Catching up and making plans

I'm having a slow week. My ears are completely blocked and so I can't hear. This should be blissful, no noise to distraction me. However the down side is that trying to hear what people are saying to me is totally exhausting and so I keep having to have little naps. My doctor tells me this should easy over the next six to eight weeks. I did catch his muttered comment of 'if it doesn't, then come back and we'll arrange surgery for grommets to be inserted.' I bet you thought it was only children who got glue ear and needed grommets!

I have found time to knit another 20 little hats to help with the big knit appeal in support of AgeUK. I set myself the target of 50. I had already knitted 25 so now I need to knit another 5 and then add the pom poms to this batch before I can post them off.

I found a sweet pattern on Ravelry for preemie baby hats. The pattern is by Carissa Browning and is knitted on double ended needles so no lumpy seam line to cause problems. I haven't knitted using double ended needles for some time so this took a little while to get back into. 

I used Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino to knit it. This is a lovely yarn, 55% merino wool, 33% microfibre and 12% cashmere. It is beautifully soft. The hats take very little yarn so I've got plenty left to knit a couple more. They will go off with the preemie baby quilts to our local hospital.

I have almost sewn on the back of the binding for my baby quilt. This will be finished later this evening.

I found my June schnibbles quilt 'Dulcinea' out of my pile waiting to be quilted. I quilted it in the ditch and I'm hoping to get the binding attached today. Here's a photo of the last time I showed it. Hopefully this will be a finish tomorrow. 

At Guides the girls try to do some sort of community action each year. Although throughout the year they will do various activities to help people and groups in our community we try to do a larger project. Last year they wanted to knit some dog blankets for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. However trying to teach a large group to knit has proved very difficult. So we decided to make this an ongoing project that they work on in small groups. So we needed a new large group project and what we came up with combines quilting and computer games.

Last year Melissa from Happy Quilting ran a quilt along based round the Tetris computer game.

Each week she gave us the coloured tetris blocks and we had to make them fit into a 6 x 6 grid. As in the game you had to use the blocks in the order they were given and the idea is to fill up all the lines. Spaces were left white. Once all the pieces are on the grid it was translated into fabric and you had your quilt block. 

So we are taking Melissa's idea to have a patrol challenge. The patrols will be given the order and the coloured tetris pieces for the block. They fit them into the grid and make up in fabric. We currently have 4 patrols so when they are all finished there will be 4 lap quilts to go to the local elderly care home. Thank you Melissa for a great but easy idea.. 

I'm linking this post up with Connie's Tuesday linky party at Freemotion by the River. 

And now I'm off to investigate what's going on at Lilypad Quilting. with Snoodles new linky party. I've heard there is lots of fun and prizes to be had.

Have a good Thursday

Lyndsey