Reasons to be Cheerful...

There's been lots of ups and downs at work and with Myf being poorly plus some unpleasantness with her father but we have plenty of reasons to be cheerful this week!

First and foremost, Myf is a LOT better-thank you for all your kind well wishes :-)  We spent some time yesterday with some crochet-she really wants to be able to make a granny square so I was showing her how to do single crochet and double crochet stitches and getting her started on a granny square

(Forgive the mess in the background!)

Over the weekend, we had a visit from a dear friend (the one I made the rune pendant and poncho for)
She saw one of the Owls I made in this post here and loved it so much I offered to make one for her and her partner :-)
(My price was a photo of her holding them in her new poncho...)

Myf also has been busy making me this beautiful bracelet-she loves finger knitting!  The other two chunkier bracelet are made with a knitting nancy :-)  She's so creative!

There's a viewing tomorrow but thankfully, as we'd done a lot of tidying for our guest, there's very little to do apart from some surface decluttering :-)

Our cats have been most amusing (minimal fighting this week) and Myf has had fun with the camera again...

Rascal is the cuddle monster but Artemis has been giving him a run for his money this week!


Hope you're all having a lovely week?  What has made you smile today? :-D

Reasons to be cheerful

I'll admit that this week it's been tough to come up with the positive.  Myf hasn't been very well (I had to leave work early today to go and collect her from school which caused all kinds of problems as there was no one to cover me-managed to get it sorted but it took over 2 hours to be able to get to my daughter which was awful)  She's fine, tired and probably growing again, that tends to leave her vulnerable to bugs.

So, back to being cheerful!

The awful flooding going on has had me very worried for my family-spoke to Mum today who reassured me that she and Dad are fine (the Thames river is well reinforced where they are)  My heart goes out to everyone affected but I hope I'm not being selfish in saying that I'm so glad that my family are safe and well.
I often moan about the hill I live on but it's at times like this, with the winds howling and the rains swelling the rivers to bursting, that I'm so grateful to live up a hill!

Despite her not feeling well, Myf has been wonderful in the mornings-I've had TWO cups of tea in bed this week!

I finished off the poncho the other day-sadly, with all the bad weather, photos are pretty dreadful!  I've worked up a flower as well to attach to the neck tie (as usual, I've way overdone the length of the cord and the size of the flower!).  This is a belated Yule gift for a dear friend who is coming to visit this weekend.

The other gift I've been making has been a rune pendant for her birthday (it's her 30th).  Runes are used in divination but they are also associated with different points of the year, a little similar to a star sign-my friend is a rune reader and we have spent many evenings reading runes and tarot together :-) so I felt making a pendant with her birth rune, 'Berkano', would make a lovely gift.

I wanted to use my wood burning pen, but despite tearing the house apart looking, I've had no luck!  So instead, I've used a small chisel to carve the rune and a little woodstain to bring it out...

Crafting always makes me happy :-D

Lastly, there's this photo of Artemis that Myf took-Arti loves boxes!

Blessed Imbolc!

Today's been beautiful weather-clear skies with lots of sunshine!  Perfect Imbolc weather-the Earth is starting to wake up and Spring is so, so close :-)

I was playing with wire and managed to form a Brid's Cross:

I've only got a handful of squares left to make for the 'Sweet Dreams' blanket-I'm no good at putting them together as I go, I enjoy laying them out and changing the order around too much!
I wanted to showcase a couple of special squares here.  Myf has been collaborating with me on the sweetie squares and one of her suggestions was to make a 'gingerbread man' square.  I said I wasn't sure if I could crochet something like that-and she suggested making a ginger-coloured square and using white chain stitching to describe the gingerbread man!  Isn't that clever?  So I made it and it came out really well so I took it further and made a gingerbread house sqaure as well :-)  Here they are!

I currently have piles of squares on the TV table-I love looking at the colours-so much potential loveliness!  I can visual the general look I'm going for but how the colours go together and what it will really look like when it's completed is still a mystery.  I'm hoping to get the last few squares done this weekend and next week I'll be putting it together :-)