Wednesday 24 February 2010

Little pleasures

Okay... I think Fely made herself quite clear when she said to me in one of our 'SMS conversations' -- go and update your blog so that I have something to read.

So here I am, sitting here, typing this, as usual, having nothing in particular to share but various bits and pieces.

Last year Christmas, I received £60 worth of John Lewis voucher and I was beside myself with excitement because John Lewis sells theeeee BEST and the MOST LUXURIOUS kind of yarn from the Debbie Bliss and Rowan range and they are quite pricey. As keen as I am in knitting and doing crochet, I don't really feel right forking out my 'hard-earned' money just to have expensive and luxurious looking yarn when I can get cheaper yarn elsewhere. But if it was a gift voucher, it's a completely separate issue altogether, because anyhow, I will have to spend that amount of money, so might as well spend it on something that will give me immense pleasure for quite some time!!!

Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), the closest John Lewis store is in Southampton, which is about an hour's drive away from here (1 hour for me; 40 minutes for Steve). So last month, I managed to cajole the semi-reluctant Steve to make a visit to the West Quay Shopping Centre to splash out on some luxurious and colourful yarn. 

Despite the fact that I had £60 to spend, I was still EXTREMELY reluctant to buy full price yarn and being a typical Malaysian (always looking for bargain), I soon found myself digging through the 'reduced to clear' basket full of 'discontinued' or 'slightly damaged' (when it is labelled slightly damaged, it usually means that it's come loose and therefore deemed unsellable) balls of yarn, and instructing Steve to start digging as well, trying to find as many balls of yarn from the same range and same type as possible. After what-must-have-seemed-to-Steve-like-yearssssss (I think it was about 10 minutes) of digging, deliberation, more digging, and more deliberation, I finally ended up with around 9 different colours of extremely soft yarn balls made from Bamboo.

I've been thinking for a while now what grand project I was going to turn those yarn balls into and the more I thought about it the more clueless I got mainly because the yarns were so mismatching in colours and no way was I going to be able to harmonise the colours !! And also, there is only a limited amount of yarn to each colour, which makes it even more challenging. Then I started to regret not thinking about the colours carefully and merely picking them up because they were cheap !! (serves me right) As you can see from the photo, the colours absolutely don't go with one another, do they?! So I thought, alas, have I spent my precious John Lewis voucher on something that will end up being useless?

So anyway, I thought, I have got to start somewhere, so I started just browsing through websites to get ideas and browsing through the collection of lovely crochet books that I have slowly and surely building up (will telll you about that in another post, a bit of a delight I must say)... and I started making something. Not entirely sure yet what it's going to be, so it will be a surprise project but I will show you what it looks like now. Surprisingly, the colours go really well together, don't you think?

Anyway, I have rambled on and on about some silly yarn (some of you might think) so I'm going to love you and leave you.

Any ideas what I can turn this into?

8 comments:

Fely said...

Sorry it took me a while to leave a comment. Was hoovering and dusting around, removing all the cobwebs and dust around your blog before I could sit and comment..hehehhe...

Like we said, looks like a cushion cover so might as well turn it into one. Although, after a second look on a larger screen, it can look like the starting of a quilt as well..hhmmm...

Just keep on knitting and you'll probably see sense when you've done a bit more. I'm still strong on the cushion cover though.

XXX

escape2 said...

the colours match. dun worry.
and yes...we dun buy retail price. everything will go on sale one day. but of course, those limited ones you must strike while the iron is hot

ash said...

I love that green. A quilt might not be possible cos some of the colours you might not get them again right? Why not turn them into a pair of cushion covers or a bed runner. Have you turned into an "Attic 24" as well? The way Fely has turned into a Martha Stewart but with better hair and no criminal conviction (or intention)

SJB aka SUELYN J-B. said...

I love knitting but since i had 3 kids and my blog. So, good bye to knitting hehehe.

Lee said...

Hi, just dropped by say hello. How you doin'?
Interesting post.
You have a pleasant weekend, Lee.

Reanaclaire said...

hi..coming by pengpeng.. i dont know how to crochet but i admire those who do! have fun!

Pete said...

Mmm,I don't known that yarn can be that expensive, LOL!

PengPeng彬彬 said...

SJB, you should click on my bloglist -- attic24 and check Lucy's blog out. I love it.

Uncle Lee, thanks for dropping by. Hope you're keeping weel.

claire, it is therapuetic doing crochet and knitting. i love it...

pete, well there are cheap ones and there are expensive ones... but when you touch the softness of the expensive ones, you know you've made the right decision :)

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