Thursday 29 October 2009

Weekend away

Do you remember a few weeks ago when I showed you a picture of this beautiful mountain?


This gorgeous mountain is called Buachaille Etive Mor and is situated at the head of Glen Etive in the Highlands of Scotland and is where I will be staying tonight!


I am going away for a Girly Weekend with my very best friend and we are going to be staying in The Kings House Hotel which is a remote inn and hotel at the eastern end of Glen Coe and enjoys breathtaking views of the beautiful Buachaille Etive Mor from it’s bedroom windows. Whilst I am very excited about this weekend I am also a bit apprehensive about it too as I have never been away from my children or my lovely husband for as long as 3 nights before and I know that I will really miss them ~ a LOT.

We are maybe going to do a little walking as the scenery is so spectacular ~ but mostly we are planning on relaxing and taking it easy.


I will be taking my walking boots and my watery ripple scarf to keep me cosy ~



Some very essential reading material ~




And of course some crochet too ~ I am hoping to find the time to crochet the green grassy borders around my little flowery circles.

I hope that everyone has a very good weekend and I will be back next week to show you some more of the lovely Scottish scenery :O)

Monday 26 October 2009

Little end bits

I have been taking it very easy for the past week and have had my feet up on a daily basis and have managed to do quite a lot of crocheting ~ and quite a lot of drinking tea and quite a lot of eating cake and chocolate and all manner of things that are not good for me at all. But it was all for medicinal purposes you understand!

You will all be very glad to know that I am now well on my way to making a full recovery from my Stupidness and had the very nasty little staples taken out today. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!! At least that is over with and I am truly glad about that. Hopefully that will now be the END to my Stupidness!

Talking of ends ~ what do you do with yours? Do you sew as you go? Or leave them all till last? I must say that I usually do sew them in as I go because I absolutely hate being faced with all those troublesome little ends when I come to the end of a project.

However, this past week I have been in a such a hurry to get a couple of little projects started and finished that I just didn’t want to interrupt my crocheting to sew in all the ends.


This might look like a very neat little pile of flowery circles.....


But look at them from a different angle and you can see the tangle of little end bits that need to be dealt with.


Same here with my Watery Ripple Scarf ~ again there’s lots of little end bits ~ although I did actually start with good intentions but was enjoying the soothing action of rippling so much that I didn’t want to stop.


So here I am faced with the horrid job of sewing in ends and how I wish now I’d done it as I went.

Yippeeeeeeeee! The job has now been done and the little flowery circles and the watery ripple scarf are looking much tidier and there is something very satisfying about seeing a growing pile of little colourful ends that have now been sewn in and snipped off.


Don’t you just love seeing all the colourful little end bits sitting in a colourful little pile :O)

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Rainbow colours

Firstly I would like to say a very big THANK YOU to everyone who has been kind enough to send me Get Well wishes following my Stupidness last Thursday!

I am feeling a little better and although my head does still hurt quite a lot ~ which with 4 staples holding it together is to be expected ~ I am slowly starting to get back to normal. Although to say that I am beginning to PANIC about the removal of the aforementioned staples is a bit of an understatement! However, as I can’t keep them in my head for ever I will just have to grin and bear it and put up with the pain~ because I am very sure that there will definitely be pain involved somewhere!


Right that is enough panicking for the time being ~ let’s get ourselves back to these Rainbow colours.


A few weeks ago I signed up for a Rainbow Colour Swap and my lovely swap package from Juanita arrived on Friday just in time to cheer me up from my Stupidness! Inside the parcel was a very lovely little green bag which Juanita got on her travels in India and also a beautiful handmade green beaded bracelet which included a bead which she had handpicked from a street vendor in India too. I love the bracelet and am sure that I will wear it often! Thank you so much Juanita.


I also received another parcel at the weekend which was of the very lovely woolly kind. I LOVE it when these packages of wool arrive. I get so much enjoyment from just unpacking it and seeing what lovely colour combinations can be made. As you can see there are quite a few rainbowy colours in there and they will be just right for making more of the pretty flowery centres for my Summer Garden Granny Squares. There are just so many different colour combinations to be made that I find myself waking up at night just thinking about it!


I’m think that I am going to go now and put the kettle on and rest my sore little stapled head and I must say that I plan to put my feet up, drink tea and crochet for most of the afternoon :O)

Friday 16 October 2009

STUPID :O(

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!.........that is exactly what I was yesterday morning!!

I did a very STUPID thing yesterday and thought that it would be a good idea to climb up onto the kitchen worktop to try to get something that was high up in the kitchen cupboard. I somehow managed to slip and fell from the top of the worktop and hit my head on the metal kitchen bin. I instinctively knew that I had hurt myself quite badly and that was before I had managed to scrape myself off the kitchen floor and before I saw how much blood was involved.

