Attic24

July :: an update

Hello my lovelies, thank you so much for popping into the Attic to see me, it's always good to be here and to have your company. As you are probably well aware, I've been finding it incredibly difficult to find time to blog of late (yes I know, you know, we all know, sorry to keep saying it). I've been swinging through some extremely hectic days during the month of July, and even though we are now a week into the summer holidays and I've had J at home all week, I still feel that barely a smidge of each day truly belongs to me. Some days this fact presses down on my weary shoulders so hard that I begin to feel completely squished into the carpet. Other days I don't feel the weight quite so heavily.

I do miss my blogging time a great deal. I miss not having time to write my Calendar posts any more, miss not being able to follow the seasons quite like I used to, don't get to show you the view as much or chat about the weather. But more than anything I miss that I don't have time these days to record Everyday Life. The small stuff. The little bits.

But do you know what??

I am so fed up with feeling resentful. It's exhausting. So I'm going to try very hard not to keep feeling sad about the fact that I can no longer write my blog in the way that I used to. I shall just do updates when I can, and be thankful. Thankful for the fact that despite the lack of blogging time, I can still take photographs, can still think about things inside my head, can still find colour and beauty in the Little Moments of each and every day, can still appreciate that life is essentially good.

And then when I do manage to find time to sit and write a little, well then, I can whoop it up and be truly blooming thankful! Wooooohhoooooo!! I managed it!!! Today I am making it happen!!!! Go me, go me!!!!!

So here I am, making time to blog, and what do I have to show you?? Life, that's what. My life, the little itty-bits of my life that have occurred during the month of July, as told by a rather random collection of domestic photographs.

Above picture sums it up nicely. A Beautiful jug of blue Californian Bluebells. My old sky blue crocs still being worn, now into their third summer. A bag of brightly coloured baby toys. A floor cushion (I spend a lot of time sitting on the floor these days) and a red bucket catching the rain drops as they drip-drip through the leak in our bay window roof. That's kind of how it is. The beautiful and the mundane. The old the new. The comfy bits and the worn out bits.The dreadful weather.

Ahhhh these flowers, how they captivated me when I was walking towards the salad veg in the supermarket. I just had to have them. They weren't expensive (£3 for all these). The colour makes my soul shimmie with happiness.

Ahhhh that baby, do you see him? That Little Baby Boy of mine? See him sitting up on the sofa all by himself? He is the Root Cause of my lack of me-time, there's no denying it. He is a proper full-time job and then some.

But he is totally gorgeous of course, and I completely forgive him for taking so much of Me. Almost seven months now, he is sitting and playing, babbling and giggling, blowing bubbles and making mischief.

And he is eating. He is eating for England in fact. I took the above picture one lunch time a few weeks ago when I was outside in the back yard peeling veggies to make a chicken hotpot for him. For a while I was at a loss as to what exactly to do with him whilst I got on with the job in hand, but then I figured it out. I could try spreading out a little quilt on the table top and lay him down right next to me while I peeled and chopped. He was very happy with this arrangement. I had clothes hanging on the line to dry, flapping in the breeze above his head. Life on the Home Front, problems are solved, things get done. Domestic Success.

Can't lay Little B on the table at the moment though cos the table is covered in flowers. The flowers need to be planted into their pots, but finding time to do it is proving tricky. Soon. It'll happen soon.

And what of my other two Little People?? They are still doing pretty much the same sort of things that they've always done, and I am still delighting in these things. Little Lady is showing some talent with her colour mixing don't you think, taking after her Mummy perhaps?

And Little Man is still up early and crafting before breakfast, taking over the table with his busy little creative activities.

This is the current page he is working on in his Doodle book, and joy-of-joys he is actually allowing me to share it with him (I had to put enormous pressure on him, he caved in eventually poor boy). I've been really enjoying doing this with him though, it's been great fun. 

So almost at the end of my update I think, my tea has gone cold and I'm about ready to go crash my head onto my rosy pillows. Can I just say a huge THANK YOU to you all for continuing to support me here in Blogland and more recently over on Ravelry. It's been wonderful reading all your comments about my Granny Stripe blanket, you are very generous with your words.

