Attic24

August Moorland

If you've been visiting me in the Attic for any length of time then you will probably be familiar with our regular walks on the moorland. It's a quick jaunt for us as it's only about 7 miles away and takes no time at all for us to drive out of town and up, up, up the windy road to "the tops". It's one of those places where we often go to take a quick stroll along the stony track to breathe in some fresh air and long reaching scenic views. It's a blow-the-cobwebs-away kind of a place and I love it in all seasons - even in winter when it is wild and windy and freeeeeezing cold and the predominant shade is brown. There is something beautifully energising about being so high up with the landscape stretched out for miles in all directions.

When the weather allows and we feel like a more energetic outing, there is a 6 mile circular walk which takes in both the lower and upper reservoirs. You park the car at the side of the road and follow the broad stony track as it wiggles it's way across the huge expanse of Barden Moor. It's quite tough going from time to time and I usually find myself huffing and puffing as the track winds it's way quite steeply upwards, but the uninterrupted views are most definitely worth it. If you are ever in the area and want to visit the moors, there is a map ((here)) which shows you the exact location - parking is marked with a blue P symbol close to the cattle grid on the wiggly road that crosses the moor.

August is by far my favourite month to walk here, especially when the weather is good. The colour of the water looks so beautiful when the sky is bright blue, but it's undoubtedly the vast swathes of purple heather that steal the show. It really is breath taking and continues to inspire me year after year after year. 

I expect a good many of you will remember the Moorland blanket which was my Crochet-A-Long project in the winter of 2016/17. I took the above photo four years ago after the CAL had finished and I really do love it - the colours worked out so beautifully, both in the blanket itself and in the photo. It makes me laugh to myself because I know that Little Lady is behind that blanket, standing on a rock with her arms stretched high above her head to keep the stripes at the right height! Happy memories of time and place which is one of the many, many reasons I love my blog and my blankets too. Both are excellent keepers of precious memories.

And finally, the above photo was taken by J on his phone using the panorama setting - you can click on the image and it will pop up in a larger window for you to view it a little better. It gives a good impression of that delicious feeling of openness that you get up on the moorland which I love very much. It's wonderful to live in an area with access to high places, there is something very special about being closer to the sky which always makes me feel energised.

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Saturday Thoughts

I was sat in the café this morning waiting for my eggs on toast to arrive, and as I quietly sipped my Outrageously Good coffee I found myself thinking of you. And for the first time in a while I photographed my coffee to share with you as I realised I've missed you and wanted to say hello. HELLOOOOOO!!! I hope you're doing OK and enjoying  your days, whatever shape they are taking right now.

Here in Atticland life is bobbing along and our long six week summer holiday is rapidly coming to an end - only nine days left for Little B before he has to truss himself up in a shirt, tie and blazer for the first time and head off to a brand new school. I think it's safe to say that we've all enjoyed the relaxed pace of the summer, but I know I'll be more than ready for some new routines and structure once the school year begins again next month. 

After a bit of a cold snap this week, the weather finally got its act together today and it's been beeeeeeautiful. So so good to feel the warm sun on my face and drink in all that blue sky goodness up above. We decided to drive up to the moors and walk, well you've got to make the most of these sunshiny days when they roll around because they are precious indeed.

It's heather season right now and oh my word it was stunning up there on the tops today. I took a ridiculous number of photographs because the colours and the light and the utter summeryness of the views made me completely giddy. I'll show you some more images in another post, I think you'd enjoy them. Of course I cannot in any way walk up on the moors in late August without thinking of my Moorland blanket (photos of that can be found ((here)), the heather and the yarny stripes are so closely interlinked in my mind.

Talking of yarny stripes, The Yuletide blanket is almost finished and I've absolutely loved every moment of making it. I'm working on the final rounds of the border at the moment and I really can't wait to show you what it looks like when it's all laid out. 

It's funny because this time last year I was obsessing with the flowers and dried grasses in the meadow, drinking in that summery colour palette and planning out my Meadow Blanket stripes. This year, my colours are all about cosying up by the fireside and celebrating the winter season and the contrast between the two is quite something. Ahhh, isn't colour wonderful? I spend a good portion of every single day thinking about it, my Creative Mind never really sleeps I don't think.

