Hooky Giveaway

Just a little reminder to everyone that my Giveaway is still open for comments. One of the prizes will be a copy of the lovely hooky book ~ Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. I really love this book and there are lots of lovely hooky projects in it. I'm quite sure that there will also be something Christmassy and something chocolatey thrown in for good measure too!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on either this post or my Three years post. I'll leave the Giveaway open until the end of November to give everyone plenty of time to enter. I hope that you all enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all sometime next week :O)x

Three Years

Today it is my 3rd Blogiversary!

That's three whole years of blogging! Three whole years since I first dipped my foot tentatively into the lovely bloggy world! Who would have thought it? I didn't really think that anybody would be that interested in my witterings or my creations either, but there must be a few of you out there as I still have followers and still get left some lovely comments too.

I absolutely love being part of Blogland ~ it is a truly creative and inspirational place. I love that I can take little snippets of my daily life and that it will be there in years to come as a very special record to look back on. I love that there are like minded souls out there who like to talk about yarn and hooky stuff ~ although I have to admit that my husband thinks it's all a little bit mad! But that's men for you!

To celebrate this special day, there is of course cake in the form of some yummy cupcakes ~ made yesterday with the help of two smallish volunteers. Funnily enough they never volunteer to help with the washing up afterwards though!

Finally ~ to say a very big THANK YOU to all you lovely people who take time of out of your day to read my blog I am going to have a little Giveaway. I'm not quite sure yet what this Giveaway will be ~ and I'm not promising that it will be something handmade by me, but it will definitely be something nice and possibly hooky related. There may even be something chocolatey thrown in too!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on this post ~ I'll leave it open until the end of November so that it gives you all plenty time to be included.

I'm off now to put the kettle on and have myself some cake and tea ~ see you all very soon :O)xx

Remembering ~ 11.11.11

Blue Stripes

This week I am absolutely loving my new Blue Stripey wellies from Joules. They have Green and Blue Stripes with a jaunty little orange stripe up the back of the boot and the very delightful name of Water Fall ~ my all time favourite Watery colours.


Just right for late Autumny walks through the lovely crisp, scrunchy leaves and more than likely for stamping through puddles and trudging through snow later on in the year! This year I am determined to be prepared for the wet and wintery weather when it arrives.


Loving my Blue Stripey socks too! Just right for feet that need to stay warm and dry inside the Blue Stripey Wellies out in the cold and also for sitting cosily on the settee with a cup of tea and some hooky stripes.


Also loving my Blue Granny Stripes ~ although progress has not been as quick as I would have liked and these particular Granny Stripes are at the stage of looking very scarf like at the moment! And although a scarf would come in very handy right now, these stripes are destined to be a snuggly Blue Stripey Granny blanket just right for keeping warm and cosy on a wintery evening.


I'm off now to try and hook up a few more Blue Stripes ~ Enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all very soon :O)xx

Halloween

Every Friday afternoon I drive to the next village along the coast to take my daughter to her dancing class. Last Friday I was driving along, with both kids in the back of the car ~ chatting/squabbling as usual ~ when all I heard was screeches of delight and excited cries of LOOK! and Pleeeeease Mum can we stop? I couldn't imagine for a minute what all the fuss was about, but I promptly did as I was told and this is what we saw...........


An absolutely fabulous Halloween decoration which was outside someone's house! Isn't it super? It must of taken ages to put it all together and all the little details are really lovely. I particularly love the stripey black and purple tights that these three lovely ladies are wearing on their dingly, dangly, witchy legs.

My kids, like most kids, love everything Halloweeny! They love all the dressing up and all the gory and yucky stuff ~ the more gory the better in their eyes!

But, we don't let them go Trick or Treating (or Trickle Treating as it is known in our house) as it's something we just don't feel comfortable with. Instead, we let them do the dressing up bit and then Daddy plays Spooky Halloween Hide and Seek with them in the house with all the lights off. We also play some of the more traditional Halloween games ~ such as dooking/bobbing for apples, which is a lot of fun and we always end up getting soaking wet too!


Later on this evening we will all get settled down in front of the telly to watch a spooky Halloween film ~ this years choice is the not so scary Disney film Spooky Buddies and as always there will be a plentiful supply of Halloween treats to tuck into whilst watching.

I hope that you all enjoy your Halloween activities ~ whatever they may be ~ and I will hopefully see you all very soon :O)x

Smiley things :O)

Making me smile today is the progress that I have been making with my blue stripey blanket.


I have been whizzing back and forward along these stripey rows making lots of treble clusters of cozy blue loveliness. I love how easy this project is ~ easy, mindless crochet that can be picked up and put down without too much thinking about. And these days that's exactly the sort of crocheting that I need.

Smiley thing number two is this lovely new crochet book which just happened to pop through my door this week ~ Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. Do you see that EASY word cropping up again? I bought this book from The Book People for just £3.99 ~ can you believe it? I had to do a double take for it to sink in. There was really no reason why I couldn't have this book ~ It just had to be mine! What an absolute bargain! This really is a super book and it is jam packed with lots of lovely projects which are just begging to be made ~ the only problem that I am going to have is deciding what to actually make first.

Also making me smile today is my pretty new year planner. I have been particularly scatterbrained over the past few weeks. Forgetting about meetings for work, missing dental appointments and my worst scatterbrained moment of all was turning up a week early for parent's night at my little boy's school!

Up until now my usual haphazzard method is to scribble things down on little pieces of paper and then end up hunting frantically for them in one of my many piles! So, in an attempt to get myself a bit more organised ~ and to save my poor children squirming with embarrassment at their mother ~ I am going to try and write down appointments as soon as I get them. This year planner is great because it has a side for me and a side for the rest of the family per page ~ there really is no excuse now is there? Wish me (and my children) luck!

I hope that you find lots to be smiley about today too! See you all soon :O)xx

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