Summer Garden Blanket Story

Good Morning!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  Here in the UK it was wet and windy AGAIN.

 It occured to me over the weekend that I haven't acutally posted about my Summer Garden Blanket which was what started me on this whole blogland thing.  I apologise to those of you who have seen the pictures on Flickr, but felt we all needed a burst of colour on a drab Monday morning!!!!!

In the middle of the summer I decided to make a blanket like Lucy's , and once I found a supply of reasonably priced wool I embarked on a colourful journey, I was absorbed straight away and found it easy to 'run off' a couple of squares in any spare moment that I had.  When I went camping in the late summer it was blissful sitting outside crocheting and playing around with the finished squares to find the colour combination which worked for me, laying them out on the bed of our trailer.

I decided to add a single colour 'frame' to all of the squares and make a border with the same colour, I have discovered I like to frame things!  I finished off the edging with couple of rows of clashing purples!!!

I then uploaded a picture of the finished blanket onto Flickr and had a great response,  it was then that I decided to try my hand at blogging as it felt really good to chat to others with the same interests and crafty hobbies!  It is such an interesting hobby to have and I am enjoying it immensely.

A quick update on the icing roses, I had another go last night and

Ta Dah!!!!!

They look a lot more rose-like don't you think?  I am feeling a lot happier about it now!

Hope you all have a great day, speak soon xx

Seeing Stars!

This has been a bit of a 'Starry' week, I have been really enjoying making the Grandma Twinkle Stars from
The Royal Sisters blog, you saw the glittery ones that I made earlier in the week and last night I experimented with some IKEA cheap parcel ribbon and this is the result

A bit of a result I think!  The parcel ribbon one feels silky and shiny and quite strong so it would make a great coaster

A coaster for Christmas or could equally be used in the garden on a warm summer BBQ day.  It would also make great outdoor bunting to trim a garden umbrella of patio area.  I have to do these little projects inbetween, to keep relieve the monotomy of the cot blanket, which I have so say is making better progress and I will have an update on that next week. 

We visited IKEA earlier this week to get some new kitchen chairs (see above photo)  I kind of have a love/hate relationship with that store - sometimes I come out with loads of stuff I never knew I needed and can't live without - and other times I leave frustrated because they haven't got all the bits of something I need.  We arrived home with our boxes and set about putting the chairs together, cripes! I didn't realise a chair could come with sooooooooo many pieces, the lounge was covered in boxes and paper

Hubby and I put together two chairs each - I beat him, but he says we must monitor to see whose chair falls to pieces first!!! Cheek!!!!  Our cat Thompson had a great time with the boxes

The Recycling bin was nearly full after we had put so much cardboard into it!!!
Many thanks for your company this week to those who leave comments and those who take a peek, you are all welcome!!!! I hope whatever you are up to you have a great weekend - the weather here is set to get colder so I think some snuggling up is called for!

Speak soon xx

Stars and Ice (ing)

Good Morning! Thank you for dropping by.  This morning is actually a tad sunny for a change, the last few days have been sooooo wet.   I am feeling in a 'getting things done' sort of a mood, you know, around the house, I think its a pre-christmas clear up and clean.  Hopefully I will get the time for some hooking later.

I must show you my first attempt at making icing roses - as you may remember I have made a cake for my mum's 80th birthday in December and I want to ice it myself - I have made novelty birthday cakes for my kids but never a serious grown up cake! So on Sunday my daughter and I decided to have a go at making roses as a practice, oh dear! I don't believe blogging should always be about the perfect projects you should come clean and show the not so good ones too - and this wasn't so good...........................

We thought it would be easy but we struggled, laughed, made progress only for the petals to droop, and got ourselves into a gooey icingy mess! But we did have fun!!!

Anyway the upshot of this tale is, that we were using the wrong type of icing paste, so yesterday I found a cake specialist shop and I now have the right stuff, so later in the week I shall have another go, cripes if that doesn't work I may have to resort to fluffy snow peaks!!!!

I have finished my Grandma Stars from The Royal Sisters blog  which I found through Lucy and I am pleased with them, they go really well with the Snowmen.  I made them in crochet cotton and glitter cotton and I added an extra round to emphasise the 'pointy bits', because they looked too small in crochet cotton and when I blocked them I sprayed a little fabric stiffener on them, and hey presto they have come out really well.

I must say a thank you to Maria who mentioned me on her blog and made a snowman from my tutorial, I am glad it worked.!

Well I will leave you for now or else my 'getting things done' mood will rapidly diminish hehe! oh and if anyone is an expert at icing roses maybe you could give me some tips!!! 

