Jewel crochet blanket

Yes, you've guessed it, I've started another blanket. My major excuse is that I have run out of the grey wool for the blanket I started making in Wales. I need to ring the shop I bought it from and ask very nicely if they can send me some more. In the meantime I needed a new project to keep me sane so I turned to my "still can't believe I haven't used it all yet" stylecraft stash. I am sure I have a neverending supply of this stuff, the basket I keep it in just never seems to look any emptier. Maybe my husband keeps putting more wool in there every so often in an effort to keep me quiet!

I had always wanted to make one of these classic retro blankets with bright jewel like colours against a black edging. It just reminds me of the 1970s, garish and colourful - none of the colours matching but who would care? In fact, these photos don't do the colours justice as they are really bright. I thought I had taken more photos of this blanket but I couldn't find many and they are all a bit lacklustre compared to the blanket in real life. I have obviously been spending more time crocheting the thing than taking fancy photos of it.

I know a few people have been making these one colour per square blankets around the blogging world, inspired by Cherry Heart and I can completely recommend making them - fewer ends to sew in, quick and easy to make, no fretting over colour combinations. I just wanted something a bit different and when I spied the ball of black against all the brightly coloured balls of yarn in the basket, I just had to make a retro blanket. In fact, this blanket was decided upon within about 10 minutes as I needed a project to take with me to the park at the end of the summer holidays. Nothing like making snap decisions. I started off making the squares and then crocheting them together as I went along (a la Attic 24 - joining as you go method) but I have since crocheted 4 squares of each colour until I have a nice big pile and then joined them in one fell swoop. This is extremely satisfying as the blanket seems to double in size overnight.
 

I have been keeping all the squares I am yet to join in this cute project bag that my sister bought for me. It is quite squidgy but has a wire inserted into the top of the bag so it keeps its shape and means I can find the right coloured square really easily. Love it.

Talking of my sister, we went away this past weekend with my Dad  as a father's day gift - to research the family tree a bit further and visit the area where we originally came from over 160 year ago (Cork, Ireland). We had a fantastic time and my sister asked me to teach her to crochet. Well, she has well and truly got the crochet bug and was even crocheting on the flight back. After making a length of trebles, she had a go at making a granny square, seen below being used as a coaster by Dad. I told her she would have to make a scarf as a first project, to which I got a very quick no as she now lives in Singapore - round the year 30 degrees heat. Not really scarf weather! She will be making lots of coasters, placemats and throws instead. Hope she finds a good yarn shop out there.

So that's what has been happening around these parts lately. My husband is hosting a film club night this evening so it will be nice to have a glass of wine, chat to some old friends and join a few more squares onto this blanket whilst watching the film. Not sure which film has been chosen yet though, may be something I am really not interested in or a subtitled film - I haven't mastered the art of crocheting whilst reading subtitles yet!

More charity shop finds

I bought this picture yesterday - it is a copy of a painting called Boats in blues and greens by Rutledge and it was apparently painted in 1966. It was £5 and I was quick to grab it and pay, before wandering around the shops carrying it with my Mum and sister. I was also asked a couple of times to see the painting and there was high praise indeed for it. I love it and am still wondering where abouts it will be hung up. Great colours, I feel another crochet blanket coming on...

These placemats were bought a while ago - 11 for £2. I think they are an old M&S design and my Mum still has the matching chopping board, which she keeps as a board for the kids to lean on when they want to do some drawing.

This fabric was from ebay - it's a vintage Sanderson design and I have about 3 metres of it. May make some cushions for the bedroom from it or maybe some bags.

I saw this Caroline's Home dollshouse at the charity shop at the beginning of the summer holidays. It was £10 including all the original furniture but I didn't buy it as I though my kids wouldn't like it (they don't normally like old stuff). I mentioned it to E and said that it was a 1970s style house and she asked to go round and see it. She absolutely loved it and bought it with her own money. The furniture has been rearranged many times and it is now looking for a permanent home for display in our house. E has suggested behind the sofa so I am now tracking down a long narrow coffee table for it to perch on.

Oh who left the loo lid up?

Dad's got his feet up watching tv again!

And we didn't get him or the water pistol from the charity shop but I had to show you this photo of Gerard fast asleep, obviously dreaming about having a water pistol fight with the neighbouring cats. Gotta love him!

A week in Wales

I thought it was about time I blogged about our week away in Wales. We had so much fun and the weather was fantastic as you can see from these photos of pure blue skies. These two photos are of our day trip to Aberystwyth, a lovely place where we enjoyed a leisurely lunch and a quick trip to the beach and playground.

The views out to sea were stunning and we had plenty of time to appreciate them whilst the kids played in the best playground they had been to in a long time. We couldn't drag them away!

Of course I found a wool shop (bang next door to a charity shop, how convenient!) and nipped in to see what bargain wool they had. I had brought my hexagon blanket on holiday with me but just didn't feel like carrying on with it so I bought two giant balls of aran wool mix yarn and made a start on another diagonal crochet blanket. With fewer ends to sew in, obviously.

