This week

In between working extra shifts in the library and trying to catch up with all the household chores, I have been snatching moments here and there, to hook up more blue stripes on my Little Boy Blue blanket. I've been enjoying the repetitive hookiness of it so much, that I have pretty much come to the end of my Stylecraft stash of blues and have just HAD to get online and order some more!

Whilst I am waiting on my order to be delivered I have gathered together all those scruffy, scrappy end bits of yarn that were not long enough to make a complete stripe in my blanket and have hand wound them into neat little balls of yarn ready to be used as part of my next project.

I have been playing about with some blue, green and neutral tones and have made some little seaside coloured granny squares as a kind of hooky swatch for my next project which has been totally inspired by this beautiful blanket HERE.

Keeping with the seaside theme ~ I was so excited to find these Fish and Chips biscuit snacks in the supermarket. I remember that my Mum used to buy these for me years ago and I used to love them. I'm not quite sure that they taste the same as they did when I was younger ~ I'm sure they used to be fish and chip flavour ~ but it was lovely to have them again.

I'm off now to put the kettle on and hook up some more seaside squares :O)xx

Harbour Walking

This week I have been out and about walking again ~ this time past a row of pretty pastel coloured seaside cottages. I do so love these little colourful houses ~ they always make me feel so cheerful when I walk past them::

I am making my way down to the harbour ~ passing this bright orange life buoy, which is looking a bit battered and worn after all the windy and rainy weather we have had lately::

The boats in the harbour were bobbing up and down fairly quickly as the waves were rushing in and out of the harbour mouth ~ there was lots of noise from the jingling and rattling of their tall masts too::

Next I went up some steps and paused to admire the Gannet Gateway ~ which is a newly erected art sculpture depicting three gannets, one taking off, one in full flight and one just starting to dive. You can see North Berwick Law beautifully framed by the gateway too::

Along the pathway and turning left along the East Bay ~ I love this view of the beach from behind the tall beachy grass::

Everywhere seemed so quiet this morning. There were not very many hardy souls about and the weather was just the perfect kind of walking weather.  I really enjoyed my walk this morning and I hope you enjoyed it too :O)x

Teeny Tiny Hats

Early one morning last week, I became an Aunty to a sweet little newborn baby boy. Well, if the truth be told, I became a GREAT Aunty! Gosh, that makes me feel so very old! But I promise you I'm not really. My sister had her babies in her early twenties, so those babies are all grown up now and have started having babies of their very own.

What better excuse do you need than a new baby to quickly cast aside all your other WIP's and make a start on a few new little baby things. The teeny tiny boy apparently needed some woolly hats to keep his teeny tiny newborn head cosy. And of course I couldn't resist and just had to knit him a hat or two.

The first hat that I decided to make was a vintage inspired, old fashioned kind of baby bonnet using the Patons Pretty as a Rosebud pattern. I'm not quite sure what yarn I used as I found it in my stash without a label, but it is a double knitting baby wool in a creamy colour. This one was knitted flat with two needles and seamed at the bottom of the crown. I decided to knit the ties instead of adding ribbon which is probably slightly more suitable for a baby boy.

The second hat that I chose to make him was a more modern beanie style hat using the Barley Hat pattern which is free on Ravelry. The yarn that I used for this one is Sirdar Snuggly DK in a baby blue colour called Sky. This one was knitted in the round using the magic loop method ~ avoiding any seaming, which I don't particularly care for!

You can see that I have just started the decreases here ~ those little dark coloured bits of wool attached to my needles are my make shift stitch markers. I do keep meaning to buy myself some proper stitch markers, but I never quite manage to get around to it. These little loops of wool do the job just as well though!

These teeny tiny hats were both really quick and easy to make and it was such an absolute pleasure being able to knit little baby things again. It seems such a long time since I knitted anything quite so tiny.

Just looking out the window and seeing the rain and hoping that it decides to go away sometime soon. Wishing you all a very lovely weekend :O)x

Seaside Walking

Although I didn't make any New Year resolutions as such, one of the things that I would definitely like to do more of this year is more walking. I am so lucky that I live in a beautiful seaside town on the South East coast of Scotland and I am absolutely spoilt for choice with walks, as there are two wonderful beaches to walk along. I decided to take myself off for a bit of walk yesterday ~ I toddled off at what I thought was a reasonable pace, but I don't think that I had gone more than 100 yards along the road when I was so out of breath! I knew that I was unfit, but didn't quite realise just how much!

Still, I persevered and managed to walk for around an hour. The route that I chose to walk was along the west bay of the town, which was looking rather beautiful, the sun was shining and it really didn't feel that cold either.

I stopped periodically along to way to admire the views and to catch my breath a little.

The little island that you can just see to the very left of the harbour is the Craigleith, which is one of four islands just off the North Berwick coast in the Firth of Forth.

It is one of a chain of four islands around the coast, the others being the Bass Rock, the Fidra and the Lamb. The Craigleith is the closest of the islands to our harbour and like the other islands nearby is a bird colony with my favourite seabirds ~ puffins ~ being just one of the breeds that live here.

Which reminds me about a little picture of puffins that I stitched many years ago before my eyes decided to go all "old lady on me"! Now it seems that I have great difficulty focusing on things that are too close up and not at least at arms length away from my eyes, but I am totally refusing to go down the line of getting glasses for reading until I really, really have to! Maybe I should just get myself a giant magnifying glass instead!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend :O)xx

New Beginnings

Well, here we are into a brand New Year and I can't think of a better time to kick start my little blog back into life again.

I must admit that I have really missed my bloggy space, but life got kind of busy towards the end of last year and unfortunately my blog was the thing that had to take a bit of a back seat!

We are slowly getting back to normal here, and this morning I had two fairly reluctant and sleepy smallish people to get up out of cosy beds and dispatch to school  ~ neither of them were really in the mood to go back quite yet. To be honest, I don't think that I was quite ready either, as going back to school means lots of ironing of uniforms and lunches to be shopped for and packed. Still, there is only five weeks to go until our half term! Did I mention that I absolutely LoVe the school holidays?

On the plus side it means that I have a whole day of me time to do exactly as I want, which will very definitely mean lots of tea and some crochet. I have unearthed my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe Blanket and am ready to get hooking again. This blanket was started way way back in October 2011 ~ Over two years ago! How ridiculous is that? My poor little boy has been waiting more than two years to get his blanket and that makes me feel quite bad.

The yarn that I am using is the fantastic Stylecraft Special Double Knit in six lovely shades of blue ~ Denim::Aster::Sherbet::Royal::Cloud Blue and Turquoise.

I think that it is probably two thirds of the way done so far ~ there are 72 Granny Stripes which is 12 repeats of each colour. It is my intention to keep going until there are 18 repeats of each colour and then it should hopefully be more than big enough to wrap around my boy and keep him cosy.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Healthy 2014 ~ hope that it's a good one for us all :O)xx