a lush mother's day...

Hope all you Mum's were well and truly spoilt today. It was a tough day for mine, she's just lost her Mum. We both had a laugh and a cry yesterday and both felt a little better for it.

*E* was philosophical this year and put it to me that since she'd 'aced' last year and bought me gifts that were absolutely perfect for me (they were) this year I would have to tell her what I would like!

I told her that it was cheesy but I'd really like the classic chocs and smellies (in the UK bubble bath, shower gel etc. are sometimes collectively known as 'smellies'. I'm really not sure if that applies overseas, perhaps someone could enlighten me?).

So chocs and smellies are what they carefully chose. *E* chose the 'Grass Shower Gel'. This is one of my favourite smells and Lush have managed to create a gel that you'd actually want to wash in. Clever. *J* chose the 'Sweetie Pie' gel stuff that looks like purple slime with glitter in. It smells wonderful. I can just see him dipping his hands into the sample dish and saying in a delighted voice, 'Mummy would really like this Dad' (meaning this is so cool we've got to buy it!)

The 'Tulip Bath Wand' is also very clever, you swish it under water until you have the desired level of bubbles and then leave it to one side to dry for the next bath. There's nothing I like better than a soak in the bath or special shower gel.

You can just make out the fabric it came wrapped in. *E* said, 'I made Dad buy that because I know you think wrapping paper isn't eco'. How well my daughter knows me!

yarn calling...

I was doing a spot of spring cleaning in my knitting cupboard this morning, hoping that some yarn would jump out at me and say, 'Hey there, I'm your next crochet project!' Those of you who regularly find themselves resorting their yarn stash will know exactly what I mean!

Nothing jumped out but this little lady turned up! She was tucked away in my dk box. Poor wee thing has been there for several years! She's an impkins doll. I don't know much about them except that they seem to be exclusively made for the purpose of dressing in knitted items.

*E* was small when I ordered her online (I forget where from) along with a pattern booklet. I had grand plans of knitting up each and every one of the outfits...

...and making a cute little suitcase so that she had the ultimate small scale, easy to cart about, doll with an outfit for every occasion. I slightly overlooked the fact that the needle size was likely to be quite small.

I had carpal tunnel problems before I learnt to knit, and with hindsight, if I'd understood what the problem was better I would never have picked up the needles in the first place. I've been wearing these lovely creations every night for quite some years (not sexy I know).

I went from hardly being able to knit at all to being able to knit for half an hour to an hour a day depending on the size of the needles.

Now that I can crochet and have relatively few wrist problems associated with that I still need the wrist supports through the night; as 'carpal tunnellers' will know - you lose the feeling in your arms when the wrists curl up in the night.

Anyway, I've waffled on a bit here - the small needles proved too much for the impkin doll to have a comprehensive wardrobe so she's stuck with her Dr Seuss style gillet and hillbilly dungarees. Cool or what? *E* wasn't so impressed. Maybe she'll take up where I left off one day; she can knit but it's not high on her list of enjoyable things to do. Kids eh?

colourful little corners...

I've been thinking about colour a lot lately. Some interesting comments have been left on my 'poll' post. I am replying to these by email in case anyone was wondering why I'm no longer leaving a reply in the comment thread.

*E* has always been particular about colour. From the age of about 3 or so until she was about 8 we had a very long relationship with purple. Yes PURPLE! I gladly obliged with clothing and so on. I was just happy to avoid Barbie pink. Then a few years ago she announced that her new favourite colour was lime green. LIME GREEN for goodness sake!

Unfortunately you can't see just how bright the lime green wall is in her room. These pics were taken on a dull day. It's a wall that's grown on me and thankfully, two years after rollering it on, she still loves it.

Children have that special 'unfiltered' way of producing art, and that also applies to picking out colours so I often ask *E* for advice when I'm choosing wool.  It's usually good advice and far less conservative than my own choice would be.

Though even as a child I was never this colourful! Not exactly sleep inducing this duvet cover! This is Mr Chubbs by the way.

Finally, this is who keeps dogs and little brothers out of her room. More my kind of colour splash to be honest... with a background of lovely natural linen. I hope you liked the peep into *E*s colourful room - it was about as much as I could cover without embrrassing a 14 year old any further. There are posters of the music variety, black hoodies, vans shoes (red), converse high tops (purple)... but that's a whole other post!

a fun poll...

I've been wanting to try out the fun 'poll' feature. I know I don't have a huge readership but I'm very grateful for the readers I do have. Thank you all. I've had such lovely positive comments.

I've been researching my next crochet project (see previous post) and looking at all kinds of sources for inspiration. There's so much colour inspiration out there if you like the explosion in a candy store style. There's not quite so much in naturals which makes me wonder if the world has gone colour crazy... hence the poll.

When the children were small I kept the colourful stuff in their rooms. The older *E* got the more she bemoaned the lack of bright colours elsewhere in the house. For a while I opened my mind to colour. It has been a journey... not a deep and meaningful subject you might think but something I felt I wanted to reconcile in my mind at least.

My conclusion is that I'm not and probably never will be that person who wants everything to be bright and colourful. I love looking at colourful blogs and admire the bright crochet blankets. I can cope with splashes of colour as long as the backdrop is natural or neutral.

I've also concluded that colour is a personal thing and it's probably best to stay true to yourself in that respect. I think that's where our house style is headed. *E* has a lovely bedroom which is always a joy to walk into but I wouldn't want the whole house to be that bright... I'll give you a sneak peek of her room sometime. The rest of the house is my domain - if I left it to the man of the house we'd be swamped with all things orange! Argh!

dreams and schemes and circus crowds...