Despite my creativity being winter-focused this week, I'm still very much enjoying the floral colours at my disposal. The sweet peas continue to give me blooms, even though the plants themselves are looking very straggly. I picked these stems two days ago....

....and am enjoying them enormously. The scent is pure summer perfection and I couldn't love it more.

Last week we were away from home, yes yes, we finally made it down to Dorset! We picked up our new car in the morning and in the afternoon we drove the three hundred miles south. We had mixed weather but it didn't stop us getting out and about every day enjoying much loved familiar places.

It was so so good to be there, I honestly can't tell you how much I've missed the sea and longed to be "home" again for a while where my soul is truly at peace. We stayed for five nights so quite a short trip really, but this year for the first time we left Little Lady behind so we didn't want to be gone all that long. As you might expect, I've got plenty of photos to share with you and I do really enjoy writing up my holiday posts so that future me can look back and read them. I'll make time to do that soon while the memories are still in full focus.

I've really noticed this week that the seasons are slowly beginning to change and our days are becoming shorter again. I've been lighting my wax burner beside my bed in the evenings - both the cosy candle light and the wafting scent makes me feel beautifully relaxed. I'm currently inhaling the gorgeous scent of "Sweet Orange and Geranium" and it's just so lovely, calming and uplifting.

Well on that sweet note I'll love you and leave you for now, I've just remembered I've got to go outside and water my pots before it gets dark so I best toddle off and see to that. I hope you've had the loveliest of days - back soon!

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The Flora Granny Square

There is nothing like a stash of yarn arranged in a pleasing colour order to lift my spirits, it's honestly such a beautifully simple visual thing that delivers a huge dose of feel-good. As you might expect, I was always that child who obsessively arranged her pens and pencils in rainbow order, in fact I've been pretty obsessed with colour all of my life.

I've been sitting on this yarn since the spring, well not literally sitting on it, more like stroking it, playing with it, arranging it and rearranging it, as you do. You might remember the little spring blossom twiggy project I made in March using this yarn? It's Stylecraft Naturals Organic Cotton which I'd describe as a fine DK weight. It really is lovely to work with, it's a soft, matt yarn, smooth without being slippery is that makes sense and it hooks like a dream. I really love it and the fact that it's a natural and organic product makes it something extra special.

Something else to share with you is my new set of organic cotton yarn pegs which are almost as divine as the yarn balls. This is not my handy work (I'm way more haphazard with my winding skills), they were made by the lovely Jane who runs a great little yarn peg business on Etsy. Her shop is called Bauhinia Crafts and I can highly recommend her yarn pegs which are gorgeous. They come in their own storage box and are so neatly wound and labelled - she has quite a few different Stylecraft yarn ranges as well as some other popular brands.

I continue to find yarn pegs amazingly useful little tools-of-the-trade, in fact I would say they are one thing that I couldn't be without when it comes to designing and planning crochet projects.

The Flora Granny Square is a new design which has a flower as it's central motif. You might recognise the flower as it's an adaptation of a pattern I created years ago called Flora's Flower. It took a fair bit of messing about creative design work to figure out how to go from a flower shape to a square shape, but after a whole afternoon spent hunched over the table with my hook and yarn, I managed to create something I was very happy with.....

....ta-dah!!! I love how it turned out, I think it's a really sweet little variation of a granny square and I could quite easily see it multiplied and turned into a beautiful blanket or throw. 

The Flora Granny Square uses six colours, and I had loooooooads of fun coming up with pretty mini colour palettes for each square.

I think if I was making a larger project I would be inclined to make all the flowers first, just for the giddy pleasure of having them to play with. A whole pile of colourful hooky flowers, just imagine how insanely satisfying that would be?! 

I designed and made these squares to tie in with Granny Square Day which is an annual celebration hosted by Simply Crochet magazine. As such, the main aim of these squares is to provide beautiful photographs for Instagram - it might seem a bit odd to those of you not familiar with Instagram, but trust me, there is a very vibrant and engaging crochet community within the little squares of that app and I really enjoy contributing to it. 

My granny squares will become part of a giant granny square collage created on Instagram under the hashtag #grannysquareday2021, it's such a unique and clever idea and every year it never fails to blow my mind just a little. 

