Communication breakdown

Annoyingly my internet connection is temporarily out of action while our service provider "upgrades" our broadband.  Not sure why upgrade should necessitate broadband outage for nearly a week! Seems counterintuitive to me - surely upgrade should result in improved service rather than no service! 

Well anyway,  the lack of connection is the reason for my lack of blogging this week.  I'm posting this from my phone so please excuse typos! 

I had a nice time visiting London's Loop yesterday and bought some skeins of Madeleine Tosh sock yarn.

I'm working on turning some of this into a lovely scarf ready for autumn

Well that's all for now, I'll be back when my internet connection permits!

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Lonely tree shawl

Hello everyone! I'm back from a lovely week of holiday with S. We were lucky with the weather and had some lovely days out. What more could you ask for from a holiday in England in the summer!

Well, I'm not going to share my holiday snaps just yet. Instead I wanted to tell you about the fun I have had making the lovely Lonely Tree Shawl, a pattern for a triangular shawl by SoftSweater, aka Silvia Bo Bilvia. The pattern is available from SoftSweater's Ravely store for those of you who are interested.

This was my first triangular shawl, well my first attempt to knit any kind of shawl actually!

I really enjoyed the process of knitting this - in fact I think it has me hooked on shawl knitting! I've discovered that there are many gorgeous knitted shawl patterns available online, so I already have my next pattern lined up - all I need is the yarn (and oh, it's such a hardship for me to go and buy yarn!!).

The shawl came out a little smaller than intended in the pattern I think - the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, and I used a sport weight (Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk). I worked a few extra rows, and I'm pretty happy with the size my shawl finished up at. It's not massive, but it still goes comfortably round my neck and will make a sweet summer accesory to keep the chill off!

If you like the look of this lovely pattern, you might be interested to check out some other shawl patterns - I've been trawling the web all week looking for the prettiest that I can find. I've collected them on Pinterest - stop by and have a look if you have time, there are some lovely patterns out there!

Next time I'll try and post a catch up on my various crochet projects...also maybe a post with some holiday snaps soon!

Take care until then.

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Yellow roses

Hello world and fellow bloggers and crafters, I am back. It has been another busy couple of weeks, resulting in my not having the time or energy to post (some evenings, I haven't even had energy to craft).

Well, I'm heading off for a week's holiday next week, so this is a quick catch up post before I go. I don't have a great deal to report on the craft front - just that I have been enjoying making the Rowan T shirt pattern 'Kos' from this month's Simply Crochet.

It's a long time since I have attempted to crochet a garment, but this time I think I have got the hang of it!

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In general in life, I am realising lately that you can not control every situation you are in - sometimes things will happen and you just have to figure out what to do as you go along. You can never plan for every eventuality, and you should never hold back from trying to realise your dreams just because you are afraid that things won't work out.

To anyone reading this, wherever you are, whatever you're doing I hope you have the courage to chase you dreams, and find happiness!

So hears to making dreams come true and going for what you want in life!

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Lazy Sunday

I think I may have developed a split personality when it comes to crochet. I love making things in bright colours and using lots of different colours together, but I also love a more restrained colour palette and choice and the more vintage vibe that you seem to get when working with one colour, but in a more complex stitch.

 I spent my crochet time yesterday working on the Erika Knight hexagon blanket I'm making, and spent today playing working on another pastel toned blanket!

I started working on this blanket at the start of May, but have only worked on it sporadically since then, so progress has been slow.

Do you remember my Cathedral Blanket? Well this project is going to be a pastel version of that, with pale cream seaming instead of black.

I'm using far fewer colours (about 8 different shades) and I think I will arrange the colours at random rather than having them in order like I did for the Cathedral Blanket.

Whilst working on this I've also been daydreaming about making more pastel coloured cushion covers with mother of pearl button fastenings - hence my not being able to resist getting out my button collection and playing in these pictures!

I was also tempted this afternoon to try out a starburst stitch. I haven't tried this kind of stitch for a while because the last time I tried, a few years ago, I couldn't seem to get the hang of it.

This piece is at a very early stage - its quite time consuming to do, but I love the result - it looks beautiful in the ivory yarn, and has such as lovely vintage feel to it. I think its the sort of thing a Victorian or Edwardian lady would use! I'm not sure quite what this piece will be yet, but it's only quite a small sample, so it will probably end up being a jewellery case or similar. 

Happy Sunday everyone!

xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx