Lilys House

the new craze..

Lily has been bitten by the crochet bug as I'm sure I've let on before. Thing is, she seems to have started a bit of a crochet frenzy at school. It all started when she made a hat and scarf for an actionman which was part of a display in the classroom. Singlehandedly she managed to teach most of her friends and it became the activity of choice at breaktimes. Soon there was an abundance of friendship bracelets being made. Word got round, the teeny articles were sent up to the heads office for her to see.
Her teacher was so impressed by the interest generated, he asked Lily if she would like to start and run a crochet club. Hooks have been ordered and Lily is gathering ideas for easy starter items for her and her club to make. She mentioned to me that she would need stitch markers and of course wool too, so he will have to add that to his shopping list !! I was so very pleased that her enthusiasm has been noticed and the club opportunity was put her way....her school is such an encouraging and nurturing place, we are very lucky.

I'm so proud of her - go girl !

dreaming of summer

....when i can use this bag for our beachy stuff. The colours are so happy and sunny. I managed to snag myself quite a bit of the lovely turquoise Sanderson material. A bit much on it's own but lovely for lining. Spring has definitely sprung on this bag, I was feeling all twirly ! I'll probably experiment with some more of these. Love the shape at last....not exactly a radical new shape for a bag but I wanted to do this from scratch and toyed with a few sketches until this one felt right. I'm liking the plain canvas background too, giving me lots of scope to twirl away to my hearts delight with the machine !
It's taken me a while to finish up due to my lovely little distractions here...poor Lily just getting over her spots and Maddie clingy and generally a bit under par..... ominous spots keep appearing then coming to nothing, who knows what is going on..
Hence, an afternoon trip to the (cold) beach is in order if only to give them a bit of fresh air for an hour (and me...I'm feeling just a tad housebound and grumpy). Lil is packing the sarnies as we speak, just a flask of the now compulsory hot chocolate to go in. Mustn't forget the knitting too although I never seem to get any done down there.....live in hope eh....

for your viewing pleasure.....

oops, better click on this to avoid the chopped off head.....

OK. These are just a delight to make. Lily received one a year or so ago and Maddie has been coveting it ever since. Her 3rd birthday is next week and this is her present from me. I hope it will be loved as much as Lilys has been. I just realised that I was referring to it as a he when it is so patently girlie. Not that I'm forcing it into any sort of gender stereotype you understand......(heck it's a stuffed dog - it doesn't matter Asti !)...movin' on......
The pattern is from AerieDesigns and part of the price you pay for the pattern goes towards helping Greyhound Adoption, so it's all good. You must check out the other designs, including the Life Size Greyhound !. Great stuff.

Now he (I mean she ............I think it's because all of our pets are male that I'm having this problem...) is done, that's it for the making stuff for a little while. I need to spend a couple of days trying to organise this chaos and get us ready for our little break. Oh, and go to work....a side issue at this point. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We need a little trip so badly.

get the flags out !

and from the other angle...
(yep, I've been cropping the old chin out..it wasn't good :) The pinky purple bit is round the back. It looks a bit turquoise on my monitor - it's not, it's a most beautiful sea green. Anyway you get the idea...

I know a couple of people liked the pattern, I linked to it in this post. If anyone else tries it I'd love to see the results !

I'm so pleased with it and can't possibly take it off now, it's too snuggly The wool was Noro Kochoran which is a wool, angora and silk mix. Shade 14. I knit it up on US size 10.5 's. I was stressing that I'd not have enough wool to finish - the ball was disappearing fast, bringing me out in a bit of a sweat at the thought of having to go and buy some more!

but as you can see my fears were unfounded.......quite a bit left from 100g/160 metres, so not too bad on the old purse really ! I may crochet a flower and sew it on as well...

Anyway.....hope you all have a lovely weekend...mine will be spent preparing lists of stuff to take on our up coming trip over half term.....Bright lights, big city...I'm a comin' (but not till next Friday, so I'll see you for a bit next week. Can you tell I'm excited ?!)

work is definitely in progress..

in a relaxed sort of way.....my favourite position on an evening off. (The daubs on the front of the dresser are from Maddies little foray into my stamp pad collection...fetching bronze and silver fingerprints)

helped along with a large gin and tonic and the mp3 remote

harry 'helping' .....( it's a crochet greyhound head in the making, in case you wondered ;)

the siren call of the wool shop

Having been thwarted for the time being by the lace knitting (actually, it just needs a quick going over to make sure my fixing efforts were correct but I can't face it right now. It's in a bag where I can't see it)......I had the urge for a quick knit in a chunky wool. No magnifying glass needed, no tense posture whilst awaiting the inevitable errors, no 2 hrs to knit 3 rows.
Enter a visit to my local wool heaven. Just in for a teeny browse, you know...well, my eyes instantly clapped on the above. The colours are totally me, plus there was a knitted up sample on display to further tempt me....what's a girl to do ? Before I knew it I was paying for it. It was quite expensive an absolute bargain and I couldn't resist.
Back home though the old one skein dilemma was in full force. What to knit ? Everything I looked at and took a fancy to needed more yardage and I really didn't want to fork out another, ahem, few pounds.
Then, by way of Ravelry I came across this little scarf. Perfect in every way. I got a third done on Sunday. Basic garter stich with a few yarn overs - pure auto pilot knitting - bliss. My average weekday doesn't have that many slots for knitting but I'll do my best to get it done quick.