The majority of the visual beauty will happen today over on Instagram. Simply Crochet have also put together lots of inspiration and free patterns on their website if you want to have a look ((here)). It's all good, square fun!

Of course, I can never just make something new and keep it all to myself, that would never do. I love to share my ideas and inspire you to get creative, so yes, yes, I've made a photo heavy step-by-step tutorial for you.

You can find the tutorial for the Flora Granny Square over in my left hand sidebar, or click on the following link >>

❤️ FLORA GRANNY SQUARE TUTORIAL ❤️

There is also a PDF version of the pattern for you to download/print free of charge, click on the following link >>

❤️ DOWNLOAD FLORA GRANNY SQUARE PATTERN ❤️

I wanted to show you the above photo for reference - the square on the left is made using the organic cotton and measures 10cm. The one on the right is made using Special DK acrylic yarn and measures a slightly larger 11cm. Both are lovely, although they do feel very different. I used a 4mm hook for both.

I'm debating now what to do with my little pile of squares and how many more to make - I have a few ideas, of course I do. I thought about making a cushion cover, or perhaps something like a mini table runner or table mat? What would you make with these 4 inch squares? Maybe I'll just keep making flowers until I have a whole bouquet, then square them up and see what comes of it. It's been ages since I've had an open ended therapy-project on the go - pure hooky pleasure.

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Thank You, Thank You

Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your wonderfully supportive and empathetic words in response to my last post. Thank you so, so much for sharing your thoughts and personal experiences, I can't actually put into words what it has meant to hear your collective voices echoing back to me with so much kindness. I wish I could give each and every one of you a jam jar posie of yarden flowers to cheer up your table, but hoping a virtual one will surfice.

I don't have a huge amount to share with you right now, but as I ease myself back into the business of blogging again I thought you might like to see some visuals from my week. Nothing of note really, it's been a week of slow ordinariness here in the Attic with the exception of a broken car, a postponed holiday, and the purchase of a new car which has been quite exhilarating in a rather stressy way. We are a one-car family who tends to own rather inexpensive used vehicles which we run and run and run until they die, so we are used to dealing with car extinction from time to time. Our latest purchase is only five years old which makes it the newest car we've ever bought, ever. Hopefully it means we can be mobile again next week and our trip down to Dorset will actually happen this time, our third attempt this summer. All digits and extremities crossed.

The above photo is in no way car related, just a random picture of my breakfast. I think I uploaded it to  remind me to tell you that I'm still trying my best to eat wholesome and clean, failing quite a bit on the refined sugar front I admit, but hopeful that it was just a passing slump. It's amazing to me how much our dipping hormones can induce a very severe sugar craving which honestly feels like an addiction at times. Last week I ate an unholy amount of chocolate, but this week I've managed to dig deep and show more restraint.

I wanted to briefly say re the menopause and HRT etc etc, that I don't want to keep going on about it, but I think I would like to keep you posted on how I get on in the future, in case it might be helpful for others going through similar? I recently found Dr. Louise Newson's website (the Menopause Doctor) a massive help, and in particular ((this video on YouTube)) which is a fantastic, informative and easy to digest explanation of menopause, hormones and HRT. OK, that's all I want to say for now, but yes I'll let you know when/if Future Me (the joyful, energetic version) finally makes an appearance. Here's hoping.

Walking and spending time amonsgt the greenery continues to help me cope, and I've been enjoying the summer woodland very much. We've had a lot of very heavy rain during the past few weeks, real torrential downpours and thunderstorms as well as days with endless wet wet wet from dawn to dusk. The smell of the damp in the woodland has been incredible, and the usually gentle streams and waterfalls have been raging. The pathway in the above photo we've nicknamed "the cardio steps", it's a pretty steep climb and we always aim to do the whole assent in one go, collapsing on the very well placed wooden bench at the top. I do enjoy a bit of an al fresco workout, it gets the blood pumping and reminds me I'm alive and well.

We've been doing the usual kind of summer holiday things here this week, such as school uniform shopping and café breakfast pancake eating. Little B will start at secondary school in September, so we had to go and purchase the whole kit and caboodle for him. It was super sweet though, because Little Lady is working a summer job in the school uniform shop so I was able to have her run around and fetch me all the things from the very long list of requirements. It was relatively painless, although having said that we've still got the torture of finding school shoes, trainers and rugby boots to fit Little B's incredibly wide feet. Sigh. I might need to bribe him with another pancake stack for that tricky expedition. 