Have a great day, speak soon xx

 

Cosy Creative Weekend

Can't believe it's Monday morning again.  I looked forward all of last week to Friday night - I love that feeling with the weekend ahead, but it seems to go so quickly.

I know that some of my lovely blogland readers are sweltering in heat on the other side of the world, but here has been very wet and windy, with intermittent power cuts. But the positive side to the bad weather is that we cosied up indoors and had the best weekend! 

I did some of this:

Grouting in our downstairs cloakroom which we have been decorating................ and some of this

baking - these are sticky toffee puddings to be frozen for our Christmas Dinner dessert (only a couple of us like proper christmas pudding, so we have to compromise)......................some of this

chillin in the conservatory ............................... and lots of this

knitting, I finished the hat for my friend and I started a scarf to match

and also quite a lot of this.............................................................

the cot blanket. Finally I have been dabbling with the Grandma Twinkle Stars made from a tutorial by The Royal Sisters which Lucy showcased last week.  Here is a peek and I will show you them in later in the week.

Yep! all in all it was pretty good.

Have a great day speak soon xx

Those 'Inbetween Moments'

My crochet output has been rather slow the last couple of days, work and other commitments have got in the way.  However, I must say that since I have started blogging I am much more aware of making the most of every minute of the day, and although other "stuff" has taken precedence over 'creative output' I am learning to make the most of those 'Inbetween Moments', you know what I mean, those times when you have literally a few minutes spare - waiting for the potatoes to boil, or the washing machine to finish and in my case  (I work from home as a Beauty Therapist) waiting for a client to arrive. These are the times I grab whatever project I am working on and even if I only manage a few stitches - that's progress, slow, but progress all the same. In my 'Inbetween Moments' the last couple of days I played around with these granny squares

and decided that they will be my next blanket project - I might make them larger because I don't think I will be able to join the squares as you go (unless any of you lovelies knows how to do this)  and I might even be tempted to use my secret Rowan stash!  I keep gazing at it and thinking its too nice to use!!!!! 

I also started another project which has been (sorry to all you dedicated crochet fans) knitting!  I made myself a hat which a dear friend remarked on, so I am making her one for Christmas and a scarf to match.

Its in this nice Crofter wool and knits ( or I'm sure crochets ) to a pretty random look and is nice and soft.

I am also making a glasses case for the same friend, and I must start some of Lucy's wristwarmers for another friend. Of course, there is still the matter of the Cot Blanket - hoping to make more progress with that tonight  - phew!  I had better get started - as my English teacher used to say:-

"Procrastination is the thief of time"

Have a great evening

Speak soon xx

Welcome to the fold!

Hi there!

Firstly today I must give a special welcome to a new reader to my blog - my daughter yay!!! She has just been connected up to the internet at Uni, which is great.  I kind of regard the blog as an online diary so it will be lovely for her to see what I am up to!

Secondly today I want to thank Sue(Mrs Twins) for her friendship and guidance through blogland, and she mentioned me yesterday which was an honour and a surprise. So thank you Sue.

Last night I was able to concentrate on my baby cot blanket  but because it is quite a dense pattern progress feels quite slow - I seem to be crocheting for Britain, but its not growing as quickly as would like, never mind, slow and steady wins the race!

This week is rather busy for me, its a shame when work gets in the way of creativity!!!!!!!!! Hopefully I will snatch the odd half hour here and there to do some hooking.

I have also been trying to prepare a little more for Christmas and the other day the house was filled with the aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon when I made red cabbage to go with our Christmas dinner

I love how pretty a red cabbage is when you cut into it and the random patterns that are produced are lovely.

I mixed this in with the onions, garlic, apples, spices, sugar and vinegar

I had to squash it down to get the lid on - after long slow cooking you get a lovely squidy georgous smelling dish, ready to be frozen for Christmas

The next thing on the list is chestnuts

I bought these this morning, they are a bit fiddly to do, but worth the effort, then they can be popped into the freezer too!  They will make great stuffing - yummy!

Hoepfully later on in the week I will have a blanket update - I am not in love with this project yet but I am hopeful that once I start to make the edging it will come into its own and have a ta dah moment!

Speak soon xx

Skinny Ripple Scarf - Modelled by 'Moi'

What a wet and windy weekend we have had here in the UK.  Saturday was so bad that we had a powercut for most of the afternoon, and even though we were having friends round for dinner - I didn't panic, there was nothing I could do about it except sit and crochet until the light got too bad and hope the electricity would come back on in time for me to do the cooking (we have no mains gas in our village).  Just when I was thinking we would have to eat cheese and the one dessert I had already made - the power came back on! Hurray! the evening was saved, if a little rushed, a little glass of something calmed me down!!!  As I am typing this this morning - the rain outside is torrential!

