July!!

Hi everyone, I'm happy to be able to share a mosaic of the month with you again!

July has felt like a happy, colourful sort of month - especially the last couple of weeks and I am sooo grateful for that! I hope you have all had a lovely month too - see you in August!

My weekend

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a nice weekend.

S and I had our usual cosy weekend together, wandering around town and then settling down to watch a film on Saturday night.

I have some yarny goings on to relate! In my last post I showed you a big pile of scrap yarn and asked you if you could guess what I was going to turn it into.

Well here you are....

Yes, you might have guessed, it's a granny square somthing!

This will eventually become a cushion cover I hope. I was inspired by an old post which I saw on the Attic 24 blog last week, where Lucy had made a granny square cushion cover from her own stash of colourful scraps. You can find her post here.

As you can see my cushion has 3 round granny squares rather than the 2 round ones in the cushion cover Lucy made. That's just because I didn't think I could cope with so many teeny squares, as beautiful as they look in Lucy's pictures! I also plan to make a matching granny sqaure back for my cushion - I really do have a lot of little scraps!

 I also bought something over the weekend, which I plan to use for my granny cushion cover - this cute little jar of multi-coloured buttons!

I have had my eye on this little jar for a while. I got it in the haberdashery department at John Lewis - I just couldn't resist! There are also versions in single colour hues (blue/blue green and white) and a pastel coloured button selection! Hmm, I think I may have to go back and get the other colours too! Now, I'm sure you want to see a bit more of the colourful contents of this jar....

I think a couple of these little darlings will look perfect as a button fastening for my cushion when it is finished - if I can bring myself to use them!

As usual I also had a look at the yarn whilst in John Lewis. Although I did make a purchase (which I'll show you soon - and don't worry I did stick within my self imposed yarn budget - so far!) I came away feeling a little disappointed to be honest. One type of yarn which I loved - Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK - has been discontinued. I loved this yarn because there were so many bright, rich colours. Looking at the other yarns in the store, I just couldn't find anything at all similar. In fact, the colour palettes of most of the other dk wool-mix yarns seem quite muted at the moment. I'm going to have to search for a brand that does the kind of colours I like.

On my travels this weekend, I saw some lovely flowers in various locations:

All these flowers are the kind of colours that I want for my next crochet project, but currently can't find. I'm thinking of rich magenta, geranium and pomegranate reds, violets and lavender, golden yellow, azure blue and turquiose and kingfisher or peacock colours.

Can anyone suggest a yarn I might try?

Hope you all had a lovely crafty weekend!

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The waiting room

I'm now in the waiting room for my flat purchase. Everything that can be done has been from my point of view, I now just have to wait for contracts to be drawn up, and then a completion date to be agreed! I have no idea how long this will take.

In the meantime, as I'm obviously in a period of financial constraint (even more so than usual) I'm going to have to reduce my yarn buying budget.

I think this will be a good (although challenging) thing though! It gives me motivation to use up all these lovely colourful scraps to make something:

Sorry about the slight blurriness of this shot. These colours are less of a tangle than they look - I did go to the effort of winding them all in some way! Can you guess what I'm going to make!? Well, I'll share a sneak peek with you on Sunday!

This is the stage my hexagon throw has currently reached. It only needs 2 more rows to be added, and the finishing and it will be complete!

One last thing before I disappear for a few days - I thought it might be nice to share some of the more impressive sites of London that I pass by in my peripatetic life! 

This is St Pancras Hotel. I pass this on my walk between King's Cross and the office each day, and this week, while peering up at the sky (wondering if it will rain or stay sunny!) I was reminded how amaxing this building is, so thought I would take a snap and share with you.

The hotel was renovated when the Channel Tunnel rail link moved from Waterloo to St Pancras a few years ago. I would love to stay in it one day!

Right, I'm off to work soon, and then to stay at S's place. I'll be back on Sunday, so see you then. In the meantime have a lovely weekend!

xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx

A big decision...

Well, I have something pretty exciting to share with you! Well, its very exciting to me anyway!

I had a half day off work this afternoon, and spent the afternoon visiting the building society and then the solicitors...

...yes, this may sound familiar to those of you who are home-owners....

....I am buying my very own little flat!

