As I mentioned on on the Craftmas post, Team #renbecwen will be working our way through Attic24's Moorland Blanket over the coming few months (look at me being optimistic, as if my chronic slowness won't see me lagging behind the others).

We've all been long-standing fans of Attic24. She was one of the first craft bloggers we all fell in craft-love with, and quickly because a regular topic of discussion - "Have you seen what Attic24's been making?" "Did you read about that lovely market Attic24 went to?" "Oh, that is SO Attic 24!"

In 2010 we undertook what my memory is telling me was our first concurrent project, the Granny Stripe. Even to this day it's one of my favourite craft projects, not only for the end result, which is draping the back of my lounge as I type this, but for the fun we had comparing our respective blankets.

It was Attic24 who taught us join-as-you-go granny squares which was a complete game changer, especially as it came when we were doing our so-many-squared mood blankets.

photo by Renae

photos by Wendy, Renae, and myself

Way back at the start of 2014, Wendy and Renae tried to talk me into joining in on the #moodblanketchallenge2014. I was pretty adamantly against it, thinking that the last thing I needed was a visual representation of what was still, at that point, a pretty tight-holding depression. Having that right there in front of me seemed like a TERRIBLE idea. I caved, because that's what you do when good friends ask you to do something (and, come on, it was a pretty cool craft project), but I was pretty sure I would hate it.

Oh how I hate to be proven wrong.

Not only did I not hate it, I actually found it helpful in the exact way they wanted it to be. On my worst days it was hard to crochet those squares, but at the same time I had, securely in my hands, direct proof that those bad days WEREN'T all my days. I could point to all the good days and run my fingers over them, remembering how I had felt then. While I started the year in a terrible streak of greys and blues, it soon got to the point where I was counting good streaks, and that was wonderful.

It was lovely to crochet my squares alongside Wendy and Renae, but even better than that was all the people around me who, even though they weren't actively participating, became involved all the same. We had a streak of weddings in a short period of time so they brides picked out their squares (the two tone ones). Luke and Nicole would ask me what my colour would be for the day. Ash instituted a whole new mood category ('epic' was required as something higher than merely 'happy'). And best of all was Kira wishing me "yellow days" or messaging me after a particularly good day with all of us together and just matter-of-factly stating that it had been a yellow day for all. It was beautiful to have my friends support me in such a meaningful way without them probably realising how great it was. 

I managed to finish the blanket on time (okay so I just scraped through) and thought I'd share a little bit of it's journey...

I wouldn't be me doing a project like this if I didn't offer up some stats, so here you go, have a little pie chart.

There was a bit of hesitation on all our parts as to whether or not we'd be doing another blanket in 2015 - funnily enough, I was the first to sign up! I think having the opportunity to shop for more (and this year prettier) wool was definitely a large part of the decision making process.

I splurged (but not really, thank you massive sale!) and bought nice wool this year as I was discouraged using the acrylic last year. I selected the Morris & Sons Estate yarn in a huge array of beautiful colours, double the amount of last year. But the best part is the wonderful colour names,..

Mood         Colour

Happy        Nasturtium

Grey           Clay

Creative     Limelight

Loved        Tomato Sauce

Excited       Petunia

Sad             Clear Sky

I've been reading my way through Stephanie Peal-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot)'s books this month, having just finished Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again. In it she writes that

A more appropriate sentiment I could not find this week.

To be fair on myself, it's not that my taste has necessarily changed, or that my taste in yarn used to be inherently bad. Rather, I am now better able to see an unknit ball of yarn and know, pre-agony, that I am simply going to hate the way it knits up. This is all very well and good while procuring shiny new yarn - but is utterly useless in my attempt to knit my way through my stash.

I've been hoarding this one particularly skein of sock yarn for about four years now. It made me happy to see it amongst my stash because I thought the skein so pretty. But more and move over the past few months (as the skein came to rest on top of the stash mountain), I've found myself looking at it with increased wariness. Suddenly the colours, which I had previously thought so beautiful seemed too stark in contrast. My (granted limited) maths skills kicked in and I saw the gradient I had once imagined contract and disappear.

