A Septembers weekend

Hello Ladies

Oh what a lovely weekend I've had.

Me and Mr S have been promising ourselves a holiday all year, but what with his work and family commitments/issues it wasn't something we had been able to sort out.

But........

Saturday I booked our Hols. In 48 days we fly to Mexico and boy am I excited. I don't care that I am a 40 something nearly 50 year old woman that was skipping around the lounge just after clicking the "Confirm your Payment" button. MEXICO here we come :)

Now all I need is to invest in some acrylic crochet hooks and some lovely yarn to take on the plane.
Does anyone know the rules of flying and crochet hooks. Do they have to be acrylic or can i use my normal ones ?

I'm thinking perhaps two projects are needed to keep me occupied. I've seen a lovely wrap that would be good to make and maybe some motifs for a blanket. Hmmmm definitely need to think on that one.

With 11 hours of flying I need something to keep me busy.

Then on Sunday we went to a Salute to the 40's. I don't know if any of you have heard of Chathams Historic Dockyard", but it is open most of the year and is a maritime museum on part of the site of the former Royal Navy dockyard. It records 400 years of Royal Navy history with 47 scheduled monuments on the 80 acre site.  It also holds many fun and interesting events through the year and "Salute to the 40's" is one of them.

 Me and Mr S had a wonderful day wandering around. Many people of all ages were dressed up and it was lovely to see all the young girls in their dresses and high waisted trousers. With their make-up and bright red lipstick.

They even had a vintage fair. Selling clothing, shoes, jewellery, hats, pictures, books and many other items. There were beautiful vintage bone china tea sets, that reminded me of my Great Grandmother.

 

They had Fire trucks, Steam trains, Police cars, Army vehicles and Motorcycles

 

I even found this lady crocheting. With her hair scarf and her pinny, she was like looking at my Nan when I was a very small child.

The day was perfect. The sun was hiding behind the white clouds, but it was warm and just right for a day out wandering. The music and the atmosphere was brilliant. I will definitely consider going again next year.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Sally :) xxx

Learning

Hello Ladies,

When I first started crocheting again, I was quite interested in having a go at making some baby cardi's. So I found a couple of patterns and bought some baby yarn. Unfortunately I was completely rubbish at it, my increasing and decreasing looked like the edges were mouse eaten, and no matter how many times I undone and redid I couldn't make it look any better. So I ended up knitting a few and they were perfect. Although I can knit I much prefer crocheting so I was a little frustrated. I have had no issues in making my blankies and shawls, I am over the moon with the way they have turned out.

So the other day when I found a little cardi pattern in a magazine I thought I would give it another go.

I went out bought two lots of Aran yarn and proceeded to make the cardi.

It was horrible, it looked awful, I didn't like the shape or the yarn. So I undid it all.

Now I'm left with Aran yarn that I didn't know what to do with.

Then I remembered on a blog called Suz Place by a lovely lady called Sue, she had made a bath mat, so I went and had another look and thought it would be a great way to use my unwanted, unliked yarn.

It was great, I used 3 strands of 3 different colour Aran yarn and a 10.00m hook. It was so quick to make and I thought the affect of using the 3 different yarns looked brilliant.

I am thinking that I might make it another row longer, so it's a rectangle not square and maybe make a smaller one for our downstairs loo.

But I am still  unable to crochet a reasonable looking baby's cardi.

Then I found a website called Craftsy and on there they have video tutorials and one is a step by step guide, by Linda Permann for making a baby's cardi. So I'm wondering even though you have to pay for the tutorial, will it be worth my money if at the end of it and can make a lovely little jumper or cardigan. She takes you through each step, from how to understand the pattern to putting together at the end.

I also think you keep the tutorial for ever, so you can view it as many times as you wish and you can do the tutorial in your own time

And then maybe i would even be able to progress onto adult garments.

What do you think?

 Are there any of you that have made any cardigans or jumpers whether for an adult, child or baby.

Any advice will be good advice ladies. 

Take care

Sally xxx

Crocheting And A Good Read

Hello Ladies,

Time seems to be zooming by. I can't believe that just over 2 weeks ago my grandson  Flynn was born. We all went to a very good friend of the family's wedding at the weekend, taking Flynn with us.

I just wanted to show you his very posh wedding outfit.

He was such a good boy, even behaved himself through the speeches.

My daughter Jess and her partner went on holiday for two weeks, so this little boy came and stayed.