I took a leaf out of my own book yesterday afternoon, and settled down with a notebook, pencil, crochet reference books, tape measure and wool. Oh and vital ingredient - tea.

I'm getting much better at allowing myself a little time in the day. This hasn't always been the case. I'm one of those people who feel guilty if I sit still in the day. Though finally, I've come to realise that this time is quite valuable if I'm to reclaim a little of the 'me' who got swallowed up being a wife and mother.

I still have dreams and schemes... but I need time away from the crowds to think them through.

My knitted snood is shelved for the moment. I can only knit for 20 minutes on smaller needles (4mm or less) before it gets too painful. Somehow crochet doesn't spark the carpal tunnel off in the same way so I can crochet for hours, thank goodness for crochet!

My granny stripe blanket is also on hold because it's just too upsetting to look at it right now. About 75% of the wool in it was given to me by my Nan so one day when I've finished it I'll have a lovely 'memory' blanket.

The sunflower blanket for *E* is being unpicked and redesigned to incorporate some plainer squares (to speed it up a bit). More on that later.

The table runnner has hit a problem. The ecru cotton a certain shop has stocked for ages, is now suddenly only available in bright white or a muddy unbleached colour. Ecru seems to have been removed from the range. I'm stuck with 15 hexagons in ecru. I made a few hexagons in white and unbleached but they don't look good mixed together so I'm thinking of turning the runner into two circular mats made using 7 hexagons each or a rectangular mat. Neither are particularly appealing. I need to think on.

So, I have a few ideas for cushion covers, a few vague ideas for blankets, some tempting easter projects in magazines (though we're not really big on Easter apart from the chocolate!). I've got a basket of cheerful cotton yarn waiting for the right project. It's just as enjoyable planning the next project as picking up the hook to begin...

...don't you think?

off the hook... the 'me' blanket

 

 

I'm cherishing these days with *J* being only eleven. The pre-teen stage; before I end up with two teenagers under one roof (help!). I've been prefixing his age with 'only' since he was very small. If *E* shouts at him I say, 'that's not necessary, he's only eleven!' She asked me the other day when I might stop using the 'only'. Good question. Later this year when he starts secondary school I suppose!

 

He's a generous soul and gladly nipped under my finished crochet blanket this morning, five minutes before he needed to be on his way to school. He observed that, 'even though it's got lots of holes, it's really warm!'

 

 

 

 

I've grown to love the half treble stitch (like a treble but you pull the yarn through 3 loops in one go). It worked well for this blanket edging, where dc would have been to dense and treble would have been too open. I think it also helped prevent wrist fatigue - I went round the blanket once in dc, then twice in blue htr, then once in white htr, then twice more in blue htr again. Heck that's 6 rounds. Goodness knows how many hundreds of stitches that was.

 

 

 

I edged the ends in zig zag; it seemed a good idea to keep it as a feature and I couldn't face trying to use different height stitches to even it up to a straight line. I haven't blocked or pressed it. I'm not planning to either, I'm happy with it the way it is. Simple, natural (well 63% wool anyway) handmade.

 

Here are some tips using what I learned along the way (advanced crocheters look away now!):

• Have a plan for what colour you might edge it in - after starting in red I decided to add some more rows to the start so that it began with blue - so that when I joined in the edging it was all in sequence and also joined neatly - this would be simple in straight rows but wasn't a good idea in granny zig zag!

• Lay it out on a flat surface often; I may have avoided ripping back 6 rows if I had done that!

• If you're not doing a random design it's best to make sure you have enough to complete the job. It's not difficult to work out how much wool is in a stripe - just weigh it before and after adding a new stripe and calculate the difference. I mention this because it seemed to 'eat' wool like there was no tomorrow.

• Finally, it's worth spending a little time planning a blanket, with a tape measure, wool and paper to hand. I jumped straight in but would have been a lot more confident if I'd planned it.

 

...and in case anyone is wondering, some woolly blanket facts and figures:

 

The 'me' blanket measures approximately 95cm x 135cm (37.5" x 53")

The blanket weighs 675g

The cost of the wool actually used works out at roughly £10-£12

I started it on Feb 29th and completed it 13th March. That's two weeks and there were days when I didn't find time to work on it.

 

 

 

Finally, the good news is that it really is going to be mine! Woohoo. I've negotiated this by promising *E* and *J* one each with wool they've chosen.

crochet puzzle in a packet...

I've been buying Mollie Makes since issue 1 and gathering the cover craft kits in a small basket with our next summer caravan holiday in mind. They are light, portable and have everything you need in one neat packet. Perfect. *E* and I will have a field day.

This month I decided to have a go at making the kit as soon as the magazine arrived in the post. I couldn't resist a crochet kit! I don't like pink and I'm not big on flowers (I may have mentioned these facts before) but I do like to tackle new things.

Boy, this one was a little puzzle in a packet. Not as simple as it looks for a beginner like me. It was a lot easier once I ditched the bendy plastic crochet hook!

After our breezy, foggy, chilly dog walk and pegging out another lot of freshly washed cricket kit I finally sat down and figured out the edging for my granny zig zag blanket. After a marathon 7 rounds of edging I'm quietly pleased with the result, even if it's not going to lie perfectly flat in places. It's for laps not beds so not an issue on this occasion. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

*J* has agreed to model it for me, well model under it shall we say. I'll have to use the first light of the day tomorrow because my trusty old iPod prefers a hefty dose of light for a good pic and we only have not-so-bright lamps here at the moment due to the main lighting circuit being out of action. This house was built, plumbed in and wired up by a man who bit off more than he could chew shall we say. There are less kind ways to describe this man, but I leave that to Mr H who often does just that while his legs dangle from the attic hatch as he tries to fix the bodged work of this anonymous man.