I must show you the skinny ripple scarf I have completed.  You may remember I decided to make a vertical ripple scarf - this was a great little project and I am very pleased with the outcome.  I wanted a skinny scarf which I could wear with jumpers indoors as well as with my jackets, sometimes when it is so cold you need an extra something to keep your neck warm that isn't too bulky.  This was easy to do, working into the foundation chain probably took the most time, but wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

After much hilarity this morning a picture of me wearing the scarf,

 hubby must have taken a dozen piccies before I didn't blink - I am the worst person in the world for having my photo taken!!Sue (Mrs Twins) I finally did it!!  The other small project I started this weekend was a small cushion using the fun neat ripple stitch which The Garden Bell used on her blog.

This was fun to do and I have done it in multi-coloured Lucy style. I have just about finished the front - need to make a back for it and buy a cushion.

The pink baby blanket is coming along too - will show you an update on that later in the week. I think today might be a tea and cake sort of a day - too wet to go out!!  Have fun whatever you are up to!

Speak soon xx

Away Day to London

Good Morning, yesterday I went Christmas shopping to London with my friend.

We started at the little station up the road, with its cute signal box and traditional gates, which we are grateful to still have as so many are now automated.  As you can see, it was a bit of a dull day.  It takes about an hour to get to London which is a great time to chat and catch up.

Then it was off to do some serious shopping in Oxford Street, which is very hustly bustly. It had already been decorated for Christmas

It was much more appealing than this photo shows, but it does prove how London is full of red buses, black taxi cabs, and people!

John Lewis department store is a favourite with me and I spent quite a lot of time in there.

unusually coloured decorations, but very effective I thought. (Looking at this picture now, it reminds me of bubbles in a fish tank!)

Anyway after several hours of shopping, pondering, drinking coffee, shopping again, it was time to head home. My arms really ached from carrying the bags and my feet ached from all the walking!  It was a relief to get on the train to come home to my lovely quiet village.

But now I have quite a lot of presents I can cross off my long list, so it was a day well spent (in every sense of the word!)  I can't show you the presents - have to send them off to Santa, but I did buy some new towels for our downstairs cloakroom

I normally go for plain colours, but liked these stripey ones for a change.  Oh and I tried, but I couldn't resist buying some wool!  You see, when I look back at my recent crochet projects, purples and pinks seem to feature heavily in them so I decided that whatever my next project is, I should add some different colours to the mix so I bought these to add to my secret Rowan stash!

Now that I have seen The Garden Bell's   fun neat ripple stitch, I just might have to have a go at that - I feel a cushion coming on!!!

Thanks for dropping by and have a lovely weekend!

Speak soon xx

Pondering about Projects

The last few days I have been pondering.  Pondering about projects, things that have to be done, things that I would like to get done and things that realisticly wont get done!! 

When I was out walking with my friend the other morning we were strolling along the muddy track chatting away but in the back of my mind I was listing all the things I wanted to do - not majorly things like hike up Mount Everest or anything like that - more basic things like getting the Christmas shopping done and dusted, keeping on top of the ironing Ugh!!  Hoping the surprise party I am organising for Mum's 80th birthday will be a success - lots of family have said they are coming so I  was thinking, will I be able to ice her cake to a good standard? will I have enough food , drink, space in the house, ooooh its endless - do you all get like that?  My mind just felt all of a jumble. It was a good walk and did help me to clear my head.

Here in the UK there are masses of berries on the trees and bushes

They are laden with them, the saying goes that lots of berries means we will have a hard winter - we shall see!

This is looking across the fields to where I live.  I love being in the fields and looking back at where I live. The houses seem so small compared to the surrounding area - and yet when I am snug indoors I sometimes forget the countryside is out there.

When I had finished pondering I decided the best thing to do was get on and do 'stuff'  so after boring householdy stuff I settled down to try to get to grips with the cot blanket I have been asked to make.  Don't get me wrong I am enjoying it but I am finding it rather .......................one colourish.

I think I have been spoilt by Lucy at Attic 24 since discovering her blog I have switched to colour BIGTIME so this pale pink is well rather PALE!  However I do love the stitch it is a treble relief and it makes a spongy waffley type fabric.  It does use a lot of wool though - when I look at this

I know I have a long way to go!  To spur me on I decided I needed a little colourful project to do when I am tired and need a rest from pale and pink - so I sorted out some wool from a secret stash of Rowan Wool which I have

And I am going to make myself a vertical ripple scarf  - its still very much in its infancy but I have high hopes.

    

Well thats crochet projects sorted - now I only have to think about the Christmas shopping, 80th Party, ironing .........................................................................................................................!!

Speak soon xx