Long walks and lots more photos...

We've had such lovely weather this weekend!  It finally feels properly like Spring and it's been perfect for taking long walks and photos :-)
We walked up to Pontypridd Common yesterday-it's a beautiful area complete with a Stone Circle and a War Memorial (I posted distance shots of it yesterday) and we spent a happy few hours walking and chatting and playing with the new camera...

This camera takes such a gorgeous photo-I really enjoyed playing with the black and white and I think I got some lovely shots :-)  I may have a new obsession!


In crochet news, I still haven't found a border I'd like to try on the blanket.  Well, that's not exactly true, I'd found quite a few in the new book I want to try but they all need a specific stitch count as a base and 1) this blanket is SO BIG 2) Due to the special squares, some squares have an odd stitch count which means that although they look the same length, they're not!  Which makes it really difficult to work from a border pattern :-(  Plus, I can't say any of them REALLY leapt out and grabbed me.
So, I'll try some border patterns on the next small lap blanket/baby blanket and see what I can improvise for this one.  I'm desperate to have it properly finished-the cats keep nicking it and Myf has no qualms about wrapping up in it as well!

Half Term :-)

Half term this week and Myf is spending the first half of the week with me before she goes to her Dad on Wednesday.  We took a trip to Techniquest on Saturday that was a lot of fun

We went swimming today and are going to Cardiff Castle tomorrow and then a quiet day before she goes :-(

In other news, the blanket is almost finished!  I'm working on the border now which may take a few days as I want to try one from the crochet border book.  Myf very kindly has done some blanket modelling :-) apologies for the poor photo quality, I couldn't wait till daytime for better picture quality!

I HAD to lay it out after doing the first border round (hdc clusters in dark brown)

A rare photo of me actually crocheting!  I'm going with a cream for the second round-Myf suggests going with a shade of blue for the bulk of the border (not sure yet whether I want to stick with the Autumn palette)

I used single crochet to join the squares-I like the ridged effect as well how sturdy it is.  Someday, I may use it on the right side of the squares so I get to enjoy that ridged effect as well as all the colours!


Hopefully won't be long now!

Baby Boy Criss Cross Blanket

At Christmas, I got to see some of my cousins who I haven't seen in many years.  The eldest has actually had three children since I saw him last which is disgraceful on my part (I would like to point out that the youngest was only a few weeks old)!  We spent the day before I came back to Wales with my Aunt and Uncle, my three cousins (who have grown into wonderful young men), two girlfriends of theirs and the three little boys who are so gorgeous!

My Aunt actually sequestered me in the kitchen to teach her how to crochet-she had a hook and some yarn so I managed to show her how to do a chain stitch and do rows of single crochet while we chatted.  It was great fun as everyone pottered back and forth to see how she was doing and to get in on the chatter!

The eldest cousin (Dad of 3 oh my goodness) has been learning to play backgammon as well so Dad and I had fun there ;-)

Anyway, I told my Aunt I would lend her the book that helped me get started (The Happy Hooker) and when I came home, I thought I'd make a little blanket for the baby as well.

I used the same basic square as the Baby Boy Blue Blanket (I actually made these at the same time) but went a different way with the improvising and I really like how it turned out.  I started doing one of the borders from the new book but either I wasn't following the pattern properly (which is highly likely btw) or it wasn't working for the blanket so while it is very similar to the pattern, I've simplified it a great deal.

I parcelled them up on Saturday and posted them to my Aunt-hopefully they'll have it soon!

I'm having a lot of fun with this new book-I tried out a few of the more intricate squares yesterday that I think look gorgeous!

I also finished off a couple of Granny Squares as well

I'm taking the next couple of days to make a couple of baby blankets-both for boys so I'm going to use one of the simpler motifs in the book as a base.


It's a beautiful day outside today-we've had so much rain recently that it's great to have a properly cold, clear day.  I may even take the camera outside when I go to pick Myf up from school :-)

Hopefully going blood doning today-haven't been able to go for a while so we'll see if my iron levels are up for it!


Happy Monday everyone-hope you have a lovely day.

Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)
Brown edged granny squares-34 made.  31 to go!
Special Square Motifs-9 made.  54 to go!

Total number of square made so far-43 made.  83 to go!

Cover Your Ears!

It's here!!!

It arrived yesterday afternoon and I've already started making some lovely new squares :-D  There's a lot I like about this book-it doesn't have 200 blocks in any way though (I knew this before I bought it as I'd read the reviews), the author gives a square pattern and then shows a picture of the same square in different colour combinations and adds those to the totals so it's a little misleading.  There's also a lot of squares that are made with rows of single crochet which I'm not too keen on.  Yet in general, so far I like the layout of the books and the way the patterns are presented (it's written with British terms which I'm having to mentally translate as I go because I use American terms)

So here are my first efforts:

These are relatively simple to make but look so pretty.  I've made a couple more that I'll photograph tomorrow that are a bit more complex-I think I should really upgrade my crochet level to 'intermediate' now!

I managed to get a couple more shades of green so it's been fun adding those through some of the squares.

I have also made some more of the traditional granny squares-

Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)
Brown edged granny squares-32 made.  31 to go!
Special Square Motifs-4 made.  59 to go!

Total number of squares made so far-36 (90 to go!)

Yay for the weekend!

