Hello! Thank you so much for visiting me in the Attic, it's lovely to see you. My name is Lucy and I'm a happily married Mum with three children. We live in a cosy terraced house on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales in England which we are slowly renovating and making home. I have a passion for crochet and colour and love to share my creative journey. I hope you enjoy your peek into my colourful little world x
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Today I'll be showing you some more of my Summer Harmony blanket progress, I can't tell you how much pleasure this blanket is bringing me every single day, I'm loving it so much! Obviously I'm enjoying the crochet a huge amount (as always) but I'm finding that the photographing and writing is just as fun as the actual making. These little squares just love the camera and are very photogenic, so I've spent rather a lot of time stacking and arranging them just so I can take photos. I'm very easily pleased, which is no bad thing.
So in Summer Harmony Part 3 I shared my colour choices for round 4, and the above photo shows you how the one hundred and two squares looked with four rounds of colour. No two squares are the same, and no two colours appear in any one square which has been quite a challenge, but in a really great way. I have love love loved getting my eyes and heart to talk to my brain in order to create so many happy colour combos.
Round 5 will be the last round working on individual single squares before I contemplate the joining process.
I found it easiest to take the whole thing down to floor level so that I could lay out the squares then regularly stand back from them to see how they were looking.
Interestingly, I've just had a quick look at the time stamps on the photos I took whilst doing this, and I can tell you that it took me 27 minutes to work out round 5. Not sure if this is something to celebrate, but I feel like it came together pretty quickly considering there were one hundred and two decisions (plus a kitty cat) involved!
The following photographs show the Round-5 colours chosen for each of the squares. This is just for general reference and a bit of visual fun really - there is link to an information table at the end....
So here's what you have to do to prepare for round 5 ::
download or print a copy of the Summer Harmony Part 4 table (link above)
lay all 17 balls out on a flat surface (floor or table)
get your 4-round squares and sort them out into groups according to the 4th/outer round - there will be 6 squares in each group. This will make it easier for you to find the squares you're looking for.
use the table (and the above photos for guidance) and place each square with the ball that you'll use to crochet round 5. There will be six squares with each ball.
you can then use my method of looping all six squares together with a length of yarn to indicate the colour needed for the next round (explained in part 1).
Get hooking!
Please take care with colours that look very similar (eg Lavender and Wisteria, also Cloud Blue and Sherbet) as it's easy to make mistakes with these colours.
I carried on using the same method for storing my squares for this round, keeping them held together with a length of yarn to remind me which colour comes next.
I find it fascinating how the look of each square changes once another colour is added into the mix, it's such an emotional process somehow, and I really love that you get used to "feeling" the colours rather than just seeing them.
I confess I didn't put a tremendous amount of effort into all these colour-coded decisions - it honestly seems to work out better if there isn't too much over-thinking. It's my best kind of fun, and I am really quite addicted to colour-play like this.
So that's round 5 done and dusted, and oh those stacks are looking mighty fine, if I do say so myself.
The next round (round 6) will be the final round and will include the joining process where I begin to turn these beautiful piles of squares into an actual blanket. I can tell you that working out how to organise the colours for round 6 took me waaaaaaaaay longer than 27 minutes. It was the best part of a day, and at this time I still don't quite know if I managed to get it right or not.....................I'll give you an update very soon I promise.
The very huge beach at St Annes, on a most glorious Monday July morning...
J and I, enjoying a few precious child-free hours ambling about on the beach...
Paddling our toes amongst the teeny fishes swimming in the shallow pools...
The light was fantastic, so bright and sharp and crystal clear...
And there was just the right amount of sea breeze whipping across the open beach to keep us cool.
Such a beautiful day, I came home to the Little People with shells in my pocket and sand still on my toes, full of summer spirit and salty sea breezes.
Later.....7pm.....and the day still held so much summer warmth and light....
I walked out with Little Lady, purely to feel the sun still warm on my face...
Along the canal with it's beautiful still water...
Stopping to drink in the reflections under this old bridge, just as I always do...
Little Lady, full of life and chatter, as happy as I was to be out walking at this end of the day...
Up into the cool shade of the woodland, where the sun danced through the greenery...
Along the little lane, stopping to chat to the chickens and admire the castle view...
Then onwards down the hill and gently back towards home.
Summer days like these, so beautiful in their simplicity. Warmth and love, sunshine and light, chatter and laughter, sea breezes and dappled cool greenery. Fresh Italian coffee, ripe juicy nectarines. Sitting and walking and paddling and strolling and completely loving the here and now. Today was all kinds of wonderful.
These sweet days of mid summer are just beautiful, and I feel like I need to soak up every tiny little summery thing and absorb it right into my soul. I feel a strong desire to stock pile these visual details, preserve the sights, sounds and memories of summertime in preparation for Autumn when it all fades away. My view is so green and lush right now, and every day I stand at the end of my street and breathe in the sight of it, even in the grey mist/rain that we've had of late it looks lovely.
