Pencil Pots

Hello Everyone!!!

Welcome Back!!  I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas and New Year!

Firstly, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all my New Followers!!  Thank you for joining me!  I hope you have a pleasant stay.

And.... to my old followers.... Helloooooooo!  Welcome Back, so glad you keep visiting!! :-)

Where to begin next...... hmmmmm..... I have so much to update you on, and when I was browsing through my pictures ..... there's millions of them!!! (Eeeeek!!!)

Soooo..... I think I will take you back a bit and work as swiftly as I possibly can to bring you up to date....... this may take a few posts!!

Do your remember these flowers? Well, Bean and Peanut both had found themselves a plastic pot each and were using them as pen and pencil holders, when peanut asked if I could make hers pretty and she thought it was very ugly!!!  This was the end result!

Peanut was absolutely delighted with it and straightaway, before I could finish taking a couple of photo's took it to her desk and started putting pencils into it!

Needless to say, bean spotted it, and asked if I could do a cover for hers as well.....

The only stipulation on Bean's was it was not to be the same colour!

Bean was delighted with her pot as well and filled it up straight away and placed it on her desk in plain sight for everyone to see!!

I have posted the pattern that I made up for these pots on my patterns page here (without photo's). It is the first time I have written a pattern to share. I am going to try and do a pattern with photo's for the flowers, so keep your eyes out. 

Finally, before I disappear to create my next posting..... remember these?? Well I finally finished making the Hexagons and it's starting to look like this.......

I know..... I am a tease...... more of this soon, and there will be colour photo's!!!!

Until next time....

xxx-xxx-xxx

More Hexagons.......

Helloooooo!!

How are you all doing?

Well, we really have been having a lot of cold and overcast days up here in the Northern Hemisphere!  Not that I am complaining, but they really are not good when you try and take pictures!!!!

These are the new colour way hexagons and as you can see..... you can't get the true colour!

The photo's came out either too dark (these are not completed and I have only tucked the ends in so it's not too messy! Hehehe.)

Or....... too bright!!!!!!!!!

Although...... I did manage to catch this hexagon in progress and it is almost true colour, but still a tad bit off!!!

I've been trying to complete a couple a day, so that I can get this project finished before I start a new one, as when I last counted........ I had 7 UFO's!!!!!!!! (Un-Finished Objects) That is truly terrible!!!!!! 

Still, on the bright side, I have plenty to keep me busy!!!

Well, must dash....... got lots of work on the commissioning side to complete and I have to do that!!!

Until next time....

xx-oo-xx-oo-xx

Progress

Helloooooo!

I've just popped on for a sneaky five minutes to let you know that we have been busy,busy,busy!!!

I've even managed to do the next set of colours in my project..... here's another sneak peak....

I am using all sorts of colours, and hexagon mixes, I just need to try and randomly plan how to put it together!

On the christmas creation front, the choices have been very cute and sweet and kept the girls occupied.  They have been that engrossed with their christmas projects that they have hardly noticed that miserable wet weather we have been having......

Mind you, in comparison to the US, our weather has been very mild and I hope everyone that pops in occasionally on here is safe along with their friends and families, my thoughts and prayers are with anyone who has been affected.

Until next time, stay safe everyone and see you soon!!!

Hugs and Best Wishes

xxx

Flowers

Welcome Back!

Well, with everything that went on last week, I did not get much time to be very creative, but I did manage to make these little flowers, which were super easy and quick to make!

I had a lot of fun making them, I just have to put them to good use....... which, I do have a plan for!

I will have to challenge myself to try a bit of pattern writing, so that I can share some of these bits with you all.......... so........ watch this space!

Until next time..... happy creating!

xxxxx

Funny Old Week

Hello!


It's been a really funny old week........ the weather has been better than previous weeks have thrown at us....... on the home front there has been lots of sorting out being done, following Peanut's room renovation, we had kinda piled all the junk and debris into a corner, to remove at a later date, which finally came around!!!


I've also been busy with month end and year end (Call me mad!!!!  I look after M's Office and accounts in my spare time!!! After all creativity has to take first place....... right???????) Thankfully, these are almost done!!


Thinking about creativity...... here's a peek of my granny stripe progress..........

It really is slow progress, because I have been busy with other things, which I'm okay with, but hopefully after the coming weekend, things will settle down and I can start concentrating on important things!!


Well, I must dash......... really, really, really want to finish year end, as then I will be...... FREE!!!


So until next time .....


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A Little Hooky

Welcome Back.......


I have been busy trying to catch up on various bits and pieces this week, following my absence, but I am happy to say that I managed to be a bit creative!


Just a simple granny stripe.................................................