In case any of you are thinking 'butterfly mind'... you are correct :)

friday again

This .....

plus this......

can only mean ........

yes I've actually finished something ! The little needle books are done and I intend to get them into the shop by early next week. Vague I know.......but there's a hectic (in a good way) weekend coming up and I'm not sure how it's going to pan out just yet.

Righto, back to the grind.....dinners to prepare, house to tidy etc etc.....all to the backdrop of a very noisy non napper upstairs.....heaven knows what she's doing up there, better go check.

How can a yawning, eye rubbing, head lolling with tiredness, 2 yr old revitalise herself like this the minute I put her in bed ?? One of life's sweet mysteries. I suppose it's just the same as how a yawning, eye rubbing, head lolling with tiredness, 35 yr old keeps going ........(you can tell by todays title that I'm feeling well inspired today). I'm dazed from a 0245 and 0600 wakeup call after getting in from work late last night, my eyes have rims of fire, I tell you.

What's for certain is that I'm in for one hell of an interesting late afternoon... BUT no work tonight so I'm sure a big glass of wine at tea time will take the edge off ! No I'm not joking, bad mother that I am....

Happy weekend..

good mail day

Lily has got into crochet bigtime and pleaded to get her own. She spied these on ebay and just had to have them. All the way from Canada..........and very reasonable too. Everyday it was 'when will the crochet hooks come ?' and yesterday they did. Now it's serious !

Last week she won a head teachers award for crocheting a hat and scarf for the rock climbing action man on display in the classroom. She has now been challenged to make a jumper for him......now to work that one out !

All feeling a bit more lively here and the sun is even shining........

Ahh, thats better.......

I'm doing it !

Now there are plenty of things I should be doing (finishing), the few bits for the Etsy shop or Maddies birthday crochet project, for example. Instead I decided to follow my desires last night and found myself a supposedly easy pattern. Its the Lace Wrap . You may have to register to get into the Lion brand site to see it.

Despite the warning in the comments from yesterday (thankyou gigibird !) I decided to go with the mohair. I like a challenge. And a challenge it was, ripping out that third row twice after ending up with the wrong number of stitches at the end. BUT and it's a big but - I now know how to dissect what I've knit and work out where I've gone wrong. I was not going to let it beat me. I just went through all the stitches over and over and over and over till I found the mistake.
I expect this was the first of many rip out sessions..........Don't expect this to be completed (if I don't throw in the towel first!) anytime soon....or even this year..

The first signs of the lacy pattern are thrilling though and I even dreamed (honestly) about yarn overs. I do get a bit obsessed or to put it a bit better, focused, on things when I get going. Never the stuff thats a priority though ;)

I've spent the morning cleaning out the fridge, the most despised job in the world in this house..(yes the whole morning - lets just say it was last done way before Christmas and I get a muddy veg box each week)...so I think I'll reward myself with one little row......just one..............

Ta dah !

At last..

The bag is done. It felted up a treat after two goes through the machine. Dinky, woolly, soft, colourful and made by me - what's not to love ! As you can tell I'm a bit pleased with myself........You see, I love knitting I really do, I just wish I was a bit better at it. I can never really take my eyes off the pattern and memorise, or off the needles to watch telly as well ! I've surprised myself on occasions, like the successful wool longies made with the magic loop method, that is, knitting both legs simultaneously on one long circular needle.....

how's that for a colourful picture !?
Kool-aid dyed and were (still are) well loved as you can tell from all the bobbles.
They were a challenge to say the least and splitting off for the legs caused me to literally break out in a sweat. I remember it well - I'd taken myself of to bed to ensure complete silence and no interruptions. I checked the pattern every 2 seconds and was holding the knitting like a vice - hardly a relaxing experience. Once over that hurdle however, it wasn't too bad. Seeing them on Maddie made it all worth while.
I think that is what I'm learning. Like the bag. I was bored doing all that stocking stitch and the i - cord frustrated me. Now though, I'm over all that and am just delighted with the beautiful end result.
So - no pain, no gain. I'm getting it !

I have a strong desire to knit lace. I seem to go through this urge every 6 months or so.I really want to have a go. But I have the fear, as I've read on zillions of blogs about how frustrated and stressy it can get you.
I got some bargain mohair in the charity the other day...................so - a nice complicated super easy lace pattern and my 'totally unrippable if I mess it up' wool.......how bad can it be ?

Any lace knitters out there to give me some newbie tips ?