Tomorrow we are going off on a little holiday in Connievan, and the blankie is already ready and waiting to be taken along for the ride. We're heading over to York for a week, so I'm ever so excited about this particular trip. We've booked a campsite in a small village a few miles down the road from where we used to live, so this trip is all about catching up with old friends and visiting old haunts. Oh, and getting to hang out with Connievan for a whole seven nights. Good stuff.

I thought before I go, that you might like to take a little peek at what is currently on my hook. It's a second blanket for Connievan (the lucky girl), to match with the Granny Stripe. As we have two seating areas in the van, I thought it'd be good to have two blankets. I'm still using the Stylecraft, but have added in a few new (darker) colours (more info coming soon).

So it's Granny Squares this time :: my own design which I am extraordinarily pleased with........................................................................................................................

 

....what do you think??

I'm calling this the Sweet Flower Granny Square.

The flowers and leaves are worked in place of the first round, it's all very clever but quite easy and veeeeeery addictive. And yes, I will be sharing the pattern. Of course. How could I not?

Have a wonderful week one and all, I'll see you into next month.

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The Granny Stripe :: ta-dah!

 

Hello my friends, thank you so much for being here with me. I 'm really happy that finally, finally, I've found a (relatively) quiet little spot in my busy-busy days to sit and whizz up a multi-coloured ta-dah post to share with you all. Pheww....for a while I thought it would never happen, I can't tell you how incredibly difficult it is at the moment for me to find time to sit and write.

When I first made the decision to go with the acrylic for this blanket, there was quite a bit of uncertainty and I really wasn't at all sure whether it would work out or not. I purchased the yarn (Stylecraft Special DK) on a bit of a whim really, chose the colours quite quickly in a dimly lit shop one lunch time. Brought them home in a big squishy bag, tumbled them out onto the floor, arranged them in rows, stood back and took a long hard look at my blanket-to-be. A few dubious colours, but mostly yes I was happy with them and felt they would work up nicely into stripes.

And oh-me-oh-my, I was not disappointed. This yarn, this cheap acrylic yarn, was an absolute dream to work with. You may remember me beginning this blanket at the very end of May (yarn info can found in that post too), it was such an exciting time for me. Well truthfully the beginning of any blanket is always hugely exciting, but somehow this one seemed more so than ever before.

I have loved every moment of working up these granny stripes (excepting perhaps the first couple of rows), and everything about it has been a surprising pleasure. And now it's finished, and the acrylic yarn has become an acrylic blanket, I am hugely happy with it. It's one warm, colourful, happy, snuggly, delicious bit of hooky.

 

I know that a great many of you Hooked-A-Long with me and embarked on your own Granny Stripe blankets. I can't tell you how wonderful this has been for me, and how glad I am that this simple pattern has delivered such a lot of world-wide hooky happiness!

One of the most exciting and rewarding bits of blanket making is working The Edge. It's that point in the blanket when there is still quite a bit of hooky left to do, yet the End is firmly in sight.

I think every blanket deserves an Edge, it totally transforms the whole thing, turns it from a rectangle of crochet into a proper blanket.

 

I love how my Granny Stripe edging turned out. I made a round of granny-clusters first, working into the spaces at the end of alternate rows. 

After the granny clusters, I worked two rows of treble crochet, followed by a thin row of pink double crochet. Then with the light blue I worked the final edge-of-the-edge :: this was one row of double crochet (US single crochet) then a dinky little sort of picot/shell pattern that I made up myself.

This is an easy pattern, and makes a very neat edging. Work with the right side facing, and work out of BACK LOOPS only (other wise it curls if you work through both loops).
**work 3 slip stitches, then in the next stitch work the following :: (dc, ch 2, dc)**. Repeat between **.
Remember when I say dc, this is UK terms (hook into stitch, yarn over, hook back through stitch (2 loops on hook), yarn over, draw through 2 loops)

Do you like it?

