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

Half way there.

Growing blanket

From small acorns grow...

(look at the gorgeous sunshine in this photo - I had been sat in the shade as it was so hot. Just heavy rain and strong winds today.)

...over half way there...

...and onto the final few rows, until...

...it's finished - well, apart from sewing in three trillion ends and doing the border. At this point in time, I am desperately trying to like the ends so I don't have to deal with them!!

Have a wonderful weekend. x

Homemade Cat Bed

Wow, what a weekend. Not sure how the Queen managed to keep going through all the festivites and the functions she attended. (which quite frankly, seemed to go on forever.) Just seeing her stood on that boat for hours in a dress coat and flimsy little scarf made me feel cold and I was in a nice warm room, merrily sewing a Union Jack flag from vintage fabrics to alleviate the boredom!

Anyway, I had a spare Friday about three weeks ago where I decided I would just have a little go at decorating the charity shop cat basket I bought for £3.50. Now, Gerard had not really been anywhere near this basket and my husband and kids quite rightly pointed out that a bit of bunting with his name on was highly unlikely to persuade him to sit in it. But I had in my mind how I wanted the basket to be as it is going to look pretty in our kitchen once it's all finished.

So I spent a couple of hours snipping into my favourite vintage fabrics and making a little row of flags, which I embroidered with floss - a letter for each flag - you might just be able to see in the above photo. Then I set to work on a round crochet blanket, the pattern for which I found on this blog. Alice is a very clever lady for producing such a clear and easy to follow tutorial for this mandala, perfect for round blankets, cushions and pot holders. Raymond the cat is super cute too!

Of course I went straight to my stash of Stylecraft yarns to make this blanket and chose colours to match the colours of accessories in my kitchen.

This is a Joseph Joseph glass worktop saver that I bought a short while ago, which we have been using mainly as a bread board. Luckily I had some very similar colours which match very well. All in all I had a fun day making this and was really chuffed with the end result. Shame Gerard still hasn't sat in the basket though! Ungrateful cat. :)

This project reminded me of something I made back in February when it was extremely cold. I found a pattern for a granny rectangle (can't remember from where, I googled it though if that's any help) and used some Stylecraft yarn to match the colours of the curtains in F's bedroom.

This was really quick to make - once you get the first two rows done, it's just like making a big granny square. Once it was done, I put it in place on the windowsill...

... where Gerard promptly jumped up and sat down. We have tiled windowsills in our house which get icy cold in winter (see the snow in the garden outside) and Gerard loves to sit on the sill and watch the world go by. He was very pleased to have a nice warm and comfy place to sit whilst watching the girls having a snowball fight outside.

And seeing as I don't have a photo of Gerard in his basket, here is one of him on next door's chimney, annoying a magpie! It's mainly bungalows down our road so he has lots of fun jumping up onto the roofs and getting a good view into the distance.

Will be back soon with news of charity shop bargains, new garden furniture and a growing blanket. x

Paving the way

Apologies for my absence, been busy in the garden and E has been very poorly, off school for 7 days with some kind of virus. Hopefully she will get some much needed rest over the half term holidays and will feel better soon.

Anyway, last weekend we decided to tackle the paving that we had planned to the side of the decking, making this area a weed free zone and much easier to keep tidy. Whilst my husband was levelling the area, I weeded under the pyracantha and started pruning off lots of dead branches. You can really notice a difference between these two photos, the photo below was taken at the end of February this year. It's lovely to be able to see the shape of the trunk/branches and the kids have already said that they would love to have a hanging chair here!

Gerard also got in on the action, he loves a roll in the sunshine, always wandering into the house covered in bits!

You may remember that we were given some paving slabs about 18 months ago by a relative who was working on a gardening job. The owners didn't want the slabs so they were lifted (and had only been down for two years so still in excellent condition) and promptly brought round to our house. These are really good quality slabs and extremely heavy.

Some of them had been cut to fit for their previous location so we had to make do with what we had been given and make it work for the space we have.

It was a hot day when M was laying these slabs, truly back breaking work. The slabs were far too heavy for me to lift so I felt like a spare part, only being needed to bring yet more squash and to fill up the watering can. I also have this really annoying habit of just sitting and watching someone work if I am unable to help. M only complained once (that I could hear anyway!).

 

We were extremely lucky to find these half price pots at a local garden centre. At first we only found one so dismissed it as we knew we needed a few to plant some bamboo to give us extra privacy along the fence. Just before we left the garden centre, we found some more pots on offer and another four were lurking at the back. Perfect for our requirements and I think they look very simple and understated.

We have paved behind the tortoise enclosure too as I sometimes need access to this side of the enclosure and trudging over mud on a rainy day in my slippers is not pleasant.  This is where we had to use some of the pre-cut slabs so we did some nifty filling in with mortar and slate paddlestones. We have a few slabs left so will be paving down the side of the enclosure that meets the lawn. We had laid some new turf down here last year but it is constantly in the shade so it never took so I think some paving will be the best solution for this area.

I think it looks great, so tidy and I can't wait to plant up the pots. Just need to find the right type of bamboo at a reasonable price. I used the rest of the slate paddlestones in the tortoise enclosure as a basking area for them. At first they were curious and crawled all over them but I haven't seen them on there since. Apparently tortoises don't like change so we'll see how it goes over the next few days.

We also finally found a parasol which fitted our requirements for this area (believe me, we are very picky) and that arrived yesterday, just in time for the bad weather we are due to have over the Jubilee weekend. Typical. Maybe we could shelter under it whilst toasting the Queen?  What are your plans this weekend? We are meeting up with all our neighbours for a BBQ on Sunday and there are lots of other things planned in our village to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. We are also hoping to lay the rest of the decking tiles along the long concrete path to the side of the house, and to pop out at some point to have some brunch at a lovely little tea house nearby. Can't wait. Have fun whatever you are doing this weekend. x