Grrrrr.....

So, I'm crocheting away, enjoying making my rectangular/square table cloth/doily...

It's coming along nicely....

I'm enjoying recreating the pattern.

Half way through and it's obvious the 100g ball of cotton 4 ply will not be enough to complete the project.  %@£$@&!!!!

So I've ripped it out and started again on a smaller scale - they say patience is a virtue and I'm feeling very, very, virtuous at the moment!

Over To You

I love seeing projects that other people make from my patterns.  Ravelry is great for this but it's also lovely to receive emails direct.

Here are pictures from two projects of which I have recently received details.

The first is "Violet"  made by Carol using my Buttercup Bear pattern.

I love the expressive face and the colour of the bear is delightful.

The second project is by Jill, this lovely hedgehog is called "Norman" and is made from my Heidi Hedgehog pattern.

Norman has the distinction of being part of a record breaking event.  Here is what Jill wrote to me;

"The girls of the The Craft Club Yarnbombers organised their Guinness World Record attempt for most crochet sculptures in one display, in aid of Little Havens Hospice in Essex. The theme was Enid Blyton's book The Magic Faraway Tree stories, so lots of woodland creatures were needed. They deserve a medal for all their hard work and enthusiasm. The world record was 4,061 items. They smashed it with 13,388 items sent in by crafters, including many from Japan and USA. Here's a picture from their Facebook page of Norman leading the other hedgehogs through the woods. "

What a fabulous achievement.  You can learn more over on The Craft Club Yarnbombers Facebook page.

Thank you to Carol and Jill for sharing their lovely projects with me.

Sunburst Granny Square Cushion - Finished

In all the excitement of starting new projects, I omitted to mention the cushion cover I had been working on.

Feeling guilty at having overlooked the poor dear, I had a spurt of energy and finished it.

I used the squares to cover a boring floor cushion.  Here it is before -

And here it is after -

What a big improvement.

The pattern is by Priscilla Hewitt and is called Sunburst Granny Square.  It's available for free, here.

All I need to do now is make another cover for the other floor cushion!

So This is What I'm Doing Next...

Following on from Monday's post "What Shall I Do Next?", I finished with the question about whether or not I could in fact do all the new projects I wanted to do.  I decided that the answer is yes, well nearly all of them.  Why should I restrict myself?

So starting with something quick and simple, I made a crochet coaster for the spare bedroom.

I used my Eveline's Motif pattern and some pinks and greens in DK weight yarn.

That's one ticked off the list.

I was itching to start re-crocheting the rectangular tray cloth but wanted to make some adaptations.  So I'm making it wider and shorter to 'square' it up and I'm using 4 ply cotton in pink.

It's going to be quite big and should make an interesting table centre.

I reduced the list of shawls down and finally settled on the Maluka pattern.

Maluka

I've made a few triangular shawls before so I thought I'd try one with a different construction.  This one knits up the edging then picks up the stitches along one side for the body of the shawl which is then worked in short rows.

The pattern calls for 4 ply yarn but I'm using a DK weight yarn as I want something bigger and bulkier to snuggle up in.

The edging has a really interesting design and I'm using 5 mm needles so it's growing quickly and the yarn is giving lovely stitch definition.

As the weather seems to have turned a little bit warmer today, the next project probably isn't priority, but I couldn't resist starting to knit a new hat.  I eventually settled on Kate Davies's Tantallon pattern as I already had that in my library.

Tantallon by Kate Davies

Some of the photos of the hats made by other knitters on Ravelry made me think about colours.  I wanted the Fair Isle pattern to show up more, so I'm just using pink shades, with one grey shade.  I want the foreground pattern to stand out.

Obviously still a long way to go with this one, but no rush.

I might take the plunge and buy some wool to knit the skirt this week - just have to decide on colour.

So that's me set up for some busy evenings knitting and crocheting, a few late nights might help.

The Wedding & Oxford

What a lovely weekend we had.  Saturday was spent at the wedding.  We had an early start from Liverpool to arrive in Berkshire for the 12.30 kick off.

You can almost see my new dress and cardigan behind the bride's bouquet.

I love the "something blue" button attached to the  bouquet.

The wedding cake consisted of lots of cup cakes, beautifully made with delicate sugar flowers.

And there was a very lovely touch in that every guest had a personal message left for them at the table.

On the Sunday morning my husband and I travelled to Oxford for a few days stay, to break up the journey home and make the most of the Bank Holiday.  It's one of our favourite places to visit, although we haven't been for a few years.

We walked into town along the river.  

This could be the home of one of Jane Austen's characters

We always like to visit a college or two when we're in town.  I must say that Worcester College has the prettiest gardens of all the colleges we've visited over the years.  It was so picturesque I took loads of photos there.

Rediscovering some of the quieter back-streets was lovely.

What a perfect weekend - we always say, we must do this more often - but I really think we should.

Free Style Machine Embroidery

Thank you all for your wonderful comments recently.  I'm particularly grateful for the tips on how to cope with the hot flushes.

We've just had a wonderful long weekend down in Berkshire and then in Oxford.  The wedding went superbly and I'll share some photos with you from our trip shortly.

In the meantime, this looks like fun.  Free & Easy Stitch Style by Poppy Treffery.

I've had this book from the library for a while now and I really need to have a go at this.

It looks fairly straightforward and everything is explained very clearly.

I'll have to see if my sewing machine is up to it.