So, the reason for the long absence was...

this:


It's due on or around the 5th November. So for the last 3 months, I've mostly been sleeping, when I've not been working that is!

I do hope you'll forgive me, now you know the reason. And I promise faithfully this won't turn into a baby blog *holds fingers in Brownie promise style salute thingy*. We're selling our house too so it's all a bit manic, yet depressingly craft-clutter-free in here.

Hopefully, I'll be back soon, with more tales from the crochet basket, or perhaps the sewing machine.

Late to the party

Ok, so get all the usual comments about how long it's been out of the way. It's been a long and tiring 3 months, more will be explained over the weekend. However, for those of you who spotted the references to the stay at the Hilton on my tweet feed a few weeks ago this photo shows you just how glam it was:



I was teaching my wonderful friend H how to crochet. And very therapeutic it was too. We did do glam things like bask in the pool, and nibble lovely things in the Executive Lounge, but we mostly caught up on each other's lives, since we haven't seen each other in nearly 2 and a half years. So I haven't been totally lazy, honest!

But mostly, I thought I'd get this quickie post in before the next one, just to let you know about the blog inspiration party over at Copy & Paste last weekend. I haven't had a chance to fully explore all the guest posts, but I can tell you there is some seriously amazing talent over there. Go see!

One of the party posts that has stirred my blogging bone is the "confessional" type list. If you're a reader of my blog, you'll have already seen the previous two layouts I've done on confessionals here, but I thought I'd answer the well-thought out questions.

1. Everyone knows that I .am a crafter.. , but you'd never guess that ...I am actually a scientist too.
2. I'm proud to admit that I like ....keeping busy... but my guilty pleasure is .... just sitting still, reading
3. I'm inspired by ...nature.....and it surprises me when ..I realise just how much!
4. I'm always ..wanting to learn new things.. but I'm never ..totally satisfied..
5. I've got lots of ..crafting stuff... but I've always wanted .....more crafting stuff :).......
6. I tried to ...stop buying more stuff on the internet.. and it ..has mostly worked so far....
7. If I never .. learn to make patchwork quilts.. it will be .....my own fault....
8. I didn't ...cut out cakes after I had my daughter.. and now ....I wish I had!
9. It's not that I ..don't like going out with people but I'd really rather ..stay at home with my family..
10. Doing .things with yarn. makes me ..relax...
11. Someone once told me ..every cloud has a silver lining..and then ...I kept looking for them 'til I found them.
12. I'm happy to say that ..I enjoy "meeting" new friends on-line.. and even .. if I don't comment all the time, I'm still reading and appreciating the sharing of lives....

Please let me know if you blog your confessions, I'm a nosy beggar!

I know, I know. I'm sorry.

Bad blogger. January! That's got to be the longest I've gone without a post since I started this blog. In my defence, it's been a kerazy few months with new job, passing my degree, DD starting pre-school and generally struggling to keep on top of all the everyday mundane stuff that goes on.

However, I have been taking photos. January brought snow. And I practiced my skills with the macro setting:


Then came February. More snow. Or rather, the snow that never went away. We finally bought a sledge of sorts and had some fun in the sun:


Then March, and rain. But the best thing to do when it rains is....


dress up. Oops, no sorry. I meant:


run through all the puddles. But seeing as I don't have any wellies, I just took photos. Lots of them!

But then I've also been crocheting a bit, and I've finally finished sewing together the first block of 24 squares for THAT bedspread that I've started on. And bought another 16 (Eek) balls of silver, as I decided to add another row of the silver around the edge to stop my eyeballs vibrating with the bright colours.


(The above photo is with the bumpy seams. The one below is with smooth seams)

And I love it. It might take me the next two years to finish it, but I know that when I do, I'm going to want to pat it smooth each morning over my bed, which might even encourage me to make it each day.


So what have you been up to? I know I've been bad at visiting people these last few months too, but I aim to catch up soon! Oh, and please have a guess at who my darling man was dressed up as...

Design Your LIfe layouts week 1-2

So, as well as crocheting my little hands off, I also signed up for Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class over at Bigpicturescrapbooking. I like her teaching style, she's really quite amusing, and her simple style of linear scrapbooking does appeal to me. I'm doing it digi though - I've packed away my paper scrapbooking stuff 'til we sell the house, and the class comes with all the digi templates needed to complete the assignments (3 a week). And let's face it. I barely manage one layout a week normally, so 3 would be most definitely pushing it!

My pages are very simple, I intend to gussy them up before I get them printed all at once, here: 12x12 LOs printed at 75p - bargain! I'll let you know what they're like once I've sent off the order.

First 2 weeks are all about balance and symmetry. All layouts use templates from the class by Cathy Zielske, and all paper is either from the freebies or the shop area of Shabby Princess.





