Attic24

Little Mouse Wreath

At the weekend I swapped the hills of the Yorkshire Dales for the equally beautiful and equally hilly hills of the Derbyshire Peak District. I travelled with a good friend on Friday morning, and after three hours and three train journeys filled with chatter and a bit of sock knitting we arrived at the lovely little town of Buxton. This girly weekend away had been many, many months in the planning, a gem of an idea hatched last Summer and finally we were there......

.........this is the house with the rolling green view which became a veritable Hooky Haven for the weekend. Actually, it was a bit more than a house, it was huuuuuge! Quarnford Lodge is a rambling ten bedroomed detached residence on top of a high hill, a perfect venue for a large bunch of rather crazy hookers to hunker down for a few days. It was absolute bliss. Nothing to do except chat, eat, drink, sleep and crochet.

The living space at the lodge was large and open plan, with a wood burning stove separating the living and dining areas. As there were nineteen of us, the large space suited us perfectly and those chocolate brown leather sofas provided a wonderful place to while away the day with hook and yarn. The whole weekend was very informal - no workshops or schedules, just a huge amount of laughter, cake, wine, crochet and hilarious banter. Oh, we did laugh, I laughed so much and so hard I thought I would either stop breathing or pee my pants. Or possibly both. Such a beautiful bunch of lovely, vibrant, charming and funny ladies. As I only knew two of them in real life, it did make me feel ever so slightly nervous about spending a whole weekend with virtual strangers. I am quite a private person, verging on the shy really, and sometimes I do find social situations a little tricky. But I needn't have worried, everyone was so lovely and by the end of the weekend I knew I had made a whole big bunch of great new friends.

It's one of the things I most love about crochet - it is such a warm, creative and sociable hobby, and the friendships that grow from sharing a love of hook and yarn are just brilliant. I experience this every single day as I write my blog and share pictures and chatter on Facebook and Instagram, but there is something extra special about taking an online community and springing it into real life. Those of of us that shared our weekend together had only previously known each other via a small online group, but you would never have guessed it in a million years. The friendship was real and instant.

One of the things we had decided to do for the weekend was a hand made gift exchange. We didn't know who we would be making the gift for or who's gift we would be receiving (we did it a bit like a raffle), it was loads of fun. I was so lucky with my gift and received a really beautiful crochet shawl - can you believe I have never had a shawl before, whatever was I thinking???! It was hard to photograph to show you the pretty silver sparkle that runs through the yarn in my shawl, tis rather glamorous to have this beauty draped around my person. Warm and cosy too, I am most definitely a newbie Shawl Lover.

I pondered over what to make for my gift for all of about 20 minutes, and then as if by magic an image popped into my Creative Mind like a photograph. I could see it so clearly......and I saw a little mouse!

Actually, I decided that one mouse looked a little bit lonesome so I made him a little mousey lady friend, awwwww! I found a really delightful little free mouse pattern designed by Lucy Ravenscar, so sweet and very easy to make. I used 4ply baby merino yarn and a 2.5mm hook, and they came out quite dinky and very cute looking.

Now my little mice needed a place to live, and my Creative Mind had already provided me with a very clear picture - I needed to make a Flower Bower.

So just as I did for my Bower Bird, I used a 7 inch Flexi Hoop {you can find these on Amazon} which I covered with a length of crochet. This is very easy to do, and I've given a full explanation as part of my Bower Bird tutorial.

Once I'd made the green base, it was time to decorate............

..........I had loads of fun here and really, really enjoyed making this pretty mini flower wreath. I used some of my own small flower patterns (Teeny Tiny Flower and Daisy Flower) and added some simple leaves. I also made a few smaller/shorter versions of my fern leaf, as well as having a little go at making some approximate lavender-ish type flowers in shades of purple. 

Everything was carefully arranged, pinned, then stitched in place and finally the wreath was ready.......

................ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so pleased with this little decoration, it turned out pretty much exactly as I saw it in my mind. It was a pleasure to wrap it up and know that it would be going to a lovely new hooky home too.

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ps I want to say a huge THANK YOU to the 18 fabulous hooksters who made my weekend so special and so memorable, especially Sarah C and Mel who organised it all. It was amazing and I hope we can do it again next year. And special big hugs to Sarah S who made me laugh so hard and for so long that I came very close to having an accident. Mwah x. Hooky friends are the bestest kind of friends there are x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colour Me Happy

♥ Crocheting some Spring Leaves to adorn the jug of bare twigs on my mantel. I'm using Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK which is great for little decorative projects like this - I'll be sharing this leaf pattern on my blog next week.

