Whilst I sort through my photos from the Stylecraft Blogstars weekend (and tweek my over-excited posting about it all), shall we knit/crochet a-while? I have a couple of finished objects that you might like to see. The nice thing about getting round to finishing long-neglected projects (LNPs) is that, if - and it's a big if - if you can figure out where you were up to, and why on earth you put that stitch marker there, and why for that matter you thought that fluorescent yellow would look good Continue Reading
Knitting: It’s A Marathon, Not A Sprint
(We have a giveaway winner: more on that in just a moment.) Hello from a splendid hotel in West Yorkshire! I'm 200 miles from home, attending the twice-yearly gathering of the Stylecraft Blogstars at the Stylecraft woollen mill in Slaithwaite. But I'll tell you about that properly in my next post, because there is so very much exciting loveliness to show you. I love these weekends. (In case you're newish to these 'ere parts, I've written before about jollies such as touring the mill, and Continue Reading
Time For A Catch-Up
OK, people, you have until tomorrow lunchtime (UK time) to enter the luxuriously colourful Noro giveaway. Just thought I'd mention that, in case you haven't cast your (knitted) hat into the ring, yet. The competition is open worldwide. Anyway, settle y'self in a chair (yes, even the chair if you so wish) with your crochet/knitting, and let's talk yarn. May I see what you're making, please? And of course you can join us in the pub for out knitting group if you so wish. Our membership spans quite Continue Reading
Thank You
This post is mostly a 'thank you' to all of you who sponsored, encouraged, or at the very least grudgingly tolerated me as I prepared to run the Oxford Half Marathon in aid of the Nasio Trust. The big race was yesterday. Nine thousand of us lined up in the centre of Oxford under a beautiful blue sky, to await the starting klaxon. Guess what: I didn't win. (But my friend Chris did come 15th out of the 9000, which just boggles the brain: he's fast.) Still, I ran all 13.1 miles (21km), for which I Continue Reading
Back In The Crochet Garden
Dear blog, I've neglected your regular silliness business, what with all those giveaways and other stuff. So I thought it was high time to drop in on a project that's been slowly (very slowly) progressing in the background whilst I've been on here chattering about other things. Yes, if you've been reading here a'while: you'll know the one. The over-ambitious furniture-related one that began with a house, and which is now slowly (oh-so-slowly) acquiring a garden. It's so close to the Continue Reading
And Now For Something Completely Different
Ahem. (By the way, do remember that there's still time to enter the Edward's Crochet Imaginarium giveaway.) I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to do something helpful via this blog, something for charity. The idea hadn't progressed very far when a plan came along of its own accord and plonked itself in my lap. It's a ludicrous idea, and the friend who suggested it wisely did so after I'd had a couple of glasses of wine, in which state I can be talked into pretty much any kind of Continue Reading
Foraging
What’s a girl to do on the hottest day of the year? Well, besides writing up the pattern for a nice warm, fluffy cowl, I celebrated the road-melting heat on Wednesday by putting on the oven to bake courgette cake and beer bread, before going for a 9-mile (that’s 14.5km) run in the blazing midday sunshine. Stupid? Possibly. But the really stupid thing was being so obsessed with drinking lots of water in the hours pre-run that I forgot to eat. “Oops,” I thought, forced to stop as I waited to Continue Reading
Trying Hard Not To Get Shot
I hate getting caught in the middle of a shoot-out when I'm half-way through my run. (Or, indeed, at pretty much any stage of my run.) Hang on, just let me do a bit more work on the giant crochet house/garden project (that REALLY is nearly finished). Gotta steady my nerves. Is it me, or do these attempts at daisies on the lawn resemble fried eggs? Sigh. Back to the drawing board. We live in the countryside, so like it or not, people shoot things and then eat them. (Sometimes they even cook Continue Reading
Let Them Eat Cake. (And Chocolate).
Chocolaty felicitations to those amongst you of an Eastery inclination. And even if Easter isn't your thing, I hope you have some cocoa solids handy anyway. Because, well, chocolate. Given the ongoing grey/damp outside, I've been creating colour in the indoor flowerbeds. This. Project. Is. Going. To. Be. Finished. Very. Soon. Or. I. Will. Scream. The plants/foliage are aggressively crocheted, and then I'm embroidering on the flowers. But never mind that, it's Easter. Despite the fact that Continue Reading
Begonias And Barn Owls.
Sometimes, I think that barn owls must have been designed by a six-year-old. (There is crochet coming later in this post, but I just need to get the barn owls off my chest, so to speak.) Don't get me wrong: they're beautiful and magnificent birds of prey, but they do have some odd design elements. I'm writing this because I saw one up-close at dusk the other day. It flew alongside my car for a moment, just as I topped the Berkshire Downs ready to descend into Oxfordshire. There I was, Continue Reading