I've done it in cotton and wool.  I just needed to do something that does not take a lot of energy to think about, and it has been therapeutic so far, and helped me to start and focus on what I want to do.

Bean and Peanut treated me to some tea towels that they knew I would adore.........

They are very bright and summery and the birds are just so adorable!!!!

Well, I must go, as I have more packing to do..... yes, packing!  It is a surprise trip, that has been planned by my DH, so I don't know where or what I'll be doing.

So until next time, keep creating!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Weekend Crochet

I just wanted to pop by and share my weekend crochet with you.


As you will know from my previous post, Peanut has had a throat infection, so whilst we were snuggling together on the sofa on the weekend, she asked me to make a blankie for Dogdog. (Dogdog is a toy that she got when she was 4 months old and it goes everywhere with her!)


Anyway, I had been making up some squares to use up some scrap yarn that I had lying about, so I went and gathered them up, along with some white yarn and set about creating her a blankie for Dogdog........


Here it is.........

The top two pictures were a couple of the numerous ones I took when trying to lay it out, the bottom left is the completed blankie and the bottom right is with Dogdog snuggled under his new blankie.


It was easy to do and Peanut and Dogdog are both very proud of their new blankie.


So.... until next time, when life has hopefully returned to near normal..... keep creating!


xxxxxxxx

Experimentation

Hi.........

Because I was soooooo tied up last week, and I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my usual projects, I decided to do some experimentation......

With flowers, twists and a dragonfly........

Now I know the picture is not that great, but that was due to there being toooooooo much light!  It has been very difficult these last few weeks to get decent light for photographing my creations..... it's either too bright or too dull!!

But as these are trial pieces, I knew you would all forgive me.  What do you think?

I also managed to do some paper cutting and some knitting in front of the TV, but more on those in separate posts!

I don't know about you, but I'm quite smitten with the dragonfly!  I will have to make some more and may even try writing out a pattern to share with you.

I will of course have to do some research into this pattern writing malarkey, as I have never written one before, and I have got into a bad habit of slipping into US and UK terminology as per pattern instructions that I have followed, and I don't get confused, as I just know what they are asking me to do...... so it may take some time.....

Until next time.............. keep creating!!

xxx

Ta Dah!

Good Morning Everyone!!!

I am terribly pleased with myself, as I have managed to finish my Japanese Flower Scarf!!  I am utterly and totally happy with it, but I must say that it became addictive......... and I want to make more of these gorgeous flowers!!!!

I just need to think about colours and what I want to make next......... hmmmmmmm...........

Anyway here are a couple of picture's of my completed scarf....... It does still look a bit messy, as I still need to block it.  

I will of course show it to you once I have blocked it, because as many of you know, things just lay more orderly when they are blocked and they do look finished! 

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I have also been making a bit of progress with my African Flowers which I previously blogged about here ........

I am finding these very slow, not because they are difficult...... no ..... in actual fact they are very easy to make!! But because I am using really fine yarn and a 3mm crochet hook, so my hexagons are a lot smaller and all the ones pictures above would only just cover a small cushion!!  But I will persevere, as I have promised to make both bean and peanut something for their new bedrooms.

The next challenge I will face with this particular project, will be how to lay it all out...... but that will all come together properly in the end, as I do have a couple of rough ideas sketched and noted down, but as I've been making more of these, I keep changing my mind...... 

Well, I have a number of things that have been rushing around my head and I need to get them down into some form of sketch or note....... so until next time...... have a creative time!!

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Blooming Flower

Good Morning Everyone!!!! A special warm welcome to all my new followers... feel free to look around and I hope you enjoy your stay!!!

Well...... from previous posts, you will know that I like having peeks at other blogs....... but I especially like Lucy's Blog!!! She is sooooooo very inspirational...... the only trouble is I sometimes loose hours, looking at all the wonderful things in blog land!!!!

Anyway, back to Lucy's Blog........ I wanted to make a cushion cover and nothing out there really did it for me until I spotted This!!!! .

It was love at first sight........ so I thought I would test it out, with some scraps that I had lying about.....

Isn't it scrum-diddly-umptious?????? 

I am truly in love with this, and so are bean and peanut, which is good in one way, but bad, as they may try and steal it for themselves!!!!!  Anyway, I have agreed that I will make them one each, but they will have to be patient and try not steal mine in the meantime!!!!!!!!

So................ on that note, I best get cracking!!!!!  I'm starting to gather UFO's, which is not good!!

Have a wonderful week!

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Japanese Flowers.

Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Well, apart from getting ready from graduation last week, I did manage to squeeze in a bit of hooky time........ but only a bit!!!!

I fell victim to the Japanese Flower pattern!!!!!

