Year of projects - 21.04.13

Well, as you can see, I finished my Vintage Crocheted Throw.  This has been a really quick project (when I found it again!) and a real pleasure to make.  I used (if I remember correctly!) Sirdar Wash + Wear Crepe, and following the pattern for the Afghan size, I used slightly less than a ball of each colour, so a pretty low cost project.

 I do love a stripe, as you all know, and I really enjoyed the autumnal colours I used in this, it's a bit more muted than some of my crocheted blankets....don't you think the pattern of the chevron is clever?

So you may think I would be at a lose end now....but then again, anyone who knows me, would know that wasn't true.....onwards and upwards with another blanket.  This one is Wool Leaves and I think it is absolutely stunning.  The blanket is for a friend of mine who is getting married in a couple of months ( this being a slightly more pressured make!).  According to others who have made this, it is all about the blocking, but I am enjoying the pattern, and being such a chunky knit it grows fairly quickly (and also goes through balls at a rate of knots)...so watch this space, hopefully it will be done soon.

Today is grey and dismal, but yesterday, it was warm and sunny.....perfect for a wood walk with the dogs, I'm so glad we got out and about yesterday.

Fancy a walk?

To catch up with other knitters and crocheters progress, take a look at the Year of Projects ravelry page here.

Jetsam

Most of my days start off with walking Chester, and the walk of choice recently has been  a stretch of beach that I pass on my way home from dropping the boys at their schools.

Last night was stormy , which hadn't quite cleared by this morning...so Chester and I decided to go to a different beach so that we wouldn't get blown away with the inshore wind.....it can hardly be relaxing when its difficult to catch your breath...and poor old Chester, with such long ears,  has no hope of staying grounded.

It was a scene that told the weather of the night before, but now was calm and washed clean.  The walk down was lush and green,  with an abundance of bluebell leaves, which didn't quite keep their promise last year. 

This beach is stony and gravelly, but rather than being firm underfoot, today it was disconcertingly squashy, I stood for a little while walking up and down, realising that most of the beach had been thrown up onto seaweed, which was why the ground beneath me had so much give...made me feel quite odd!

Among all the pebbles and seaweed were bits of jetsam,  and it made me wonder how sailors had fared last night in such high winds.  There was food packaging with unfamiliar languages on, plastic, driftwood....all sorts....but among it all, something that I had been looking for, for a while.....

.....cuttlebones, from  cuttlefish ....I've been looking out for them  as my sister has taken up silver smithing and these can be used as moulds for casting silver....I'm hoping that my haul will bring lots of inspiration to her....interestingly, sepia is cuttlefish ink...which I didn't know before....did you?

Year of projects - 15.04.13

This week, in between some school holiday activities , I thought I'd do a quick, fun project from  my YOP list.

My hubby, looked over one evening to see what I was making, noticed the title and said, 'well what's so magic about that?' in a totally uninterested voice, so I showed him further down the pattern, and his 'Wow, that is clever' said a lot for the idea.

Any ideas?

Magic Cinderella 

Now isn't that a clever?  I have no idea who she is for, and there are a few more details I could add, like the head scarf for cinders and a few patches on her skirt....maybe a huge diamond and Sapphire necklace for cinderella.........

I enjoyed making this doll, such a fun project, and open for your own modifications to the dress and jewelry.

Now wouldn't you love a dress like that, encrusted with diamonds around the skirts?

To catch up with all the other work that my fellow Yoppers have been doing, check out the raverly page here.

These holidays

Biggest boy's tenth birthday (complete with a dubiously iced Eddie Stobart lorry cake)

Quad biking for the bigger boys, plus a couple of friends as a birthday treat

Some happy card crafting....I had quite forgotten how much I enjoyed quilling

Beach walks

Trip to a park with friends

Beach combing with littlest boy, while Daddy (Mowgli), biggest and middle boys went away for three days on cub camp

Littlest boy achieving his five metre swimming badge....surely the greatest achievement, realising that you don't need a float,  just get your head in, kick your legs and go for it....next, the Olympics.

(I have to admit my eyes welled up as I think he even suprised himself)

I have got two more books under my belt The Last Summer, Judith Kinghorn and The Moorland Cottage Elizabeth Gaskell and a new crochet project, but that will come in tomorrow's YOP update.

Whisked away

I know I must have said it numerous times recently, but rather than just talking about wanting to read, I've actually been reading.

You see, I've never been a reader...... my mind tends to be a little.... wandering, and after reading half a page for the third time and still not remembering what it said, I'd given it up as a bad job.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up a book (admittedly a children's book) a couple of weeks ago and read so hungrily that when totally out of the blue I was given a book by a friend a couple of days later, it was the best present I never knew I wanted.

The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge, was a book I last read in my teens probably, so magical and lovely that I was Maria in her tower room, with silver stars and crescent moons on the ceiling. Reading it again in my mid-thirties, I was there again, living in Moonacre.

The gifted book, I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith...that's what did it......hook, line and sinker....I am a reader after all....the fact that I guessed the outcome didn't worry me, I loved the easiness of it....the feeling of warmth.....wow, I could have carried on reading it for a good few chapters more.

This second book was finished in a few days, so when I did the normal weekly trip to the library with the boys, I went and asked the librarian for a recommendation. The first two books, having a period setting, had whisked me away, and I loved the feeling, so my criteria was rather easy, nothing stressful,

'what do you recommend?'

she said she liked things that where fluffy, and I had to say, for a novice, that sounded appealing to me too.

I started Jamaica Inn, Daphne de Maurier none the wiser, looking forward to 'fluffy' and a few pages in I'm reading 'gripping'.... this book was finished in a day....the hunger was setting in!

The last book (I finished just today), borrowed from a reading friend,  was a PG Wodehouse....it wasn't gripping, but a good funny read...... I have a couple more borrowed books, next on the list 'Swallows and Amazons' which I am really looking forward to, especially as I remember someone talking about it  without really knowing what they meant....another Elizabeth Goudge....and I am going to pop back to the library, as the librarian's first suggestion whet my appetite, to hear what else she has to say

So.....I like something that whisks me away....something that lets me dream happy dreams......gripping...not stressful...any suggestions? Now I only need to suss out reading and knitting/crocheting......... On the knitting front, I may have started a new blanket.......