French Knots

Busy days

The Baby Brother is on his fourth cough and cold combo of the year and getting teeth number 7 and 8 as well, poor little lovie. Roll on germ free summer days!

I have sustained a craft related injury - crochet finger. As I've been working like a dervish on the ice cream blanket my little finger has stiffened up, I've been using it to control the tension and it seems to have been too much work for such an underused part of my body. Not that the rest of it gets much exercise!

 The Granny squares have been joined to make larger squares with a border of three colours round them

and I'm just finishing of a border round the whole blanket, one row in each of the six colours. It's lovely and cosy having it on my knee while working on it. Once the border is finished I'll just have seven hundred thousand loose ends to sew in! I'm really pleased with how it has worked out, my first crochet blankie.

I've squeezed in a bit of sewing too, some coasters for a present

some old french ticking that I got at a textile fair years ago and have been saving....for what I'm not sure but as coasters don't take up too much fabric I still have plenty left so didn't come out in too much of a cold sweat when cutting into it!

My Little Helper had us in stitches the other day, The Big Sister is a huge JLS fan and he delighted in telling her it stood for Just Losers Singing! The fact that we all chuckled just made her even more annoyed!

Lovely sunny day again here, while The Baby Brother is napping I'm going to tidy up the garden a bit and enjoy the smell of spring in the air.  
 

Book lover

I love to read, always have. Used to get bagfuls of books from the library when I was a child and devoured Famous Five, Secret Seven and so on.

It seems The Baby Brother has inherited this love of books

So many books, so little time!

Even when my eyelids are drooping as I collapse into bed I have to read a few pages. Recently I've nodded off while reading which means I either drop the book on the floor or my face and wake myself up! But I couldn't get to sleep without a bit of reading though sometimes I'm so tired I read the same sentence several times.

So far this year I've read

A Red Bird Christmas - Fannie Flagg
Can't wait to get to heaven - Fannie Flagg

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built - Alexander McCall Smith

Postcards from Wits End - Sarah Harvey

Driving Over Lemons- Chris Stewart

The Saffron Kitchen - Yasmin Crowther

Of Bees and Mist - Erik Setiawan

Excursion to Tindari - Andrea Camilleri

Small Island - Andrea Levy

The Paper Moon - Andrea Camilleri

Early Days - Miss Read

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith

Blue Shoes and Happiness - AMS

The Miracle at Speedy Motors - AMS

A mixed bag as they come from either the library or charity shop, love it when they are on offer at 3 for £1! I've read all the No1 Ladies Detective Agency books before but they are so enjoyable, a pleasure to read again.

What have you read recently that I should add to my library request list?? Few things beat loosing yourself in a good book, transported to another life, another world.

365 Project

I'm finding most of my photos are indoor shots because of the dull grey days but if the sun comes out I grab my camera and take a picture quickly! Hopefully as Spring arrives and we get some brighter, sunny days (oh soon please!) I'll be able to take some more outdoor shots and get out and about a bit with my camera.

I really want to save up for a 50mm lens so I can achieve some of the effects I see on other people photos but until then I had a play with this toy that Things handmade linked to, could be hours wasted fiddling about with this!

Have a lovely weekend hope the weather smiles on you!

More crochet....

I ordered more wool for the ice cream granny square blanket from Colourway as they had all the colours I needed in stock. Delivery was really quick so I got hooking again, joinng the squares to make larger squares

 with a border round each. I'm not sure how quickly the new wool will get used up with joining and edging so the plan is to join and edge the squares I have made so far and then make extra grannys to form new blocks of 4. So the finished size will be decided by how far the wool goes. I love the colour mix, so cheerful and bright.

 My tension is improving I think and most of the grannys are more or less the same size. Will blocking work as they are knitted out of cotton rather than wool? I tried just catching the ends in under the sets of trebles but some have come loose so I'm going to sew them in instead, after all this work I want it to last. I've got half an eye on my next project, have you seen the James Brett Kool cotton? It's only £1.50 per ball and comes in a good selection of colours and would make one of Vanessa's amazing Little Squares Scarf.  

It's a lovely way to spend the evenings; woodburner crackling, hook in hand, watching the Winter Olympics.  Skeleton, bob sleigh,ice dance, curling and the cool snowboarders doing actobatics I'm enjoying it all!

My new love

Ah crochet, how I love you! To have taken so long to discover your hooky goodness, how many years wasted!

My first project, the ice cream granny square blanket is on hold as I've run out of wool, luckily the jumble sale came up trumps with a carrier bag lurking at the bottom of a box - inside were 5 balls of wool, 50p well spent I think.

 There was just enough cream to edge each square and I used some spare cream from my stash to join the squares together using  the  Attic 24  joining tutorial which gives a lovely flat finish.

 I love the way it grows so quickly, I took it with me this week to the garage while my car was being fixed ( long time readers will remember I now have a Scenic, not a pale blue soft top Beetle anymore, and it is a functional rather than a loved car) as the dashboard broke! Digital display, here one minute gone the next! Apparently it is a fault with them, oh well that's ok then, silly me expecting the dashboard to last the lifetime of the car! Anyway I sat in the waiting area grannying along, which passed the time quite nicely.

