September

Things are super busy at my house but I somehow found the time to get out and buy some new wool. There's been some good rain and wintery weather so I've been working on my scrappy rainbow ripple blanket as well as my Afghan Hex in the evenings.

I've been looking for a good wool supplier for a while now. At this years Showcase I came across Yarn Barn. They are located in Melbourne and have wonderful quality wool at very reasonable prices. Importantly, their wool is a real pleasure to work up. It glides beautifully. I bought some new colours to top up my ripple blanket (below) and went with Fuschia coloured flowers and green leaves for my motif hex blanket.

I am glad to report that I have been keeping up the nightly motif habit and can't wait to have a flowering afghan.  The great thing about the Yarn Barn is that they
offer 8ply 500gm 'cones' which is so much better than

having to work 10 balls. I have been shocked by some of the ugly knots and joins that sometimes happen in commercial skeins and the cone means that there is no needless breaks in the work.

As it's the end of season, only the fuschia was available on the cone and it has been such a delight to work with. No tangles, no knotting. I love it. I am already planning next years knitting so that I can buy ahead and get all my colours coned for next year.

It's so much neater too. Easy to pack up and store.

I have had emails asking for the hex block pattern. I would gladly share my own work as I feel that the best crochet patterns don't appear in books and crochet is all about sharing.However, as it is not my own pattern, I cannot share it. It is from a book: a Crocheters Garden of Afghans. It's available via the http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk/ which delivers free of charge worldwide. I am currently making the afghan project on the front cover. Of course, like all my work I have made some changes (I can't help it) so my afghan will not be the same as the one from the book, but it is very close. The book is full of great blankets to work up, so if you only buy one crochet book this year - and if you love crochet blankets- this might be the book for you.

I say might because the only thing missing from this book is...diagrams! I like to work from diagrams as I dont really follow  USA crochet terms and this book has none at all. The pattern is written out in type which I found confusing.

Actually I had to put the 'instructions away' and work from the photographs and only then did the instructions make sense for me. This may or may not be an issue for you, depending how you work.

Thank you to everyone who emailed me to let me know that my website was down for 3 days. My host server Yola.com was attacked and they shut down the servers. I had no idea as I don't follow my host server's blog (which I probably should) and in the end everything was fine. They simply blocked all sites to protect them. For this reason, I will be keeping up block 5 for an extra few days to give everyone a chance to download the block if they missed it as the final block is launched this month.

In The Pink finishes this month with block 6 launched on the 15th.

But the BOM year is not yet over. The last BOM for the year, a short Christmas BOM will be launched this month. So stay tuned...

Phew, September is going to be busy!