We went to New Quay twice as it was so fantastic. The beach was small but clean and sheltered and the sea was so clear. We even saw some dolphins swimming not so far away. The kids made the most of the beach and buried their Dad's feet.

See how clean the sea is? A bit chilly though!

F couldn't understand why the moat wasn't filling up. We aren't really beach holiday people usually. E confirmed that she definitely doesn't like the feel of sand and didn't like being in the sun (we ended up buying a cheap beach tent to provide us with a bit of shade from the scorching sunshine) but I do love the occasional day trip to the seaside in the UK.

Quite a lot of relaxing went on too - the cat was called Lewis and he basically came with the cottage we stayed in, which was on a farm. It was in the middle of nowhere and a very welcome break. Would definitely recommend if you need to get away from it all.

And before we knew it, the week was over and we headed back home to see Gerard, who didn't seem at all bothered about another cat sitting on his crochet blanket!

Recent charity shop finds

Some things I have bought from the charity shop over the past 3 months.

First up, a Krenit bowl bought for £3.50. I saw it, picked it up (not believing that it could possibly be a Krenit) turned it over and saw the Krenit sticker on the bottom and quickly paid for it and rushed out of the shop before anyone realised what it was. Why is it that the shop assistant always says "ooh, this is lovely" and starts looking at it when you know it is the biggest bargain and just want to get out of there and skip down the street?! Love my Krenit bowl.

I bought this planter last week from the local charity shop around the corner. I thought it looked nice but decided I didn't need any more planters. I just had to pick it up and turn it over, only to find that it is an Arabia Finland planter so I thought it was well worth spending £2.50 for it. Love the colour too.

This was my only Welsh charity shop find, another £2.50 bargain, there's about 3 metres of fabric there. Will be making some bags out of this.

These barkcloth fabrics were bought at a charity table top sale in a local church hall for 50p each. Yes, you read that right. Everything on the table was 50p and there were so many fabrics to choose from but I just chose the ones I loved the most. I also got this bird print fabric which I might make some cushions from. It's not my usual style but I love it just the same.

I got the following scarf from the local charity shop for £1. I love the colours, not sure I will ever wear it though.

These were labelled as placemats. Not sure why anyone would want some woolly placemats - maybe to soak up soup dribbles?! I thought they looked very welsh and made up for me not finding a welsh blanket whilst on holiday. These will going into my crafting supplies, might be useful for making purses or small bags.

I'd been looking for a clothes valet for ages and finally found one for less than a fiver at the local charity shop so easy to carry home. My husband is using it and I am looking for another one for me so I can relocate my wicker chair which is a dumping ground for clothes. It will free up some space in the bedroom so that we can admire our still going strong purple shagpile carpet. Bleurghhh!

And last but not least, a Sylvanian Families Department Store, not complete but well worth the £8 I spent on it. This stuff goes for a fortune on ebay and the kids have played with it happily since I got it at the weekend, and will do for a few more months, I'm sure. It's a win-win situation.

What have you found at the charity shop/thrift store recently? Have fun thrifting! xxx

Diagonal crochet blanket finished

I might rename this blanket the Procrastination Blanket, or maybe the Plagued by Indecision Blanket. After zooming through all those diagonal stripes in a few short weeks, it sat on the side in the lounge for what seems like an eternity, waiting for me to get my act together and attempt the border. I always look forward to doing the border but then become extremely unsure of which border to choose, which colours to pick, how many rows etc etc.

I used several colours to create a few stripes - I referred to pattern no. 106 from this book. Once complete, the blanket was left to languish on the side for a few more weeks whilst I did other things - not much crochet going on in this house recently. I finally snapped this afternoon and had to pick it up and complete it - partly through boredom but mainly because we are heading off on holiday on Saturday and I wanted to take some crochet with me. I couldn't go without getting this blanket finished - I want to take the hexagon blanket with me to try to get that closer to completion. Too many UFOs and far too many ideas for new projects floating around in my head.
 

After the stripes, I felt it needed a bit more and decided to just crochet a row of treble clusters and see what it looked like, with the possibility of doing a picot edge to finish. Not having much of this colour left (certainly not enough to do the picot edge) I concluded that that's the end of this blanket. Just like that. No dithering, no procrastinating, just decisive.  It looks good, I have no desire to spend any more time faffing over the edge of this thing. I want to take it on holiday and it's going to be one of those blankets which is meant to be used, loved and effectively destroyed in the process!

And even though the end of this border was thrown together at the last minute with no real thought involved, I actually really like it. I love the rounded shape of the corners, a nice contrast to the sharp angles in the diagonal stripes. I also really love the texture of the blanket - because it is closely crocheted with no real gaps, it is extra warm and snuggly. Perfect for taking on a rainy week in Wales. I'm really hoping that we get at least a little bit of sunshine in amongst the showers. Please.

Oh yes, you know I said it was finished, well it nearly is, just a few ends to sew in. Story of my life...

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

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