Crocheting a baby blanket

I am currently crocheting squares for a baby blanket. The baby in question is growing very big and will be one year old this weekend, so I have a bit of a race against time. I'm hoping I'll have enough yarn to do three-by-four, but it might end up being three-by-three.

The parents of this child, friends of ours, are very into homemade, environmentally-friendly and natural, and there are lots of handknits in that home. His mother Jo knitted me a pair of slippers for my birthday so I really wanted to make something for them and I thought a baby blanket in 100% undyed wool would do the trick.

 The dark brown wool is handspun - some from my stash, some from my first ever attempt at hand-spinning. I've been wondering what I can do with thick unplied singles, but this seems like a perfect solution. I have tried to choose raised patterns, so that there are some textures for the little fellah to explore. The off-white yarn is treated so that it can go in the washing machine, as well - handy for babies with sticky hands and multiple risk factors for making a mess.

Just peeking out in the corner you can see the DVD case of The 1940's House - one I will definitely NOT be decluttering! I'm really enjoying this series (again) - the journey and growth of the family who participate is really interesting to watch.

My very first skeins

So it turns out I shouldn't have set the yarn before plying it. Anyone have any good projects involving singles yarn?

This is my very first spindle-full of yarn. It makes me hoppy-skippy-happy to look at my lovely skeins. I split the yarn in two, because there's a very clear point about halfway through the spindle-full of yarn when I suddenly 'get' the whole drafting thing, and you can see that the two skeins are very different in thickness, evenness and, shall we say, use-ability?

As this involved digging my spindle out of the Bottomless Pile of Craft Stuff, I couldn't resist starting on another yarn, this time to be plied before setting! It seems that whatever secret I suddenly discovered at that half way point has been lost because my new yarn is a bit slubby and the drop spindle keeps, well, dropping. I'm sure I can rediscover it, though! All the bloggers I read who spin say that it really comes down to practice.

Do you see that grin?

That's the grin of a mad person, as my parents will readily tell you. I'm back home for a couple of days during the half-term holiday, and I've taken this opportunity to treat myself. Ignoring the bag of half-complete crochet projects, the piles of yarn waiting to be worked, the stacks of fabric and patterns, I embarked on a completely new craft - spinning.

Spinning is something I've been interested in for a while, if only for the historical world it seems to open up. For centuries, nay, millennia, spinning was a constant in the lives of women. While you're gossiping, you're spinning. Rocking the baby to sleep? Spinning. Hence the distaff sex (a distaff being a stick used to hold unspun, prepared wool). At university, I studied fairy tales, in which the symbolism of the wheel or spindle is more complex than might at first appear. I learned how to spin at a Viking history event in York, aimed at people approximately ten years younger than me, and I've been dying to have a proper go ever since. Thus the purchase of a spindle and some wool.

I've actually got a spinning wheel upstairs - it's very old, bought from a local charity shop by my mother for my 21st birthday (best present ever!) but before I work out how or even if it works, I wanted to learn the basics with a drop spindle. Which is very appropriately named, I find. But the great thing about spinning is if you make a mistake, it's relatively easy to fix it (although very hard to fix it neatly).

Now my yarn is thinner and more even, with fewer slubs, and I'm starting to plan all the fabulous things I can make with it. I really should finish my last blanket before I embark on a new one, shouldn't I? But craft isn't supposed to be sensible!

The rest of my trip has thus far consisted of crossing many things off my to-do-list (currently several years long) and enjoying the very welcome luxuries of: Georgette Heyer, bath-tubs, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and my own, fabulous bed. In various permutations and combinations.