Finding Things

 I've been slowly going through all the boxes and baskets in my overcrowded store of yarn and finished projects. All sorts of things came to light, including lots of bits and pieces I'd forgotten about for years.

For example ... a larger version of my Pinwheel Purse, a little yellow elephant Finger Puppet, designed years ago for the Big Yellow Friday fundraising push by the charity I support, a couple of Puffballs and a strange cube thing. The purse in the bottom left hand corner is another use of the deep rolls that I used in my Winter Rainbow scarf; I think I'd like to turn this into a pattern one day.

By far the biggest pile of stuff though was unfinished projects - some of them abandoned because they weren't working, some because I got bored and moved on to other things. Would you like to see some of them?

This was one of my regular experiments with knitting geometrical shapes, this time pentagons. I made a few balls, sewed a few pentagons together and then lost interest. Looking at them now, I quite like the two colour one at the bottom; that has possibilities.

This next one is something I definitely want to finish.

I knitted these small, embroidered letters as part of my Alphabet Series in 2012. The idea is to use them as a garland, pegging up the letters to spell out whatever you want to say. I always intended to knit more of the common letters but, again, didn't get round to it. I was pleased to see that I'd packed the letters away with everything I need to carry on with this project though, including a list of the letters still to knit and the felt to back them. I still have some of that blue yarn too so I really must resurrect this.

When I turned out the baskets under my table in search of the bread knife (don't ask), I found this big basket ...

... which turned out to be the home of one of my many unfinished blankets.

Lots of squares and quarter circles, all knitted in Sirdar Snuggly DK. I'd actually knitted quite a lot of this one and most of the yarn I need is there too I think.

I was going to call this one Scrappy Circles I remember. The idea was to sew the quarter triangles to the corners of the squares to make a sort of wooly Drunkard's Path.

This is another project I'd like to finish one day.

I start an awful lot of blankets and most of them never get finished. This one was a bright idea but then the yarn became difficult to find so I lost interest.

The next one is more recent and is based on the shape used in my Patchwork Purse pattern.

When I find an old project that I want to re-start, the first thing to do is to go through my big pile of pattern notebooks, hoping to find some useful notes. According to the notebook, these pastel squares were designed in February 2013.

Now I really like these - heavily textured squares, knitted with My First Regia. My original notes were a bit confusing so I knitted another square, re-writing as I went. The pattern still seemed good to me (this is by no means always the case when I go back to old designs) so I think this is another one to get on with. It would make a lovely baby blanket with all that texture on both sides.

I'm not too sure about these strangely constructed squares though ...

Each square is made up of four identical pieces, overlapped and sewn together where they touch to make pinwheels. The idea was to join the squares as shown in the picture; the back would then look like this ...

Quite nice but a bit fiddly perhaps?

Another pile of squares, this time crochet ones.

Swirls in colours, set in navy blue squares. I had grandiose ideas of turning this into a colour swatch blanket of Stylecraft Special DK, using as many shades as possible. 

While we're looking at crochet, what about this?

This one goes back about ten years and was going to be a shawl, inspired by the ammonites we collected on our Dorset holidays.

I'm not sure you'd know that's what the crochet shapes were meant to be, although maybe they'd improve with blocking.

Do you remember being told that the best things come in small packages? Definitely not true when you're a child hoping that the big, exciting parcel under the Christmas tree is for you. Well, in the case of found projects, it is sometimes true.

Two pretty little tins, each with lovely projects inside. The round one is my collection of crocheted snowflakes.

These are all from the book 100 Snowflakes to Crochet, worked with white thread and a fine hook and starched to use as decorations. When I've made lots of them, they're going to be a garland for the windows of my Winter Wonderland.

The other tin is full of tiny crochet Granny Squares, about 4 cm across and worked with Appletons Crewel Wool.

One day these are going to be my tribute to a lady I never knew who crocheted one of my family treasures.

This lovely stole was made by my Mother-in-law's Mother-in-Law, Eva Hollingsworth, née Jubb in the 1950s. A few years ago I was very excited to find the original pattern that she would have used in this copy of the Vogue Knitting Book from September 1955.

It was one of the 'Italian Originals' mentioned on the cover; unfortunately the photograph is in black and white but still ...

I hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the many things I haven't finished making. I shall be interested to read your comments on them. Are there any I should turn into patterns ... or hide again?!