 

So - addictive, portable, fast growing, colour combination playing - crochet I love you!

ps. Is anyone else having trouble with Bloglines? Some blogs don't update, then 4 posts update together. I've emailed them but of course they haven't replied. Uusually when a feed isn't working properly it gets a little red ! but none of them have this time.

Makeover

A while ago I saw this at the charity shop

yes it is indeed a hideous confection of nylon lace!

But

stripped back to it's bare bones it has potential, I'm planning a patchwork quilt, pillow and a crochet blanket no doubt as it is my new addiction!  A fine place for teddies to snuggle, once I get round to it.

There has also been some finishing off in The Baby Brother's bedroom

Baskets for toy storage, some wall stickers to brighten things up and a recycled jeans basket for socks

Taking a photo a day, mostly in the house as it is so grey outside, has made me notice lots of little things needing attention and sprucing. And tidying, oh yes lots of corners needing tidying. Oh well they'll keep for another day there's sewing to do.......  !
 

7 days swap

7 days of specialness to cheer up grey February days - Thank you Ali for such a good idea, it has cheered my mornings up no end having a special parcel just for me.

My swap partner was Dottycookie so I read through some of her past posts to get an idea of what to send, trying to choose something she would like! Her parcels to me were wrapped with shades of pink tissue and pretty ribbon and showing surprising self control I only opened one each day, if only I could have the same measure of self control when it comes to the biscuit tin!

 Just look what she sent me - buttons and beads, chocolates and seeds! A pretty felt covered notebook, just right for lists instead of the back of an envelope. I'm going to clear a patch on my allotment to make a cutting garden for the seeds, the chocolate seems to have been nibbled (ahem!) and have you seen the lovely colours in the wool. It's lovely heathery shades, I've not decided what I'll make yet but will have a look on Ravelry for inspiration - that's a couple of hours lost then!

Look at the necklace she made me too, the iridescent beads really catch the light and once The Baby Brother has got past the 'use a necklace as a handle to hang on to Mummy'stage I'll be wearing it a lot as blue is my favourite colour. And the stitch markers, so much better than the buttons on safety pins that I normally use so sock knitting will be much more swish!

Thank you Val for being such a super swap partner!

Cake helps

The children had an own clothes day at school last week to raise money for Haiti but wanted to do something themselves. The decided on a cake sale on Friday after school, we have a captive audience as we live next to their school, so I envisaged 150 children eager for cake - that's pretty much what happened!

( Not our actual fairy cakes!) 

The children made posters to stick up in the front window and printed out adverts to give out in the playground, then helped make about 75 fairy cakes, 30 cornflake cakes, a banana loaf and 40 oat biscuits! At 2.30 it started to snow(aarrgghh) but by 3pm it was sunny so I set up the table in our drive and luckily some kind friends dropped off more cakes. My Little Helper and The Big Sister dashed out of school, climbed over our wall and the frenzy began! All the cakes were bought within 12 minutes, we could have sold 3 times as many and so many generous people said ' keep the change'. Selling each cake at 20p the children thought they might make twenty or thirty pounds but when they counted it up they had £62.76! Well done my darlings, I'm so proud of you for wanting to help and organising it so well.

The money has been donated to a charity Pebbledash blogged about, Shelterbox . The children thought the idea of sending a box with tent, blankets, tools and colouring books was very sensible and I like the idea that they and their friends know what they have contributed to. It makes it seem more real to a 6 and 10 year old, knowing what their money is helping to send to Haiti and how it will help a family just like ours.  

Boasting over!

By George....she's got it!

I have been thinking of learning to crochet for ages and this week the stars aligned

Pip over at Meet me at Mikes has spent ages putting a set of lessons together so even a total beginner can learn how to do a granny square, there are detailed written instructions and videos to follow so you can't go wrong! So I've been grannying like mad!

   These are my ice cream grannies using some cotton handknit that I bought ages ago, it's nice to use but some of them are a bit wonky and the ' holes' seem quite big. I might use a smaller hook than suggested next time to see if that helps and hopefully my tension will improve as I make more of them.

  So THANK YOU Pip!! That's one of my goals for 2010 underway and it's not even the end of January yet, the other goals of improving my health and fitness - well I've still got 11 months to work on those!

Whoosh....!

That was last week whizzing by! Days disappeared in a blur of coughing, runny noses, conjunctivitus and the nights did too! We all need some brighter weather and fresh air to blow the germs away.

Just when I needed it an amazing parcel arrived in the post

 Ooh so many exciting treasures!

look at the sweet little bird and the wonderful handmade magnets. The pretty beads were the subject of one of my 365 photos, interesting shapes and colours. And the little silver flower - have a closer look

A tiny little button! I think I'm going to stitch it onto my jacket lapel for the time being to enjoy it but have plans to use it as the centrepiece of a fabric brooch. All from the talented  Emma of Silverpebble as I was a lucky runner up in her recent give away. She makes the most beautiful jewellery, take a look at her shop where she sells her unique and covetable designs. 

Thank you all for your photography advice, I've been trying to find time to try out different shots, if the rain would stop I'm sure it would help to be able to take some pictures in daylight, or what passes for it at this time of year. I've been reading about how to make a cheap lightbox which might help with dull days.No doubt by the time I get round to making it the summer will have arrived!