What do you reckon to digiscrap? DO you want to try it/have you tried it? Do tell :)

Oh, and for those of you watching for more crochet squares from my gorgeous yarn... here you go. I'm planning on sewing them up as I go.

How much?

So last night, I thought I'd better get realistic with this entire-crocheted-bedspread idea, and work out how many balls I'd need. I'm not working from a pattern, just making lots and lots of granny squares then sewing them together.

Here is where you discover my second love: numbers. I think I must have been an accountant in another life. Close your eyes if calculations scare you.

I measured my bed (80 inches) and then measured a granny (just under 4 inches), so that makes 80 divided by 4 is 20 squares wide. I added a couple extra for the "just under" , so my bedspread will be 22 squares by 22 squares. 22 squared is 484. (What? How many?? 484 squares at a rate of 3 a night, so that's 162 days give or take. Blimey. Then another week or so sewing them together. Sheesh.)

Anyway. Back to the amount of yarn needed. I weighed 6 grannies, then divided the weight of my ball of yarn by the weight of the 6 grannies. It worked out that 1 x 50g ball makes about 12 grannies. So divide the number of squares you need by the number of grannies per ball (484 divided by 12) makes 40.3 balls. I had 20. Then I'd need about 8 more of the silver to stitch them all together (this is a total guess). Eek. This yarn is £3.85 a ball. You can see that my original £200 estimate for using the yarn when it wasn't split was waaaay out. It'll cost me £200 with splitting the yarn!

But I've committed to the idea in my head, because it looks just stunning. Just look at those six squares up there with all the combinations with teal in the centre. There's another 6 for chocolate, 6 more with purple, and 6 more with green. Yum. I cannot wait. Luckily, half an hour of searching on the net located somewhere selling them at 20% discount. Even with £5 postage, I still saved £15.

What is the most expensive thing you've ever made/started on? Do tell :)

Granny Delightful

Finally managed to take some photos of the finished baby blanket. I went with sewing up the seams, and it came together over a couple of evenings. I'm so pleased with it, I don't think I've ever been so chuffed with anything I've made for a long time.


The sewing method produced two different sides of the blanket, one with a little raised border round each square, the other is more or less smooth:


I like both. That's obviously a good thing! And after all the build-up about the wonderful yarn that I've bought for my highly-ambitious-second-crochet-project of an entire bedspread, I have made three squares:


Aren't they just gorgeous? The only pain is having to sew all the bloody ends in. When I was doing the one-colour squares, I could churn out one every 20 mins or so. These little beauties took me around half an hour each, and I spent a good hour beforehand splitting the yarn in two so I can make it go further. If I used it as is (10 ply cotton), I reckon the bedspread would cost around £200 and would weigh a good few kilograms. Warm though!

Just one more gratuitous close-up for those droolers. I know you're there :)


So I showed you mine, will you show me yours?

Another "thing"

I'm hoping that I'm not alone in this, but I love learning. And I'm always up for learning new crafts. My latest thing is crochet; I had an old needlecraft book and some really useful videos from mikeyssmail on Youtube. With these tools in hand I picked it up quite quickly, though I'm already a knitter. After a few practice granny squares in dishcloth cotton, I got cracking with some remnant wool from my baby clothes projects.


And here is the work in progress. I am in the process of sewing the 48 squares together; I tried to crochet them, but it was too fiddly for my liking, so I "cheated". I'm hoping to finish it this weekend, so will post finished pics then.

I am enjoying this new craft so much that I've inadvertently spent my Christmas money on some really funky yarn for an entire bedspread. I think I've lost my mind. Though really, with these colours, could you resist?


Glorious aren't they? Once I start on the squares, I'll post some pictures. There are something like 24 different square combinations with the main colours being leaf, teal, purple and chocolate. I'm going to make all the outer rows silver, to pull them all together, and hopefully make your eyes go kerazy :) If it looks half as fab in real life as it does in my imagination, I'll be very pleased.

What other crafts do you do? And which is your current favourite? Do tell ;)

Merry New Year!

May all you desire be realised through just the right amount of hard work to make it feel worthwhile!

May you have...

...a very merry Christmas, full of love, life and happiness. And turkey, if that's your grub of choice!
I wish all my readers and friends the best of everything for 2010, and I'll see you all very soon.

'Tis the season...

... to take silly pictures! Or rather, to improve my photography skills. I'm taking an online class by Cheryl Johnson (I've seen her work in Scrapbook Inspirations, and submitted some of my layouts to her for the readers' gallery!) (class registration is closed - unfortunately the class numbers were limited).

It's a class called "12 days", and it aims to improve my Christmas photography skills, which is perfect, because I have some pretty ropey Christmas photos. All that indoor lighting, bleurgh.

First challenge - take a festive self-portrait. Done. See above. I'd love for you to take one too, and post it, and then tell me :) Go on, I dare you!