Tuesday 28 July 2020

Virtual Running - part 4

 
Today I finished my 3rd virtual running challenge - running 277 miles along the Grand Canyon.  Of course I haven't actually been running at the Grand Canyon, just the Hampshire country lanes round where I live.
But they have been good runs.  In sunshine and rain, surrounded by bird song and with the odd wildlife encounter, like the fox who dashed out in front of me this week.
But with only one more challenge left to make 1000 miles (291 miles along the Cambrian Way), I am starting to wonder - just how far can I run in a year?

Sunday 12 July 2020

Kumihimo Beaded Gifts


Mothers Day got screwed up this year, what with not actually being allowed to see her due to coronavirus.  And then I kinda changed my mind about what gift I was going to give her.  Once I'd tried beaded kumihimo I knew she would love a pretty bracelet and I wanted to try something a bit different - what about a glasses cord?


The bracelet was easy.  As I went through my cupboards at Easter I found I actually already had some beads.  And I knew she would love these colours so I just made it up based loosely on a pattern from my book.

Tiny size 15 beads against regular size 8 beads
 
But if I was going to make a cord to hold glasses I would need something smaller.  So I found the finest cord you can kumihimo with, and some tiny size 15 beads and had ago.  The worst part was threading them all onto the cord.  I lost count of how many jumped across the room never to be seen again.  But I quite like the end result.  It's 30 inches long and has a nice feel to it.
If I tried it again I think I could go up a bead size so you can see less cord, but the colours match so I'm not too worried.
Both came out really well and she loved them.  Even if it was about 4 months late.


Saturday 4 July 2020

More Little Knitted Hats

Monster hat

In-between everything else I've continued to knit little hats for The Big Knit. They are fun to do and I like that you can change the pattern slightly to make it your own, for instance I made my monster hat out of fluffy wool as that seemed to suit a monster better.  Plus I gave him a smile.  Why can't monsters be happy?

And I found some yellow wool I'd forgotten all about, so was finally able to make my banana hat!

Banana hat

My only disappointment is that some of the patterns aren't written very well so they miss out important instructions about casting off, or how to join things etc.  As a reasonably experienced knitter that hasn't been too much of an issue for me, but I imagine new knitters might find this a problem.



Tiny zion lion hat

A berry fancy hat

With love hat

Dinosaur hat

Juicy pear hat

Woolter melon hat