On Saturday morning I walked through the park with the Little People to visit our rather fabulous farm shop. It was a lovely day and we were on a mission to choose and buy some things to put a picnic tea together, it was such fun seeing what they chose and how they thought our picnic should be. We came home with a full bag - pork and apple sausage rolls, garlic stuffed olives, Italian salami, cherry tomatoes on the vine, fresh crusty bread, eggs to hard boil, a punnet of strawberries, chocolate chip cookies. J wasn't particularly keen on the picnic-in-the-park idea, but I showed him the chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and reminded him that all he had to do was sit on a blanket, eat yummy food from a plastic plate and drink wine from a plastic glass. What's not to like? Besides, the Little People were sooooooooo happy about the idea of picnicking, he didn't stand a chance really.
It was lovely, with that particular quality of summery light when the day starts to gently fade and early evening creeps in. It was round 8pm in the above photo, Little Lady and I lazing on the picnic blanket at the top of the hill chatting about this and that, whilst J and Little B ran round after a football.
We found a new place to walk at the start of the month, a little bit of an accidental discovery. We were driving around familiar lanes in the Yorkshire Dales (J and I, one Monday lunch time) looking for somewhere quiet and scenic to enjoy a bit of a picnic lunch. We had food and drink, I had my crochet, he had his Kindle, and we had in mind that we might spend a few hours partaking in some pleasurable idling with a view. We saw a sign for Grimwith Reservoir and on whim J swung the car off the road and up a teeny lane to take a look. Turns out that it's rather picturesque and has 4 mile footpath running around the whole perimeter. So just like that we abandoned the idea of hooking/reading and took off to walk instead. I happened to be wearing flip flops at the time, and as I always feel like I could happily walk miles in them I decided to give it a go - turns out that I did just fine.
The following Saturday we went back to the same place, this time with the Little People. They moaned a little and said it was boring (four miles translates to just under 2 hours with Little Feet) but you can't win them all can you? On the plus side, I found some gorgeous pheasant feathers and indulged in my summer grass fixation. Very lovely grasses grow plentifully around Grimwith, in case you are ever in the area and fancy checking it out!
Talking of grasses, I discovered the beautiful work of artist Hannah Nunn just recently - do go and feast you eyes on her blog and have a look at her stunning photographs of summer grasses {here}.
The clouds were pretty spectacular on that day.....
.....ganging up on the horizon and looking rather spooky and unreal (these are Lenticular clouds which we see quite often up on the hilltops here in Yorkshire)
I added the pheasant feathers to my mug on the mantel, which doubles up as a nifty kitty amusement device. I'm sure you can picture the scene - she is very adept at extracting individual feathers which she carries proudly around the room as if she hunted them down in the wild.
We are devouring punnets of strawberries at the moment (well not right at this very moment as I've run out), we eat these ripe sweet fruits on homemade museli for breakfast, with lunch, after dinner and many times in between. Interestingly, if I were to offer up a lowly apple as an after dinner Pudding Option, the Little People would look at me as if I'd grown two heads. But if I present a plate of chopped strawberries, they descend like locusts and forget to be disgusted that I've given them fruit for pudding instead of something "proper". Works a treat, every time. Some of the fruits we are getting are massive, and can easily please three children.
Not a lot happening in the vicinity of the back yard just now as I keep forgetting to water the pots. I've got some slightly wilting herbs and some rather leggy lavender plants which are hanging on in there, but my best success at the moment is the clematis which is flowering really well this year.
I love the colour of the petals against the blue of the sky....
....and I'm enjoy a few blooms on my table too.
Isn't lavender just so very summery? I do love it for that.
This past week has seen quite a bit of rain fall here in my patch - I'm NOT complaining (my peas are happy! And the countryside is lush!), but it has made flip-flop wearing a real no-no. There have been pretty rain droplets caught in the Alchemilla leaves though, which never fails to delight me every year.
Awwwwww Tilly, you sweet and naughty little kitty cat! She is soooooo exasperating at times, so deliberately attention seeking and Diva-ish, but I love her ways all the same. My Summer Harmony blanket is growing so beautifully and I fall a little deeper for it's colourful charms every day. More on that journey soon.
My Daffodil socks are coming on nicely too and I'm loving the very stripyness of them. The yarn is inspired by the daffodil emblem used by the Marie Curie charity - more details here.
This picture is to remind me that amongst the Summer sunshine and picnics, the colourful yarn and flowers, the ambling walks and jaunts, there has also been quite a bit of quiet stay-home recovery time for us just lately. On Thursday last week, Little B went back into hospital to have another operation on his hand. He had his first op back in November 2015 which was partially successful in that his left thumb was fine and dandy but his right thumb refused to be fixed first time. It's been tricky for him at school during this past year as he's right handed, but we are hopeful that the operation has worked OK this time, fingers (and thumbs) crossed. It's not always easy doing this parenting thing, and I admit I've felt the strain of it this past week.
Thank goodness for yarn and crochet - total feel-good therapy and stress relief right there in that bag.
It's been quite a while since I made any cute little piles of granny squares (probably my original Harmony blanket back in 2015), and I have found myself swooning at the sight of them as they fly off my hook. There is something so uplifting about these dinky little stacks of yarny colour, and the hours I've spent creating them have been especially lovely.
This is always a tricky time of year for me (last year I pretty much fell off my Attic24 planet in June/July), where I am constantly fighting a rather heavy, blanketing kind of tiredness. I'm pretty sure this is to do with my hay fever - I do take antihistamines but always end up feeling incredibly sleepy and discombobulated. And clumsy too, which has it's own downfalls (I've managed to burn myself twice during the past week in stupid ways, honestly, who drops a red hot iron on their own arm??).
