends according to the batches that they set out in the pattern. Five at a time.

I don't tend to pull my yarn from the middle so it'll be interesting to see if it ends up in a tangled mess or not. Those easy start tags are certainly useful for something like this where I've substituted every single colour and there's a list of all the combinations that need to be made.

I must confess, although my knee is not showing any signs of improving I've reached that stage where I'm not making quite so much fuss about what I can't do. I've just busied myself with things I can. I've given up hope that anyone in this household would 'see' that a job needs doing and do it, I simply wait until it's a good moment to ask E to put some washing out, J to sweep the kitchen or M to do a small DIY task that I'd normally have done myself. Timing is everything.

In the meantime, crochet is my therapy. Deep breath and...treble away!