Granny Stripes

At last!

I have finally managed to get around to making a start on a Granny Stripe blanket. I have been wanting to crochet one of these lovelies ever since they started doing the rounds of Blogland last year, but have just never had the time up until now. But here I am jumping on the Granny Stripe bandwagon and I have to say that I am really looking forward to the ride.

The foundation chain has to be done in multiples of three ~ so I sat yesterday and crocheted a chain whilst counting 123,123,123 in my head. In the absence of a size 5 hook I remembered to crochet my chain loosely on my trusty and very favourite size 4 in order to make crocheting the first row as easy as possible.
I am making this Granny Stripe for my little boy and want it to be around about the single bed size when finished. So, I carried on counting 123, 123, 123 in my head until I thought the chain looked the right length and then ran up stairs with hook and chain in hand and measured it against the bed. That's about as technical as I get these days!

This Boy Granny Stripe is going to be made using Stylecraft Special DK in various shades of blue, with perhaps a few other colours thrown in for good measure. But I've not quite decided whether or not I'll deviate from the Blueness or not yet!


These are the colours that I have chosen so far ~
Aster ~ Royal ~ Midnight ~ Denim ~ Cloud Blue ~ Turquoise ~ Sherbet ~ Bluebell.
I am really excited about this blanket and now that I have finished the tricksy foundation row I am raring to go and can't wait to go whizzing along the rows with ease ~ making lots of lovely Blue treble clusters.

Right! I'm off now to put the kettle on for a cuppa and then get settled for a few rows of Granny Stripes :O)xx

Japanese parcel

Look what I got in the post this morning!

A very beautifully wrapped parcel that has come all the way from Japan! Can you guess what it is? I'm sure that if you follow the very wonderful Lucy at Attic 24 then you should have absolutely no trouble at all in guessing what is inside the parcel!


Were you right? Yippee............ it's my very own copy of the beautifully illustrated Japanese book ~ Pretty Colour Crochet and Knit Goods ~ bought on Etsy from a seller called Pomadour 24. Now......... as it came all the way from Japan there is only one drawback and that is that the book itself is actually written in Japanese too! Fortunately for me all the patterns are also shown as diagrams and although I've never actually followed any crochet diagrams before I'm quite sure that it will be MUCH, MUCH easier to teach myself how to follow these crochet pattern diagrams that it will be for me to even begin to teach myself Japanese!!

As you will see from the photos I have busying myself this week by sewing in all the little end bits and joining up the granny squares on my colourful painbox cushion cover. I've nearly finished joining them all together now ~ I've just got to block it and then find something suitable to make the back of the cushion cover from. I usually just crochet the back of my cushion covers but this time I have another idea that I want to try out ~ I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will actually work out just the way I want it to!


I have also been out and about in the garden ~ pottering a little and enjoying the spring sunshine ~ I've been planting some pots with geraniums, sweet williams, trailing lobelia and sweet peas which should hopefully provide me with lots of beautiful colours in a few of months time. Do you see the very lovely colourful flower pots that I bought myself? I just couldn't resist buying them when I saw them ~ they really do make a very lovely change from the boring old terracotta ones that we normally use and I am really looking forward to planting those little pots up too!

Hope that you all have a very lovely weekend :O) xxx

Raspberry Ripple

Firstly I would just like to say THANK YOU all so much for your lovely comments about my Flowery Circle ~ I was overwhelmed by all the Flowery Circle love that you sent my way :O) xxx

Yippee!! I can't quite believe it ~ I have at long last finished my little girl's Raspberry Ripple Scarf. It was supposed to have been finished in time for Christmas! But it didn't quite make it as a Christmas pressie!! However......... Here it is now in all it's beautiful pink berrylicious glory.


My little girl loved my Watery Ripple Scarf so much that she asked if I could possibly make her a pink girly one. I have to admit that when she picked out the colours that she wanted I wasn't that sure that they actually blended that well together. However ~ now that it is finally finished ~ I am pleased with the way the colours look and she is absolutely delighted with her very warm and very cozy Raspberry Ripple Scarf.


Once again, I used the very lovely Attic 24 Neat Ripple Pattern and Rowan Pure Wool DK in the following pinky berrylicious colours::

Tea Rose 025

Hyacinth 026

Raspberry 028

There are 59 lovely pink ripply rows which were an absolute pleasure to crochet ~ I LOVE rippling away! Unfortunately to go along with those pretty little ripply rows there were 118 horrible little ripply ends that needed to be sewed in. WHY did I do my usual and leave them all to do at the end?


Still......... there is something strangely satisfying about seeing a growing pile of little ends that have been sewn in and snipped off and I just love seeing all the little end bits sitting in a colourful little pile too :O)x

Rainbow Birdie

The sun is shining here in my little part of the world today which makes a lovely change after all the very stormy, windy and rainy weather that we have had over the past couple of weeks. I don't know about you ~ but it always makes me feel much brighter and happier when the sun is shining.


Today I thought that I would show you all my Rainbow Birdie that I made from another pattern from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24. I loved these little Birdie decorations the very minute that Lucy showed them on her blog and knew that I would just have to make one. However, I very stupidly thought that it would be plain sailing and very easy to do ~ BUT I had never crocheted a circle before and I ended up frogging it twice before I was happy with the shape for the little Birdie body. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong but no matter how hard I tried my circle would just not lie flat!


Taking my inspiration from my lovely stash of Rainbow coloured Rowan Pure Wool DK I tried to include all the colours of the rainbow ~ Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

I know that some of you will have already had a sneaky peak at my little rainbow coloured birdie over on Flickr and Ravelry but I am so pleased at how he eventually turned out that I just had to show him off here too! I think he looks very lovely indeed hanging on the holly tree in the winter sun.

There is also plenty of time left to enter my first Bloggy Birthday Giveaway ~ I will leave it open until the end of November and then I will get my small people to pull names out of a hat to find out which lucky people will receive a Bloggy Birthday present from little old me! All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment on either this post or my Bloggy Birthday post.

Tomorrow I am going shopping in Edinburgh with my very lovely husband ~ just the two of us! How EXCITING is that! It really doesn't happen very often so I am really looking forward to it. It will be lovely just browsing around the shops and stopping for coffee and cake and a lovely lunch without small people being bored or hungry!!

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend too :O)

Watery Ripple Scarf

Today is a big day for my Watery Ripple Scarf ~ because today is the day that it get’s it’s very own BiG Moment in blog land ~ a kind of show and tell if you like.

My Watery Ripple Scarf started out life as a test run of the very lovely Attic 24 Neat Ripple Pattern and it just evolved very easily into a scarf. I used Rowan Pure Wool Double knit in the following water inspired colours ::

Glacier 005

Pier 006

Marine 008


It was my very first time rippling and I really do have to say that once I got started I LOVED it. I did not, however, like trying to crochet in to the foundation chain for the first ripply row! That was really difficult and I am so very glad that I only had 31 chains to battle with! Maybe if I start now I might get the first row done for a ripple blanket this time next year! I may be missing something but I’m sure there must be an easier way to do it.

Anyway ~ here it is!

The BiG Moment for my Watery Ripple Scarf.............


I really do love my Watery Ripple Scarf and I really do LoVe the water inspired blues and greens too. It is also such a joy to wear and it had it’s very first outing into the big wide world this morning as I wore it for doing the school run and it kept me very warm and very cosy indeed :O)

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)

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)