So my writing skillz at this time of year are a bit below par as a result of the aforementioned discombobulation and blanket-of-fatigue, but thank heavens I can crochet these little squares with my eyes half closed. Yippeeeee for that rather glorious fact! What I'm trying to say in a round about way is {{sorry}} for the slowness of these Summer Harmony progress reports, I'm trying to keep up as best as I can.
Today I'm sharing an update which is all about Round 4 - this round is where the squares begin to look and feel very much more square-like which is rather satisfying. I'm still making my colour decisions in the same way as as I did for previous rounds, by playing with the squares and arranging them according to what makes me feel happy. There is no real method as such, and I still haven't really got any idea at this point how the squares are going to work as a blanket, but I'm hopeful it's going to be a little bit spectacular.
I've really enjoyed taking photos of my working process for this blanket, I am fascinated by the way in which makers design and create, and hope you might enjoy this insight into my methods! The following photographs show the Round-4 colours chosen for each of the squares. This is just for general reference and a bit of visual fun really - there is link to an information table at the end....
So here's what you have to do to prepare for round 4 ::
download or print a copy of the Summer harmony Part 3 table (link above)
lay all 17 balls out on a flat surface (floor or table)
get your 3-round squares and sort them out into groups according to the 3rd/outer round - there will be 6 squares in each group. This will make it easier for you to find the squares you're looking for.
use the table (and the above photos for guidance) and place each square with the ball that you'll use to crochet round 4. There will be six squares with each ball.
you can then use my method of looping all six squares together with a length of yarn to indicate the colour needed for the next round (explained in part 1).
Get hooking!
Please take care with colours that look very similar (eg Lavender and Wisteria, also Cloud Blue and Sherbet) as it's easy to make mistakes with these colours.
And this is what they look like once Round 4 has been added, aren't they just so delicious looking?! At the time of writing this, I'm already on with the Round 6/joining (soooooooo exciting!), so I'll try and publish Part 4 very soon for those who are joining me in making this blanket.
It's been five months since my last sock update, and in that time I've had three pairs on and off my needles. This first pair ended up being quite a long time in the making, given that they presented me with a fair few knitty challenges and took some lengthy stints in the Naughty Corner.
I started these socks back in early February I think, using Christine's Easy Cable Sock pattern combined with her fabulously helpful YouTube tutorials. I loved getting to grips with the cables, and I am super-proud of myself for sticking with them even when they made me want to pull my hair out at times.
Ditto the "crossed rib stitch heel" which I found quite hard going (even harder than the twisty cables). I think this stitch looks really amazing, but don't think I would ever be tempted to try it again unless I was paid a squillion pounds to do so.
I spent over two months challenging my brain and fingers with these socks, and there was a ridiculous amount of pulling back and re-knitting that went on at one point. But finally, that second toe was done and my Cable Socks were complete......
I LOVE how the gentle gradient colour changes of of this particular sock yarn shows off the cable pattern....and look, I even managed a pretty good colour match. This yarn is from the Stylecraft Head Over Heels range ::
All in all, I'm really rather chuffed with these beauties!
And here we have a pair of GREY socks in progress..... no, of course these aren't for me - you can't imagine for one minute that I would choose to knit socks for my own feet in multiple shades of grey? Nah, it's never gonna happen.
This next pair came about after J executed a prolonged and dedicated campaign for his very own pair of Man Socks. I admit I felt secretly elated that he wanted me to knit him some socks as he doesn't usually show very much interest in the things I make with yarn.
We had quite the job agreeing on which yarn to use - I point blank refused to make all black/grey socks and J made plenty of disgusted sounds when I showed him stripes, even if the stripes were dark. In the end we reached a compromise and settled on this Opal yarn in shades of grey which satisfied my need for a bit of colour tonal variation, but obeyed the stripes-over-my-dead-body rule. There are eight shades to choose from in the Opal Classics range and it pleased me on some childish level that this colour way is named Elegant. Ha!
This yarn was especially lovely to knit with I have to say, despite the lack of colour. It's really soft and smooth and glides beautifully over the needles....and those plain non-twisty rows were such a pleasure after the last pair of naughty-complicated socks. The other advantage of using this yarn is that there is no need to do any stripe matching, not that I don't enjoy that particular challenge, but sometimes it's just rather nice to get stuck straight in and go for it.
J has size 10 feet against my size 5/6, but it didn't make a huge difference to the pattern really. I simply cast on 64 instead of 60, and elongated the foot by working 52 rows. I drew round J's foot on a piece of paper and used it as a guide to help me get the foot length right, and he tells me they are a really good, comfortable fit. Funny thing was, as soon as the first sock was off the needles he insisted on wearing it, so spent a few evenings with just one sock on "trying it out" which made me laugh.
Spurred on by my Man Sock success, I showed J the Opal Classic choices again and asked him to pick a second colourway. He ummed and ahhhed, almost went for "Luxurious" but in the end surprised me by choosing this one.
