Monday, 18 July 2011

Stop Press!


Catherine over at Kids and Capers is having a wonderful Giveaway of some fantastic Avoca items - pop over there to enter!


And please don't forget to enter my Giveaway too - see 11th July post





Post to follow soon!






If only they could talk ............they could do a post for me!

Am hoping to find time tomorrow afternoon!

Hope you are all well,  and welcome to my new followers!!






Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Hooked Up








Just a quick "show and tell" regarding some crochet that I started a few weeks ago, when I felt the urge to hook after finding a large mixed bag of wool and wool/acrylic mixes at the Boot Fair for £1!





In the bag was a huge unused 400g ball of cream Aran (60% wool) together with a started one with probably still about 300g left; some dark grey wool; some very pale pink; and a few other bits and bobs.

So I had to start something new of course!




After a quick flick through one of my favourite standby crochet books, I decided to have a go at this Gothic Square design with a view to making a cushion cover for the bedroom.



This crochet book is a must for any crocheter to my mind, offering a huge variety of granny sqaures, as well as edgings, and even for a beginner the instructions are easy to follow, with clear illustrations on how to do different stitches.

The patterns are graded into levels of difficulty which is useful.




I have worked each centre in dark flecked grey, then pink, then white, then the outer rows are worked in the cream aran.

As I'm using a combination of weights of wool here, some aran, some DK amd some 4 ply, I have switched hook sizes to allow for this - my usual ad hoc approach!






 Using pale colours in crochet is new to me, and I'm quite pleased with how its looking, although until the magic has been worked by blocking the squares, they will look a bit raggedy.










I usually prefer to use brighter colours.

The first thing and the brightest thing I ever crocheted after making a few granny squares, was a bag from Attic 24.

The first weekend after my Mum taught me to crochet, I jumped straight in the deep end and crocheted like crazy for a whole weekend until I had finished this bag.



It started out looking like the biggest rastafarian hat you have ever seen, and as i was pretty poor at keeping track of the number of stitches I had done in this vast bag, it is very higgledy piggledy, and baggy, but very capacious and excellent for storing wool!



i had no wool other than the scraps and odds and ends that my Mumhad bought with her, and after sorting through all my craft bags and coming up with a few more odds and ends i just crocheted away for England.

I had a ball!

And I was so thrilled at my new found skill!



Making this particular pattern also meant that I attempted flowers, made straps and added edges, as well as working a huge circle, changing colours and increasing and decreasing (supposedly!!).









Logan also likes messing around with wool.

Twice in the last few weeks I have found him having great fun with a ball of wool, which he sneakily steals from the lowest shelf in the sewing room then takes onto the landing to "play" with.

A couple of weeks ago he managed to completely unravel a ball, and I am still in the process of untangling and re-winding it.

Then again, yesterday afternoon he found a small ball of wool and managed to get it all tangled all round his legs so he could only hobble!



Logan just being de-tangled!


Well, on that note I'm just off to do a bit of crochet before I pick Bella up I think - too late to start any painting, and that's one of the joys of crochet - you can just pick  it up and do a bit whenever you get a spare moment!

Oh!! And please don't forget to enter my Giveaway !!!
See the previous post dated 11July!!



Monday, 11 July 2011

It's Giveaway Time (Finally.....) !!!


Hello Everyone!

It seems an age since I last posted, but I see it's just a week ago.
How time flies!!!



I do hope all is well with you all, my lovely friends in Blogland!
I have missed you as I have not been blog hopping since last week, so once more I am in arrears with my visiting.

I shall look forward to catching up with you over the next few evenings.

I hope you will forgive me for my lack of posts and lack of comments on your blogs - to try and coax you into forgiveness I have a little incentive here - a rather overdue Giveaway in celebration of reaching 100 followers and as a Thankyou to you all!!!



The Giveaway is................


Either .............a Peg Apron made from vintage linen and hand embroidered in red with the word "Pegs"

Whoops! Mirror image!


The apron has long white cotton tape ties that makes the apron fit any size, and it can be worn tied behind or wrapped around and tied in front as below 


It is made from a vintage Parkertex floral linen, with a large pocket in vintage natural linen.




I have hand embroidered the word "pegs" in red thread on an old piece of white cotton cut from a vintage tablecloth too damaged to use as such





In the middle of the apron there is a tape hanging loop which can be used to hang the apron with the pegs inside the pocket.




The large pocket is stitched at the top in the middle to prevent it falling open.
*
 Or..........a vintage fabric covered Journal with integral bookmark - a choice of two journals.


Either a vintage striped fabric with cream lining





The Journal covers fit a standard A5 notebook so once you have finished the notebook that comes with the cover (60 plain pages ) you can replace it with a new one.



The journal is lined in cream cotton, and the bookmark is made from an East of India woven cotton ribbon with a vintage silk tassel attached at the bottom.




Or..... a vintage english floral linen (which matches the linen on the Peg Apron) with faded red homespun lining and blue gingham ribbon.











*
And...................a bookmark made from a cheerful red vintage French fabric with a vintage silk tassel.





To enter my Giveaway, all you need do is leave me a comment here on this post, saying which item you would like to win, either the Peg Apron, the Striped Journal or the Floral Journal.


For a second chance to win, click on my Giveaway button on my sidebar or at the beginning of this post, and add it to your sidebar, linking back to my blog, and leave a second comment here to say you have done so. Thats it.


Good Luck!!!

The Giveaway ends at the end of July (31st).











We've had a few courgettes and climbing french beans from  the garden


The last week has flown by for me, catching up on housework, gardening, coffee mornings with a few friends, decorating the study/bedroom, shopping and chauffering Bella around as she does her work experience in a Primary School.




One of the interesting things discovered by Bella is that the teachers here are terrible gossips!!!!

This surprised us, I don't know why - I guess I thought all you clever teachers out there were too lofty for gossip, too full of more important things like planning lessons and marking books and planning fun things for the kiddies to do to behave in an ordinary, gossipy kind of way like us other mere mortals!!!!

Maybe its just at this school???!!

Any teachers out there, is it true of you all?

Are you just normal gossips like the rest of us?

We need to know!!!







Hope you all had a great weekend, and I'm looking forward to catching up with you soon!



Don't forget to leave a comment to enter the Giveaway!





Monday, 4 July 2011