Phew!  Thank Goddess this week is over.  I've already said about the long hours over the past few days-on Thursday I had a call from my estate agent with regard to a viewing.  At 10am this morning.  With no time for any cleaning!
As it was, my pre-Christmas clean up paid off as I only had to do a bit of tidying.  Still, I didn't get home from work until about 5.30pm last night.  Myf needed dinner and winding down before bedtime then I got on with the bedrooms and the dining room.  A quick shuffle around in the living room and bathroom and it was done-still didn't get to bed until about 1.30am.  Up again at 7.30am to get a couple of last minute bits done and had Myf up by about 9am (she needed a lie in, poor thing, she's had a very long week too!).  The viewing started on time and the client seemed really nice but as soon as he saw the house had a flat roof outside, he was done!  He didn't even look upstairs!  To be fair, I appreciate someone who knows what he wants and isn't wasting anyone's time but it was a lot of effort for only five minutes....

Anyhow, I'm eagerly awaiting my new crochet book at some point today (the post doesn't often get here before 1pm) and I've finished a few more squares :-)

I'm already starting to get an idea of how the blanket is going to look when it comes together.  I'm hoping the wool shop I've been trying to get to for the last week is going to be open today as I really must get a bit more green for the balance of it.  There are some squares I really love already!  I think this blanket is going to be so beautiful :-D


Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)

Brown edged granny squares-28 made.  35 to go!
Special Square Motifs-63 to go!

So so tired....

I was at work all day yesterday(8am-6pm) and I've got the same again today.  So tired-I usually don't start until 10am on a Wednesday, which would have let me ease back into work after the two week break but Neil (the other staff member who can do the shop opening and close) called me as his daughter is unwell and his wife couldn't take another day off because she had staff meetings to attend.  So no easy start back for me!  Up at 5.30am...

The other downside to working all day (asides from a lack of crochet time) is that I don't get any natural light to take a photo in!  I have some more squares finished but no decent light so I've taken a couple with the flash and they're not great but they'll do...

I like going to work by bus as I can get a square done on the journey plus I can get a couple done on my lunch break (helps keeps me from craving junk food).  I had a note through the post that my books have arrived but of course didn't fit through my letterbox so I'm going to rearrange and hopefully have them by the weekend :-)

Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)

Brown edged granny squares-16 made.  47 to go!
Special Square Motifs                            63 to go!

Day 2...and a new book!

One of my new books arrived!  It's the crochet borders one and I admit to being a little sad that it wasn't the squares book as I really want to make a start on some new square motifs (and because of work, I won't be home for the mail until the weekend so I'll miss the delivery and have to reschedule) but this book does look gorgeous!

It's laid out with 150 new edgings for me to try out and I'm so looking forward to trying it out :-D

So a few more squares to show today.  I tend to start a big project with 'colour studies', squares that are predominantly one colour done in lots of shades.  As I go on, I do more colour combinations.

Total number of squares to make-126 (63/63)

Brown edged granny squares-8 made.  55 to go!
Special Square Motifs                            63 to go!

Birthday presents for Mum

I was racking my brain trying to come up with an idea for Mum's birthday present and I turned to the copy of 'Cute and Easy Crochet' on my shelf.  It had a very simple pattern for a circular cushion cover and, as I happened to have a small circular cushion laying around, I decided to give it a go!  The pattern was basically a stripy circle, very easy to do and when I'd got it to the size I wanted, I thought it would be nice to add some embellishment to the front.  So I turned to my very much loved 'Crochet Bouquet' book for some compound leaves and simple flowers.  The leaves were perfect but halfway through making the flowers, I decided the shape was wrong so I improvised a more circular look.  Stitched everything on and crocheted the cushion pad in (it's non removable once it's done) and then thought hmmm...hope Mum's mind doesn't go to the same place that mine does!

They do NOT look like booby flowers, ok!?!

On the reverse...

Hope she likes it!

Myf has been working incredibly hard this weekend on presents for her 'Moogie' as well.  She has a few crafty books all her own and she wanted to knit her a little purse.  Unfortunately, the instructions were a little confusing and I can't knit at all (Myf used to know how but it's been a few years) so instead I crocheted a small strip for her and she stitched it together, added a button and then went to her new jewellery making book that an auntie gave her for her birthday.  She chose to make a bracelet with wire wrapped beads-aside from cutting the wire for her and making the fastening, she made the rest entirely herself.  She then made a silver one for me and a little one for herself that I'm going to take photos of to put up tomorrow as they're wonderful!

Back to another book to look at some card making techniques and she chose one involving stitching with wool-

And we're done!  Still got to finish up another project that despite its small size is taking forever!  My poor sister must be bursting with the suspense...:-( Sorry darling, I promise it'll be finished soon!

Crochet food...

Myf loves to play restaurants and kitchens, even as a big girl of 9!  She asked me to make her some fake food for her kitchen so I gave it a try...

The pictures are a bit rubbish (I need to work on my angles!) but I made a burger, pizza, some cookies (including a little 'Oreo' one that you can take the top of off like in the advert...), fried egg and bacon, a very wonky cake and some bread/toast.  Myf is very sweet and likes them a lot but I am a very lucky girl and my lovely sister Thea got me this book-

for my birthday!  It got opened a little early-but now my birthday has passed, I'm looking forward to trying out some of the patterns!  Especially the sushi...