Wooly Brained

I've some crochet to show today. I have absolutely bombed through the Granny Stripe blanket and have only 6 more coloured stripes to do, and then its just blocking (will have to read up on that, I think its just washing and pulling into shape?) and the border to do.

But I just couldn't resist having a start at my next project - a hexagon blanket pattern here Its great fun to start something new and a nice easy pattern too, although I must admit to being a bit apprehensive about all the joining I am going to have to do, last time I tried that it looked a holey mess!

Here are my lovely hexagons lying on top of the almost complete granny stripe, pretty!

And finally my rolled up Granny, wish I could take better photos!

Back to Routine

God I love Christmas I really do, I love socialising and seeing family and friends, I love our annual Boxing Day afternoon in the pub, seeing all our mates and going back to someones for food. I love Christmas food, all those little snacky things and dips and everything. But I am so ready for some routine today, no visiting, no snacky foods, proper routine and proper food again.
Today is the first time I have done something crafty in days and the first time I have scrapbooked in about 2 weeks, let me tell you that itch needed scratching!!! From about the 27th I started to get the urge and yesterday I was almost squirming in my chair to get my paper and scissors going!

You would think wouldn't you that after all that I would knock out a page naturally, no such luck it seems my mojo is still firmly living it up in full party mode at someone elses house!! All my new crafty things to play with and nothing doing! But I am not to be beat and so I finally made a page that I am happy with (All about the knitted going ons at our woods - see post below!) Unfortunaltey my camera does not like this page and I could not get a decent photo but here it is in all its not true to life glory.!

Loads of misting and painting going on, love the messy look to it!! I got so much new paper for crimbo and was dying to get stuck in but that wasn't working for me this time, so paints and mists it was!

If you go down to the woods today

You're sure for a big surprise!



Our local woodlands have been yarnbombed



Little piggie boots!




A snail on our big old fossil




Stars in the trees

My favourite bit of all - the Nativity Scene, very impressed that this is still all here!

There was many more that I could not take photos of as my memory card was full, but the gate leading out of the woods had a lovely knitted jacket on that had a tag with a website address http://www.socialknitworking.co.uk/winterwonderland which explains all about it.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve late afternoon walk trying to find all the items on the trail.

Merry Christmas

Poor Bruno, he's obviously dog tired after all the shopping and wrapping he has had to do recently. Father Christmas had to work around him!




Have a Happy Day everyone!

Gingerbread House

Yay its Christmas Eve - I think I love Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day, I love the magical feel to it, tracking Santa, visiting people locally, the hustle and bustle all about, hanging up stockings and leaving out treats for Santa.



I love Christmas Eve tea, party food, ham, dips and a nice port and lemon (although I have been partaking of these most of this week!)

I still get excited and can't sleep, its not about what I am getting its about the kids and their excitment and also its about seeing family and the lovely get together we always have on Christmas Day.





Yesterday Jessica and I (Joe was not interestered) made a gingerbread house from a kit, something that we've not done before. OMG that thing was tricky, like trying to make a house of cards, the blumming thing fell down so many times I was really getting my hair off with it! Eventually I managed to constuct the blummin thing and handed it over to Jess for the decorating, she spent about 30 mins on it and is very proud of her house.

I want to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my readers and followers and thank you for all the comments you leave (I love to read comments!), hope you have all got where you need to be, are in good health and enjoy this festive season.

P.S There is something strange going on in my local woodlands, but more on that next time.

Learning to Crochet

Ughhh the weather is not nice at the moment, cold and rainy. I took the dog out for a walk at 8.15am this morning and it was so dark outside, it was really eerie and wierd feeling.



I scrapped again today, using Decembers Scrapagogo kit, its not coming naturally to me at the moment, but I have to get back into it so I forced myself to sit in my cold kitchen (its not cold but it is the coldest room in the house) and just get on with it





And here we have it! Jessica has been eager to learn how to crochet and she aint half bad, its very sweet watching her concentrate. And now I am off to do some more on my blanket it is currently 30 colours or 60 rows long, its really coming along!

Va Va Voom

So the party season is upon is and in full swing, My Christmas meal is on Saturday, the pub lot are all going out for a meal and a band and although organising it has literally been hell on earth (there have been tears) I am now really looking forward to it! After all the crap I have been through with this night out, it had better be good!

I bought myself a glam top a few weeks ago but eeeek it is a little on the tight side, so today Jason took me to town so I could have a look for a dress. Dresses are hard things to buy don't you find? I need it bigger up top and smaller down bottom, however I have got my dress and its v glam and sexy and mega flattering, makes me look slim and everything so I am well pleased. Here it is on the moody model (I will try to smile) Its also golder on top IRL not silver like it is in this pic (would have prefered it to be silvery I think)



Scrapping wise I have not done much as I am still using most spare moments crocheting my granny stripe, however my lovely Scrapagogo kit arrived on Monday and so I spent a quick 90mins whipping up this, its not photographed in the best light but hey ho!

A Blankety Taaaadaaaa and a new beginning

Morning everyone - hope your weekends were fabby?

I actually finished my ripple on Friday afternoon, after a couple of weeks of fairly intensive daily crocheting. Jessica LOVES it and is very pleased with it.

Here are some stats:

I used about 7 1/2 balls of wool so around 750g

There are 42 Coloured stripes or 84 rows of crochet

Each coloured strip took between 1.5-2 hours to complete

I've been in such a rush to get this finished for 2 reasons, I really wanted Jess to have it for Christmas and whilst it was still cold weather - the rate I was going it was going to be spring before it was done!

