#Crafting365 Days 24-35: A Knitting Obsession and a Needy Kitty

I don't know about you guys, but I find that the arrival of autumn always re-ignites my love for knitting. I've been knitting blanket squares like craaaaaazy over these past couple of weeks! My knitting has been making regular appearances in my daily #Crafting365 photos, but even when there's been no yarn in the pics there's been some knitting happening behind the scenes...

On day 24, I did some knitting and cut out my festive embroideries, ready to turn them into felt ornaments (you'll find the free patterns for these designs here). I used tracing paper to make the circle template - the semi-transparent paper makes it easy to perfectly position the template to frame the motif.

On day 25, I did some work on my Christmas quilt... and did some more knitting.

By day 26, my pile of re-knitted blanket squares was thirteen squares high, and still growing...

... and I (entirely predictably) did a bit more knitting on day 27. I also did some "cutting and sticking", making a few "thanks for your order!" cards to send out with my shop orders. These photos are of some of the gorgeous vintage scissors and sewing threads I inherited from my grandmother.

The next few days were very hectic, as I had a looming deadline. I did a small amount of knitting on day 28 (I'd not noticed how bent that knitting needle is until I took that photo!) ...

... did a little bit of work on some candy corn -themed tutorials on day 29...

... then met my deadline on day 30 (yay!) and collapsed in a bit of a heap on the sofa as I'd come down with a horrid cold (boo!). I spent most of the rest of the day curled up under a blanket with the cats keeping me company (our cats are very pro-blanket, especially blankets with a person underneath them) feeling a bit sorry for myself but very glad I'd managed to meet my deadline.

I tried to do some knitting in the evening but only managed to focus long enough to knit these few stitches. Better than nothing though, right?

The blanket-y theme continued on day 31 as I did some more blanket-square knitting and started sewing together some mini squares to add to my patchwork blanket. I'm sewing the squares together in blocks of one colour then slotting the shapes into the blanket, creating a Tetris-like pattern. 

On day 32 my #Crafting365 projects had to fight with our little old lady cat for attention! She is being super needy at the moment and loudly demanding lots and lots of cuddles. I tried to ignore her while sewing some more shapes onto this cushion but she was very determined and just jumped straight up onto my lap and sat on the felt. Luckily there weren't any pins in it at the time, and she didn't do any damage to the project with her sharp claws!

 

Our old lady kitty was still insisting on lots of loooooong cuddles on day 33, so I switched to a smaller project that I could stitch with a cat curled up on my lap: finishing the embroidered felt baubles. I'll have a tutorial for making these up on my blog sometime soon!

I let #Crafting365 take over my schedule on day 34 for a hugely enjoyable day of making and crafty brainstorming. It was wonderful! I worked on a whole bunch of different projects, including my geometric cushion which is now almost finished (yay!). 

Then my knitting obsession returned full force on day 35 with yet more blanket-square knitting and lots of happy hours spent working on my mini patchwork square blanket. I added some more squares to the blanket, then wove in a whole bunch of yarn ends.

This is definitely the downside to making patchwork blankets, and the smaller the squares the more ends there are to sew in! It's a very relaxing way to spend the evening though: a perfect simple, repetetive task to do while chatting and watching TV.

I expect there will be lots more blanket squares and lots more yarn ends popping up in my #Crafting365 posts over the coming months...