American Adventure

In a couple of days we will be setting off on our American Adventure to Los Angeles and Las Vegas and we are all starting to get really excited about it now. The kids are practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation!

This will be our first ever visit to the USA and we are going as a pre BIG birthday treat with my Dad and his wife who have been many times before ~ this will be their twelfth time in Las Vegas! My Dad has very kindly taken some time to plan out our days to make sure that we get as much from the experience as we possibly can. It is definitely not going to be an holiday for relaxing! But there will hopefully be lots of fun to be had by all!

Our Itinerary for the days ahead looks like this ~

Day 1 ~ Travel to Manchester by train ~ staying overnight in order to catch our flights the next day.
Day 2 ~ Flights from Manchester to Philadelphia, then Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Now, I have to be honest here and say that I am not particularly looking forward to the long flights which are 16 hours in total each way. We have only ever previously done short trips over to Europe, but everyone reassures me that the flights will seem to go by fairly quickly as there is so much going on to keep you occupied. I really do hope so!

Day 3 ~ Los Angeles ~ Heading off to Malibu Beach, Santa Monica and then onto downtown Los Angeles to see the Walk of the Stars in Hollywood Boulevard and other Hollywood sights.
Day 4 ~ Los Angeles ~ Universal Studios ~ this is the day that the kids are looking forward to the most!
Day 5 ~ Driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas ~ stopping halfway at the old Wild West town of Calico.
Day 6 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to the Hoover Dam.
Day 7 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to Red Rock Canyon.
Day 8 ~ Las Vegas ~ Spending the day sightseeing around Las Vegas.
Day 9 ~ Flights from Las Vegas to New York (JFK), then New York to Manchester.
Day 10 ~ Train from Manchester to Edinburgh, then another train home, then I imagine it will be straight to BED to sleep off the jet lag!

Over the last couple of days I have been working like an absolute mad woman washing clothes, sorting clothes and stacking clothes in readiness for packing the all the suitcases tonight and I've also managed to find the time to make myself a Stars and Stripes Bag Tag so I can hopefully recognise the aforementioned suitcase at the airport!

See you all when we get back in a couple of weeks :O)xx

Seaside Squares

Around this time last year I made these little seaside coloured Granny Squares and since then they have been sitting at the bottom of my WIP pile waiting for me to give them a bit more attention.

As soon as they surfaced again my first thought was that I wanted to make them a bit bigger so instead of three round Granny Squares I am now making five round Granny Squares and joining as I go. I am also being very good at the moment and sewing in the ends of each square as soon as they are joined.

I am using Stylecraft Special DK in Seasidey colours which are a well known colour palette ~ the ones that I am using are ~

First Row (Neutrals) ~ White ~ Cream ~ Silver ~ Camel ~ Mocha

Second Row (Greens) ~ Aspen ~ Meadow ~ Khaki

Third Row (Blues) ~ Sherbet ~ Cloud Blue ~ Aster ~ Turquoise ~ Denim

I was also going to use Teal but in the end I felt it was just a bit too bright for the look I was after. I wanted a softer more muted tone for this blanket.

I think that all the elements of the seaside such as the water, sky, sand, grass and seaweed are pretty much well captured in the colours that I have gone with.

So far I have made 24 Seaside Squares and I'm absolutely loving the way that they are turning out. I am really glad that I chose to make the squares bigger as it means the blanket will grow much more quickly. My plan at the moment is to have 14 rows of 12 squares so that's 168 squares in total ~ which should keep me busy for a while! Hopefully this blanket will take me much less that three years!!

It's been a bit of an up and down week around here this week, but I have been trying to take some time out to enjoy the little things such as these beautiful daffodils that my Mum bought for me.

And I am also loving that all the pretty spring flowers are just starting to peek their little heads out of the ground just now too.

Wishing you all a very lovely weekend :O)x