New things

...there have been a lot of new things for me lately.

S and I finally took the plunge and bought a place together... so a new home, a new area and a new person to live with...a new commute to work too!

In the mad rush of doing everything - getting used to travelling around a new area, unpacking, cleaning, buying furniture...well as you can imagine there just hasn't been time for much else, least of all blogging!

 We moved in mid-June so we are still very much in the settling in phase. We have a lot more space then either of us had before, which is lovely. We are very lucky. I have huge plans...well, too many plans really!

We've both spent months dreaming about this - we actually started the process in February, but it all got rather complicated and stressful, especially in the last few weeks. I've spent ages leafing through interior design books and home magazines, day dreaming - one of my favourite activities!

There are just too many things to buy and do, and we can't do them all at once! Never mind though, I love that we now have the time to plan at our leisure!

 

Zesty

I think I might be on a roll. Maybe I shouldn't speak to soon though. I'm working on another project, and I have a feeling I might finish it.

It's only a little cushion cover, nothing major. It has a slightly different palette than I would normally go for. It's kind of...zesty. I don't know why, I just wanted watermelon and primrose shades, together with a sort of greeny gold... some brown and cream to balance it out. I think I like it though.

The idea for this came from one of my favourite blogs, which I first discovered through Pinterest - IDA Interior Lifestyle. I love the things she makes - they are always simple, but so beautiful. Showing that you don't need to do anything complicated to create something effective. I think the colour palettes she uses are one of the things I like the most. I love the way she pairs bright colours with neutrals, and that the bright colours are always selectively chosen, and not just the whole rainbow thrown in (not that there's anything wrong with throwing in the whole rainbow - I've done it myself!).

It was the cushions shown in this post that really inspired me: http://www.idainteriorlifestyle.com/2013/04/thursday-pics.html. I have it pinned on my Pinterest board and whenever I see it, it lifts me. So simple, but so effective. I also love the colour blocking throw seen on the foot of the bed. Hmmm, maybe one will have to made at some point.

Blanket ta dah!

Lurking in the background (and in the foreground) of some of my pictures this week there have been some hexagons. Well, now you can see what they are part of! Yes, it's time for a proper, happy, happy crochet ta-dah! It feels long over due to me. I think I had felt a bit uninspired, craft-wise for a while - like nearly a year! Maybe that's one reason, as well as just being busy, why I haven't blogged much in the last 9 months or so.

I feel like my inspiration is slowly coming back now though. And finishing this blanket has felt so good - I'd forgotten how good it feels to finish a major project, and feel happy with it! Can't remember what my last ta-dah was and I'm not going to depress myself by looking back to find out.

All in all, I'm not only happy with the finished result of this blanket, but I also enjoyed the making process. The pattern was an Erika Knight hexagon design from the book Essential Crochet, which I've made before here, but I decided to change the colours so that each shape was all one colour instead of two, and then arrange the shapes into flowers.

It's also just about the biggest blanket I've ever made, which surprised me. I didn't get fed up and have to push on for a while being fed up in order to make it this size. I just sort of finished it naturally when I felt like I was ready to, and it's still big enough to cover a double bed quite well.

So now, feeling inspired, it's on to more projects. I have a few plans - crochet garlands, and two different cushion covers...and maybe a third in mind already. My big brother is moving house next week with his girlfriend (yay! happy for him), and I am thinking they might need a crochet cushion as a housewarming pressie!

Hope you all have a fab weekend!

Fickle

Maybe one day I will finish one of my many works in progress. For the moment, I am fickle. I keep swapping between projects - just working on whatever takes my fancy.

I have ideas, make a start, work on them for 1 or 2 weeks, and then....

Some other bright idea pops into my head, and I just have to try it, now.
 

It's all so undisciplined, and really not me. It's weird.

 To be honest it doesn't make me feel good. I don't achieve anything, and feel like I have the attention span of a mayfly. Must try harder!

I'm 'fessing up on here in a bid to try and shame myself. If I publicly admit my crafting shortcomings, maybe it will inspire me to overcome them!

I blame life at the moment. Big plans are afoot for S and I, but I can't say what yet here, as I don't want to jinx anything. It's all very distracting though, so I blame that for my short attention span!

Right, I'm to stare at pictures of other people's finished things online, in the hope of instilling some discipline back into myself!

Coming back

Hello everyone. Yes, I'm back after dropping off the face of the earth for a little while there. Things got hectic, overwhelming. I had to take a break from here in order to focus on other things for a while. It wasn't even a conscious decision, but time stretched on. Honestly, for most of November and December, I didn't even think about coming back here. I thought for a while that I never would.

It's funny how it didn't really take much to completely derail my time here - a bit of a PhD crisis, some people and things happening in life that I just needed to concentrate on for a while, to figure some things out. Nothing bad, just things. You know how it is.

Thanks to some great, understanding people that I have in my life, things improved by the end of December. I had a bit more head-space to think about some more self-indulgent things again, this blog and crafty-ness included.

Christmas was good, S and I have a fab time away with his family - much laughter and happiness occurred. Then I spent a day with my own folks, and that was great too.

There are big plans ahead for 2015 - exciting ones for me personally. Hopefully I can continue coming back here regularly - I think that is my personal ambition for 2015 - to get some balance in my life. It may not be easy - I need to stop procrastinating about the things I don't really want to do, in order to make sure I free up time for things I do want to do. I think it's that simple really, it's down to me.

Wish me luck! See you again soon!

A finished blanket!

Hi everyone. For the firs time in a long time, I have completed a big project. Well, ok, I haven't actually fastened off all the ends yet, but it's basically complete.

I started this blanket last October, so it's taken me nearly a year to finish. I've only worked on it on and off. It came with me during my house move last year, and was the first think I worked on after I moved in. I remember sitting on the floor of my empty new flat (I had no furniture!) the day after I moved in making little circles and squares for this.

I hope it's going to grace my current and future homes for years to come providing cosyness.

The pattern is from The Gentle Art of Knitting. I used DK yarn. The blanket size is just big enough to cover my double bed. I made 272 little squares altogether, and then finished it off with a few rounds of granny crochet all around the edge, followed by one round in double crochet in yellow for trim.

Finished just in time for the cold weather here - lets hope it saves me some money on my heating bills!

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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!

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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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.