It's Crochet, Knit & Natter 9: So Many Projects, So Little Time. (Oh well - I almost made it rhyme!)

[Fairislefandango]

A thread for woolly crafters of all types and levels.
Previous thread here

@WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally I can’t believe it will all go smoothly. Our buyers want to be in by the start of February next year and the owner of the house we are buying has agreed to move out and stop the chain getting out of control. I’ll get excited when we’ve exchanged.

Both me and DH are from the north west so we’ll have a long journey on the A14 when we go visiting. I couldn’t move back though It’s too cold!

Wow @frazzled101! That’s gorgeous!

Ouch @WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally that sounds awful, I hope it eases soon.

Congratulations @StillNiceCardigan!

Hello all. I've been absolutely snowed under for the last week getting ready to go on the school German exchange so I've been neglecting the thread!

We're off tomorrow though, and I'll probably actually have a reasonable amount of hanging around time, so I'm looking forward to catching up with what you're all up to. I'm taking my knitting too!

Have a good trip @fairi

My friend has had her baby so I finished the baby blanket and matching wrist warmers this evening. It’s not the best blanket I’ve ever done but I like the colours (they don’t show well in the photo though).

Lovely blanket @WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally your squares are very neat!

Hope you have a good trip @Fairislefandango

@WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally

Fab blanket! - I've never been able to keep a straight edge in crochet.

That's so lovely, @WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally

All these gorgeous blankets are making me question my 'no blankets' rule!

Have a lovey time @Fairislefandango

Oh @WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally your friend will absolutely love that! What a lovely idea to make matching wrist warmers!

Lovely blankets @frazzled101 and @WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally !

I'm sitting in the glorious sunshine in my German hosts' stunning, showroom-worthy kitchen knitting! The last couple of days have been manic with trips, but it's chill-out time now. The students are with their exchange partners' families for the weekend, so, barring any disasters, we have time off!

That sounds lovely @Fairislefandango!

We’ve just spent several hours sorting out the garage. DH is not great at throwing things away and I managed to keep my frustrations inside my head at least.

Oh, I feel your pain, @StillNiceCardigan! We have so much junk in our house, and DH talks a really good game about getting rid of it but I just cannot get him to take it seriously. I continue to fight the good fight alone. I am in no way am especially neat and tidy person but DH's standards are waaaaaay lower than mine. I swear he just doesn't notice the piles of crap.

Nothing to do with knitting or crochet, but I do feel better for getting it off my chest!

@QuantumWeatherButterfly we did a cull of stuff before we put the house on the market but we do need to do it again before actually moving as the new house is smaller. It is painful and I do want to shout at DH!

Oh but all my stash is coming with us!

We're house hunting- a priority is finding enough storage space for my stash of yarn--

Space for stash should be included in estate agents descriptions!

I’ll need space for my temperature blanket too as it’s massive.

I don't think estate agents understand. When I fall into that wormhole of looking at houses I can't afford they always spell "craft room" wrong. For some reason they think it's 'study'. What's that about?!

Oh I love your temperature blanket @StillNiceCardigan !!!

I'm currently wandering round Cologne solo, as the students are all with their host families for the weekend and I wanted to give my lovely host family a bit of space! Naturally I've just found my way to a yarn shop and unwisely picked out a couple of skeins without looking at the price - gulp ! Ah well... I deserve it (maybe).

@CrochetBug my craft stuff lives in the room I work from home in. Definitely a case for craft room rather than study.

@Fairislefandango my favourite socks are knitted with German yarn. It was much better quality than the other sock yarn I've used.

Another stunner, @StillNiceCardigan - this thread is on fire with gorgeous projects at the moment!

My dream house will definitely include a craft room. One day! As a newbie, my stash is small - which it has to be because it lives in a plastic crate under the bed with no room to grow. I fully intend to add to it when my cardigan is done though.

Speaking of the cardigan - the first square is nearly done. It's 50cm square and needs to be 52 minimum, so I reckon another round will do it. I'm enjoying it. It's soothingly simple.

I also fed your pain @StillNiceCardigan except DH grumbles about all the crap but isn’t actually willing to part with it. He got upset when I threw a T-shirt of his that had a hole under the arm and the hole was so big it was a second armhole! I’m looking at houses while DH decides what he’s doing with work - we’re hoping to move regardless so I have houses close to where we are and houses up near family. Both of us work from home and would want our own spaces (as we do at the moment) so I’m eyeing up the bedrooms as to whether I could fit my desk and my stash in the small bedroom. It’s made trickier by the fact that that I want a downstairs loo, an upstairs bathroom (currently we have a downstairs bathroom), a utility, a garage and ideally a kitchen/diner/family room or yet another room on the ground floor to act as a play room so we could have a clutter free lounge. Even if we move up north our budget doesn’t stretch that far!

I am angling to turn our spare room partly into my crafting room! My spinning wheel is already in there, but I need some storage. I also need to get rid of the boxes of books currently in there - we need more bookcases!

@WeCanLiveLikeJackAndSally DH and I struggled for ages working out how we could have separate WFH spaces without needing to extend (which we can't afford) or move (which we don't want to) and finally cracked it with wall mounted drop down desks from Pith and Stem.

They are horribly expensive compared to other desks - but an absolute bargain compared to the cost of moving or building! Excellent quality and I absolutely love them. DH has one in the lounge which has a blackboard on it for DD when it is folded and you would never know it was there. Just brilliant for making more room for your stash better use of spare bedroom space.

pithandstem.com/

If anyone would like to help me with a yarn conundrum, I'd be very grateful.

I'm making the Bella Coco cocoon cardigan, which is made from 4 large granny squares plus a trim, so 5 different colours.

I've finished the first square and it took 147g of yarn. I'd like to use my remaining cream yarn for one of the squares, and I have 150g of it. Should I risk it, or is that just too tight? I do have other colours I could use that I have a full 200g of, but the combination won't be so nice.