♥ The most beautiful bunch of flowers arrived on my doorstep this week, a complete surprise from a lovely friend.

♥ Fresh flowers and bright colours are two of my Life Essentials, food for the heart and soul.

♥ Continuously inspired by the colours and patterns provided by Mother Nature. Just w-o-w.

♥ A humble bunch of daffodils on my table this week, so delicate and pretty.

♥ I wish you could put your face gently to your screen and inhale the scent of these flowers, they smell divine.

♥ I got over my fear of yarn-in-a-skein and hand wound this ball of sock yarn at the weekend. These colours have me dreaming of green fields and sea breezes.

♥ Sunny colours on my bed make me smile so many times a day. This log cabin blanket is one of my all time favourite makes.

♥ I'm busy writing up the tutorial for this lovely linen stitch border, and putting together a very pretty ta-dah post for my Cupcake Stripe blanket. All will be revealed on Monday morning, and I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited to share it all with you!

Have a wonderful weekend my lovelies, I hope your days are filled with colours that make your heart and soul happy...

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The Joy of Knitting Socks

I absolutely hate having cold feet and ever since being a child I have suffered with poor circulation and chilly toes. I was cursed with chilblains every winter through my teenage years and the memory of that annual pain and discomfort in my poor toes is rather rotten. So it goes without saying that I always need my feet to be warm and dry in wintertime and that I also love thick, warm socks, the snugglier the better. I have a whole collection of commercial Snuggle Socks (you know, the really fluffy kind that appear in the shops just before Christmas), but I can confirm, through extensive testing and experimentation, that hand knitted socks are in a league of their own when it comes to warmth and comfort for ones feet.

Having my feet snuggled up inside hundreds of little woolly stitches all created by the hands of someone who adores the knitting process is just magic. Hand knitted socks represent hours of creativity, patience and love, and I am convinced that those feelings are embedded in every knitted row and therefore make one's feet feel extra warm and cosy.

The socks in the photos above belong to me (mine, all mine!), and those are my warm and cosy feet modelling them. Aren't they a bit gorgeous? Do you note that those knitted sock rows are rippling themselves gently up and down, kind of like my crochet ripple blanket? Well there is a little story behind these socks and the way they came to be nestled on my feet. They were designed and made by Christine Perry who writes a blog called "Winwick Mum". Now amongst other talents, Christine is a very accomplished knitter, and I'm sure she won't mind me telling you that she is a Sock Knitting Obsessive. Uh-huh, obsessed I tell you. Just as I have my addiction to crocheting blankets, Christine's thing is knitting socks. She knits all the time, every day. One pair of socks follows another, and another and another. And not content with just knitting socks, Christine also possesses the necessary know how to design her very own sock patterns - I know!! Clever or what?? And this is how I came to have this delicious pair of Neat Ripple Socks at the end of my legs - Christine came to say hello to me at Yarndale last year and asked for my permission to use the "Neat Ripple" name for her socks which were inspired by my crochet ripple blankets. I was only too happy for her socks to share a name with my beloved blankets, and hadn't in any way expected to be thanked so beautifully. What a treasured gift these socks are, I can't tell you how much I love wearing them (a whole lot of cosy happy for my cold feet), and how I love the friendship that came from these ripply stitches.

The above socks were also designed and made by Christine - she based this design on a knitted shawl pattern. I was so in awe of them when I first saw them, so unbelievably impressed by the notion of someone not only knitting their own socks, but somehow creating a lacy pattern at the same time - way beyond skilful in my humble opinion. You may be interested to know that Christine shares all her sock patterns on her blog for free, just the same as I do with my crochet patterns. She is an enabler, an inspiration and guru to would-be sock knitters all over the world.

As well as writing very clever ripply and lacy patterns for advanced sock making, Christine has also written a simple sock pattern to encourage complete sock knitting beginners. With years of sock making expertise under her belt, she has created not only a very nifty Basic Sock Pattern but also a full step-by-step tutorial to go with it. In her tutorial she covers everything you need to know about embarking on your very own sock knitting journey - lots of useful information about choosing the right yarn, buying the right tools (needles etc), how to match stripes so your socks come out like identical twins, how to cast on and make a tension square etc etc. It's a very comprehensive guide and really useful for complete sock-knitting newbies. Once you've digested all the info and got your kit together - a ball of 4ply sock yarn, small 30cm circular needles (2.5mm) , a set of double-pointed needles (2.5mm) and a couple of stitch markers - you are good to go.

