Happy pastel stripes

Hello everyone, I've been away for a while, and it's been nagging at my conscience.

So, here I am, back with a quick post.

To be honest, I haven't managed to actually finish many craft projects. I don't know what I've been doing really. I think it just took me a while to get over my post-holiday blues!

One thing which I have finished, and which I LOVE is this stripey cushion. The cushion is for my bedroom, and was inspired by the colours of the Amy Butler fabric shown in the picture.

I love this colour combination of duck egg, pink, fuschia, red and burgundy, and I've decided to try and make this a theme in my bedroom.

 I choose a random stripey pattern because I loved the stripey cushion that I made earlier. This cushion has the same double crochet design at that.

Hope you're all ok. I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break until September. I have more crafting, flat painting, work and studying to do, and I just need a bit of time out from blogging for a couple of weeks.

See you all in Autumn!

Post holiday blues...

Oh dear. I seem to be suffering from attack of the post holiday blues! Do you ever suffer from this? I've actually set one of the pictures of the beach that I took last week as the screen saver on my mobile. I think that's probably just making it worse though - being reminded every time I look at my phone that I wish I was back there!

I don't even feel much like crafting at the moment...so it must be bad. I tried yesterday to console myself with a little crochet, but I couldn't get into it.

My other escape activity is usually reading. This seems to be working better than crochet at the moment.

 What do you do to shake off the blues? I'm wondering what the remedy could be for me. Start planning the next holiday perhaps? This was my suggestion to S today - I know he's suffering with post holiday blues too.

Real life never matches up to a holiday though, does it? After all, if real life were like a holiday, then holidays wouldn't be holidays, and that magic would be lost.

Listen to me, complaining because my holiday is over. I always try to count my blessings when I'm feeling down, so I keep reminding myself that I'm lucky to have the life I've come back to, and I was lucky to be able to take a holiday at all. Not everyone can, and to some it must be an unimaginable luxury.

Still....the silvery light on the beach echoes in my memory, calling to me...I'm sure it must be in my dreams. It seems like a dream now, to be standing on the sand listening to the waves beating and feeling so peaceful.

 
The sea seems to have that effect on me...it makes me pause in the moment. Suddenly the whole world seems to shrink and retract or fall away. Maybe time stops or perhaps the minute just stretches out...whatever the reason it somehow seems to make everything else unimportant. There's no stress or worry, just calm and serenity.

 Oh well...for now I will have to be content with my souvenirs, photos and memories...

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Cornwall

Hello everyone! I haven't been around much the last couple of weeks because I have been on holiday! S and I have just come back from a lovely few days in Cornwall. No time (or energy) for a big catch up today, but I thought I would share a couple of holiday snaps with you.

These gorgeous flowers were everywhere - does anyone know what they are? I know nothing about plants or gardening!

It was lovely to be by the side - even with grey skies, I find the sea beautiful. The grey just looks like silver to me!

We did also get some fantastic weather and amazing views though!

More soon!

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Projects

I have too many projects on the go again. I think I've gotten a little carried away with my stash busting project!

Two of them are knitting. The one above is something I am attempting to make using some of the yarn I won in the Mrs Moon prize draw in December. It's Louisa Harding Mila yarn, and as soon as I opened the parcel and saw it, I though "summer sweater". However, I haven't been able to find a pattern anything like what I had in mind. So, I've decided to take the plunge and try making something for myself from scratch! It will only be something simple, with no waist shaping and dolman style sleeves. I really hope it works out!

The other project is a shawl, which is from a pattern found on Ravelry. It's stripey, and I'm knitting it with some luxury yarn bought from Loop last month! I do love to knit something stripey.

I've been doing a lot of de-cluttering and organising of my storage space (which has made me face up to the amount of yarn I have - eep). I've also been inspired to put more of my crochet work on display around the flat, including my hexagon throw, which is now back on my sofa after having been in a cupboard for a few months. I love seeing the neat shapes tesselating together!

Right, must get back to knitting now. S and I have booked a lovely holiday to Cornwall coming up in less then 2 weeks now, and I am hoping to have my sweater finished by then, so I can fulfil the vision I had of myself strolling down the beach wearing it!

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Random moments

I was in two minds about what to call this post - it was either going to be "a bit of a whinge" or "random moments" depending on how I ended up seeing the thing that it's about!

I don't know if I have ever mentioned it before, but I commute to and from work every day by train. I live in Hertfordshire and I work in central London, so I have a 90 minute journey to and from work - a total of 3 hours commuting a day.

Anyone else who does a similar journey will know, there is something totally de-humanising about train travel during rush hour. The tube is the worst -your crammed into a little metal tube like sardines, often with your face smooshed up against the back of a stranger! It's very weird. The only way I can cope with it is to basically pretend it's not happening, and withdraw into myself and day dream. A book, music on my mp3 player and looking at Pinterest on my phone all help me with this!