I worried a little about the Exclusive choice to be honest - the socks came out quite a bit more stripy than the ball of yarn suggested, and although I loved knitting them I thought that those bright flashes of red and yellow might be too much for him to want around his ankles.
Soooooooo.............. do you think these look like Man Socks? I'm not convinced, but J says he likes them and will certainly wear them tucked way inside his boots and under his jeans, so I'm calling it another success story.
I would love to hear from any of you who've had Man Sock success - what yarn choices have you gone for? And please don't tell me Black or Grey with coloured heels or toes, cos that just won't be happening on my needles any time ever.
Now then, whilst we're chatting about all things sockilicious, I want to jig your memory and remind you about the oh-so-fabulous Yarndale Sock line that I help organise with my lovely friend Christine, AKA the Queen of Socks. The sock line will be running for a third year at Yarndale in September so if you wish to join in and make a pair of socks which will be gifted to those in need of a "woolly hug", you can find all the details {HERE}. Last year's sock line was a huge success with over one hundred pairs donated - you can find links to the supported charities and write up's of the previous years {HERE}
Of course, I am proud to work with Christine on this charity project, although to be fair, she does all the work and I'm just the mail lady who gets to oooooh and ahhhh at the visual gloriousness of it all. But......as I did last year, I will certainly be doing my little bit and knitting up a pair of socks to donate, how could I not? I've read the letters and shared in the emotional impact of this endeavor and know just how wonderful it feels to be a part of this generous and kind hearted woolly community.
SO, do you want to see my yarn?
It's a thing of beauty, let me tell you!
I'm going to be using this ball of beautiful West Yorkshire Spinners yarn which has been produced as a special limited edition colourway to support the Marie Curie charity. As you may know, Marie Curie have the daffodil as their emblem and this yarn has been designed so that the stripes knit up to represent rows of daffodils......awwww!!! I can't tell you how much I love that idea - daffodil socks, how cool is that?!
And while we're here thinking about this beautiful ball of yarn that I'm squishing, please can we just pause and take a teensy moment to appreciate the fact that I'm showing you my fingernails.....I'm so proud of my nails! They are growing!
Ok, back to the yarn............
The very best thing about buying a ball of daffodil inspired yarn is this - with EVERY ball sold, a whopping £2 will be donated to Marie Curie. You can find this yarn exclusively online at CityKnits if you wish to knit up your very own daffie socks whilst supporting a really worthy cause.
I am sooooo excited to cast these on - the closing date for receiving socks for the Yarndale charity sockline is Saturday 26th August. All details (including labels to print and address to send) is {HERE}.
Oh, be still my over-excited, colour-addicted heart!!!! Hahaha........only kidding......I would never want my heart to be still at all, I'm very fond of the way it beats hard to a visual colour fest!
I've had lots of queries about these colours recently (sorry if you already know all this, and welcome to any new visitors who have asked for this info). This collection of 17 colours is known as the "Attic24 Original yarn pack" and can be bought from Wool Warehouse and shipped to anywhere in the big wide world. There is no printed pattern included in this pack so you can use it to make any of my blanket patterns, but originally I used it to make a simple granny stripe blanket for my caravan (details in this post). The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK, in the following colours ::
Top row, from left to right ::
♥ Aster ♥ Turquoise ♥ Cloud Blue ♥ Sherbet ♥ Spring Green ♥ Aspen ♥ Meadow ♥ Saffron ♥
Following on from part 1 of this blanket story last week, I'm really excited to share this next installment with you. Here is a quick re-cap of my plans ::
I'm using my Harmony Square pattern which you can find HERE.
I'm making one hundred squares in total which will be arranged in a 10 x 10 square format to make a picnic blanket/summer throw.
Each square will be made up in six rounds using six different colours.
No two squares will be the same.
This week we are on to round 3 and as you can see from the above picture I had loads of fun choosing the third colour for each of my little squares. I explained a little bit more about my colour choosing process in {part 1} - I approach it in an emotional way which isn't all that easy to put into words. I thought it might help if I share some photos to show the round three colour choices so that you can hopefully get a feel for how it's starting to play out. Have a scroll through and see what you make of it - there is a link to an information table at the end....
You can download and print a simple table which lists these colour selections ::
So here's what you have to do to prepare for round 3 ::
download or print a copy of the Summer harmony Part 2 table (link above)
lay all 17 balls out on a flat surface (floor or table)
get your 2-round squares and sort them out into groups according to the 2nd/outer round - there will be 6 squares in each group. This will make it easier for you to find the squares you're looking for.
use the table (and the above photos for guidance) and place each square with the ball that you'll use to crochet round 3. There will be six squares with each ball.
you can then use my method of looping all six squares together with a length of yarn to indicate the colour needed for the next round (explained in part 1).
Get hooking!
Please take care with colours that look very similar (eg Lavender and Wisteria, also Cloud Blue and Sherbet) as it's easy to make mistakes with these colours.
I love taking my crochet out and about with me, this is a brilliant summer project and these squares are very well suited to a trip to the park or a riverside picnic. Because the colour choices have already been worked out, this makes for easy-peasy crochet and I am loving that fact very, very much indeed.
For a colour junkie like me, it's thrilling to see how the fairly random colour choices are playing out as the squares grow a little more. At this point in time, I honestly have nooooooo idea what the finished blanket will look like as I'm quite literally working it all out as I go along. Such a creative buzz!!
