Bubbles

The focus of this weekend was household chores and errands, which seemed to take forever as they all had to be done on my lonesome. Friday night I arrived home to a strongly worded letter from my optician telling me my contact lens supply had been stopped as I apparently hadn't attended for a check up. As someone who remembers going to the optician at least three times last year and even has new specs, this came a bit out of the blue.

Since being without contact lenses is a real pain (and I do wonder if they'd have stopped deducting monies from my account) I phoned and made an appointment there and then, which pretty much put paid to Saturday morning. I complained about the letter, but didn't seem to make any impact - apparently there should have been warning letters (which I haven't recieved) and traffic light stickers on my lenses, which are delivered by mail.

The reason for the letter and the apparent need for frequent visits, is the previous optician to see me had put me down for a six month recall, rather than the usual twelve months one. Absolutely no idea why. But of course, that doesn't explain the jump straight to threatening letters and stopping my lenses completely.

Saturday afternoon, I returned to the house to tackle chores before escaping for a couple of hours by popping over for a chat with Esther and to drop off a pressie.

This is a Bubble's Baby Blanket, which I've been working on for the past month. I downloaded it directly from Ravelry, but it can also be found in the Crochet Pattern Central download area. It's crocheted in two strands, one of a superwash wool and the other a standard baby acrylic. Both yarns are from a local spinner, labelled as Mercia Wools and sold out of the spinner's shop, Busy Fingers in Coventry.
I started this blanket while working on Dave's scarf and it served as a bit of light relief from all that moss stitch. The Bubble stitch was easy to do and working with two strands and a 9mm hook, meant it grew relatively quickly. So much so, that I had no problem working it to a decent cot size in a month, with just a few hours each week spent on it. The resulting fabric is thick and soft, so hopefully will be put to good use.

Sunday was spent doing more household chores, with the usual couple of hours of decluttering thrown in. I did however make a start on the lace and learnt a new cast on - the 'crochet cast on' which is like crocheting a chain but sticking a knitting needle in the way. I'm working on 4.5mm needles and coming straight from sock knitting these past few weeks, the needles seem huge!

Not much to see so far, as I've cast on, knitted two repeats, decided the first repeat was too loose, ripped it out..... Cast on again and knitted two more repeats and that was all I had time for. At the moment, it doesn't look very impressive but as it's lace I'm kind of expecting that... I shall persevere and see where it gets me.

Sock news - the heel is turned on the second sock and I've picked up the stitches for the gusset, so it's coming along. Slowly.

As always, click on the images to see bigger versions.