Happy Easter

Just popping by to wish you all a Happy Easter ~ I hope that you all have a very lovely holiday weekend.

Normal blogging services will resume sometime very soon I promise! :O)xx

Half term

It's an absolutely glorious morning here in my little part of the world today. The sun is shining and the birds are singing beautifully ~ it truly feels like spring is on it's way. I really do hope so! When the weather is a bit brighter it makes everything else (including me) seem so much brighter too.

It was half term for my two smallish people last week so we tried our best to cram in a few days out and about ~ swimming one day and a trip to the cinema and a pizza lunch another day. The rest of the time we were happy just to be really lazy and spent the time pottering about the house in our pyjamas ~ Oh how I love spending the day in my pyjamas doing not very much at all. Drinking tea and doing something yarny was about as adventurous as it got around here!

I managed to get a few of my rainbow coloured zig zag stripes mattress stitched together. Although, I must confess that it is taking me much longer than I thought it would to stitch them all together ~ there are another three stripes to go before I can start with the cushiony construction. But I am feeling fairly pleased with the results so far.

This morning, once I had dispatched the two small ones back to school, I decided to take myself for a little stroll along the beach to make the most of the lovely weather. Whilst I was down on the beach I just happened to pop into the little gift shop which is attached to Scottish Seabird Centre down at the sea front. There were some really beautiful seasidey inspired things that I really would have loved to have brought home with me ~ but I couldn't resist bringing home this lovely little wooden birdy which is destined to live on my kitchen window sill along with my seasidey mugs.

Isn't he lovely? I took him for a little photo shoot in the garden before placing him in his new home on my kitchen window sill :O)xx

Little Woolly Houses

I've been knitting again!

I was looking for something quick to knit in between hooking up rows of my blue Granny Stripe and I managed to find a lovely pattern on ravelry for a little knitted house dishcloth. The pattern was really easy to knit and only took me around an hour to complete. I made it using some blue Rico Creative Cotton from my stash and I must say that I really do rather like the results. Although I am not sure that I will actually be able to bring myself to use it as a dishcloth as I love it so much ~ it seems such a shame to get it all wet and dirty with the washing up!

I have also been passing some time doing a little bit of browsing on Etsy ~ as you do! And just couldn't help myself putting this gorgeous little knitted croft house key ring into my basket. It has been beautifully handmade by Julia Marsh who has a lovely blog too. Why not pop on over and have a browse at her stuff ~ it really is worth a look :O)xx

Today

I am staying warm and cosy inside the house waiting patiently for the man from Bosch to come and tell me what is wrong with my washing machine. It has been on the blink now for around a week and is now totally refusing to cooperate with me at all ~ which with a family of two smallish people who seem to generate an awful lot of dirty laundry is a bit of a pest to say the least!

Fortunately for me my lovely Mum stays just five minutes away and I have been descending on her with baskets full of dirty clothes which she has very kindly been turning into piles of freshly laundered clothes. Mum you are an absolute *star*.

Whilst I have been waiting patiently for the man from Bosch I have not been idle. Oh No! I have put myself to very good use by sewing the ribbons on my daughter's first pair of pointe shoes. (Before she moans at me anymore to do it!).

I have also been whiling away the time by adding a few more stripes to my blue granny stripe blanket which is growing at quite a nice pace now. There are now 11 repeats of each colour, which is 66 stripes of blue crochet loveliness completed ~ which I think is just about halfway done. I seem to be really in the groove with this blanket now and am enjoying sitting down at every chance I get to add another blue stripe to it.

My knitting sticks have also been working hard over the last couple of weeks too ~ I have been knitting rainbow coloured zigzag stripes with my left over bits of Rico Creative Cotton which will eventually be turned in to a lovely bright Rainbow coloured cushion cover :O)x

Bluebells by the sea ~ A Wavy Scarf

Just lately, I have been finding myself more likely to pick up my knitting needles rather than my crochet hook. I have absolutely no idea why! It has certainly not been intentional on my part ~ it's just the way that my woolly travels seem to have taken me recently.

Towards the end of last year I took part in a swap and decided that I wanted to knit something to go in with the other parcels.  I wanted to try and come up with something that would be both practical and pretty and warm and cozy as well.  I eventually took my inspiration from the beautiful coastal town that I am so lucky to live in and decided on a pretty blue seaside coloured wavy scarf. I love this photo of my two smallish people which was taken on a sunny but fairly breezy day last summer on one of our local beaches. The rock that you can see in the distance is the Bass Rock.