In the next installment, I'll be sure to take lots more pictures and give you the info for Round 4. I hope you're enjoying following along with me on my creative journey, I am certainly having lots of fun sharing it.
June is almost at an end and honestly, if it wasn't for the assortment of photos gathered on my camera, I would be hard pressed to tell you anything much that has happened during these weeks of early summer. Every year is the same, in that this month generally feels quite hazy and sluggish to me (I think maybe it's due to the onslaught of the hayfever season). I know I've spent very little time at my desk/computer and a lot of time outdoors enjoying the weather which has been beautifully summerish for much of the time. I adore this time of year and my summer-loving soul is very happy soaking up these lengthy, light-filled days. The warmth/heat we've had has been fabulous, but it's the light that I love the most. Oh, and the green, green lushness of the countryside too. It's just lovely.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this already, but back in January J had the opportunity to change his job which involved staying within the same company but moving to a new role in a new department. Most importantly (and after much deliberation) he took up an option of cutting back his working hours and now only works a three day week. Although the days sometimes change, he usually chooses to work Tues-Weds-Thurs which essentially gives us a four day weekend. Every. Single. Week. It's taken us a while to stop feeling ridiculously guilty on Mondays and Fridays when it feels so much like we are bunking off from real life! But it's been the BEsT thing for us as a couple and for the family too, and I can't tell you how much I am appreciating this change to our lives.
Monday mornings now feel amazing, and if the weather is good then we nearly always choose to head out of town and into the Yorkshire Dales. Sometimes this might be a gentle pootle along the riverside and sometimes we might decide to take a longer walk with a picnic lunch. The photos above are from one of our Monday walks around the picturesque village of Grassington a few weeks ago. It was warm and muggy with a threat of rain which never came, and I loved being out in the green of the countryside eating a picnic lunch beside the river.
The Little People have been enjoying the long light days too and when the weather has simply been too good to ignore, we've taken to heading up to the park for an hour or so after dinner. This suits me just fine as I get to sit on a blanket with a little bit of crochet happening whilst the rest of the fam engage in more energetic pursuits. I sky gaze and watch the swallows swoop low over the grass, throwing out the odd words of encouragement to my frisby-throwing offspring when it seems appropriate.
Our eating habits have altered with the hot weather and easy-to-make meals with lots of salad have been the thing. I'm not sure why I photographed this pizza at the time, but I think it had something to do with the fresh Summery look of it. This is me loading up a basic pizza - basic thin crust Margarita pizza's which we always have in the freezer, with some extra goodies piled on top. Sliced tomatoes, crumbled goats cheese and rocket, drizzled with a little olive oil and seasoned with herbs....
....which makes for a beautifully tasty, quick and easy meal. We have buttery corn on the cobs and a mixed salad to go with it, and I can tell you the Little People thoroughly approve.
J and I have walked a lot at Bolton Abbey during the past month, well during the past six months actually. We have a season ticket which gives us access to the whole of the estate for a year, and we've really made the most of it. Some days we just take a short stroll and have coffee at one the cafes, sometimes we walk for a good 4 or 5 miles all along the woodland footpaths which border both sides of the river.
The summer when I was eight years old, I woke up one morning not being able to open my eyes and that was the start of my hay fever. Growing up in Dorset I suffered quite badly every Summer, but I seem to do a bit better up here in Yorkshire. Despite my allergy, I am fascinated with summer grasses (in a similar way to my moss obsession) and love to look at them up close. There is something so delicate and fleeting about these pollen laden plants, a reminder of how short our British Summers are and how fleeting the good weather generally is. Sigh. Right now it's pouring with rain and I want the sun to come back!
Sun-dappled woodland paths are just a delight at this time of year - this day was really hot (well, it was around 26 degrees which is considered sweltering in Yorkshire, borderline heatstroke you know). The woodland pathways at Bolton Abbey carry you quite high above the river level, but at times they do drop down so that you are right beside the water where the play of light and shadow is magical.
A couple days before the Summer Solstice last week, we decided to bring a picnic dinner to Bolton Abbey. As it was a school night this was seen as quite a treat and the Little People were appropriately excited for an impromptu jaunt out and an al fresco meal. I made up a big batch of chicken and bulgar wheat salad with a red pesto dressing (my own weird recipe, but surprisingly good), which we ate out of bowls with some crusty french bread. We had cherries and strawberries after, elderflower cordial to drink. It was delicious I can tell you, and such a lovely treat to eat outside whilst twiddling my bare toes in the cool grass. My crochet project is travelling everywhere with me at the moment, these Summer Harmony squares are super addictive and I cannot get enough of the joyful colours.
We stayed at Bolton Abbey until 8pm or so, then drove back over the top of the moors which were looking glorious in the early evening light.
Sheep roam freely up on the moors as there are no fences or anything to keep them in, so they wander around as they please. They are obviously used to people and don't seem at all bothered by us parking up and talking to them.
Ahh, Little B, he enjoyed this evening so so much, delighting in the fact that he was still prancing about on top of the moors after 8pm on a SchOOl NighT. His excitement matched my own!
