Milestones Legomania and a new prize KAL

 Yesterday we took Short Round to Milestones Museum in Basingstoke.  If you haven't been I'd highly recommend it.  It's full of very well presented stuff, from old tools to childhood toys to pristine vehicles.  The history is brilliantly presented, with boards and audio tours.  They run a lot of events as well, which is why we were there yesterday.  The Legomania event has been running for a few years now.  Last year Short Round had one of his models on display (so proud!).  This year we got to make one of the panels in a giant picture of Lightening McQueen, and had a fascinating look around the hundreds of Lego models.  Short Round got to make a mini figure.  We got to spend time with my Mum, brother, sister in law and their kids too, which was lovely.
The higlight of my day though had to be the Womble puppets and the knitted jumpers on the footballers in the penny arcade!

I've added some photos to give you a flavour of our day.

I'm starting a long KAL on the blog, 27 weeks to be exact.  Each week I'll be posting the next set of instructions, usually in chart form.  It's called the Alphabet Blanket and should be good for using up all the bits and pieces in your stash.  The first two charts and instructions are at the bottom of the page.

I'll be offering a yummy woolly prize for the best blanket at the end of the KAL.  If you don't want to make an Alphabet why not use the letters to spell out the name of the person you're making the blanket for.  You could replace the other letters with striped and plain squares.


Knitted jumpers on the footballers, so cute!

Wombles!

Posh Lego

I love Landrovers

Our square is 3rd along the bottom from the right

Bear shop


Alphabet Blanket
www.beakerbutton.co.uk 
©Jen Best 2015
  
Each square
Tension: 17 sts x 24 rows over 10cm x 10cm using 4.5mm needles. DK yarn - about 10g (20m) in main colour, about 5g (10m) in contrast colour, yarn needle for sewing in ends.  Each square will measure about 14cm x 14cm when blocked.  

The sample squares in the photo below are knitted with Adriafil.  I used Regina for the main colour and Knitcol for the contrast colour.  The Knitcol gives me a nice variant colour for the letters and stripes.

Cast on 27
Follow the chart, starting in the bottom right corner.  Knit all the right side (odd) rows and purl the wrong side (even) rows. The different colours indicate where to use the main colour and where to use the contrast colour. I used intarsia to knit my squares.  There is a great tutorial here if you haven't knitted intarsia before.  It's from the Knitting for Dummies website.

Block each square to measure 14cm x 14cm.  When all the letters of the alphabet and four of the striped squares (30 squares in total) are finished I'll show you how to sew them together and give you the instructions for the border.  


first letter, make one

striped square, make four

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