I can tell you it's a scary proposition, but also soooo exciting! I've been busy looking for somewhere since the beginning of May, which has meant I haven't had the time to be here on the blog as much as I would like to - between everything else in life and trying to arrange a mortgage and find a suitable property... well, you will know what I mean!

But, at last I have been able to set the wheels in motion. Things are still at an early stage, and those of you who have done this before will no that there a lot of things that can still go wrong. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that in a few months time I'll be able to share with you the excitement of moving day!

It has been quite a lovely day here - blue skies, sunshine, still very warm but thankfully not as stultifying as it has been!

Once I'd returned from my various flat-buying related errands, I was mercifully able to flop down on the sofa for a while and relax with some crochet.

First I worked on the granny stripe.... stripe, stripe, happy stripe I worked, enjoying the bright colours.

Then, in a sudden burst of energy and project-finishing-inspiration I got out the hexagon throw and have just spent the last few hours stitching motifs in place:

There is still a little work to go on this, and then the ends to fasten in. But I hope to have this project finished well before moving day, so that this blanket can grace my new home!

I think I may have to make something else brightly coloured once I finish granny stripe and hexagon blanket. These little tea light shades which I have in my bedroom have been reminding me of all the colours I love!

Have a happy evening.

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After the storm

My goodness me, what a storm we had here across London and the South East last night! Did you all get woken up too?

I certainly did, at about 4am, by the huge claps of thunder and flashes of lightning. I've really never heard anything like it before! If I hadn't been so sleepy and droopy from the sticky humidity we have here at the moment I might have had the presence of mind to get my camera and try and capture the fork lightning.

Well, I don't know about you, but I didn't manage to get back to sleep after the storm passed over us last night, so was up bright and early for work at 6am.

This was the sky as I headed out this morning - very dark and glowery!

On my usual walk from King's Cross to the office this morning, I cut through one of London's numerous garden squares, and saw these lovely blooms, still with drops of rain from the last shower (which I did also get caught in!).

These are soooo beautiful and I just love the pinks - the paler pink at the edges of the petals in the flowers above, the darker sort of hot pink at the centre of the flower, and the gorgeous hot pink of this rose below:

Another thing I am a bit in love with at the moment is candle light. I go through phases with candles - I do love them, but tend to forget to light them, especially in summer when it's so light in the evening.

However, I had a reason to light candles on Sunday night. Over the weekend, I bought two little yoghurt pots, both packaged in little glass containers, with plasticy lids. I confess, I bought them thinking "hmmmm, I'm sure there is some use for those cute little glass jars..."

So on Sunday night, having eaten both yoghurts, I got out my craft wire, stash of buttons and scissors and made these:

Very simple and quick to make, I just threaded buttons along the wire, quite close together, until I had enough buttons to go around the circumference of the top of each jar. I then wrapped the excess wire around the jar top, winding it up and down around the buttons to hold the whole thing in place. I think I would like to try this again with brightly coloured buttons!

In knitting news: I am sooo close now to finishing off the Kim Hargreaves linen top I have been working on. But somehow, in this sticky heat, I just can't work up the enthusiasm to work the final few inches of the second sleeve! Ugh, well soon I will finish it. At the moment all I seem to want to do is sit and work on my granny stripe blanket - its easy and my heat addled brain does not have to think about it!

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Granny stripe blanket

Last time, I said that I would share with you the details of my latest project, which I'm pretty excited with. I have 2 projects (one knitting, one crochet) that are almost finished (I'll share photos of those soon I hope!), so I thought it was ok to start something new!

I have had a large stash of Stylecraft Special yarn for about 6 months now that I haven't been sure what to do with. Then, last Sunday, I was browsing on Pinterest (one of my favourite time fillers whilst waiting for the train!) and saw a picture of this granny stripe, from Sharon at Annie's Place. I'd seen this before, having been a follower of this blog for a while, but seeing it again reminded me how visually stunning this version of the granny stripe is. On taking a closer look, I discovered that Sharon had used Stylecraft Special, and that I had most of the colours (plus a few extras) that she had used in my stash!

As you could imaging I could hardly wait for time to dig out my stash and begin. I made a start on Wednesday and it's been great fun so far:

My colour scheme has basically been inspired by Sharon's although I have changed the sequence in a couple of places as I didn't have exactly the same colours.

