Happy Pink Posy A Blanket in the Making

A quick photo update of a pink posy blanket that I made, completed and dispatched this week. This blanket is available to order in my etsy store here.

Crochet Chairs

I’ve been pondering the idea of making a crochet chair recently and so thought I would do a bit of research. Here is a collection of amazing crochet chairs for inspiration.

Click here to visit Rebecca's Crochet Blog.

Click here to visit the Fibre Art Furniture site.

Click here to visit Colorful Senses blog.

Click here to visit Jump4Joy website.

Click here to visit Sewing daisies.

Vintage Granny Square Blanket

What a superb find huh? This isn’t one of my blankets but it it totally sublime and gorgeous all the same. Hope you love it as much as I do.

My Vintage Granny Blanket Featured in Let’s Knit June 2011

Learn more or subscribe here.

To get the pattern click here.

A special thank you to Sue - AKA Mrs Twins for letting me know that my work was included in this month’s issue. You can learn more about the Sue the queen of  SIBOL -Sunshine International Blankets of Love by clicking here.

Poppy or Sunflower Coasters

Skill Level: Easy
Materials: 6mm hook, tapestry needle, red & black cotton or yellow & brown cotton, dk.
Notes:

Measurements: 4”
Pattern:  Ch 5 join with a sl st.
Rnd 1: Ch 2 to count as first dc then work a further 11 dc into the loop, join with a sl st (12 sts)
Rnd 2: Change colour. Next ch 2, to count as 1st dc and work 2 dc into spaces between each dc in previous rnd. Join with sl st (24 sts)
Rnd 3: ch 2, to count as 1st dc and work 2 dc into same space, work 3 dc into every 2nd dc space. Join with sl st. (36 sts)
Break Yarn off and darn ends in.
This pattern is offered and made available for personal use only. If you wish to reproduce this in any way please contact me or make sure that reference is made to the original author’s blog http://www.goodtimesithinkso.blogspot.com/ Thank you Crochet Conversion Chart US/UK International Yarn Weight Conversion Chart
I hope you enjoy using this pattern and if you are looking for other free patterns please visit Crochet Pattern Central

Lovelies in my Garden

Today has been such a nice day I thought I’d share a few photos of things in bloom so I can look back at them in gloomy November.
The day started with a lovely surprise I won a blog giveaway today over at Doris’s blog why not hop on over and see her lovely blog Crocheting in Georgia.

Doris I hope you don’t mind I borrowed your bumble bee to shout out THANK YOU.
My Himalayan blue poppies in bloom, the colour is just spectacular.
  

A bit of an old rhododendron but again what gorgeous fuchsia pink.
It’s all very nice and manicured but the white’ish tree/shrub to the right of the huge conifer is getting straggly. It’s actually heather gone completely mad and it’s trying to take over on the crochet clootie tree so action needs to be taken.
I don’t know the correct name for these maybe Amanda from Eight By Six Gardening blog will pop along and tell me. Something in the daisy family I think. If anyone else knows please feel free to let me know. 


I thought these photo’s I took were really atmospheric and eerie. Yes some very necessary pruning taking place with a very fume ridden chainsaw. Not exactly environmentally friendly – it’s OK the wrists that needed slapping have been.

Granny Mania

Howdy everyone I thought I would do a really quick blog tonight to show off some photo’s of what I’ve been working on. I’m sure everyone in the UK has had sun today and so we are all bright and cheerful :-) I’ve been working on some granny squares that just epitomise sunshine for me.
Here are the little crochet cookies getting ready to have ends sewn in and be turned into granny squares. 
And here they are again with their sunshine cheerful border so happy :-)
Unfortunately I now suspect I don’t have enough of the yellow wool to complete as many granny squares as I wanted to. Oh well I’ll just need to keep crocheting until I run out.
Also on the theme of granny square mania here are a couple of other afghans, blanket or throws recently completed.


 

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Bags, Bolero's and Bits

Heatwaves et. al. well not in this part of the world. Here we have overcast skies and very little sunshine. I don't suppose I should complain as it means more time for finishing projects, photographing and blogging.

My first item that was completed last Friday and it is my version of a vintage bolero. I took inspiration from a vintage pattern titled 'Bolero without the Ravel'. I have modified the pattern and had to guess needle sizes etc. The bolero was knitted in 100% DK wool with 6mm needles throughout. The original pattern quoted 'Beehive' knitting needles size 0. I couldn't find a conversion chart so spent a while trying different sizes to obtain the correct tension.




I'm quite pleased with the overall shape but would like to embellish the collar area with fun knitted roses or flowers. I haven't found the desired colour of lipstick fuchsia pink yarn yet but will post a photo once completed finally.



Blocking on the ironing board - why don't we have blocking boards in the UK ?

Crochet Bag

The beginning......

The first rounds......................

The handles and flowers for finishing off ................

Still on day one and growing nicely.

Finally complete and all sewn up.

Although I used 4mm hook and DK yarn the result isn't as tight as I would like. It never ceases to amaze me how 20 different double knitting yarns can have such differing widths and finishes.

Never mind it still makes the perfect stash bag and I feel has a beauty all of it's own. I love the colour mix.

I took my lead/inspiration from Lucy's blog at Attic 24, my bag ended up so large that I had to decrease in the final few rows.

Finally the bottom of the bag which is equally as pretty as the rest.

Next up the cushion, again inspired by the Attic 24 blog. I have been meaning to do something 'wavy' for quite a while and this made perfect sense. The pattern is quick and fluid and could be applied to numerous projects - scarves, blankets, sofa throws and baby blankets etc.

We have the local village show coming up shortly and one of the competition categories is a scarf in any medium, so this will fit the bill nicely.

The cushion in progress - here it looks like a scarf. Again completed in DK yarn on a 4mm hook.

Other WIP's (works in progress)

There are too numerous to mention but the garden is always an ongoing WIP at this time of year. Everything is growing so rapidly and it seems the grass grows overnight. We are exceptionally lucky to have three distinct gardens with the same quantity of maintenance and work to complete.

And so the work begins .......... thankfully my other half started to trim this shrub. The bees just love it and hang about there until after dusk. I didn't want to disturb the bumble bees and so it became a 'him' job.

No signs of activity here but it was so sunny I thought it was a nice picture.

This is our very special wishing tree which merits a post in itself. We tie ribbons to the tree and make wishes each time we do. We also encourage all visitors to do the same. This type of tree is also known as a 'clootie' tree in Scotland and further explanation will follow.

One of many perfect hosta in the garden.

I really should have divided them all in early spring but the weather wasn't great and I was probably distracted crocheting or knitting.

More signs of progress - there is definitely a wheel barrow in this photo which indicates some work having taken place in the garden. I took this photograph late last week at about 6pm whilst bringing the laundry in.

And finally it's cake time

Our version of Sunday afternoon cake made by our master chef Aidy-P aged 11. I was meant to make the cake but was taken over and sidelined by the little persons enthusiasm. We had a fair amount of debate about if the nuts should be included in the cake. He finally conceded and I was allowed to decorate 'half' of the cake with pecans.

A sterling effort and very tasty to boot.

Coffee and Pecan cake.