T shirt yarn crochet rug

About 5 years ago I bought this yarn. I was living in Bradford, doing a bit of knitting and loving wondering around this Mecca of yarn and this large cone appealed to me. Texere is one of the most amazing places to visit if you're into anything yarny. It's been a couple of years since I was last there but they have yarn of all descriptions over 3 floors, from luxury brands and snuggly soft cashmere, to heavy duty rope and bright, cheap acrylic, it's all there. This yarn came from a section where everything was sold by weight, I think it was something like a couple of pence per gram.
I was quite taken by the turquoise yarn with tiny flecks of pink, orange, blue and purple.

 

I'm not sure what this yarn would've been created for, (a lot of these cheaper yarns seem to be ends of lines or seconds) maybe it could've been woven for upholstery cloth or something?

When I bought the yarn I only knitted and I had dreams of knitting  a blanket from this yarn. I cast on hundreds of stitches in order to try and make it wide enough without having to sew stripes together. I was planning on creating a plain straight blanket with a moss stitch border. Unfortunately I only ever got about 15cm into it. 

There were many problems. 

I used needles that were probably too small, the yarn was very heavy, carrying all the weight of the blanket on needles was really tricky and the yarn is really rough.

It's a course, tweedy yarn that I think is probably all wool, it's not very soft to be working with.

After giving up my blanket idea, I tried crocheting granny squares but the beauty of the yarn was lost with all the knotty stitches so again this project was abandoned.

Last week, after years of neglect, I found this yarn in my stash and though about pairing it with something else.

No, not a spider, this is a pile of strips, cut from old pairs of leggings.
There are very many projects that I keep coming accross on blogs, ravelry and pinterest that use old t shirts cut up into long strips. I don't ever seem to have spare t shirts that I feel can be cut up though. I use old t shirts to sleep in or to run in, if there's still any life in them I won't through them away.
Leggings, however are different. I wear leggings pretty much every day, and I'm always getting holes in them that can't be repaired, they split across the seams or I fall over and tear the knees, so I've built up a little stock pile of holey old leggings.
I cut them up into strips and am doing this

crocheting over the old leggings with y favourite tweedy yarn to hopefully create a floor rug.

I'm a little further on than in these pictures and I rather like it. It's not completely flat, but I hope when it's finished I can block it and that it'll be something useful.

Scarborough; how a bit of sunshine changes everything

 This weekend I went to Scarborough. I'd never been before but my friend Grace is at uni in Hull and it seemed like a fun place to visit not too far away.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and meandered over to our hotel. We had chosen to stay at The Grand knowing that it had very mixed reviews. It's a beautiful Victorian building that's not been very loved recently, we didn't really have any problems with it .

After we'd got ourselves settled and had a good old nosy around the hotel we set out for the seafront. We walked all the way along one of the bays to the harbour, stopping to eat chips and poke about in all the tacky touristy shops.
 The sun was so beautiful. Everything looked golden in the light of the late afternoon. I'm enamoured with the seaside any way but for a short few hours everything seemed to sparkle.
 I can just feel my soul relaxing by looking at the pictures, bright sunshine really effects my mood so much. I feel invincible on a sunny day, full of power and joy that I can't quite find when it's grey. I must keep remembering this

  

(aren't seagulls funny?)