Lovely little trinkets

You may remember from my last post that I mentioned I've been experiencing a certain level of muddle-headedness as far as my WIPs are concerned.  Frankly, I've got enough other gumpf in my life to make me muddle-headed, without WIPs getting in on the act too; so I've decided to be calm and logical and try to tackle them one at a time.  (I'm trying to imagine how I would have approached it in the days when I had a proper job and wore a suit, but my memory's shot and I've given all my suits to charity, so it's not working very well.)
Today saw me sitting outside in the sun, surrounded by piles of flags and bits of bias binding and pins - attempting to finish off my latest and absolutely final batch of tent bunting.  I feel I may now be approaching the point where people are likely to walk past my tent and mutter to themselves 'hmmm, she's overdone it a bit on the old bunting-front there.  Over-egged the pudding, as it were'.  And if there's one thing I certainly don't want, it's an over-egged pudding tent.  Anyhooo, I made my first lot in a very efficient and logical fashion from some rather delectable winceyette (just had to check the spelling of that on Google.  It's a funny old word - makes me shudder a bit.  It seems totally inappropriate for the thing that it's describing.  A bit like sleet.  I always think that's just completely wrong):

And then, with about 500 flags still to go, I ran out of bias binding.  So that was a bit of a pain.

So I moved on to something else: a really simple skirt for baby n, which I'd seen in 'Handmade Living'.  But like a true numpty, I cut the fabric to exactly the width of her waist, as opposed to twice the width of her waist, and that was just annoying; so I left that and moved on to something else...
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Calm?  Logical?  I think not.
So now I'm moving on to something that doesn't get me quite as het-up as my current crafty makes: the rather exciting things that have been arriving through my letter box this week.  Actually, the first rather thrilling blog-related thing that arrived at my house came a couple of weeks ago.  Now, before I go any further with this, I just want to set the scene: I had left the house in the usual flap that accompanies every morning's school run - I walked (ran) up the road to school with the children; meandered back towards home with a couple of friends; decided to pop into the village before going back home, to get some bread (had to borrow a couple of quid from a friend to purchase said bread - which reminds me, I still haven't paid her back.  Ooops); had a chat with a couple of people I bumped into; strolled home again an hour after I'd left, to find the front door standing wide open and an envelope on the front door mat.  After checking that my handbag, which I'd left in full view of the front door, was still there (it was - phew) I realised that I hadn't been burgled, I'd just been a complete goon and forgotten to shut the door in my rush to get to school.  Note to self...  Anyway, the point of all that is that the envelope was from the lovely Cuckoo, and contained the recipe for the elderflower cup cakes that I blogged about before.  So - thank you, Cuckoo - they were yum!
And on Tuesday I had a double-whammy of post-related excitement: this rather cutesome outfit that my auntie kindly bought for baby n:

Thank you, mushroom one!

And this lovely cube for big n's teacher, which I ordered from the very talented Fee.

I'm secretly a bit disappointed I can't keep it for myself because it's absolutely lovely, but sadly my name's not Miss Dorsett and I'm not a teacher, so it just wouldn't look right:

It was extra great of Fee to send this to me as I haven't actually paid her for it yet - thanks Fee, don't forget to let me know how much I owe you!

Blimey, this post's turning into a bit of a tome (by my standards, anyway).  I'm going to finish today with a snippet of my life: yesterday, while trying to make the dinner amongst the usual background of tv noise (boys), computer games (boys), the radio (me), shouting (everyone) I became aware of baby n standing near me saying 'uh oh, uh oh'.  This is a fairly recent piece of language for her, and it's one that never fails to make my heart sink when I hear it.  I turned from my position by the cooker, noting the strong smell of cinnamon in the air, to see bun-bun (baby n's absolute favourite toy in the whole wide world) lying on the floor looking like a victim of some awful, frenzied knife-related crime:

