One a Day - I'm baaaaaack

Hi Everyone,

I'm baaaaaack, finally. Sorry its taken me so long to get back on the one a day wagon. I must start with a confession I didn't do one a day. I finally picked up where I left off all those weeks ago when I ran out of cream yarn on Sunday. I finished joining the final line, did a row of cream dc around all the rows and then began a row of granny stripe around that.

Guess what though????? I'm over half way around and don't think i'll have enough cream, AGAIN. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I knew in my heart when I began the row it'd be a long shot to get it finished and now I've realised it was a silly ambition. Not too worry though I can just rip it out and finish off the blanket with the green and red yarn I have left over. Red and green just happen to be the Mayo colours, which is the county i'm from so i'm very happy to be finishing in those colours.

Hopefully by next week i'll have some good progress to show. For the time being though I will spend my time pondering that age old question, Why, Oh Why did I not sew in ends as I was going along. What was I thinking? I hate sewing in ends. I promised myself i'd be good and keep on top of it but of course I let it go :(

I hope everyone's progress is going well. I'm really looking forward to catching up with everyone over on Gingerbread Girls blog.

Until next time,
Happy Crocheting, x

Beautiful Blogger Blanket 2012

Hi Everyone,

I had a lovely wake up call yesterday morning. The post man arrived with a packet from Deramores. It was the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK yarn I'd ordered so I could enter the Beautiful Blogger Blanket 2012 on Stocki's blog. I think its a brilliant idea and i'm really looking forward to seeing everyone's squares. Check out her blog for information on this project.

I'm using Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, its a 100% cotton. I used colours 13049, 13058, 13055 and 13057. I was delighted when I opened the packet. The colours were yummy, way nicer than I expected. I wish I could buy enough to make a blanket.

I made 6 squares, all granny squares because I love granny squares. The photo of the finished squares below was taken late so the light makes the pink look red. The squares look a lot nicer than the photo shows.

The closing date for finished squares to be in is 31st January. I hope lots of people enter because its a great idea and Jill has put a lot of work into organising this competition. 

Hope everyone's having a happy Tuesday.

Until next time,

Happy Crocheting, x

Happy 2012 everyone

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year to you all. I'd planned to post last week but it was a busy week with some slight injury. I fell down the stairs with Ben in my arms. Thankfully my back and arm took the force of the fall. Main thing is Ben was ok. My nerves were in bits after, as was my arm. Luckily with some ice packs it returned to its normal size by the weekend and I even managed some crochet over the weekend.

I rarely do new year resolutions. It's my birthday so I never find that starting a diet or the likes with birthday cake and treats all around works and usually by the 2nd any novelty of resolutions have worn off, so I don't make them. This year though I've felt the need for change. I insisted that all the decorations were taken down on the 6th(I have never taken our decorations down on time, one year it was march and last year it was the earliest at the end of january). Its been very mild here and yesterday Ben and I were out for a walk. The birds were singing and it was a beautiful day. I decided that my new years resolution was going to be that I'm not going to be so afraid all the time. Now don't get me wrong I don't live my life cowering in fear but I do care way too much about pleasing others and what others think of me. Crazy isn't it??? So this year I'm not going to bend over backwards to please others, especially ones that constantly let me down, and i'm going to concentrate on my son, my husband and myself and making our life a happy and relaxed one.

Now to crochet, I love it so I plan to do lots more of it. As always I have a queue of projects. I'm really looking forward to getting back to the one a day. 100% cotton yarn arrived this morning so i'm going to get working on that today and enter the beautiful blogger blanket 2012 make it together project on Stocki's blog. This year I want to enter some craft competitions at the local agricultural shows over the summer so i'm trying to plan projects that I can enter.

I also have some finished bits and pieces to show you. I gave some candles as Christmas gifts and so to personalise them I made some doily's for under them. The first was a lavender candle in a triangle shape glass so I made a triangle shaped coaster/doily for underneath using motif #62 from Edie Eckman's book Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs. I added an extra round so it was the right size for the candle. Unfortunately our cat Mr Man(AKA The Destroyer) took offence at the present and knocked it off the table when we were wrapping it and the glass broke so we had to keep it for ourselves.

This is Mr Man, the glass breaking culprit. He likes to help in everything we do as you can see in this photo of him helping me felting.

I also made two doily's for two yankee candles. I made both the same. I used the Granny Mandala tutorial from Crochet with Raymond. I used less rounds and I changed the edging to a row of dc's with a 3ch picot over the chain spaces from the previous round. 

I used Stylecraft Special DK yarn for the doily's.

I hope everyone's new year is off to a great start and I'm looking forward to catching up with all your projects.

Until next time,

Happy Crocheting, x