Seeing in 2014 with bright colours

It's nearly two weeks into the New Year already. This time of the year can be a little....dark. I mean that literally, not philosophically! It's difficult when there's not much daylight, or sunshine for that matter! At the moment here it gets light at about 7.30 am and dark again at about 4.30. Still, I like to think it's a hopeful time of the year. Every day we gain about 4 minutes of daylight, so we're creeping a little closer to spring all the time. One way to try and brighten the days is colourful flowers! Like these gerberas which I've had on my window ledge the last couple of weeks.

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This winter has been a little different for me, as I'm living on my own for the first time. It's been exciting and scary all at the same time, but overall it's been a good experience so far. I find the winter months are good months to plan and think about what you want from the year ahead. Traditionally in the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter are introspective months. They kind of have to be since the weather here doesn't make you feel like doing much outside!

So, with a new home I've been doing a lot of planning and thinking about how to make my little nest as snug and happy as possible. Of course for me that means a lot of thinking about what I want to crochet and knit for my living room and bedroom.

So that's what I've been doing since Christmas! 

One of the first things I found I needed to make (almost as soon as I got hold of a coffee table for my living room!), were some table mats and coasters. The sofa which I have in my living room is a lovely teal colour, and I'd already decided I wanted to try use that as a basis for a colour scheme in that room. Two other colours which I think work well with teal are turquoise and bright pink. As it happens I had some turquoise and teal cotton yarn in may stash so I decided to use that to make some mats. The bright pink will follow later in some other way!

I had a request for a pattern for these mats when I posted the pictures on Instagram the other week. I just made these up as I went along really, and I haven't had a chance to try and write down a pattern yet. However, I will try at some point soon. The problem is, I think a chart would be by far the best way for making a pattern for these, but I'm not sure I can write a neat enough chart by hand for anyone else to follow! I'll keep you posted anyway.

Stay warm until next time!

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Doily fun!

Inspired by some of the lovely crochet doilies and matts that I have seen on other blogs, such as By Haafner and AnaZard Atelier, I've wanted to have a go at my own crochet doily for a while now.

I finally got around to it this week. I spent Bank Holiday Monday doily making!

I wanted a soft, vintage style look, so I used some pastel colours - very pale pink, ivory, pale lilac and a sort of steel blue-green colour.

The yarns used are all mercerised cotton - I think it's ideal for this sort of project, where you want it to be hard wearing but still look pretty.

These doilies are my own design, using a stitch similar to the one I used for my blossom petal scarf at the beginning of April, but working in the round instead of course.

What do you think? Would you like to have a pattern for this? I'm a little worried about trying to write a pattern for something like this out long-hand - I'd rather do a chart, but I'm not sure how to go about that either!

Does anyone have a tool or piece of software they use to produce crochet charts for motifs in the round? Please let me know if you do!

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