The waves were really easy to recreate by using a very simple chevron pattern, which was just a mixture of garter stitch and stocking stitch with a few increases and decreases added in along the way. If any of you lovely people fancy making your very own wavy scarf then this is how I did it.

First off ~ some knitty abbreviations::

K ~ Knit.
P  ~ Purl.
K2tog ~ Knit 2 stitches together.
Kfb ~ Increase by knitting into the front and back of the stitch.
SKPO ~ Slip 1,Knit 1 and then pass the slip stitch over.

Guage is not terribly important for this project ~ I used size 4mm (UK) knitting needles and some Stylecraft Special Double Knitting yarn ~ in the shade Bluebell. Which I suppose goes someway to explaining why I called this wavy scarf  Bluebells by the sea!!

Cast on 39 stitches and then start knitting as follows::

Row 1 ~ Knit
Row 2 ~ Knit
Row 3 ~ Knit
Row 4 ~ Knit
Row 5 ~ Knit
Row 6 ~ Knit 3, *K2tog, Knit 2, Kfb twice, Knit 3, SKPO* (repeat from* to* until you get to the last 3 stitches) and then Knit to the end.
Row 7 ~ Knit 3, Purl to last 3 stitches and then Knit 3
Row 8 ~ as Row 6
Row 9 ~ as Row 7
Row 10 ~ as Row 6
Row 11 ~ as Row 7
Row 12 ~ as Row 6

These 12 rows form the lovely wavy pattern ~ just keep on knitting until your scarf gets as long as you want it or you are nearly out of yarn. Then to finish your wavy scarf off just knit the first 6 rows of the pattern again ending on row 6 and then cast off fairly loosely.

By ending the pattern on row 6 you get yourself a nice wavy cast off edge.

Happy knitting! I'm off now to have another woolly adventure ~ this time with my crochet hook and a long forgotten Blue Granny Striped Blanket :O)xx

2012 ~ looking back

Here I am ~ just a little bit later than normal ~ taking a little nostalgic trip back through the highlights of my blogging year.

I love that I am able to look back at the Button Tree Craft archives, as it gives me a chance to be reminded of all the lovely everyday things that otherwise might be forgotten if they were not blogged about.

January 2012 ~ baking Gruffalo cookies with the small people. Baked to perfection and covered with chocolate sprinkles for fur and enjoyed with a nice cup of tea ::

February 2012 ~ I managed to knit my very first pair of socks ~ and was feeling very pleased with myself ::

March 2012 ~ Still enjoying the beautiful flowers that I received for my birthday ~ I really do want to try and have fresh flowers in the house more often this year as they always look so pretty ::

April 2012 ~ I went on some very lovely but very wet walks in the April showers wearing my new green and blue stripey wellies ::

May 2012 ~ I knitted some stripey Jubilee socks in the garden whilst enjoying the glorious May sunshine ::

June 2012 ~ I added a few more stripes to my Little Boy Blue Blanket ~ this blanket is still waiting to be finished ::

July 2012 ~ I added some more squares to my Summer Garden Granny Blanket ~ this blanket is also still waiting to be finished ::

August 2012 ~ We enjoyed some lovely Summery days on the beach ~ we are so very lucky to stay in such a beautiful place, with all this on our doorstep ::

September 2012 ~ I knitted myself a pretty lacy scarf in cosy blue merino wool ::

October 2012 ~ We went on a trip to Alton to visit family and enjoyed a lovely day out at Alton Towers ::

November 2012 ~ I knitted a seaside inspired scarf for my Advent Swap partner ~ Ada Bea. This was my very first attempt at coming up with a pattern of my own ::

December 2012 ~ We took a ride on The Polar Express as an early Christmas treat ::

I have really enjoyed this little look back at 2012 and reminding myself about things that made 2012 a special year for me and for my family. I love the fact that blogging allows me to keep all these special memories close by and that they will be there for my children to look back on when they are older. Thank you to you all for sharing this little journey back in time with me too ~ I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Wishing you all a very Happy 2013 :O)xx

Merry Christmas

Just popping by to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you all have a wonderful time and that all your Christmas wishes come true :O)xx