Too busy to post?

I have these great intentions about blogging, mentally writing posts when out walking or gardening.
I know, I've said it before, and had good intentions of posting more often.

So, all urgent things dealt with, here I am at the computer, putting off going out to do some tidying up in the garden.

The only thing that should be done this weekend is going in to Derby to continue viewing the Format festival of photography.

Last week, when we had visitors we took in the displays at the museum and some outlying venues.
This time we intend to concentrate on the chocolate factory.

And now back to some recent activities:

The Online Guild January 2013 workshop was on UFO's. 

Rather than finishing off items already started I decided to tidy up the house and re-assign yarn that had been knitted or crocheted as samples and then been abandoned. 

I do masses of sampling before making anything, and when I have sufficient yarn often rip it off the needles once I have tried out the stitch or colour variation. 

Consequently I was able to find many bits and pieces to use in a couple of projects.

I undertook to gather up loads of samples I no longer needed to preserve, and use them.

Going around the house I found small amounts of handspun which I then knitted up into a small scarf.

I did not sort the snippets, unravelling and using them as I came across them.

The central line is loosely cast on, and stitches are picked up on both sides.

The curious shaping is made by increasing at each corner on each row.

The scarf itself is knit in a k2 , p2 moving rib which gently blends the colours.

The samples I have found so far in commercial yarn were unravelled and crocheted into a giant granny square.

It has currently reached 1.2 m (nearly 4 foot) square, and weighs 650 gm (1 lb. 7 oz.), and I am still finding suitable yarn.

The colour scheme in both was taken as it comes, the exception being the cast-off yarn on the handspun scarf.

This was not a neglected sample, but part of the sampling process for a spinning project.

I had to be sure I had enough to effectively finish it off.

All in all a fun on-going project showing how much yarn gets left effectively useless when I am designing items!