You can get hold of the pattern by going here - It is Motif Book 4.  I was fortunate enough to borrow a friends copy!  It is a fabulous book and the diagrams weren't as difficult to figure out as I thought they would be! I am using a pink and purple variegated yarn, which is super soft and I decided I would make a scarf and not the whole shawl thingy!

This is my progress so far....... so........ keep your eyes out for a ta-dah moment!!!

Until next time........ happy creating!

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Can you believe it has been a whole week already????  It seems like just yesterday I said to you all that I was going to attempt to blog at least once a week......

Well, I've been very busy!  The house is back in order, as beans room is complete and peanut has moved into her new room.  The old room has become an office for MG, so that he can work away in peace and quite, and there are no more boxes strewn across the place!  Bliss! Everyone is happy, and I like a happy home!  The only one not entirely happy is me.....

Do you want to know why?

ok ....

This is why I am not happy...........

This is the state my poor neglected creative space has been left in!!! 

Shocking I know!!!!!!!! 

It all took place when the rennovations began, and it has been used for the last four months as a temporary storage area, for things that are needed, but as time was limited, we couldn't quite sort out!!!  But that has all changed, as I have spent most of the week tidying.... sorting... and discarding!!!!!  It looks oh, so much better, but is still not ready for the grand reveal, which I am hoping to do in the next couple of weeks!!!!

Did you notice the postal bag in front of my stored knitting machines???  Well, I have a friend who knows some-one at a factory and she always manages to get end of line cones of woolly goodness!! She is a very generous friend, as she always shares it with me, as she always ends up with 2 cones of each!!!  I can't wait to finish my creative space, then I can spend time admiring and creating wonderful things with this yarn!!

Whilst my days have been filled with sorting, my evenings have been spent being creative, as that has been the only time that I have been able to do anything...

I have attempted some new techniques in crochet.......

It all began with a subscription to the art of crochet, which I got when I was in the middle of my final year at University.  It is a subscription where you end up creating a blanket with the squares you make......

Up until now, I have read through each new piece of information and admired the hard work of the designers, but not really attempted many squares until a couple of weeks ago, when I tried a square a day.....

Some of the squares are very simple, as I know exactly how to do them, having learnt the technique when I first learnt to crochet. Others have been interesting, as I have learnt different ways of using a simple stitch to create a different effect/texture, which in turn has encouraged me to try different techniques..... The first being crocodile stitch........

this was fun to do, and I love the way the rows overlap each other..... I want to do more with this stitch, but not sure exactly what ..... yet....... I searched crocodile stitch on youtube and watched a video made by crochet geek for anyone else wanting to try this technique.

My late Mum was in my eyes, a Goddess of knitting, sewing and crochet.  I can remember asking her how to do things, and she always know exactly how to do it.  She amazed me!!!!  Sadly when she died two years ago, she took her way of ripple crochet with her, and it became a bit of an obsession for me to create the perfect ripple, as I had always wanted to do a ripple, but never really got the hang of it and I always ended up with a squiffy side!!!  The picture below is one of the last ripple blankets my mother completed.......

She made this for peanut when she was a baby, and to this day, peanut uses this blanket a lot!  But, I was left with a dilemma of not being able to crochet the perfect ripple..... but that all changed this week ...... thanks to Lucy at Attic24. Lucy has a very simple easy peasy tutorial on how to do the perfect ripple, so I am pleased to say I can now do ripples and this is the start of a small ripple blanket ...... 

and I have even managed to work out Mum's pattern, which is not that difficult!!!! Thank you Lucy, I think without your instructions, I would still be searching for a technique on how to do a ripple, as I do have books, but they just seemed too confusing...... until now! 

All these new techniques learnt and discovered gave me the courage to try a sweetheart ripple .......

These were tricky, but the effect is so pretty.... I just need to find the time to create beautiful things with what I have learnt, and some lovely yarn in just the right colour!

I did find the time to make some coasters....

two sets in fact......

and ........

yes, there's more..... 

I made some butterflies......

They were easy to make  and I have a few ideas on how to use these, they are just so sweet, and again I found them on youtube. It was a three part video by shopetsy.

Well, it is time I left you all to complete my creative space rennovation and other bits that I have started, so until next week........ have a fun and creative week.

xxxxx



Slow Progress!!

The progress on my contribution for the girls rooms has been very slow..... due to a mixture of things.  I've enclosed a sneak peek of what I have been doing, but not that much of  peek that you will be able to guess what the end result will look like!

There have been some additions with the colours.  I will reveal more as soon as I am able to!!

Some different flowers.

A simple 5 petal crochet flower.

A mixture of three simple crochet flowers.

3 crochet flowers.

A nice big crochet flower in two colours.

Occassionally I do knit flowers!  Very occassionally....