Crochet project finished

I am not sure why pictures of finished crochet is so satisfying ... I have been working on this blanket for about 3 months, pretty much at every opportunity and now the main section is complete and I am racing around the border in a kind of frantic way ... I am eager, as always to get on with the next one. I am so glad I can be an unashamed crochet lover now after years of secret crocheting I can carry my balls of wool and hooks around with pride. When I was at college and trying to be so deadly serious about my art I used to crochet on the train and hide it in my bag once I got to London ... it just would not even have been funny to be caught out as a crafter then, but now! Well, I find it is quite the opposite now and the serious young thins are waving their hooks about like there is now tomorrow, crocheting their bearded boyfriends waistcoats and the like ...

 Then the next project is another blanket ( pictured below ) but one I have put aside for a while. The original idea was to use all my mothers fine Shetland yarn plus others I had found and added to to make a very large heirloom blanket on her honour. She used these yarns to knit the most wonderful little dollies, tiny little things, also tiny little bird finger puppets. She was doing this still with amazing eyesight for a lady in her eighties. I have the birds hidden away somewhere and will photograph them and the little dollies too so consider this post unfinished!

... I think my camera lens has some jam or greasy fingerprint of some kind smeared on it as every photo I have taken recently has a smudge in the same place. But after a bit of spit and polish here they are ...

First Post ...

9 days post op, and first I must make HUGE APOLOGIES, to all those of you ( not too many only three I think guiltily) who have either received wrong amount of kits or had wrong postage paid etc etc ... A week before the op I was like a whirling dervish trying to get all the orders out before I went into hospital. To make matters worse I was waiting for components to arrive right up to the last minute so was wrapping parcels on the morning of the day I went in! So I am afraid there is a lesson here somewhere ... STOP ... BREATH ... DOUBLE CHECK!
But it is all over now, all I have to do is learn to stand straight without it feeling as though I am going to split across the middle. The reconstruction I have had made me a new breast from my more than adequate tummy fat. They also reduced my left breast to match. The new breast incredibly natural looking and though swollen will soften and become more like a natural breast as time goes by.
I am tired but fine, though a little stir crazy already but know the value of rest so trying to do everything I do with long rests in between. Still at the shuffling stage though .... it is a relief to put it all behind me.
Thank you too for all your kind messages, it has been very warming indeed and I have really felt the benefit ....

I was embroidering pincushions on day 3 post op, and have begun my tee shirt yarn rug, but have now run out of tee shirts till the next boot fair visit ...

I thought as a last mention of the event I would illustrate this post with a photo of my supper at the hospital, brought the evening before the op. The embellishments were added, well they had to be didn't they. Condition sensitive hospital food!

Tee shirt yarn distraction

A little distraction today as I have had this bag of tee shirts behind the front door for a week now and been itching to dye them so I can try making yarn to crochet with. So I chucked some in the washing machine this morning before I got down to work. At lunch time it was drying and by tea break I cut some up ... now there are plenty of tutorials on how to do this here so have a look and have a go ... it is very satisfying to stretch the strips once cut ... some tee shirts don't want to curl and I am not yet sure how this will effect the crochet, and I suspect it will give a different texture. LOVELY! The washing machine is still going and there will be more colours yet so will photograph as I go ...