We went to a wool shop today. We decided to limit ourselves money-wise on the way but it didn't work! The shop is in Clapham in Yorkshire. I'll tell more about the shop itself another day. I wanted to get lots of things to us in a wall hanging and I decided on a spring colour theme.

This is what I got. There is some Louisa Harding, a skein of Araucania, a ball of Rosaria Pop Corn, some embroidery threads, buttons, ribbons and a piece of yellow mottled material. Together with yarns that I already own I'm hoping I will be able to make something that is worth putting on a wall!

I will keep the blog up-to-date with how it is going - good or bad.

It was a lovely day today and it is all country-side from where we live to Clapham. Clapham is a pretty village with a stream. It is near Ingleborough and Ingleside Caves. A nice part of the Yorkshire Dales.

'Gusta

My brother sent the photos from Christmas. This is the little blanket that I gave to my great-neice. It's a standard granny square with an edging from "crochet on the edge". You can just about see a little bit of the edging at bottom left of the photo.








He sent a second picture to me of another great-neice. This is Tinkerbell the scientist making bath bombs!









She recorded the results of her experiments on her new lap-top!







'Gusta

Argh!

Well, here it is. A photo of our living room. It IS embarrassing.

It is only stuff though. There is nothing rotting or anything like that. We help out a charity so lots of it is bags of knitted things for the charity. And me and my sister have a loooot of hobbies so there is always a lot of stuff about that never gets put away.

The family home has devolved on us and when people leave they NEVER take all their stuff. Especially the ones who die! So we have rooms upstairs full of stuff we never touch. We should probably get rid of some of that too.

I'm hoping that blogging this will help motivate me to tidy up finally. When we get straight we are re-doing the living room altogether. Laminate flooring, new settees, tables for lap-tops etc.

We also have more wool than the average wool shop. And we keep buying more. Yesterday I got some Sirdar Supersoft Aran to try making a scarf from the loop pattern in "crocheting on the edge".

I decided that one row of loops was not wide enough so I started to attach another layer. I'm not sure yet what I think of it.



The wool is lovely though. I dont use much yarn that is 100% plastic. This is 100% Acrylic, 258 yards per 100g ball and it is very soft to the touch.



Anyone who knows me will be shocked that my cats have so far not been mentioned. They are gorgeous and I love them to bits. They are Main Coon cats so they have longer fur than normal cats but not long like a persian. Here is a pic of them when they were babies.

Petra, Tony and Imogen from Left to Right.


'Gusta

crochet on the edge

As promised I am going to review "crochet on the edge" by Nicky Epstein.

I have never reviewed a book before but I buy most of my books on line and of course you cant look at them before you get them so I thought this might be useful to others.

The book contains over 200 edgings including ribs, ruffles, flora and fringes. There are 9 full scale projects. The patterns are written in detail and charts are provided too so whichever you prefer is there. The patterns are written in American, by which I mean that, for instance, a double crochet is actually an English treble. I am quite used to converting now-a-days so this doesn't bother me at all.

I find this book quite inspiring. I've already used one of the edging on a blanket that I gave to my almost 2 year old great neice. My brother took a photo of it on Christmas Day because I couldn't find our camera. However, he hasn't sent the picture to me yet but I will put on my blog when he does.

I've started making the Medallion Medley wrap. It has about 30 medallions and could be used as a wall-hanging too!

I want to buy rings to crochet round to try some of the other edgings and it inspired me to spend my Christmas Amazon vouchers on a book called "Freeform Crochet and beyond" by Renate Kirkpatrick in order to see how I can explore a more creative side of crochet.

I would heartily recommend "crocheting on the edge". It is one of the most interesting and useful books on crochet that I own. (And I own a lot!)

Below are some photos of some of the medallions from the Medallion Medley.

'Gusta

first photos

2nd post of the day! I thought I would post a some photos
of my crochet. This is a shawl I made for my sister.
She works from home and gets cold during the day sat at her lap-top.

I was a bit worried about photos because in the mess that is our house I cant find my camera.





Among other things that are lost is the cordless phone which is also our answering machine. Several remote controls are gone. I'm hoping
that whilst tidying up I'm going to find so much dropped change that we shall be able to repay the mortgage.



This photo is a blanket that I made for a young girl who was
expecting. Her mother was also expecting and had her baby first
and commandeered this blanket so I had to make another for the second baby. This was made from a very soft yarn and felt wonderful.

In the next day or so I'm hoping to review the book "Crocheting on the Edge" by Nicky Epstein.

'Gusta

29th December 2008

This is the first post for this blog. I have decided to blog on at least two subjects.

The first is crochet. I will detail what I am up to with my crochet. I will review books and yarns as honestly as I possibly can and tell of my successes and failures.

The second subject will be tidying up. I have been ill for 11 years. I have just started working again and I haven't tidied up the house in most of that time. I hope to log my tidying with photos and descriptions where photos would just be too embarrassing!

Other things will doubtless crop up as time goes on. I am for instance training to be a driving instructor and studying for an Open University degree. These things will appear some times too.

I dont know how entertaining this may turn out to be but the crochet side of it will be informative and I sometimes design my own things which I will be able to post on here too.