I should probably have entitled this post "Summer is Happening at Bolton Abbey" as I realise now that so many of these images were taken there. We are getting some good use out of that season ticket aren't we just?! This was last week (Wednesday) when my lovely friend Christine was visiting for the day. Usually we spend our get-together hours at Coopers Cafe catching up over coffee and cake but last week we took our continuous chatter into the wilds and nattered our way along the riverside instead. We walked along to the Strid which was as spectacular as ever even though the water levels are ridiculously low here in Yorkshire at the moment.
I've never noticed this rock carving before at the Strid so maybe it's new? New LOVE.... it did make me smile :)
We walked for a good 5 miles or so (that's a lot of footsteps and a lot of chatter) so of course we were in dire need of refreshment by the time we returned to the cafe. I can report that the generous slab of homemade coffee cake hit the spot rather nicely, and definitely replenished the expended energy caused by walking and talking for two solid hours.
Ahhhh, sweet elderflowers, the very essence of a June Summer!
We went to gather in the floral booty on the day of Summer Solstice last week, which secretly delighted me no end. I didn't voice this out loud to the family (yes, it was a family affair this year, even J came to witness me getting all giddy over the free hedgerow gatherings), but I have this fanciful idea that somehow picking the flowers on the longest day of the year makes them extra special.
The flowers were almost, (almost but not quite) on their way out and many were already at the not-nice brown stage. Even so, we managed to gather fifty frothy white heads from a good number of trees which was enough to make 3 litres of extra special solstice-infused elderflower cordial this year. My, my, it really does taste like Summer in a glass.
In other summery tasting news, we are celebrating our very first allotment crop!!!!!!!!!!!! Lots of excited exclamation marks for this event I can tell you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, this row of greenery really has delighted us, and we are stupidly proud of our humble first veggie growing efforts. I was a bit confused for a while as I thought we were growing sugar snap peas here and have been checking on progress daily, waiting for the pods to swell and look more like pea pods. However, yesterday I was informed by friends-in-the-know that these are more likely to be mange tout which will stay flat and so I should be picking the things right now and not waiting for any swelling to take place. Righty-o then, I am beyond excited to go forth later today with Little B and gather in the harvest!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All the exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Allotment progress in general has been slow and sporadic, and I don't have much of anything else to show you just yet. We have a weird shaped yellow courgette which has grown round like a golf ball instead of long like a sausage. We have some baby cucumbers which are still very teeny tiny and we have some green leafy things which are still recovering from a savage slug attack. But we do have baby plum tomatoes, and I am chatting to them daily to encourage growth and hopeful progress towards colour change. I've got a whole set of progress photos of our little half plot which I will spin into an allotment story at some point, it's nothing much really, but we are getting there slowly.
I was chatting to a friend the other day about the whole business of being engaged in The School Run, and how this routine dominates our lives for so many years. For my family with an age gap between second and third child, my years of doing the primary school run will be lengthy. I'm talking fifteen years in total......currently with four more left to go.
But I am in no way complaining - I have come to LOVE this daily routine, especially as we have such a great walk to and from school, and I know I shall miss it when this part of my mothering comes to an end.
At this time of year, our school run is just beautiful, and I love to see so many boats coming and going along the canal. Only three more weeks after this one and we will break for our summer holiday, I really can't wait actually. That break from routine is so liberating when it happens and I am looking forward to it hugely.
Before I pop off and make myself a mug of tea, I wanted to thank you for all your lovely chatty comments about my Summer Harmony blanket in progress - ThAnK YoU! I'm so excited by the whole thing and it makes me beyond happy that you are also loving the idea of it too. It's coming on a treat, and I've almost finished writing up Part 2 to share with you, hopefully tomorrow if I can manage.
Thank you so much for reading my witterings, and for taking time to write back. I appreciate your words more than I can say.
During the past few weeks this glorious bag of yarn as been delivering me a huge amount of daily pleasure. The deep familiarity of these seventeen colours that are so very "me" has felt both comforting and inspiring, and I can honestly say more than ever that a good dose of colour therapy really does absolute wonders for mind, heart and soul. This bag of yarn is making me so so happy!
I hatched this blanket plan back at the start of May - at this time of year I get a strong urge to make outdoor picnic blankets as opposed to indoor bed sized blankets. So far I've made two of these which we use a lot during the summer months, they come with us in the car whenever we go to idle about at riversides, hilltops or beaches. Do you know the ones I mean? There was the Granny Patchwork blanket which I made in 2013, then the Colourwash blanket which I made last year. These two blankets were both stash-busting projects and ended up being roughly 140cm / 4.5ft square.
I also had in mind that I'd like to try making my Harmony Granny Squares in these bright colours - I've been thinking about doing a second version of the Harmony Blanket for quite a while, and this seemed like a good time to give it a go. I am all about comfort and familiarity at the moment :)
I absolutely love love LOVE setting out on a new blanket journey, the thrill of it hasn't in any way diminished over the ten years I've been hooking up blankets. It gives me such a buzz, a real infusion of pure happiness where everything feels right with my world.
