Miaou

At last! My rainbow fish blanket is complete. I started it at the beginning of January and finished it a few days ago, so not bad going really. Here it is in all its glory:

I knitted an equal number of fish in each colour, half in a dark shade and half in lighter colours. I knew how I wanted to lay them out and spent quite a bit of time laying them out on the floor until I was happy with the arrangement. I then labelled them all (and didn’t have any sticky labels so this entailed 196 little bits of paper and 196 little bits of sellotape!!) with a column and row number, then bundled them in rows. It took me about an hour to sew a row of fish together and attach it to the row below, and there are 25 rows, so that’s quite a bit of time! However I was so excited about the finished project that I was very motivated to finish.

I then set to with a 6mm crochet hook (yes, I know what I said about crochet in my last post, but this kind of crochet I can handle!) and created a wavy edging with some turquoise yarn to suggest the sea. Four rounds of crochet later I was satisfied and handed over the finished blanket to my delighted daughter Eilish. (I have hopes that her bed might look as neat as this a little more more often, but they are not high )!

I think I am done with fish for now (there was a LOT of sewing up to do!) but it was a really enjoyable project and I can see myself making another one in the future.

The knitting has ended - 196 fish later …

Let the sewing up begin!!

Whilst I have been under the weather these last couple of months, I haven’t really felt much like doing anything. However occasionally I felt like doing a bit of simple knitting, so I picked the Fish Afghan as a project. Each fish takes about 30-40 minutes to make and the pattern was easy to memorise, so it was easy to do in little bitesize chunks. I find knitting is a great way to “zone out” and relax, so it seemed like the ideal pastime. I decided to make it in cheerful rainbow colours to lift my spirits. Here’s my first few:

Apologies for the blurry photo!

I soon discovered that, although quick and easy to make, these fish were actually quite small. Therefore I would need quite a lot in order to make a blanket big enough to cover a bed (Eilish having begged for the finished blanket). 198 of them in fact. Here’s me about two-thirds of the way through:

I have still got about 40 to make, and am just starting to get a little tired of making fish. Then of course I have to sew them all together. Argh. What have I started?? I think the end result will be worth it though.

Let me explain. I don’t make cards. I just don’t get it. I mean, I really appreciate the artistry that goes into making them, but I’m just no good at it. When I make cards, they just look like a card with bits stuck on it. So I stick to drawing and stuff!

Anyhoo, my mother bought me a load of cardmaking bits, so I thought it was only polite to make her one for her birthday. I don’t think the end result is too bad, actually:

Not having any posh cutting equipment, I cut out the letters by hand. Never again. This is probably a first and last.

And by the way, the bits don’t stick up because it’s some fancy decoupage effect - it’s because I didn’t use enough glue. Like I say, I am not a card maker