Saturday 28 July 2012

Rainbow Baby Blanket


A long time ago I started making this blanket for our friends' baby which was due at the end of May. I just about managed to get these photos taken before wrapping it and giving it to them the same day. The baby (a boy) arrived a week early, but luckily I had finished the blanket in plenty of time, only needing to wash it before giving it away.


The colours ended up working really well together, definitely worth buying the darker colours like the navy and purple to balance out the pastels. The white border works a treat, although the first round was a bit of a nightmare to make it look neat enough. There was a fair amount of frogging and muttering under my breath until I decided that it just had to look handmade and not absolutely perfect. It was fine in the end though, once I had laid it out neatly on a towel to dry.


Our friends were really pleased with the blanket and have used it several times. And of course the baby is just gorgeous, such a little poppet. I have had a few cuddles from him already - hadn't had newborn baby snuggles for such a long time!

At around the same time, I made this flag to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. I quickly ran it up on the machine - all roughly cut to size pieces and raw edges - whilst the flotilla was on the telly. Wow, that seems like such a long time ago now. Just goes to show how far behind I am with blogging. Must catch up.


With the remains of the cotton yarn from the baby blanket, I have started making a chevron crochet cushion cover. I have not made much progress on this, just a few more rows than there are in the photo. I kind of lost interest as it was being made for the garden bench but we were having just dreadful neverending rain that I shoved it in a bag and forgot about it. Must get it made up now that our Summer has finally started, and it won't take long at all to complete.


Talking of Summer, here is a shot of the pool with F and E enjoying playing with the woggles/noodles. We have been in there pretty much every day this week, although it was rather chilly this morning so we didn't stay in for long. I sanded and stained the small garden table that we have had for about 15 years. It will last a couple more years I think but I had to throw out two of the chairs that go with it as they were falling apart. It kind of looks like the garden furniture rejects area alongside the pool, all mismatched, faded, peeling and on their last legs. There are also large mounds of mud, dead branches and a few weeds thrown in. Not a pretty sight, must do more gardening next week. Bit tricky doing any kind of physical activity in 29 degrees heat. The refreshingly cool (read as blimmin freezing 20 degrees!) pool was calling to me.


Right, back soon with more updates. Will hopefully be all up to date with blog posts by this time next week. x

Monday 23 July 2012

AWOL


What can I say? Things got a little hectic what with end of term, my eldest going on a 5 day school trip and me losing the urge to blog. This is just a quick post to ease me in gently!

These photos were taken at the beginning of June, when it was still chilly enough to have a blanket on my lap. Gerard loves this blanket, even if it is still not finished - I started the border and have nearly finished it but I put it down 3 weeks ago and have not picked it up again since. In fact, I have not done much crochet at all, apart from an end of year present for F's violin teacher which I forgot to take a photo of (a red version of the skinny circles scarf I did a while ago).



If I do get some crochet done over the next few days, it will have to be a nice lightweight project as we have (drumroll please) finally got some decent weather. On Saturday it was sunny and warm and yesterday it was positively scorching. We spent the day putting the pool up as the weather is predicted to get hotter and stay nice all week. Even though there was only 4 inches of water in the pool whilst it was filling up, the girls were in there having the time of their lives, digging out more and more pool toys from the garage which they had forgotten about. Whilst they are playing in the pool this week I will be very close by, sanding down garden furniture and generally tidying up the garden. I may also be sat relaxing and drinking plenty of cold drinks or actually in the pool, braving the extremely cold water!


Gerard has been really enjoying the hot weather and has loved having us all outside to play with him. I do think that sometimes he is lonely being an only cat (he had cat flu before we got him and we were told we couldn't have another cat whilst we have Gerard) but he adores a little run around in the garden with us. Sometimes I think he is a dog - he chased a tennis ball yesterday! He also loves sitting in the most bizarre places, like in F's violin case (!) but alas he still hasn't sat in the little cat basket I made him. One day... Hope you are also getting some gorgeous weather where you are. Hope to blog again soon, lots to catch up on. xx