Ahhhhhh I do. I'm very happy with it. I did try out a normal bog standard picot stitch at first but it didn't seem to be right somehow. Plus, I really get a kick out of designing something myself, creating something new.

So.

I think it might be time.

Time for me to unfold my blankie, spread it out on the floor and start dancing my excited jiggety-jig around it.

Time to climb onto the coffee table and wibble-wobble on the edge while I try and take a halfway decent photograph.

Time to show you...................................

 

 

............The Granny Stripe Blanket :: ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In all it's stripy, gorgeously-gorgeous glory, there it is.

Sixty stripes in total, sixty stripes of happy colourful loveliness. 

Oh yes, I do reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally adore this blanket.

 

Are you enjoying this Stripe fest????!!!! I think I went a bit bonkers taking pictures, sorry if it's all a bit much.

 

As you all know, I made this blanket for Connievan, and I think thats perhaps why it's turned out so happy and colourful and sort of holiday-ish, you know?

Actually I'm really looking forward to taking it and installing it in Connievan. Ok, so "looking forward" doesn't quite describe my true feelings here, I am actually ridiculously, stupidly almost peeing-my-pants-with-excitement happy at the prospect (which will occur on Saturday yippppeeeeee!!)

But, I shall miss having it around at number 24, even though there are oooooo let me see now, five blankets here in this room already. 

So shall we move right along and talk Riveting Facts?? Shall we?? Ok, here we go.....

Yarn :: 17 colours of Stylecraft Special DK, worked on a 4mm hook.

Measures :: 110 x 150 cm

Starting chain :: 239

Stripes :: 60

Balls :: approx 10 x 100g

Weight :: just less than 1kg

Cost :: not a lot. Cheapo. A bargain.

Photo :: me snuggled on the sofa trying not to look too weary

Blanket :: gorgeously gorgeous

Me :: happy

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Edited to add :: a little note about my colour sequences...totally random, although I did keep an eye on the more dominant colours and tried to space them out quite evenly (the red, dark purple, the very bright in-your-face green and the yellow). Choosing which colours went next to each other was a huuuuuge part of the excitement for me with this blanket, I just love doing random ♥

Also, I've put the pattern into my sidebar, usual place down at the bottom, listed as a page. No step-by-step photos yet I'm afraid, but I've tried to write it in Plain English so hoping you can follow it.

Granny Stripe :: the end

Been trying to squeeeeeeze in a little hooky time earlier today, and let me tell you it's not been easy. These days I have to be be extremely determined, very excited, and just a weeny bit desperate to try and attempt any daytime hooky with my daytime Little Buddy beside me. He certainly challenges my hooky capabilities, not to mention my patience.

But oh my goodness, yes I was quite desperate today because of being on the edge of The Edge. And it's always extremely exciting and a little bit desperate being on the edge of The Edge. Cos the end is in sight.

I was thinking back to last year when I was working on the edging of my Big Blanket, remembering those oh-so-nearly-finished feelings so well. And oddly enough, when I bobbed back into my archives to read about the final finishing off of BB, I realised it was exactly a year ago (look :: the 20th and 23rd July 2009). I think the third week of July must contain magical finishing off powers.

So anyhow, this afternoon I made slow progress. Sloooooooow. And really that's how it should be, cos Little B does deserve to take priority over a blanket.

But once my kiddiwinks are tucked up in bed, evening time is my official hooky time, and this evening I have been working like the clappers. Like really, really hooking that Edge as fast as my little fingers could go.

And at 9:20pm it happened :: the edge of The Edge was complete and it was The End for the Granny Stripe. It's too dark now to take photographs, but let me just say that I am waaaaaaay beyond happy with this latest blankie. It's quite heart-stoppingly gorgeously Gorgeous.

I'll be taking a whole shed load of pics as soon as the light and Little B allow (tomorrow hopefully), so we will be ta-dah-ing with gusto very very soon. oooo. eeeeee. ooooeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeooooo. I am so very very very excited I may very well not sleep tonight.

Excited oooeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeeeeeeeee yes I am!!!!!!