Note to self: must get a catch on the spice drawer... x

Fruits of my labour

Life in the nut house (pppfff.  Can't believe that's the first time I've written that) has been pretty frenzied lately.  Big N had a great birthday - cake, Pizza Express, Kung Fu Panda II, over-excited friends, Lego - what more could an eight-year-old boy want in life?  My mum paid a visit for a couple of days; our time-share dog paid a visit for a couple of days (at the same time as my mum, conveniently); we had lunch dates with friends, nights out with other friends, birthday parties...  Madness.  In amongst all the social-butterfly-ery, there have been the usual not-so-thrilling domestic duties chomping at my heels and I am proud to confirm that I have, indeed, finally cleaned the bathroom.  Great.  That'll keep us going for the next six months, then.  I've also managed to spend a bit of time in the garden - middle N and I were surprised and thrilled in equal measure to find these two beauteous strawbs on the plants by our front door.  I say surprised, because despite daily checks on the ripeness of said strawberries, the bloomin birds always seem to be one step ahead of us when it comes to eating them at just the right moment.  We were at home on our own when we discovered them, so we ate them quickly before the others got back.  (Ignorance is bliss, and all that...)
And as for the blackcurrants:

After four years, I finally got a large enough crop to make a crumble.  

I'm aiming for two next year...

And my lovely sweetpeas are starting to flower - hurrah.

I've got about a squillion WIPs on the go at the moment - so many, in fact, that my head's getting in a bit of a muddle thinking about what I'm going to finish first.  Which reminds me - I have a pressing need for Mollie Makes' lavender-filled strawberries as I seem to have a bit of an issue with moths eating holes in my clothes. Anyone have any ideas how to get rid of the blighters?  I always thought they lived in old people's houses and ate fur coats, but it seems they live in middle-aged people's houses and eat John Lewis cardigans too.  Must dash - I need to Google 'how to rid your home of clothes-eating moths' x

Inspiration

Is it me?  Does this look not unlike a crochet blanket?  Or have I just allowed crochet to take over my life to a worrying degree?

This picture comes from my new favourite book: 100 Things by Masayuki Sebe

The illustrations are brilliant; I love the colours and the stylised design:

Kitchen sofa blanket, here we come! x

African flower appreciation station

Just look what's appeared today.  

I love my flowers on my front door step; it's the only place outside my house that's safe from the ravages of small boys and footballs/sticks/swords/any other weapon that's to hand and so has become a little island of colour in a sea of boy-related crud.  One day I will reclaim the outside space as a proper garden, but until then I'll continue to take small pleasures from my pots of loveliness.

So it's been a fairly quiet old weekend really - work on Saturday, Wimbledon today (ah, poor Rafa - he's still my number one...), a bit of a clean-up in the bathroom - generally rock n roll all round.  Actually, it sounds a bit humdrum, but I love weekends like this - we seem to spend so much time legging it around all over the place that it's nice to be at home with nothing much going on.  We've got a busy few weekends coming up, especially with big N's birthday party on Saturday (I cannot believe my baby will be eight.  That makes me feel so old...)  Oddly we really struggled to think what to get him this year, we usually have a run down of the Lego catalogue, with items listed in order of preference (usually corresponds fairly closely to size of box) but not so this year.  After a bit of head-scratching from Mr N and me, we decided to sponsor an Amur leopard (no, I'd never heard of them either) because he regularly tells us we need to sponsor a tiger/dolphin/orang-utan - he loves his animals and even though he's a big boy in so many ways, I know he'll also love the cuddly leopard that comes with the sponsorship pack.  We also got him a guitar as he's just started having lessons at school - he came back after the first lesson and told us that he'd learned how to play a Led Zeppelin track; and to think it took Jimmy Page years to master...

I'm going to end today with a glimpse of my latest WIP.  I'm using the Rowan fine milk cotton that I bought recently in the John Lewis sale; and I have discovered.....African flowers:

How could I have lived for so long without these in my life?

And even as I'm beavering away making these as fast as my fingers can work, I'm still not entirely sure what to make with them.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.............. x

Crochet update - June

Mmmmmmmm.......elderflower cakes with whipped mascarpone icing...........delicious and really, really slimming.  (Okay, so one of those facts isn't strictly true...)

So apart from stuffing my face with fat-busting cakes, I've also been quite active on the crochet-front over the past month:

Oh, gosh, that looks like a finished springtime throw...
Then in a frenzy of activity since finishing my throw, I've made these:

Not 'leprosy chic', as Mr N rather unkindly called them (something to do with Ben Hur, apparently.  Don't know what he's talking about, I just ignored him, with a rather superior air to my being), but actually wrist warmers, craftily made from scraps of yarn from my stash:

Just need to wait about four months til I can actually wear them.