Over the coming weeks, I'm going to try and document my progress with this blanket in as much detail as I can, so that any of you who might feel like joining me can jump in and give it a go. This would be a brilliant stash-busting blanket to use up odds and ends of yarn left over from other makes. As you probably know, there is already a full tutorial for the Harmony Granny Square on my blog. These squares are crocheted in six rounds, with the final/sixth round becoming the join-as-you-go bit of the making process. Now if I was making this blanket with odds and ends of stash yarn, I would simply dive in and make each square completely at random, picking out colours on the hoof and hoping for the best. However, in this case I have my seventeen balls of yarn and I've decided that the best thing to do is approach it in a little bit more of a methodical way. So instead of making each square in full, I'm making them all round by round. Let me explain......
There will by One Hundred squares in total (arranged in a 10 x 10 square format).
Each square will use a different colour for each round (so six colours per square), and no two squares will be the same.
So unlike the Harmony Blanket which used one single colour for the sixth/joining round, these squares will be ALL-the-colours in the joining round (sooooo excited about that!)
With seventeen colours, this means working in groups of 6 (17 x 6 = 102, so I'm just going to make up 102 squares and abandon two of them in the last joining round as I only need 100).
I hope all that makes sense, and you get what I'm trying to do!!! If you look at the picture above ↟↟ , that's how this blanket started out - 102 little granny squares (6 of each colour) which form the first round of each Harmony Square. It felt really great to get that first fiddlesome round out of the way!
After the first round is complete, the fun really begins - time to choose the right colours to make up the next round (picture me hopping about in my back yard doing this in the hot sun!) In theory it's a simple method, but it does take a little bit of skill to keep the colours balanced out (hot/cold, light/dark) and to be able to visualise how the colours will work together. The above picture shows you exactly how I did it - I laid out the seventeen balls of yarn, then one by one placed the little squares on top of the yarn ball which will form round two. No two squares of the same colour should be put on any one ball, keep them all different. It's quite a challenge, but a really excellent way to learn about colour combining, if you fancy giving it a go yourself.
Its quite an instinctive way to work, and I don't have any real rules that I apply to this process. Some colours just feel right together and some colours just feel wrong together. Some colours give something of a zing when they come together, some colours sing in harmony when they are together. It's just about what makes me feel happy I guess. For example, I really dislike yellow and purple together so try to avoid that combo, but I really LOVE putting blues with reds or pinks for a it of a colour pop!
I have actually written out all the info for this first part if you wish to follow my choices exactly. Click on the following link and you should land on a PDF file which contains a colour info table for rounds one and two (I really hope this works - let me know??!)
Once you've decided which 6 little squares go with each ball, the next thing to do is gather them up and make sure you keep a note of what decisions you've made! I decided on this method - take a length of yarn from the ball approx. 30 cm and fold it in half. Thread the looped end through the corner spaces of each square.....
....then pass the ends of the yarn through the loop and pull tight.
This way, your six little squares are all gathered together and you know exactly which colour to use for the second round of crochet.
The advantage of doing this (other than to avoid making colour mistakes), is that it makes this project extremely portable. If you are going out and about with your crochet, all you need to do is pick up a couple of "bundles" and make sure you have the right balls of yarn to go with them. No need to lug all 17 big balls out and about, just take a few at a time and get ready for some easy, therapeutic hooky.
Working on all 102 squares at a time means that you quickly become familiar with the pattern too, and those rounds really start to fly off the hook. I find it very addictive working in this way ("just one more set, then I must go and cook dinner......"), pleasurable too.
Before you know it, you will be stashing and stacking those two-round squares feeling mighty happy with your progress. It's hooky heaven!
One thing I do need to mention is about the ends........now don't start groaning and rolling your eyes, honestly, it's really not that bad! With a project like this (six hundred colour changes, people), it's vital that you dig deep and find some end-darning discipline. Keep your needle with your scissors and get used to darning in the ends as soon as you snip off the yarn.
Crochet, snip and darn.
Don't even question it, just try it and you will be surprised how quickly it becomes a habit - trust me, it's the only way to go.
In my next update, I'll show you how round 3 looks and I'll have a go at putting all the colour info together in a way that makes sense.....now there's a challenge!
Since coming home from Dorset just over a week ago I'm finding it unexpectedly hard to ease myself back into any kind of normal daily routine. I just can't seem to find the energy or the will to address any of the gazillion things that are screaming for my attention, and so I resolutely keep myself feeling slightly adrift and untethered, and the gazillion things remain in a teetering, taunting pile. It's not a particularly bad feeling though, and I can look objectively and see that it's all probably a part of a process and maybe I'm OK to do this drifting thing for just a little while longer. Can't be for too much longer mind you, as I'm well aware that deadlines are looming and commitments are pressing, and there is only so long I can put off the inevitable result of being absent for three weeks. It's almost time to pull my life back into focus, but for now, I kind of like that my days feel like they are a bit blurred around the edges.
Dorset was a bitter sweet time. My camera broke on the first day, and after taking just one picture it refused to work any more, so I took it as a sign that I simply wasn't meant to record those days. No pictures or words, just a series of vivid emotions and memories to hold onto, and really that seems just fine. I have to say, it was most odd to be pootling around Dorset without my blogger's goggles on, most odd indeed!
When I got home last weekend, I discovered that my camera (which I adore) wasn't broken at all and was just low on battery charge, so that was something of a pheewww moment. Usually I take photographs every day, but recently not so much. I have missed it though, I love uploading images to my laptop and taking in the odd assortment of visuals which represent my life. Yarn and flowers (always those), food and views, animals and kids, home life and scenery. Colour, creativity, joy, life, love. All of those things.