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Helloooooooo!

Ahhhh my lovelies, helloooooooooooooo!! Never meant to be gone so long, can't beleive my last post was a whopping seventeen days ago?? Anyhow, this is going to be mighty short and sweet, I just wanted to come and say hello and to let you know that I am OK. I've been through a weeny bit of a low phase in the past fortnight but am back on the upward curve now I think. Nothing major, just my life being so incredibly full, so very much to be done each and every day just to keep us all ticking over.

Only another couple days until the weary Little Peeps finish school for the summer, we are planning on spending Friday in our pyjamas, golly gosh I am almost beyond myself with excitement at the prospect. I'm hoping (with fingers and toes sweetly crossed) that during the summer hols my Little People might be persuaded to care a bit for their Little Brother from time to time, leaving me free to blog a little more often. I am quietly hopeful that our summer is going to be a good one for all concerned.

And on that jolly note, I do need to go and check on my sleeping Little B and go make more coffee. I'll be back again very soon with a rather giddy ta-dah post as my Granny Stripe blankie is ohsoverynearly finished. I am hugely thrilled with it.

Sending lots of love to you all around the globe, thank you for thinking of me ♥

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ps just a quick reminder about Ravelry ..... Attic24 has an ever growing presence over there, and I do try and bob in most days. So when I'm not in Blogland, I can generally be found over in Ravelry, I know many of you are already there, but for those of you who aren't, do come and join in the fun xxxx

Magazine styling & inspiration

If you've been reading my blog for a while now then you'll be familiar with my little addiction. I'm talking home/interiors magazines of course :: not a new addiction by any means, no no, I've been regularly buying up magazines of this sort for a great many years, lordy, you should see my Mag Piles. They are quite impressively staggering. But I love them so so so much, they deliver a huge hit of Pleasure each and every month and I could not for the life of me think about giving them up. I find them endlessly fascinating and inspiring :: they reach out to the dreamy/creative/optimistic/aesthetic part of me which constantly needs feeding, and one of my very favourite pastimes is to take an uplifting little trit-trot through Magazine Wonderland.

My all time bestest magazine of this sort has always been Country Living, but in the past year or so I've really fallen in love with my monthly Country Homes and Interiors. The styling and photography in this magazine is beautiful, it really is. And the overall style seems to be very Me, which has surprised and delighted me no end.

I'm not sure quite what you would call this style...it's a mix of old/vintage furniture combined with bright new modern accessories, with a generous dash of quirky arty/craftiness set against a plainish background. Eclectic. Relaxed. Vibrant. Homey.

Lets take a look at a few pages shall we?

I absolutely adore these sorts of features within these particular sorts of magazines. They combine inspiration and ideas for interiors with a humongous shopping list.

There is often a theme of some sorts :: this little spread (April issue I think), is all about bringing colourful accessories into the home to brighten the place up a bit.

Pretty pages, aren't they? They make me feel quite ridiculously over excited.

This is June issue now I think (sorry to sound vague but I've left the mags downstairs and cannot be bothered to go fetch them to check).

Ahhhhhhh Jolly Times!!! How totally, heart-skippily FABuLOUS!!

As far as I can tell, this is unashamedly all about Shopping. It's about falling in love with this particular style (oh I have, I have fallen deeply in love, I am properly smitten), and going forthwith to Copy The Look by purchasing all the necessary components. Of course you have to be stinky-rich to be able to do this because the shopping list is extremely lengthy. But oh we an dream can't we?? We can swoon and ooh and aah even if we cannot go forth and Shop.

I just adore the above picture, my heart does some crazy flippety-flip type things when I look at it. A lot of the items come from a fantastic Danish design company called Rice, who I have long been in love with. If you bob onto their website, you will be transported into a colourful world of deliciousness. It really is extremely yummy. Take a little waltz through their online catalogues and I guarantee you'll be swooning with desire. Now you cannot buy from Rice directly as they only sell wholesale, but you can certainly find some stockists on the www :: two of my favourites (both UK online shops) are Berry Red and Nettle Green. And as you would expect I've already been there, frantically searching for that most Gorgeous and Desirable little painted red shelf. Oh my. I want it SO BADLY. Words cannot describe the level of my desire here. Sigh.