So, in a way, it was actually quite nice when, yesterday morning, I had a little moment that reminded me that my fellow passengers are real people too! It didn't start off nicely though. Before I go any further I must explain - one of the coping strategies that commuters employ is having their 'patch' on the platform. You always stand in the same place because you know exactly where the train carriage doors will be when the train pulls up, and you know which carriage has your best chance of getting a seat. Honestly, it's not just me that does this - everyone does! I'm always stood next to the same people on the platform each morning.

So, one of these people is rather rude. I really hate rudeness in people - it's one of my pet hates. This guy, always arrives about 2 minutes before the train pulls in, and just walks to the front of the platform to stand in front of all the people that have been there for 5 minutes already waiting patiently. He does this and then makes sure that he gets on the train first. It really bugs me, but being wary of the possibility of an outbreak of commuter-rage, I never say anything to him. Yesterday morning, he did exactly the same as he always did and pushed on in front of my self and another lady who were waiting. I must have slightly shaken my head at him in frustration because the other lady turned to me and said "he never learns does he!".

I know it sounds weird by that tiny bit of human contact and a little bit of commiseration in the face of rudeness made the journey to work much nicer! It was a reminder that even if some people are just rude most of the other passengers are human after all!

Happy Thursday everyone - the weekend is almost here - hurrah!

Stripey love...

I think I mentioned before that I was making a stripey cushion as part of my ongoing economy drive/stash busting exercise...

...I've finished it and I love it! It's a long time since I've crocheted anything entirely made up of rows of double crochet. I really enjoyed the simplicity of making it. The cushion is really in the selection of colours for stripes - they make it.

I want to make another cover the same, but it's not allowed at the moment as it will require the purchase of more white coloured yarn! Maybe next month.

Camera practice continues - I'm enjoying practicing my new found hobby by taking snaps of flowers.

...and other pretty things when I find them:

Hope you all had a great weekend.

A journey of happiness

....I seem to be on a photographic and crochet journey of happiness this week!

 Having lots of fun taking snaps and getting the hang of my new camera. I am totally addicted!

You may have to put up with more frequent posts from me for a while, until the immediate excitement of the new camera wears off!

I suddenly have waaay more photos than I could decently post here. If you are interested in seeing the surplus, I have been uploading some of them to my Flickr account.

Tomorrow night I am off to stay at S's for a few days, as it's his birthday. Which reminds me, I still haven't wrapped his presents - must go and do that now!


See you next week!

Learning something new

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

I've been very lucky this weekend to have been given a new digital camera! Since starting blogging, I've become more and more interested in photography, and less and less happy with the quality of my own photos. For a while now I've been wanting to get a more professional camera so that I can learn how to take better photographs. I've just been using the camera on my phone for the past couple of years, but the more I compared my own photos to other people's the more I could see my existing camera wasn't delivering the kind of results I wanted, especially in low light. 

So, lucky me, I have been given a second hand, but in good condition camera, and I've been practicing  with it today, learning how all the manual focus and exposure settings work and trying to take good (not dark, blurry or over-exposed!) photos! I'm happy with the small degree of success I've had so far. These pictures were all taken today.

My first crafting picture with my new camera is of the components of a crochet flower garland that I have been working on this weekend. This has been a really, really fun project to work on!

I've chosen a selection of bright, very well saturated colours for this project, which I think match the colour scheme in my living room, where I hope the garland will go.

Hope you all have a great week!

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Being creative

I'm really enjoying working a little bit of creativity into my day again. I've always got a crafting project on the go, but craft seems to fulfil different needs at different times in my life. Sometimes, it's more of a relaxation thing, which I do to de-stress and take my mind off things, rather than as an end in itself. Other times, it gives a feeling or achievement, of actually being able to make something tangible with my own two hands. I find the most satisfying times to be the times when it gives me an opportunity to be really creative - whether it's by picking colour choices for a project that are all my own, or by coming up with a new crochet design. At the moment I'm enjoying making this stripey cushion from scraps. I wouldn't really say it's a pattern I've come up with as it's so simple, but I didn't follow anyone else's pattern when I started it - just my own tension square to calculate the number of stitches and my own judgement that I needed two row stripes to create the kind of look I wanted.

In May, crafting was more of a de-stress activity than anything else, but I'm happy to say that since the start of June it has become more of about creating something new again, which is nice as I haven't really had that for a while. I find it less challenging, and in a way, less stressful to follow someone else's pattern rather than come up with my own, but when you can design your own patterns, it's really special. I have also been working on some more of my own designs, writing out patterns and making swatches, but more of that another time.

I've also been enjoying the way my orange roses have blossomed and bloomed over the weekend, opening out to show a pale yellow in the centre.

Happy Monday everyone!

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