I say little but he's only 6 months and quite big.

 I forgot how much energy puppy's have and how much attention they need. I had toys strewn from one end of the house to the other and as fast as I was putting them away, they were out again. He loved going over the fields for a run and running seemed effortless to him.

He's gone home now and the house seems too quiet. I think my two dogs are quite releived, they are 10 and 9 and I think he was too energetic for them. 

I want to tell you about a brilliant book I have just read. I have always said my reading genre was adult Fantasy, but my kids tell me I shouldn't call it that as it sounds like I'm into porn. They call it Sword and Sorcery. 

I know we all have different reading tastes, so if there are any of you that like reading "Sword and Sorcery" I fully recommend you read "The Painted Man" by Peter V Brett. I haven't got much crocheting done these last couple of weeks because of this book. I have been glued to it. And when I finished it, I was straight onto Amazon, looking to see if there was a second book. Not only  did I find the second book called "The Desert Spear" I found the third called  "The Daylight Wars".

I have read all three in just under two weeks and now feel a bit deflated as its finished and I have to wait for Mr Peter V Brett to finish the fourth. 

"So if you do happen to read the odd crochet blog Mr Brett, can you please HURRY UP, I need to know what happens next".

As for crocheting, I have completed another wrap/shawl. This is my 4th one and its  for my daughter Amie. She picked a lovely yarn called "Araucania", its a hand dyed yarn from Chile and it was lovely to work with, when made up it feels all soft and springy.

Originally she picked a shawl from Ravelry  called Southbay Shawlett, then when she was looking at my blogs, she found a shawl that Meredith from Mereknits had made, called "Elise Shawl" and decided that it was a nicer one. Meredith said she got it completed in four days and was so easy to do. It did take me longer than that, maybe just over a week, but I blame Mr. Brett, for writing such a brilliant book.

It was a lovely shawl to make and as Meredith said easy and quick.

 Now to perhaps finish one of my WIP's. Or start making my Christmas list of who I want to make for and what to make them.

See you soon ladies, take care.

Sally xxx

The Weekend

Hello Ladies,

I hope you all had a good weekend. I had a couple of nice surprises for mine.
First one was when I got home from visiting my mum on Saturday, Mr. S had started tiling the kitchen. We were supposed to have someone come and do it for us but what with one thing and another, he was unable to. 
So Mr. S decided to do it himself and when I got home he'd already got over half of it done. I was really pleased with how it was looking. We'd had the ceiling replastered, all the new cupboards have been fitted, with my new dishwasher, that works like a dream. I love my dishwasher and have always wanted one, but never had the room in the kitchen. So when we was ripping out the old and putting in the new, that was the main thing I wanted.
The walls had been painted, so all that was left was tiling and flooring.

Now the tiling has been completed and I would just like to say a huge "Thank you" as I know he has been ultra busy with work. So completeting that for me was wonderful.

The second surprise of my weekend was yarn finding.

My youngest daughter Amie wanted to go to Blue Water on Sunday. Now some people find this quite odd, but I'm not a lover of shopping. Wandering in and out of shops browsing, does not appeal to me, and if the shop has a sale on and there are rails all over and the shop is all higgeldy piggeldy, then I just have to walk back out. But she only wanted to go to a couple of shops, so that and lunch sounded good.

A friend of Amies at work, told her that John Lewis had a small craft section so after lunch we went to have a look.

I know I'm a newbie to the whole crocheting and yarn buying, so many of you ladies probably already know what I'm about to share.

Years ago when my children were babies and toddlers, we had a fair few wool shops in our area, but slowly, maybe because of the recession back then, they slowly closed down one by one. So when I started to crochet again, there hasn't been a huge choice of yarns or many yarn shops locally to me. There is a huge amount of choice online, but I do like to feel, squeeze and view yarn, before buying.

So when I went into John Lewis, can you imagine how I felt when I saw this.

I have found yarn heaven. It was so lovely just to stand and coo, poke, feel, squeeeeeeeeezzzzze and admire.

Did I want to buy some? Hell yeah. I could of filled baskets with it all, but I gave myself a good talking to. I don't need anymore more yarn at the moment, I have 5/6 WIP going at the moment, with plenty of surplus yarn to start more.

So I took some pics and walked away.

"Phew that was a close one, thought we was going to need help getting to the car with all the bags of yarn." Said Amie

"No I don't need any more yarn today, maybe I'll pop back later in the week."

Lol.