It's done!

Yes, finally, the crochet diagonal baby blanket is finished:

How do you make an interesting photo of a blanket?

I've now washed it in my Wooly Wash from Getknitted and it's drying a little outside in the evening sunshine. I'll get it in soon and lay it out properly to finish off drying. Tomorrow it'll be packaged in tissue paper ready for the new arrival (my nephew) in August.

I love the diagonal construction of this; it makes for a lovely bias drape and means that the final stretches bring renewed excitement as the rows get shorter and shorter. I managed to finish them and do the edging in our sunny back garden this afternoon whilst the children were playing. Bliss!

OK, I have to admit to enlarging my stash too. I actually bought this yarn from ebay last month, but I wasn't in when it was delivered and the postie forgot to leave a card. How helpful. In the meantime, when it hadn't arrived, I obtained the proof of posting from the seller and collected a compensation claim form from the Post Office (25 minutes of queuing for one delightful little form!). Then the seller emailed me to say it had been returned to her, and so it finally arrived this morning. What a journey!

I'd actually lost interest in the yarn a little during this whole episode, but that was soon rectified when I opened it today - such vibrant colours! It's a wool/acrylic mix which I'm probably going to use for items for my girls. I have 500g of this colourway:

Carnival yarn!

Plus another 150g of this colourway:

Rainbow yarn!

Now on to the obligatory garden photo; a pinkish yellow (very) old rose in our front garden. I have no idea of it's name, but the scent is just divine:

We need a scratch & sniff pic here!

I admit I've started another project, but I'm keeping that a secret for a little while as the Branching Out scarf and Angel edging are so close to completion. You'll have to watch this space!