And, keeping up with the Bunting Appreciation Society theme, I've made this:

I used up the left over yarn from my little flower squares cushion for this; the pattern for the larger heart I found on Ravelry, and the smaller heart comes from the lovely Julia's blog.

While I was taking this photo, my crochet assistant was on hand as usual, making sure all was okay with my toe nails:

I've been teaching her how to open nail varnish bottles so that next time she can make herself really useful. x
Oooh, and how could I have forgotten my hellebores?

Finally...springtime throw ta-dah!

Finally: five months, 1200g of yarn and 300 squares later...the springtime throw is complete!  Hooray!!!

And I am so pleased!  I feel such a huge sense of achievement at having completed this and I almost can't believe I actually saw it through all the way to the end.  For my entire crocheting life, this project has been lurking in the background, sometimes ignored, but always there waiting for when I was at a bit of a loose end, crochet-wise.  I love the idea of having something big like this to pootle away at when I feel like it, when there's no instant gratification project on the go; and I've already decided what my next blanket is going to be like (well, almost, I just need to find The Square to work it in.  I'm not sure what The Square will look like, but I'll know it when I see it.  I had thought I'd make it with the square in this month's Mollie Makes, but I think it might be a bit of a yarn-eater.  Hmmmm...maybe circles within a square?  I'd love to know if anyone has any suggestions.)  Edit: I completely forgot to say before I published this post: if you are thinking about making this blanket, I would recommend two things: 1) when laying the squares out before you join them together, make sure you look at how the edge colours and the middle colours are lain out, to ensure you don't end up with two squares with the same colours in next to each other (not that I forgot to check the middle colours, or anything...)  2) If you want to add a granny stripe edging like I did, I really recommend reading Jacquie's tutorial for how to make a flat border for granny square blankets.  I didn't see this before I started my edge and I have to say, it is a bit wavy.  You live and learn, eh?...

Middle has already claimed it as his own:

This blanket lives in the sitting room, and every time I come into the room, I find it lying on the beanbag, which is Middle's 'spot'.  Today I came in to find it lain over ALL the cushions from both sofas, which were spread ALL over the floor (something to do with pirates, apparently).

And it did a really good job on Saturday at Fantastic Mr Fox.  Check me out with the healthy-looking picnic:

I say 'healthy-looking', because what we were all really after was this:

Carrot sticks?  Pah! x

In the pipeline

The edge of the edge...

I have to sew the ends of the edge in and then....I have finished!!!!  And how serendipitous - we're going to see Fantastic Mr Fox at an outdoor theatre tomorrow - I will wear my blanket with pride and will be scanning the people around me to make sure they're fully appreciating it too.  (If you're a burglar reading this, we don't feed the Rottweiler on the nights we go out...)
So now I've just about finished this baby, my mind's racing on to what to do next.  I've given up on my Fimo-related project - I couldn't for the life of me get the second 'bump' on the 3D hearts the same size as the first one and it just became too annoying for me to cope with.  (Life's too short to stress about heart bumps, you know.)  So I'm planning to make a short length of heart bunting from my left over cushion yarn, using a lovely pattern I found on Ravelry.  I'm hoping this will be a really nice quick thing to make for a bit of instant gratification after the mammoth beastie that is my springtime throw.
I've also been sucked in by the John Lewis sale and have two new sets of yarn for nothing in particular:

I'm thinking that I might make a cushion for our bedroom with this - it's Rowan milk cotton and I've got a sneaking suspicion it might be a bit of a splitter, but it feels amazing.  Baby N (aka my crochet assistant) is just thinking that she'd quite like to give it a bit of a chew:

She may only be fifteen months old, but she has the speed of a ninja when she's pinching things she shouldn't be.
And sticking with the Rowan theme:

I love, love, love this yarn, which I used to make my hexy placemat thing that I gave to Bookworm; so when I saw this at half price I was powerless to resist.  I've got two balls of the bluey colour and one of the purpley colour.  I think I'm going to make myself a pair of wristwarmers with this as it's just so beautiful and soft (I know...wristwarmers...June...)  Blimey, the ninja strikes again:

Life's been a bit crazy lately and I've now added 'neglecting my blogging life' to my list of things to feel guilty about - so: I'm sorry if I've been a bit lax with the visits and comments lately, and 'hello' and 'thank you' to my lovely new followers.
Thank you and good night x