Ahhh...page after page of loveliness, isn't the styling and photography sublime?

 

Truly delicious.

Another issue, the current one this time (July issue, out now until Thurs) and another collection of heart skippy pages. This whole issue is very summery and utterly magical, I've been through it from cover to cover many times during the past few weeks and each time it leaves me feeling as if I've been on the bestest holiday.

So this is another inspiration/ideas/go-shopping feature called "Heady Summer Days", and once again it pulls hard on my heart strings. Old furniture and lots of scrummy colour. More Rice goodies (seriously lusting after that candle holder). What's not to love?

Yum yum yum.

oooooooooooo now that cutlery, do you see it?? I've already got that on my wish-list for Connievan, you can find it here at The Contemporary Home. TCH is another wonderful online shop (also selling a lot of Rice things), crikey, I really have a mean case of the Wanties at the moment, can you tell?

I hope you're enjoying this post today, I'm going all out to bombard you with grade A eye candy, and I'm having a lovely time!

So we're switching publications now OK, we're onto a Lady-mag that I truthfully never ever buy :: this is Prima. I don't really do Lady-mags cos I find a lot of the content simply does not apply to the likes of me. Cosmetics? Hair-do's? Fashion? Careers? Nope, I just don't ever go there. But Homes, yes yes, that's more like it!

 

And the reason I got to know about this particular feature in this months Prima is because of the wonerfully talented Selina Lake. Do you know of her? She is a Stylist with extraordinary flair and I love love love what she does. I have her book "Bazaar Style" which is one of my all time favourite books, I read it over and over and over.

 

You can find more of Selina Lake on her blog where she always gives info about magazine features she's worked on, and her Flickr pages too, which are scrummy.

Pheww............I think I've exhausted myself now after all that giddy, heart-skippy Magazine tripping. Only trouble is I'm now desperately trying to think of ways to get my mitts on some money so that I can go and shop. My Wanties are seriously huuuuge. Deep sigh.

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Edited to add :: a note from lovely Jo, the lady at Nettlegreen...she is offering Attic24 readers a 15% discount, valid until 10th July. Just enter ATTIC24 at the checkout. Hmmmm guess what I'm about to do.....teehee! xx

Summer Stuff

Hello my lovelies, so good to be back here in my little Attic place after what seems like an unexpectedly  long absence, I'm so sorry I've been gone so long. I've been kept very busy this past week or two with trying to get myself well again, gosh such a messy business being poorly. So much nose-blowing and sneezing and general all round snottiness. But am happy to report that it's all over and done with now and I'm pretty much back to rights. And Little B is also happy to report that he is now the proud owner of two teeth :: he is a much happier chappie now, back to his usual smiley cheery self thank goodness.

Can't believe it's the first day of July today, can you? Half way through the year already, it hardly seems possible. But even though the days/weeks/months are whizzing by at a dizzying speed, I am enjoying this year and the challenges it's bringing. My life feels so chockerblock Full though. And where one applies the word "full" to ones life, there is a distinct possibility that things do become quite overwhelmingly, overflowingly full from time to time. Having a Full Life is not always a fun, happy, easy going joy ride. There are many bumps along the way. Frustrations, demands, a lot of things that Don't Get Done, enormous pressures on time, and quite honestly there are days when I feel like I'm barely coping with my Life Ride. But hey ho, we bump along through the days and somehow it all works out ok. No one starves. No one cares much about the layers of dust, the piles of stuff, the lack of clean clothes, the limescale building in the grout lines, the fluff building on the carpet. We go out, have picnics, play in the park, meet friends and the house still stands despite the chaos lurking behind the front door.

Been trying very hard to balance out our time with the Little People of late, I was beginning to feel that they weren't in fact Thriving On Neglect as much as I was hoping. Little B is sooo all-consuming, such a stealer of the limelight, so very me-me-me in his attention seeking that my two other lovely Little Peeps were getting a little put out I think. Understandable really. So J and I have been working to make them feel a little special again, with some one-on-one time.

