Road Of Remembrance

What is now called the Road of Remembrance was originally called Slope Road. This was the route millions of soldiers marched down on their way to Folkestone harbour, on to the trenches in France and Belgium in WW1.

The community around the Church that I grew up in is joining many others in making hand knitted poppies to line the Road of Remembrance. As well as sending poppies to the Road of Remembrance St Gabriel's Church in Blackburn will be making a big poppy out of many small poppies to place outside the church on Remembrance Sunday. Here's the lady who started it all on the BBC News.

As I have never actually knitted anything, I had completely no idea how to knit, this was a big challenge for me. It took me a very very long time to get the hang of knitting. I found casting on rather easy but after that everything just went wrong. After trying again and again and getting very fed up of casting on I managed to get my knitting to actually look like knitting (I think). Then I had to teach myself how to increase and decrease and man was this fiddly on such a small poppy petal, the piece just kept slipping off my needles... casting on again and again... eventually I managed my first knitted item, a petal. Here it is: 

To be honest I don't even know if it's any good, I guess it looks the right shape.

I would love to say it got easier as I made more petals but that would be a massive lie, perhaps because they are so small and I am such a newbie, I just struggled along. Anyway after getting rather angry at a tiny poppy I managed to finish it. It took me long enough. I though knitting was supposed to be relaxing? 

Here'e the finished poppy: 

I don't think I'll be doing any more knitting any time soon I'll just stick to crochet. Don't let me put anyone off though! Give it a go you may love it, it just doesn't seem to be for me. What better way to learn how to knit/crochet than for a charity? 

I cannot share the pattern for this poppy as it is acquired through a donation to the British Legion. However follow this Link to find some knit and crochet poppy patterns. Feel free to join me and knit or crochet poppies for the Road of Remembrance. Don't forget to donate or ask others to donate for every poppy you make and think of those who lost their lives. All poppies should be sent to Purl Queens, check out their Facebook for more information. 

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DIY Suspended Hamster Treat Toy

Here's a quick and cheap toy I make for Tim quite regularly.

Equipment:

• Toilet roll tube/kitchen roll tube
• Natural String (important see 'Safety' below)  
• Scissors
• Hamster food/treats

I save all my toilet roll tubes and kitchen roll tubes etc to make toys for Tim. This is the best toilet roll tube toy I have made so far they seem to keep Tim entertained for a while and only takes me 5 minutes to make.

All I do it grab a tube fold in one end of the tube and place some food/treats in the tube.

 

Then I fold the other end of the tube so that the treats cannot fall out.

 

I then use the scissors to make two small holes as the top of the tube, thread the string through the holes and tie to the top of the cage. 

 

Voilà!

The first time I made this toy Tim ignored it completely because he couldn't smell the food that was in there. To make him more interested I pulled open one of the ends a little so that he could smell the food and he was all over it. After that whenever I put one of these toys in his cage he knows there is something good inside so no need to make it easy for him. In fact now I try to make it a bit harder by wrapping the food/treats in tissue before putting them into the tube. This takes him a little longer to get to the goodies and he can use the tissue for bedding after, win win.

Safety!

• Only use scissors if there is an adult with you.
• Only put hamster safe items into the cage. 
• Only use natural string as this has not been treated with nasty chemicals which can cause illness.

Here's Tim enjoying his Supsended Treat Toy:

(Excuse the bad images I was too amused to notice the reflections)

Click Here for other Hamster posts.

Crochet Solomon's Knot Shawl with Fringe/Tassels

I finished the Solomon's knot shawl which I think looks nice as it is but I wanted to see what it looked like with a bit of a fringe or tassels or whatever you wish to call them.

The fringe was easy and quick to complete. I'm not going to try to write down how I did them just watch this Youtube Video it will give you the right idea.

I only wanted thin tassels so I used two strands of yarn for each tassel which makes 4 strand tassels. This was enough for the look I wanted.

Click Here for shawl without the tassels and a link to the shawl pattern.  Feel free to let me know if you think the shawl looks better with or without tassels.