With her brilliant tutorials (she uses lots of photos like me), Christine's basic sock pattern is written in easy to understand plain English with lots of helpful explanations along the way. But that's not all - back in the Springtime, Christine hit upon the idea of  starting up a Sockalong, a virtual knitting circle where she would encourage all and sundry to join in with her sock-making adventure and give it a whirl for themselves. Via support groups on Facebook and Ravelry, an exciting new community began to form and many hundreds of ladies began to discover the joy of knitting socks for themselves. Christine is a true inspiration - she is skilled at trouble shooting and offering advice and information, and as a result of her enthusiasm and the knowledge she shares via her Facebook and Ravelry groups, I know many, many people have successfully made a pair of socks for the very first time.

Here in Atticland, Christine's sockalong reached out and inspired many of my real-life friends to start their own sock knitting journey. It was wonderful to witness the joy of sock knitting in the hands of my friends, and truthfully a little part of me began to feel a tad jealous as they oohed and aaaahed over their achievements. I started to feel just a weeny bit left out when there was so much sock talk around the knit and natter table each week. As I really genuinely love wearing hand knitted socks, I found myself quietly wondering if this might be something I could have a go at. Could I do it? Was it possible? Me and the Pointy Sticks?

Christine says that if you can knit and purl, then you can definitely knit socks. She makes it sound very easy and achievable and rewarding. Now I can knit and purl, although it's been a very long time since I did so. I used to knit a lot through my teenage years, in the 1980's when big shoulders and mohair yarn were all the rage. I don't recall really being passionate about knitting when I was younger (I loved stitching and embroidery way more), but I did enjoy it as a hobby and loved wearing the things I made. And so the quiet little thoughts that sat inside my own mind (could I knit socks? could I manage to learn? would it be fun to join in?) started to leak out into real life and several of my sock-knitting friends picked up on my interest and began to encourage me. Go on - give it a go, they said! You'll love it, it's such fun, they said! We can help you if you get stuck! But more than anything, I think they thought it would be fun to see me put down my trusty hook and grapple with the pointy sticks! Haha, they wanted a laugh at my expense I think!!

And so that is how I came to receive a very special Birthday present from my friend Joy, who lives all the way down south on the Isle of Wight. Inside the parcel was a ball of gorgeous sock yarn, and at the end the of the yarn was a set of small circular needles with six and a half rows of rib already knitted up. Ready and waiting for me to carry on.............

So here I am at Coopers Café one Tuesday afternoon, with everyone watching me pick up those needles for the first time. Oh boy, I was so nervous (note the White Knuckles of Tension!) My hands aren't at all used to knitting, they aren't used to holding such small needles or working such tiny stitches with such thin 4 ply yarn. It felt very strange at first, and I had to concentrate like fury to get that ribbing done. Knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two. I couldn't really speak and count and knit all at the same time, so I just smiled, ignored the jibes about Going Over To The Dark Side, ignored the photos being taken and counted hard in my head.

Once the rib was complete, the knitting became much easier. Knitting on small circular needles is actually much easier than using sticks, and the best part is that you don't have to turn the work and make purl rows. You just knit round in a spiral, using a stitch marker to mark the start of each row. I found I got into a slow but easy rhythm with those 60 stitches - can't claim they were relaxing or especially enjoyable as I was still very tense at this point and had to knit in complete silence, but I began to feel ridiculously proud of my rows. Knitting!!!! I am actually knitting!!!!

The thing that most pleased me about this first sock was discovering the way the striping yarn worked. Oh my goodness, it was so fascinating and pleasurable to see the stripes emerge from the yarn ball as if by magic. There was no ball-band on the yarn that Joy sent me so I had no picture to tell me what the socks would end up like. I just knit, knit, knit those rows and watched as the stripes changed colour and made patterns all by themselves. So clever! I really, really, really love sock yarn.

At certain times during the knitting of a sock, you have to abandon the cosiness of those little circular needles and bring in the dpn's (double pointed needles).

I was nervous about "turning the heel" as there seems to be a certain mystery around doing this magical thing. Christine's instructions (with lots of pictures to help) made it very do-able even for a newbie like me. I did have to use YouTube to learn how to SlipSlipKnit (a form of decrease), but I got there in the end.

Oh just look at that!! I am very proud of my neat heel flap and gusset!

I had help from the Sockalong Facebook group when I got stuck at times (I experienced the joy of an online community always there when you need help), and I also had to learn how to unpick knitting when it went wrong. In fact, the hardest thing about knitting isn't actually the knitting or following a pattern - it's learning how to trouble-shoot when you go wrong. I found it very handy to keep a 2,5mm crochet hook near me at all times as I frequently had to rescue dropped stitches.