And most importantly I was DYING to get started on a granny stripe blanket, so first thing Saturday morning I was down the wool shop (and the pound shop, which are excellant for cheap acrylic wool) for lots of different coloured wool and I have spent pretty much ALL of the weekend granny striping away using this fabby pattern Attic 24 Granny Stripe

Its a fantastic rhythmic pattern, once you are past the first couple of rows you are away and you really can happily hook whilst watching the telly and just let it flow



I do struggle with the randomness of the colours, I like co-ordinating shades or colours that repeat often so going all random is hard for me, but the bigger it gets the easier and the better it looks!

This lovely blanket crochets up so quickly its around an hour for each coloured stripe, so its really easy to say 'just one more'

The dark purple row is bothering me, but I think once I repeat it once or twice it will look like it belongs more and will hopefully 'pop' out in a good way - we will see.

We wish you a merry christmas

Isn't this christmas tree cut file the cutest? Fiddly as anything though! My Craft Robo is still after almost 2 years on its first blade and so with the intricate details on this it struggled a bit, which meant I have spent far to long this morning brandishing a craft knift to cut out bits here and there!

I'm off out tonight for a drink with Mandy, not been out midweek for ages so it will be a nice break for me. It does mean that I have to stop fart arsing about with Christmas cards and get my 2 rows of crochet done because I won't get it done tonight unless I take it to the pub with me and I think that may earn me some funny looks!

I love Noel

The word that is!



For some reason I always choose Noel as the greeting on my cards, its just so much easier than a long greeting to fit on the card.





I knocked these up today, I am definately going to stick to a more graphic style of card, its just much more 'me' and I am really pleased with these. They took a while to construct mainly because I've had a couple of arguments with electrical items this week and have ripped my thumb nails off in the process so getting the back off the foam pads was a Loooonng job!

ETA: I just showed them to Jason and he looked at them and said "Who's Noel?" and then "are these for the people you don't like" to which I replied "yeah thats why you're getting all four of them!"

I do sometimes sweat the small stuff

I so wish I was paying more attention when I answered the door to the postie this morning.

I was handed a clear plastic sack. Now both Jason and I are expecting parcels, multiple ones in my case (I do so love online crimbo shopping).

I opened the sack to find a puzzle maze ball I had bought Jessica for christmas, this puzzle ball had obviously not minded the recent freezing weather and had decided to go for a swim enroute. Both the outer delivery packaging and the inner product packaging were completley descimated, I honesly don't know how the postie had the nerve to deliver it really (I know its not his fault but it no way left the warehouse in this state!)



So I contact Play.com and am told I can return it "how?" says I, there is NO packaging to speak of, so I am asked if I can jiffy bag it - no too big, can I put it in a box - no I don't have a suitably sized one.

And so it goes on until I tell her quite plainly that I am not prepared to trek into town, buy packaging and go to the post office to return something that I bought at my convienence to be delivered to my house - this prompted her to tell me I could pop it in a post box (FFS you MORON I have already told you it is a largish item, it aint gonna fix in a post box!)

Anyway I now have a return courier arranged, see they CAN do this for you, they just don't want to untill you completely stonewall all their other 'helpful' suggestions. Then I am told that once its returned they will send me another. OH NO you will send me another one NOW thank you very much. Luckily she agreed to this (as I am a valued customer I can do this for you this once) I very nearly lost it at this stage as they are NOT doing me a favour, they are solving a problem that is THEIR responsibility, and when I get told things like that my blood boils, what should I do kiss their bloody feet?

This rant was bought to you by the letter ARGHHhhhhhhhhh, I know I haven't ranted in a while and I know some of you enjoy them ;)

A thing of beauty

We have an ipad in the house, Jason has wanted a 2nd laptopy type thing in the house for a while as I really dominate this one (it is mine!) and so yesterday he bought an ipad. We were all stupidly excited by this despite me having an iphone so we do know what it will be like.



Today Jason has left it at home and I have it in my craft space and I am watching telly on it (like I do my iphone) it really is lush!

Craft wise I have done this lo, which is missing something

And this quick card for a party Joe is going to this evening. Joe is mighty lucky to be going out this evening as he is in my bad books right now. Yesterday I had to take Jessica to the dentist and Joe said he would rather stay home so off we went. I came back to find Joe completley monged out to the xbox with the tv in the living room on and about as loud as it could be and no one about. Also in the living room was a box of chocolates which the dog had eaten because Joe had left the stair gate open and so the dog had got into the kitchen and managed to drag the chocolates out of another box. I then had to spend about half an hour in the garden in the FREEZING cold which we had only just got in from (and I was gagging for a cuppa) trying to get soda crystals (they make a dog vomit) into a dog that did not want to swallow soda crystals thank you very much, there were a lot of tears and despite me trying repeatedly to prise open the dogs jaws he did not bite me once. The dog resolutely REFUSED to vomit but has been absolutely fine since apart from being a bit wary of me now.

To say I was cross with Joe would have been an understatement I was so furious that I had to send him upstairs whilst I calmed down. His punishment was to tidy his sisters room (seeing as Jessica spent half an hour with me trying to make the dog to vomit I thought she should get something out of it) and no Xbox until the 10th of December.

Now I have to go and crochet, I am desperatly trying to finish my blanket for Jessica for christmas, I have worked out if I can do 2 rows a day it should be long enough, so I am off for a cosy little knit to try and get todays quota done!

Bohemia

Have you taken a look at The Scrapbook Magazine lately? If not its definalty worth another look, they have a new editor and a new look, and its so much better than before, clean white pages, better photography and lots of new regular features and techniques, and lots more talented designers, and a page full of really great sketches. I've really enjoyed the last two issues.

I am in the new issue out in shops now, page 24 if you're interested. They asked me to do 2 layouts on a Bohemian Style, with Sanctuary as a theme, I also had to include eyelets and use all recent materials, it was quite a challenge but here is what I came up with!