In crochet related news, I have a confession to make. During the past few months when life has been at the rockiest of rock bottoms, I wasn't able to crochet very much, if at all. Weeks went by where I couldn't seem to find the will to pick up my hook, and that's how I knew that I was in trouble. This week has felt a little easier, and I've managed a round or two most days - these rounds are now huuuuuuuuuuuuuge because I am nearing the end and it takes quite a long time to go all the way round now. I'm so happy with this blanket, it's a joy to crochet and the festive spirit which I really wanted to capture with the colours and pattern is just lovely.  I don't have an exact launch date for the Yuletide yarn pack and blanket pattern yet, but it will be early September I hope, all being well.

I crocheted three bees last weekend, as a favour for a friend. She's knitting a cushion for family who have a connection to Manchester, and wanted to include a couple of buzzing bees as they are the emblems for the city. I happened to see a pattern for a wall hanging in Simply Crochet issue 111 and thought the bees would be perfect so I offered to do the hooky for her. They turned out really cute, if a little on the large side. I used Stylecraft Special DK and a 3,5mm hook.

And finally, yesterday I managed to find my creative mojo which has been missing for quite a while, so a huge sigh of relief all round. I set up a makeshift photography desk on my coffee table and settled on the floor to work. It's been quite a long time since I've felt inspired to do anything like this, and do you know, it felt fanTAStIc to be back doing my thing. It wasn't a spontaneous event though, there was a plan and timeline as I've been working on a new granny square design to tie in with Granny Square Day which is this coming Sunday 15th. I was asked to be an official ambassador this year, so I figured it was a good opportunity to come up with something new to share.

I actually designed this square back at the end of June I think, a day when all of a sudden an idea for a flowery square had popped into my mind. I used scraps of Stylecraft Special DK to work out the initial design, but when it came to making up some squares for an actual project, I switched over to cotton. I absolutely love this cotton yarn, it's the new Organic Cotton DK from Stylecraft which is absolutely wonderful to work with, especially for small decorative projects. 

I'm making a full photo tutorial for my new square which I've named the Flora Granny Square, and I'll be publishing  the free pattern here on my blog at 9am on Sunday 15th for Granny Square day. Most of the visual celebrations will be taking place on Instagram, so if you have that fabulous little app on your phone, then do check out the hashtag #grannysquareday2021 on Sunday, it'll be a true feast for the eyes. 

Well, I think that's all for now, I'll be back on Sunday with more granny square photos and the pattern if you fancy a little bit of  flowery, squarified hooky playtime. See you then xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

With Love from Me

Hello my friends, thank you so much for popping by to visit, and I'm sorry that my window has been closed for such a long time through these intense summer weeks. I just want to reassure you I am alright, I haven't been ill or fallen off the face of the Earth, but I have been struggling with my general health and wellbeing which has seen me hit a very low point in recent months.

Despite me writing about my life and sharing it with you over the past 13 years, I do feel a bit shaky talking about such personal health matters here in my public space. It's not an easy thing to do, and I've been feeling very vulnerable in general I guess, especially as my emotions are extremely erratic right now. Hence the silence here for the past month and a half while I tried to gather myself together enough to be able to articulate my thoughts for you.

So to put it bluntly, all this angst is down to my crazy menopausal  hormones which continue to lead me on a difficult journey through my early fifties. The downward slope has been depressingly horrid to be honest. But it's not all doom and gloom. After much internal debate, research and advice from my doctor I've decided to take the leap with HRT and hope that I can haul myself out of the grey depression that has plagued me this year. I am keeping everything crossed that there will be light at the end of the tunnel for me in the near future, crikey, I really need that light to shine again. 

Last week I uploaded a whole load of photos to catch you up with my summer time, so I'm going to try really hard to find the words to share with you very soon. You are never far from my thoughts I promise you, I think about my blog every day, many, many times a day and tell myself that it's OK to just come back when I feel able. I appreciate your understanding more than I can put into words, and I'm sending you all lots and lots of love. 

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