I progressed quite quickly with my first sock, eager to work through all stages of the pattern to see if I could do it. I became a little bit obsessed with it. I found that in order to knit successfully, I had to be sat at my dining table with nobody speaking to me, so it wasn't (and still isn't) a sociable hobby for me. Knitting for me is quiet time, me-time. I knit in the very early mornings or sometimes in little gaps of time in the day like after-dinner-before-bathtime when everyone in the house is occupied and will leave me well alone to concentrate. I find I can't knit in the evenings when my eyes are tired as I make too many mistakes and get too cross.

Knitting the toes is the hardest part of all. Once you've made the foot (oh hello easy rows of knit, knit, knit), you have to get four pointy sticks out in order to decrease to form the toe shape, and honestly it is a right mare. Christine calls it "wrestling with a hedgehog", and that about sums it up. I really couldn't wait to get those rows out of the way, I didn't enjoy them at all. Not one bit. But eventually there I was at the end of the toe, with the required twenty eight stitches, ready to get to grips with The Kitchener Stitch. This is a method of threading the yarn onto a needle and stitching the toe together so that your stitches mimic knitting. The idea is that you "graft" the ends together and make them seamless - it's not as hard as it at first seems and Christine explains it very well in her tutorial. If you are nervous about doing this for the first time, I would  advise going to YouTube and watching it in action - a lovely lady on my Facebook page posted a link to a short video and it made my second sock so much easier {Kitchener Stitch Video}

I have been really pleased to discover how easy it is to knit with these little 30cm circular needles, they really do make the whole sock knitting process pretty easy. There are different brands of needle that you can buy, I'm using Addi ones which are German and lovely to use. You can find them online (try Amazon UK / Amazon US)

Oh - errrr..................................Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made not only one sock, but a matching pair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to tell you, now that my socks have been washed and blocked, they feel amazing to wear. They are soft and oh-so-very warm and toasty.

I have really LOVED working with this gorgeous yarn too, thank you SO MUCH Joy for this wonderful gift, for choosing yarn that has given a huge amount of colourful pleasure and encouraging me to make a start. I owe you big time :)

So what happens when your first pair of socks is on your feet and you've got empty needles sat there in front of you?

Why, you spend a good many hours surfing the net looking for your next fix to feed your new addiction. Of course!

The yarn that Joy gifted me is made by German company Opal (this particular yarn is from the "Sweet & Spicy" Opal range, the colourway is called "Sprinkles"). Opal make a huge range of sock yarns in beautiful colours which really are lovely to knit with and produce stunning socks. 4ply sock yarn generally comes in 100g balls (easily enough to make a pair) and is made from 75% wool / 25% nylon. The commercial sock yarns are machine washable, and come out beautifully soft after washing, with no shrinkage or fluffing or bobbling. Once you start looking at sock yarns, you will seriously be spoilt for choice, they are all so appealing!

The self-striping pattern thingy that happens in sock yarn really has entranced me, I am fascinated by the way it works. If you've got a spare 6 minutes right now, do watch this little video about how Opal sock yarns are made, it's ace.

So I have a second pair of socks on my needles already, oh yes. In fact, the very same day I finished my first pair I ordered some new yarn online and it was on my needles the next day (thank you Wool Warehouse for such speedy, reliable delivery, you feed my yarn addiction very nicely!)

So what do you think of these stripes then? Aren't they cool??? It amazes me to look at the ball of yarn and know that it will produce these stripes and patterns. This is Regia yarn, another fab sock brand from Germany and this particular range has been designed by Norwegian knitting designers Arne & Carlos.

I've learnt that sock yarns come in different ranges, and within each range there are different colourways to choose from. So for this particular yarn, the brand is Regia, the range is "Design Line by Arne & Carlos, edition 2" and there are six different colourways to choose from (this is number 03657 Summer Night)

Once again, I have really enjoyed seeing the stripes emerge, they are very pleasing indeed. Clever yarn, it really is.

So now we are up to date with my journey, and you can see where I am at right now - almost finished the leg of my fourth sock. The knitting is getting easier for my hands, my tension is more even and I've not dropped nearly so many stitches with this pair. And I'm relaxing a bit more with it now which is good, but this is still a quiet, full concentration hobby for me. I'm told it does get easier.

Super Socks is the book that Christine wrote to accompany her online tutorials. Gosh, my friend wrote a book, and I am more than a bit in awe of that fact and very proud of her, especially as it's a very good book too.

Just like her blog tutorials, the book is full of photos and well explained text which accompany the pattern and help you along the way.