I finished another pair of Man Socks yesterday, a second pair to fit J's size 10 feet. I love this Opal Classics yarn for Man socks, they don't come out too stripy looking (a manly no-no apparently) but are still rather lovely to make. I'll write a sock update post very soon as I like to keep a record of all these kinds of things.
This past week I've loved having a jug of flowers on my table that smell just as good as they look - these stocks have such a beautiful scent and I can't get enough of them. I stick my face into them many, many times a day, and the smell of them makes me feel soooooo good. Kind of nostalgic and childish and dizzy with all sorts of sweet summer memories.
It was our town's annual charity Gala on Saturday, and sadly the weather was down right horrid. The whole day was awash with a persistent grey drizzle which left you feeling a little soggy and down hearted, but in typical British fashion the Gala didn't falter one bit. Our two Teens (oh, I have TWO teens now don't you know since Little Lady turned 13 in the Spring) did their own thing with their respective crowds of buddies, which left J and I trailing in the wet grass with an excited Little B. It's hard not to get caught up in the fairground atmosphere - the sights and sounds are very energising and Little B adored it. Freshly cooked donuts, a fun stint on a child-sized roller coaster, a jaunt in and out of the "House of Fun" and a new giant sized bouncy ball attached to a length of springy plastic and all was crazy-happy in his little world.
In the many long, quiet moments during the past few weeks I've been pratting about with my nails. I blame Little Lady entirely for this recent obsession as she has the most beautiful nails and she inspired me to try and treat my own a little better. When she was smaller, she used to bite her nails badly, but a few years ago during the summer between primary and secondary school, she spent six weeks growing her nails out with amazing results. She's so proud of them, and it impressed the heck out of me that she transformed them through sheer determination and a £1 bottle of Nail Hardener from Poundland. I've never had great nails, ever ever in my life. Sometimes I confess I do nibble at them but mostly they are just quite weak and always split off and look rubbish but I can never be bothered to attend to them. I am trying hard to see if I can do this and am using the same £1 nail hardener technique as recommended by Little Lady. I even have my own nail file and everything. It's a small challenge in the scheme of things, but it is somehow helping me feel like I'm doing OK. I can do this!
A sweet, sleepy kitty picture for you, although there is nothing soft focus or drift-like about this crazy creature. She chased a bee yesterday and got stung on her chin, giving me the nerve wracking task of extracting the bee sting with a pair of tweezers whilst trying to avoid being clawed to ribbons. I felt like biting my nails a teensy bit then I can tell you, I was really nervous! She is one feisty little moggie, but we love her so so much. I've relished having her close by me this past week, her soft, undemanding presence has felt very calming and comforting.
On the morning that I took off to go down to Dorset to see my Mum, I had a yarn delivery. I couldn't take it with me on the train but just knowing that it would be sat here waiting for me to return to it was a really lovely thing. The colours may well look very familiar to you - for me, this colour palette feels like coming home. It represents all that is happy and joyful and full of Summer spirit, which is exactly what I need right now. So I'm just about to start a new Summer blanket using this original colour pack, and am really looking forward to soaking up the happy memories that seem to spin right out of those colours.
This time last week I was down in Dorset, walking along this gorgeously leafy little footpath. The dappled shades of sunlit green were breathtaking.
I was walking alone, following a familiar footpath across fields that would take me from the town to the sea. I've walked this route many, many times since being a child and it's familiarity was comforting and welcome.
I went straight to the beach and plonked myself down on the warm shingle, at a loss as to what exactly to do with myself.
I had such a very, very heavy heart. I felt so utterly sad this time last week, at a complete loss as to how to remove the solid lump of sorrow that was stuck in the pit of my stomach.
I spent hours gazing out to sea, watching boats come and go, seagulls wheeling overhead, children splashing in the shallows, dogs digging and dashing. The normal stuff of a sunny Sunday afternoon.
But my Mum has gone.
She died on the 18th May, and thankfully I was able to make the 300 mile journey by train to arrive at the hospital to spend the last few hours with her. My brother and I were both with her when she died, her last breath sure was peaceful, like a soft sigh of pure relief. A gentle end to her many sad struggles, I really hope with all my heart that she has finally found the peace that eluded her in life.
I ended up staying down in Dorset for almost a week to sort out the many things that needed sorting. It was emotional and exhausting, as you would expect and I missed J and the Little People like crazy. I'm home again right now, sitting at my desk thinking that I should perhaps be writing more, feeling more. It's a complex cocktail of emotions I can tell you - perhaps one day I might be able to say more but right now I just need to continue to keep the whys and wherefores to myself. The story is just too sad and sorry to share.
We'll head back down south later today, it's school holidays and we had already planned to head to Dorset during this week. It's such a bitter sweet time - Dorset is looking stunningly glorious at this time of year and I'm looking forward to being back there with my family, despite the sadness.
I'm alright though, please do know that - I'm really alright. We'll have the funeral this week and say an official goodbye, and life will go on. I'm a lover of life, each day is precious, to be treasured and enjoyed. There is so much to be grateful for.