J and Little Man have started going out together on Boy Expeditions. The past couple of weekends they've been off hiking into the hills with a rucksack packed with provisions, returning with tales of wildlife and folklore and pub beer gardens.

Little Lady and I have started going out together on Girl Expeditions. We've been off trotting into town to have brunch at the cafe, returning with tales of tasty morsels, shopping and pretty things. It's been great fun for all concerned.

During our last jaunt into town at the weekend, I decided to spend a chunk of my modest disposable income on some treats for them, and settled for some top notch colouring kit. I bought them both some new Berol pens, these are not your average bog-standard colouring pens and cost quite a bit of money. But oh they are good! They make me long to be an age again where colouring is a necessary daily activity (I did in fact have these exact same pens when I was a child, I remember them sooooo clearly)

And to accompany the bees-knees new pens, some most excellent new colouring books. And no, not your average bog-standard colouring books either, I think I had a slight rush of blood to the head cos these books were devilishly expensive. But oh they are good!!

Little Lady was so incredibly excited to get this book, she honestly couldn't stop leaping up and down with sheer excitement all the way home. It's called "Doodle Dolls", and is a real gem for little girls.

You get to cut out a couple of very pretty cardboard dolls...

...then colour and cut out endless pages of pretty outfits to dress them in.

For Little Man I chose this one :: it was a gamble cos I wasn't completely sure if he would find it interesting enough, but honestly he is loving it.

The colouring pages are beautiful...

...I am pretty much begging him to let me colour this one particular page, it makes me squeeee with excitement when I think of it! So far he is point blank refusing to let me at it though, the meany.

Such a fun book.

With only an itsy bit of money left over for myself after that very expensive child orientated shopping spree (£32 spent on pens and colouring books, I still can't believe I did that!), I went to see my lovely plant man on the market and bought five...errrrm....thingamajiggy flowers. Not camellias, not asters, not primulas, not rhododendrons...gosh my mind has gone blank, it's on the veery tip of my tongue, jeez, what are they called????? Anyone??

Ahhhh PEonies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes yes yes they are Peonies, of course, how could I forget that name?! Oh thank goodness I remembered, I was just about climbing the walls with frustration for a while there.

Peonies...so very very very beautiful, so full and vibrant (like my life), so flouncy and flamboyant (hmm maybe not words I would apply to my life), I love them very much. They're providing me with such a daily dose of pure heart-skippy happy joy.

After I'd finished getting giddy over the peonies and chatting baby stuff to mrs plant lady, I bobbed along to the fruit/veg stall next door and bought 4 peaches. I couldn't resist their peachy charms, I just love the colour of them and the total summeryness of them. I can report that they were delicious. Little B thought so too, he's been eating peachy mush for breakfast and nomnomnomming it up with relish.

oooo, just look at me, on a bit of a spendy retail therapy roll here aren't I?? Splashing out Big Time :: Peonies and Peaches and now Pyjamas, such extravagance! A lovely new set of summery cotton jammies is now mine-all-mine (£7 from Tesco if you need to know), and they are extremely lovely indeed.

Gosh this post is very rambly, I do apologize. I've had a very busy day and I happen to be very tired, I aM FEeling a little jumbled.

So.

Want to see some hooky?

Want me to show you where I'm up to with my Stripy goings on?

ok.

here's

some

summery

colourful

stripy

stuff.....

 

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Fifty stripes now, and it's looking mighty fine.

and on that pretty flouncy flamboyant note (hahahaa), I shall love you leave you and take myself off to my bed now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I am so ready for some sleep.

Thank you for reading, it's been a delight, I've enjoyed my ramble very much. nighty night xxxxxxx

ps the top picture is the product of last weeks pre-breakfast crafting sessions, all created by Little Man to celebrate summer. Love love love that he did this all by himself over many days, then laid it all out, asked me to photograph it and share it on my blog. How could I refuse? xx