Busy bee!

Its none stop here I tell you, first week of march was my first hexipuff week, it was going well...until the outside pipes to our boiler froze solid during the cold snap we had and no amount of hot water from our kettle was going to solve the issues as the pipe in question was 20-30ft long! Argh! Its a good job I like making blankets so we could keep warm, my kids slept in sleeping bags reserved for camping and their quilts, blankets and what ever clothes they wanted it was that cold! Eventually I ended up putting a hole in a section of the pipe so we only had to defrost a small section of pipe and even tho it took all day, it eventually managed to reheat the house and we could go back to living in the house a touch more normally!

42 hexipuff 

But of course as you can expect it took a toll on my hexipuff making and I managed 42 out of 49, which is not bad being only a day down, I can make that up some other time. I've got my next week of making coming up on the 19th of March, lets hope we have no disasters this time!

So, next weekend is Edinburgh yarn festival, I especially like this one, its taken the place of Wonder Wool for me, for a start is a lot nicer to drive to as a passenger, going to Builth Wells on all the windy roads makes me sick to my stomach, and the kids, and I'm normally such a good traveller but its just too much, Edinburgh its a fairly straight forward journey on nice straight motorways! But Edinburgh has some interesting yarn stalls I haven't come across else where, Martins Lab is a fab stall, Stephen West actually goes! And most of all, Wollmeise tends to go (was disappointed last year they didn't get a stand and I said so on a feedback form but they are there again this year!) its like a mecca to me, updates online are still like a mad scramble for yarn and I like being able to browse at my leisure all the lovely colours. I am so excited its sad!
But most of all during these festival, its you get to see lots and lots of hand made items, and its brilliant! I have made a few things this past year and I was struggling to pick some thing I wanted to wear, and for some reason my mind settled on some thing I hadn't finished yet and I didn't even know if I could finish with less than two weeks to go. I wanted to see if I could finish my Serged Dream coat I started last summer, for reasons I have long forgotten, I got as far as making the body of the coat and started a sleeve then I stopped. But I suddenly wanted this item to take with me. No I don't understand my mind either, but I set about giving it ago.

And with just 7 days to go until I board the train bound for Edinburgh alone, going the furthest I have ever been without any one with me, I have finished my coat! Its made from Stylecraft Special Dk, and loosely based on a colour pack from Attic24 called "cosy" but I made a few adjustments to it as I am not a fan of pink so I swapped them out for a plum purple and a nice teal, and I am very happy with the result!
I shortened the sleeves because I have a real thing about cuffs around my wrists, these sleeves come to just below my elbow, and I added a few extra rows to the front panels (I started this before the designer added some extra instructions for plus sizes), an extra 2 rows to the extension panel (6 in total if doing extra according to the table in the pattern), did 7 rows on the main panel instead of 4, and an extra 2 rows either side on the button panels, and it has made for a nicely fitting coat, and the vertical stripes have quite a flattering effect on them which for a person as fluffy as me, thats a good thing!
So on the 17th of March, if you see this coat wandering round Edinburgh yarn fest, come say Hi! I'll be glad of the company I am sure!
Until next time!