Patterns, picots and general exhaustion

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I would be writing up the pattern for those super-handy little hanging baskets, didn't I? Well, they're done! You can find them in my Folksy and Etsy shops in both UK and US terms and they're just £1.20. You can find the yarn, Rico's Fashion Cotton Big, here, where it's only £2.90 a ball.

In other news, my day job has an annual event, a conference, which is a Big Deal. It's a lot of work, and from January until Easter, it's a bit full on. I'm always glad that Easter brings chocolate in abundance - by this point in the year, I need the sugar (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). So now that Easter is over, and the conference is done, a weight has been lifted. I've got a few days' grace to dust myself down, catch up on some sleep and tackle the pile of little projects on my desk that have been put aside until later.

One such project has actually been my companion during the conference. I once read somewhere on a knitting blog of the pleasures of 'vanilla knitting', well this has been a sort of vanilla crochet. Easy crochet. The type of crochet you can do with your eyes shut, or watching the telly. Crochet that requires no brain input. I am of course talking about the granny stitch.

A while ago, I made a very simple granny shawl out of some chunky mustard tweed. It was such a satisfying project that ever since I've been hankering after making another. So I did.

I decided I needed - yes, NEEDED - a spring shawl. Not as big as most shawls, I don't need to be swaddled in it, just something to keep that piercing spring breeze out. I'm very pleased with the finished product, not least because I had just enough yarn in the basket of leftovers and half-started balls. A simple edging in a darker shade with a little picot detailing finished it off nicely and like the main body of the shawl, it required zero conscious effort. Hurrah for picot!

The light green is Paton's Eco Cotton DK in Lime (70), a shade that I think is now discontinued. I found a batch of it on eBay when I was making the ripple blanket and had a few balls leftover. The edging is Freedom echo DK, but having lost the ball band, I can't tell you what shade - the dark green one, assuming they still make it.

I did have good intentions about blocking this little lovely, and it kind of needs it as the border yarn is on the thicker end of DK weight, but it didn't happen. No sooner had I snipped off the last sewn-in end than The Beloved suggested dinner at the pub. Well what could I do? I put down my scissors, swept my new shawl round my neck and trotted out of the door. It's been on active service ever since. Ah well...