After a LOT of crying and a LOT of panicking ~ and whilst trying not to bleed all over the new carpets ~ I managed to pull myself together enough to phone my by now very worried husband who zoomed home from work in record time and rushed me to A & E.

To cut a long story short and as it was a head injury I got seen by a Doctor straight away and I have now got 4 metal staples holding my head together and am suffering from the after effects of concussion. Oh! And my head really, really hurts! A LOT!!

Now it has to be said that I never normally need much of an excuse to put my feet up and take it easy ~ but I am enjoying being made a fuss of and have had breakfast in bed and a never ending supply of tea being sent up to me by a very wonderful husband who has taken the day off work to look after his very stupid wife.


I have also got the ideal excuse to sit in bed and maybe crochet a little ~ or a lot! ~ and I have made a start on a very soothing little ripple pattern just to take my mind off my poor little head.

I hope that everyone has a very lovely weekend and I hope to be up and about next week to catch up with all your bloggy news :O) xx

Friday 9 October 2009

Colourful crochet

Colourful crochet ~ one:


I have at last finished my colourful crochet cushion cover ~ this little project seems to have been on the go for absolutely ages and I am so very glad that it is finally complete and ready for use. It has to be said though that I am not personally getting to sit down and use it very often because it keeps being pounced upon by small children who are finding it very comfy and cosy indeed!


I’d also like to know why small boys like to stick their fingers in all the little crochet holes and have a good old rummage around inside the cushion! What is that all about?

Colourful crochet ~ two:


Look at all this wonderful hooky loveliness! I couldn’t resist treating myself to this fantastic set of very colourful aluminium crochet hooks ~ I LOVE them and although I am not sure if I will ever find a use for every single one of them (sizes 2.00mm to 10.00mm) I’m sure that you will agree that they are all very pretty and are lovely to look at.

Colourful crochet ~ three:


Finally I want to show you this colourful little crochet jam jar cover that I made yesterday. This is yet another wonderful inspiration from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24 ~ she has created so many lovely patterns and I am slowly trying to work my way through them all. I am very pleased with the way that it has turned out and it makes a very pretty little container for all those very colourful crochet hooks too.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend and look forward to catching up next week :O)

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Mountainous!

I’ve got a little bit of a dilemma for you all today!

Faced with this mountain ....


Or this mountain....


Which one would you prefer to be standing looking at?

Well ~ I know which one that I would choose! But unfortunately for me I was standing at the bottom of this very large mountain of ironing yesterday.

Be warned ladies ~ as this is what happens when you spend your days playing hooky with a small metal stick and some wool instead of tackling the very yucky housework!

I had taken the very necessary step of removing the enormous pile of clothes from the airing cupboard as it was in danger of causing a small avalanche and threatening to topple down on top of anyone who happened to move or go anywhere near it!


I spent the whole of yesterday ironing and it took me 4 very long and tedious hours of just standing ironing ~ there were just under 100 items of clothing making up that mountain ~ I know this because I actually took the time to count them!

I am so very, very glad that it is now done and I can get on with doing something else a little bit more constructive ~ such as sitting with my feet up with some lovely crochet and a nice cup of tea :O)

Thursday 1 October 2009

Flowery favourites

Today I thought that I would have a bit of a flowery post and tell you all about my favourite flowery bits and pieces..........


My very favourite flowers in the whole world are these beautiful pink lilies. I absolutely LOVE the way that they smell...... the way that they practically take over the house when they bloom and the way that they look so very pretty with their big pink petals in perfect contrast to their greenery. I Love them because they remind me of when my little girl was born when my room in the hospital was filled with their smell and their prettiness. My lovely husband always buys me a great big pink bunch of them on our little girl’s birthday and our Anniversary.


I also love pink carnations ~ my Dad bought my Mum these flowers when I was born and my lovely Mum now buys me some every year for my birthday too. I love how family traditions are made and that a simple gesture from my Dad to my Mum all those years ago is still being made from my Mum to me.


Another flowery favourite of mine is the little Attic 24 inspired crocheted flower pot which I made a few weeks ago. It now has pride of place on my bedroom window sill and it always brings a little smile to my face when I see it sitting there looking very colourful and pretty.


I also love my very flowery blue Cath Kidston Knitting/Crochet bag which my best friend bought me for my birthday last year. I have to say that it has had quite few derogatory comments thrown at it by various members of my family ~ words such as Granny and Old Lady have been said about it ~ but I don’t care! I love it!! and it is a very useful bag too........


Finally, I love these little Flowery summer garden squares which I started to make yesterday when I really should have been doing some very yukky housework! Once again they are another wonderful inspiration from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24. I am not quite sure what I am going to make with them yet ~ I would like to think that I could make a lovely flowery blanket to cosy up with on the sofa in the winter ~ but we shall see! :O)