There's something about a rainbow colour scheme that makes me feel sort of 'safe'. I think it takes me back to the 1970s, and my childhood (which was actually in the 1980s for the early part - there, see if you can work out my age!)

I should also say that this granny stripe pattern originally came from Lucy at Attic 24.

I saw something else really sweet yesterday. S and I were in a garden square in London, and spotted these little bird houses, high up in the tree trunks.

 

Aren't they magical? Like a little village for birds!

Wishing you all a happy week!

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Too hot to hook?!

Well, it nearly is! Those of you in the UK will know that we're in the middle of a heatwave, the like of which has not been seen on these shores since 2006 (according to BBC weather anyway!).

Well, I am very close to finishing my hexagon blanket - I'm at the stage where all I need to do is sew the last few motifs in place and fasten off the edges. 

As those of you who make blankets will know, this stage basically involves sitting underneath your giant woolly creation for several hours while you work on it. 

Not the most attractive proposition in 32 degree heat! So I have been forced to temporarily abandon the hexagon blanket in favour of smaller projects.

One smaller project I've been working on is a knitted cushion cover. I'm trying to design a cabled cover myself from scratch. I also plan to make some moss stitch covers. Here's the result of the swatching process:

Next time I hope I can tell you about an exciting new project.

In the meantime, stay cool, and happy hooking!

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Pottering

Since last week I have been pottering a bit. Most of my pottering happens at the weekend - I don't really have time to potter during the week!

I've been collecting....

 

..adding some new tea cups to my collection...someday I will actually use these to serve afternoon tea to someone!

Admiring the lavender....

....in the garden and enjoying the sunny weather.

Daydreaming....

 

...and wishing I had more time to get out and do things. I caught a glimpse of the most amazing fallow field with hundreds and hundreds of poppies growing in it from the train on the way to work this morning. Sadly this field is a little too far from my house to make it easy for me to go and photograph any time soon! I had to content myself with snapping a couple of poppies in the field around the corner from our house. Sadly that field has nothing like the profusion of colour I saw this morning.

Knitting....

...still working on the Kim Hargreaves jumper, in between bursts of granny squares for my pastel throw. Also having lots of ideas for other projects - sometimes it's torture - so many ideas buzzing around my head but not even time to realise even a quarter of them any time soon!

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Rules for life

Today has been a day to think about what I need to remember in order to get the best out of every day.

Maybe you will laugh at this (and I don't really mind if you do!), but I have actually started writing myself a little series of rules for this.

I thought I would share them with you - I think they are probably things that most of us struggle with at some point!

1. Eat breakfast every day (This is something I forget to do or don't have time for more often than not). 

You will thank yourself for it at 11am, and a happy stomach makes for a much happier start to the day!

2. Follow your dreams (This is something I'm usually afraid to do).

You may not succeed, but you will always wonder if you don't try.

3. Be positive

There will always be worries in life, but focusing on them won't improve the situation. Find something positive in each day and concentrate on that instead.

4. Talk about your feelings (Something I really need to learn how to do!)

When you are stressed, anxious or depressed talk to someone who knows you - and then let it go. Don't bottle things up.

5. Don't worry about things you can't control

Do what you can about the situation and then move on and forget about it. Do something practical to take your mind off it if you need to.

So bearing this in mind, I wanted to share some of the things that have made me happy today. I've stopped to take pictures of them to make myself stop and think about them!

My orchid- still surviving after 7 months, even though it was only supposed to last for 2!

My blanket stack - all the blankets I have made in the last year.

Sunshine in my knitting. This is a Kim Hargreaves pattern from her new book Spirit. I started it about a month ago and have made shamefully little progress so far, but I know I will pick it up again soon. I just love yellow - the colour is so cheerful.

My vintage style beaded handbag. I made this myself a couple of years ago, before I started blogging. I've only ever used it once, even though I love it. I really need to find more reasons to get it out and use it!

Pastel colour combinations in the project I'm working on at the moment. Soft, soothing colours that I love: lilac, steel blue, duck egg and pale, putty pink.

I'd love to know what you all find joy in - what are the little things that get you through the day?

xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx xxx xx