Blanket confession

If you have been over on Ravelry lately chances are you will have come across the Beekeeper's Quilt . Like all of us, I am sure, sometimes I see a pattern and think I must make it NOW, but it isn't often that I act on it and the urge passes - this time, resistance was futile, I tried to ignore it, but it kept going through my mind, and all those balls of sock yarn were calling out from the cupboard. I was just so taken with it that even though I switched off the computer and went off to do something else, I couldn't help myself and logged back on, bought the pattern and cast on.

I have deviated from the pattern a little in that I am using magic loop (knitting on two DPNs just isn't for me) and Judy's Magic cast on - which I need to practice and be familiar with for a workshop I have booked, so this was one of the ways that I justified buying the pattern :0) and I am closing the puffs with Kitchener stitch.
Who knows how many I will end up making, there may only be enough for a cushion seat pad, but on the other hand they are quite addictive so I might have a bedsized quilt, only time will tell.

We have also been talking about blankets over on the Crafty Threads'n'Yarns forum, so I thought it ought to be confession time....I have two other blankets on the go already (but neither of them are as portable as these little puffs where all the bits and pieces fit neatly into a cosmetic bag in my handbag).

Babette is still on the go although I haven't touched it for a while

and there's a Mitred Blanket that has been on the needles for a good long time,

based on the sock yarn blankies that have been popular but using DK oddments, I'd forgotten how cheerful it was and I nearly disposed of it at one point, but I'll be adding a few more squares now, if I can put the puffs down for long enough!

Oh I do like to be ....

.....beside the seaside.

Hastings looking towards Bexhill with remains of the Pier
The weather was lovely at the weekend, and we didn't have anything planned (for a change) so DH and I decided to go to the seaside on the spur of the moment. We aren't ones for the sandy beaches (I'm still trying to get the sand out of the car from when DD took the nieces over a month ago!) so we headed off to Hastings, our nearest sea and where we used to go a lot when we were courting (lovely old fashioned word that).
We had a really nice wander all along the front towards Bexhill then turned and walked back to the fishing huts at Rock-a-nore and through the old town, ending up with a picnic on the beach.
It's strange how sad I felt to see the remains of the burnt out pier (a result, it is believed, of arson in October '10) considering in all the many, many times I've been to Hastings, I never once went on it, and never will now.

On the way back through the town I popped into Clarks (the shoe shop) just on the off chance that they had the bag that I had missed buying when I ran out of lunch hour and someone had beaten me to it by the time I got back, and I couldn't believe my luck when I found it

Never mind the outside - will you just look at the lining

and what's more it has two sections, one for my purse etc, and the other for my knitting all at the bargainous 70% off price of £13.49 !!! now it doesn't get much better than that.