Bank holiday weekend

Yesterday some friends and I visited Lytes Cary.

I thought I’d been there before, but I didn’t recognise any of it so perhaps I haven’t! But it was great to have a look around. I just love visiting old houses. I think part of it is just because I’m quite nosy, and getting to look round anyone’s house is fun. But I love history too, and the sense of wonder that comes from seeing things that were made hundreds of years ago.

This birdcage kind of scared me a bit – I think probably because it’s so dark and made me think of a prison – but the craftsmanship is amazing. It was made in the 18th century and has survived all this time. 

A lot of my indoor pictures didn’t come out very well, as flash photography wasn’t allowed and my hands obviously aren’t very steady! But I got one or two good photos. This little window (although it didn’t have glass) fascinated me. It was right at the top of the stairs and overlooked the entrance hall below.

I hadn’t noticed it from this side when we arrived, but spotted it on the way out.

I loved the ceiling here too. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but the colour was a sort of grey/duck egg blue, in between some lovely, swirly carvings.

This beautifully carved rail was in the chapel.

 

Look at this teeny, tiny window! I’m not sure what the point was, as it’s so very small it couldn’t let in much light.

 

We also had a wander in the gardens. Unfortunately we couldn’t see all of the gardens, as several parts were shut because of the heavy rainfall we’ve recently had. But the bits we saw were really lovely.

 

The place was full of lovely doors and gates that were just begging to have their picture taken. I was only too happy to oblige.

We also had a game of croquet! We thought that our Australian friend needed educating in the way of all things English (although I’d never played before either, and proved to be really quite hopeless at it). It was a lot of fun, although I think none of us are very likely to take it up properly!

However, my favourite part (which my friends found very strange) was a bedspread. I got some odd looks and comments as I moved all around the bed taking trying to get some good shots, but it was just beautiful. So many tiny hexagons (probably about 1 inch in size) all so neatly stitched together – the stitches were incredibly tiny. Unfortunately the photos aren’t very clear, but will give you an idea of some of the fabrics.

Some of the groups were not made up of individual hexagons, but were all one piece. It seems to me like it would be harder this way (more complicated working out seam allowances perhaps?) but they were perfectly sized.

And now today I’m enjoying a quiet day at home. I’m hoping to get my shawl finished, although as I have at least 47 more rows to go it may not happen!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend (bank holiday or otherwise) 🙂

April showers

Ever since a drought was announced we’ve had a whole lot of rain. It has been properly gloomy some days and not at all nice to go out in, but perfect weather for staying in and getting creative! And it seems like I’ve had a pretty productive month.

In April I have…

… finished a baby blanket (including sewing in all those pesky ends)

… ordered more wool and started 2 more blankets

… been creative with tea towels

… celebrated Easter

… covered 100 buttons

… finally put the finishing touches to a stripy bag

… announced a giveaway

… played with buttons, books and pin boards

… made clothes for a special Bunny

… whipped up a baby hat and some tiny little slippers.

Phew, I think I need a cup of tea and a sit down after all that.

Edit: At some point soon I’ll link all these things to the original posts, but right now I need to get on with dinner because I’m out tonight teaching knitting to some friends!

Circles of delight

My lovely friend Helen and I took a road trip yesterday. It wasn’t far, but we had so much fun! Because she was driving I got to crochet in the car – an entirely new experience for me. It took a little getting used to, but it was great to be able to use that time productively and managed to finish 10 of these colourful circles during our travel time.

These are for yet another project I’ve started, and will show you the finished items as soon as I can.

Our little trip mostly consisted of shopping and lunch. I hadn’t really planned to get much, but these little beauties just jumped off the shelves and into my hands, so what could I do?! The first thing to leap at me was this lovely little Cath Kidston bowl. So lovely and summery, and just right for cheering up a gloomy day.

Just around the corner was this beautiful sugar bowl. I just love the colours, and even though I don’t need a sugar bowl for sugar I was sure I could find some use for it.

And indeed I did – it now holds my paper clips, split pins, pegs and other random items that have no other home. The best part is that I can put the lid on and stop them getting all dusty – bonus!

As I was wandering around one shop I suddenly spied these lovely spotty tea towels, and immediately thought of notebook covers! I washed them all as they felt just a bit too new and needed softening up.  

(Apologies for the quality of the photo – the ironing board is in a particularly gloomy corner and my poor little camera just can’t cope with gloom!) Anyway, as I was paying for them Helen suddenly exclaimed “Tea towels!” No, she wasn’t losing the plot, she had just been hit with a flash of inspiration! She had seen some draught excluders that she kind of wanted, but didn’t really like any of the colours or patterns available. So I said I’d make a cover for her. But out of what? We decided to work on it at a later date, but then came the flash of inspiration – why not make a cover from tea towels?! So here are the 3 she decided on…

I’ll let you know how the tea towel cover turns out!

Oh, and here are the notebooks that I will cover with the other spotty tea towels…

As they are quite pretty as they are I’ll try to work out a way of being able to see the pictures. Perhaps a pocket would be bettern than covering them entirely. Hmmm… I’ll think about that.

