Hibernating

Hello all and a belated Happy New Year to everybody.

I've not been neglecting my blog, or ignoring you, it's just that January doesn't seem to agree with me. 

I'm not feeling my usual jolly self and appear to have the 'Winter Blues', resulting in me hibernating myself away for a time (don't worry, I have plenty of chocolate goodness to sustain me through this dark, cold, dim period).

To cheer me up this morning, I received notification from the very talented Mia, that she'd awarded me with a Stylish Blogger Award.  How fabulous is that?  Thank you so much Mia. 

Me, stylish - wow! 

Mia - I promise I'll try and live up to this blog award over the coming year. 

In receiving this award I have to:

• thank and link back to person who awarded it.  
• Share 7 things about myself.
• pay it forward to 15 bloggers.
• contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

So, here goes with the 7 things about me.  Are you sure you want to know even more ????

1. I wanted Santa to bring me a new camera for Xmas, he bought me a video recorder instead.  I'm not complaining or anything, but I haven't the foggiest how to work it.

2. This year I'm going to try and create my family tree and obtain the military records for both my grandad and my father.

3. I take 6 spoonfulls of sugar in my mug of coffee.  

4. When I was younger I used to want to become a fighter pilot.

5.  I cry at movies.

6.  I make a fantastic Lasagne.

7.  I'm determined to master the art of crochet this year and the Rowan Rep at John Lewis has offered to give me lessons - for free!

Choosing just 15 blogs to pass this award onto is really difficult, as I love all the blogs I follow.  Also, I know that some blog folk don't accept awards. 

If any of these blogs are new to you, please go and check them out. 

1. Blueberry Heart

2. Green Rabbit Designs

3. Heartshaped

4. Hello Flower

5. Jellywares

6. Jenny Stitches

7. Junie Moon

8. Just Me

9. Little Tin Bird

10. Petit Filoux

11. Skirmishofwit

12. The Curious Cat

13. The Linen Cat

14. The Quince Tree

15. All my blog followers.......

* * * * * * * 

You may be wondering what I've been doing with time if I haven't been blogging.  Well, I've been knitting a pram blanket for a friend who gave birth to a little boy, James, on the 20th December.

I'm not a lover of pastal colours and didn't want to go down the usual baby blanket route - I needed something that little bit different, so I spent some time trawling through Ravelry, before spying a beautiful, multicoloured blanket called Honeycomb Waves, designed by Tahira Probst, knit using Noro Taiyo yarn.

Now Noro Taiyo yarn does come in some fantastic colourways, but unfortunately these were both hard to come by and rather on the expensive side.  So, I was extremely happy to find Patons Colour Work Aran yarn, which made for a brilliant, and much cheaper, option.

My blanket is to be made up of 3 separate panels, which I'll seam together.  The first panel was knit in shades 00080 (Orion) and 00081 (Sunset). This will end up being the middle panel.

The second panel is knit using shades 00087 (Blue Mix) and 00085 (Art Deco). 

 

Here's a closer look...

 

I've just started to knit the final panel, which I'm also knitting in the Art Deco and Blue Mix shades, though this time I'm using them in reverse.  The Art Deco shade will form the edging and the Blue Mix will be honeycomb centres.

I'm thoroughly enjoying knitting this pattern and using this yarn.  They'd both make beautiful scarves, cowls, cushion covers, bags - the list is endless.  

You can tell that I love my blanket so far, but I'd love to know what you think.  Do you think that it's appropriate for a baby?  Is it something you'd like to receive?  

* * * * *

Good morning.

Finally, I can sit down to write a short blog post today - I've spent the last 20 minutes or so, trying to remove 5 toys, which Violet had dropped/pushed/stuck down the back of the radiator - not an easy task I can tell you. 

Anyway, first off I'm going to introduce you to my friend's new little baby - Rosa.

Check out what she's wearing.

Yay - she's sporting one of the baby cardies I knit for her. 

Rosa's as cute as that little ladybug button - OK, she's cuter. 

Before I get too broody, I'll get onto the second thing.

I've been trying to organise a couple of boxes (ahem!) of all my cross stitch paraphernalia, and have discovered that I have two of these....

Here's a closer look at the picture.

The pattern is called Winter Queen, and was designed by Nora Corbett.

I haven't got the foggiest how I ended up with two copies of it.  So I thought I'd offer one of them to you guys gals.

If you think you might like it, just leave me a comment on this post.  If more than one of you fancy it, then I'll obviously have to put all your names in a hat and draw a winner.

This is a really beautiful cross stitch to do - I should know, I stitched it for an aunt of mine about approx 14 years ago. 

It's stitched on 32 count linen.  There's beading involved, but this is very easy to do, and some very fluffy 'whisper white' thread is called for on the Ermine edging of the ladies dress, which might make you sneeze alittle when it goes up your nose - ATISHOO.  Gesundheit.

Have I tempted anybody to give it a go?????

*

This blogger needs you!

It feels like ages since I posted anything on here, but truth be told, I really haven't had the energy as the whole household has been rather on the poorly side.  We still aren't 100%, but at least we can manage to eat a few morsels now and again.

But, you don't want to read about.

So, I'll show you how I'm getting along with Baby Knit #2.

Here it is.

I'm absolutely loving the colour.

It's a really easy pattern to follow.

Though I hated picking up the stitches and knitting the edging on a circular needle - it really made my fingers ache.

Also, I had to learn the very basic chain stitch  used in crochet to finish off the edging.  It's not perfect by any standards, but it doesn't look too bad and has given it a nice flouncy edge.

Then the nightmare begins.

I want to crochet the flower for the front, but cannot make head nor tail of the darn instructions.

Do you want to see my attempt so far?  (please say no).

It's bad.

And, nothing like what it's supposed to look like. 

It's meant to look like this:

Oh deary me.......... (I'm blushing with embarrassment)

So if the following instructions mean anything to any of you, please let me know.

1st round 1ch, 6dc in ring, remove hook, insert from back in first dc, catch loop and pull through.

2nd round, taking hook behind, work 1ch, 1dc around the stem of first dc of 1st round, 2ch, (1dc around the stem of next dc, 2ch) 5 times, ss in first dc.

3rd round, ss in first 2ch sp (1dc, 1htr, 2tr, 1htr, 1dc) in each 2ch sp, ss in first dc.

Fasten off.

And I thought knitting was hard.