Biting the bullet I decided to see if I was merely paranoid. Picking out something from my queue, I cast on the Orchid Cowl, hoping that the sizable stockinette panels would absorb some of the colour changes. I may have been right, but I'll never know because I never made it through the first lace section. The colour changes came even quicker than I had anticipated and that colouration over a lace panel had my eyes hurting and my yarn rage fuming.


Some told me to stick with it, but when Lisa agreed with my pain that project was frogged quick smart.

Still, I was determined to win - mainly because I had two hours to fill in with nothing but this yarn. Clearly this colour was too bright for anything pattern intensive. Surely garter stitch was the answer - a nice simple shawl in garter stitch, then it could be as colourful as I liked. I hit up Ravelry and, surrounded as I was by the library's calming rows of books, I set aside my previous grievances and cast on something simple. But with each row I just felt stronger about how much I hated this yarn and it didn't last very long either.



I should be clear - the yarn itself was lovely to work with. It was soft and the colours were vibrant. it did not split, nor fray (even despite the multiple restarts). It just wasn't the colourway for me. Thankfully, in an act of kindness (and perhaps concern for my mental well being), Wendy has taken the yarn away. I wish her better luck with it!

I always enjoy when craft night comes around again - not because I enjoy the crafting (I do!) or because it means seeing my friends (of course I do, this goes without saying!) but because I get to refer to it as my 'rager night'. It's the night that I stay out past midnight and get up to all kinds of shenanigans with my friends. Crocheting and consuming tea counts as 'shenanigans', right?

We aim to have our craft night, our Block of the Month or BotM night (cue many giggles around the world 'bottom' every time), once a month. Unfortunately the last time we managed any degree of consistency in this regard was around the time all three of us turned up with our assigned blocks in hand - so... some time ago. It was sad for us to learn that our last craft night was a whopping 18 weeks ago (thank you instagram for providing the timeline). That life has become too busy for our crochet nights just means that we need them all the more.

This month yielded no BotM squares, save a few paltry unblocked offerings from myself (I think I've lost my blocking pins an a subconscious attempt to allay my guilt over my non existence blocking ability). Despite this, however,the night was far from unproductive. We had birthday celebrations and gift giving, lessons in Ravelry (I think my attempt to convert them needs a little more work), good conversation, and, yes, even a little crafting.

Wendy worked on her mood blanket (reminding me that I am still woefully behind) and showed off the beautiful scarf she's crocheting out of Noro Sekku.

I think Renae surprised herself a little with the rate at which she flew through a knitting scarf, knitted up on size 15 needs. She has now finished it and looks very pleased with herself!

I was the least productive of the group, working away on the second incarnation of a shawl, only to rip that back also (my rage over this to appear in a post of it's very own). Throw in a thorough spoiling by Matt in his providing of watermelon sorbet (yum!) and I just know you'd agree that we had a wonderful craft evening.

 

Here you can see my contributions… yes I know, I’m a bad crafter, look at their unblocked state. It was remedied by the end of the night, however, as you shall see.

 

This was the block that Wendy chose for the month, which clearly shows the difference in our colour schemes. The one at the front is Renae’s, the middle mine, and the final one, Wendy’s own.

 

Wendy’s scrap yarn glass, to which she kindly allowed us to add.

  Instagram monsters that we have become, the phones were out that evening. Here Renae gives Wendy some pointers.

 

There was another delightful part of the evening, which Wendy’s excitement had scheduled right off the bat. Wendy, kind person that she is, had made Renae and I a little botm treat…  

 

    Our very own blocking boards!

 

And there you have our February update on the botm project. We are aiming to do two blocks this month to make up for our planning/no block in January. I know for a fact that Wendy is right on target, and I’m pretty sure Renae is closing in on it also - so I had better stop the blogging and start crocheting.  

 

 

* if only because I’m slightly concerned that she can use her crafty super powers to overhear our plans to kidnap her and bring her to craft night.