I bought several other things too, but nothing quite so pretty that needed pictures. However, when I got home there was a little parcel awaiting my attention. Upon opening it I discovered these…

Blank buttons! In my Coriandr shop I have a few Buttons on Buttons for sale. These are tiny buttons stitched on to pretty fabric and used to cover bigger buttons. This may seem like an odd idea to you, but I love them! Anyway, I have just received an order for 100 of these buttons to be made for a button seller in Canada. Hence the ordering of a rather large quantity of blank buttons.

I have started to cut out circles of fabric to cover these buttons, which are currently residing in the lovely Cath Kidston bowl. These will all need to be ironed before the tiny buttons can be added. What joy!

And now for something a little less round and circley – hexagons! I sorted out the order I wanted them in on Tuesday night and took a picture just to remind myself of how I wanted them. Here they are in all their colourful glory…

I did wonder if there were in fact too many colours – I used 19 different shades in the end – and if it was just a bit over the top.  But since starting to join them with the white wool I’ve decided that actually they look quite lovely. The white between each colour is enough to balance everything out a bit.

I think it also helps that I have worked 2 rounds of white around each hexagon.

This serves a double purpose – 1) so that the vast amount of colours are not too overwhelming, and 2) to make the blanket bigger! I’m really quite please with how it’s looking so far, and it’s a lot easier to work in the ends as I go along than it was on the squares blanket – which means alotless work at the end. Fabulous!

A little rainbow of loveliness

I had my day all planned out. I was going to visit the dentist (fun times), visit the beach then visit my Granny in hospital. But just as I was leaving for the dentist the postman visited with a wonderful parcel. Which changed my plans (but only a little).

The parcel contained 10 balls of loveliness – a new supply of Stylecraft Special DK.

Starting at the top they are: Meadow, Saffron, Plum, Rasberry, Lemon, Lavendar, White (x3), Violet.

So instead of going to the beach, I opted to come home and crochet instead! I have to say, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. It was rather grey, cloudy and cold so being warm inside with my new wool was a much more appealing option.

And as a result I now have 3 stitch holders full of a rainbow of little hexagons. Don’t they look lovely?!

From left to right they are:
Top: Emperor, Violet, Lavendar, Turquoise, Denim, Sherbert, Aspen
Middle: Lipstick, Pomegranate, Fondant, Candyfloss, Soft Peach, Raspberry, Plum
Bottom:  Graphite, Silver, Saffron, Lemon, Meadow

This time round I have decided to use all Stylecraft wool. For the last blanket I used a few other types of wool, just bits I had in the bottom of my bag, but even though they were all DK some were slightly thicker than the others which annoyed me. It’s probably not noticable to most people, but I know and that’s enough.

Anyway, I now have a rainbow of 76 lovely little hexagons. I think I’ll need more, but I’m going to lay them all out to work out a pattern for them all, then see which colours I need more of. I think this is my favourite part of the process – I’ll let you know what I come up with tomorrow 🙂

Another blanket started

You would be forgiven for thinking that you have seen this colourful caterpillar before. However this is an entirely new one, made up of the lovely little hexgons I mentioned yesterday, made from the pattern found on Bunny Mummy’s blog.

And here is how they look individually…

I just love the little star/flower shape in the middle of each one. So pretty! I had planned at the beginning to make a boy blanket, using lots of blues, purples and greens. But with that lovely shape it just had to be a girl blanket, and the pinks are already taking over!

I had to go shopping this morning to pick up a couple of extra stitch holders – these little beauties take no time at all to make and my first stitch holder is almost full already. So 2 more should keep me going for a little while longer!

 

I have been catching up on a few blogs this morning too, and have entered a competition over at Jenny Arnott’s blog. I just love the things she makes, they are completely beautiful and always bring a smile to my face. She has just had one of her designs included in Seaside Home.

I now have a chance to win this book – how exciting! I probably won’t win (and if I don’t I may just have to buy the book!) but it’s always fun to enter these things 🙂

So close

I am nearly, nearly finished with the baby blanket. All the squares are stitched together and a border and edging has been added. And this is how it looks:

80 blocks of beautiful colour, all contrasting and complementing each other wonderfully. It makes me smile every time I look at it!

The border did cause me a few problems – no matter what I tried it always seemed to go all wavy and all over the place. It was very frustrating. But as a I was browsing through Bunny Mummy’s blog the other day I just happened to notice this tutorial on her side bar – how to make a flat border for granny square blankets – hurrah! And it worked a treat.

And then I just happened to notice another of her tutorials – Double V edging – a very simple but very pretty edge to just finish it all off. I think it just looks lovely.

But the more observant of you may have noticed that even though it looks quite beautiful here, there are one or two stray ends poking out here and there. And the sad fact is that actually there are rather a lot of stray ends. In fact, a whole blanket’s worth that need sewing in.

And of course rather than actually getting on with the sewing in process I have decided to start another blanket! Yet another tutorial I stumbled across on Bunny Mummy’s blog, for a mini hexagon. They are delightfully quick and easy to make and think they will make a fantastic blanket. So maybe I’ll just wait until I’ve finished this one and sew in all the ends at the same time.

Or maybe I’ll start yet another blanket and never sew in any of the ends. That option sounds much more likely.