I found I much preferred having the book pages rather than a computer screen next to me whilst I was knitting, it really helped to see the pictures alongside the pattern to keep me on track.

Something else I want to tell you is about the knitting method itself - somewhere in the early rows of my first sock I decided to try and teach myself Continental knitting. This is where you hold the yarn in your left hand and use the needles to hook up the yarn (rather than "throwing" the yarn around the needles). I am still very much learning, but it has totally changed the way I knit and crucially the speed I can knit. It really suits my hands as I can hold the yarn in exactly the same way as I do when I crochet. There are masses of tutorials on YouTube teaching the basics of Continental knitting - as I say, I am still learning and haven't yet mastered purling the continental way, but it has encouraged me to learn more.

If you've been encouraged by my knitting journey and think you might like to have a go at making your toes cosy with some hand knitted socks, all I can say is Go For It, you will be so glad you did. Christine's pattern and tutorials do really make it achievable, plus remember you can join the Sockalong Facebook Group too which is just the friendliest community of people who will inspire you and give help and advice when needed.

Here for your info are some links for patterns and essential kit...

Chistine's Sockalong Tutorials (all the help you need with choosing needles, yarn, matching stripes, casting on and knitting)

Sockalong Facebook Group (online support and all round lovely community)

Super Socks (Christine's book)

You will need....

100g ball of Sock yarn (I like Opal and Regia brands, especially the lovely self-striping patterns)

30cm circular needle 2.5mm (eg Addi needles on Amazon)

20cm set of dpns 2.5mm (eg Addi needles on Amazon)

2 stitch markers in 2 different colours/designs, to mark places for decrease pattern (lots on Amazon)

I am really enjoying this new creative hobby of mine, but please rest assured that I am still first and foremost a hooker. Crochet is still the love of my life :)

Speaking of which, I'm off to darn in my ends as I've got some photos to take ready for my Sunny CAL tomorrow....see you then....

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Vanessa

I've had a very odd day, lurching between moments of domestic bliss and emotional sadness. This morning I did what I always do in times of anxiety and baked some buns, then iced them pink and decorated them with some long lost rice paper butterflies I discovered in my baking drawer. It was essential I make something sweet, whimsical and colourful, to plump up my heavy heart.

It is with a huge amount of sadness that I find myself mourning the sudden loss of Vanessa Cabban, who many of you might remember as the author of the wonderful blog "Do You Mind if I Knit". Vanessa was such a source of light, kindness, colour, creativity and inspiration, an incredibly talented illustrator, knitter, crocheter and all round creative marvel. She breathed such beauty into everything she did, and I admired her enormously. She began her blogging journey six months before me, and hers was one of the very first creative blogs I ever discovered. In fact, she was the very person who nudged me from the sidelines (via many back and forth emails) and convinced me to start writing my own blog. I shall be forever grateful to her for introducing me to this amazing community and encouraging me to take a leap of faith and become a part of it. It changed the course of my life, and I really don't say that lightly.

I loved and admired the humble way Vanessa shared her creative journey, she was incredibly modest about her many talents and there was a simplicity and honesty to her blogging voice which touched my soul. Her joyful use of bright colour and pattern was so close to my own and yet also very uniquely hers. I loved that we enjoyed a very similar outlook on life and that we shared so much in common - we would often chat to each other by email or phone, sharing little snippets of life as we each meandered through our creative days. Even though I loved Vanessa's textile creations, it was perhaps her little watercolour still life paintings that most stole my heart. Oh they were utterly sublime! I was very very lucky to receive the above painting as a gift for my 40th Birthday, you can read more about it here.

Today I have joined with many people in remembering Vanessa, remembering the bright spirit that she was and the joy she brought to so many. May she rest in peace.

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Settling Down

Here in the Attic we've spent this past week settling down and easing back into life at home. We've all been through the inevitable adjustment period that follows every holiday away, and I've noticed that each of us have dealt with it by gravitating to the things that we left behind/missed whilst we were on hols. It's interesting for me to look at these pictures and see what things I immediately chose to reconnect with at home, and to see that (shock-horror) this did not include any crochet!!! WHat the *&%@??!! I seem to be in a strange non-crochet phase right now, in part due to the fact that the only projects I have on the go are various Yarndale yarn bombing projects and I can't seem to get myself fully engaged with them just at the moment. However, my head suddenly seems to be FULL of ideas, they keep on arriving at the most unexpected of moments, popping in like brightly coloured bubbles, PING! I hope to be able to release some of them soonish before they begin to drive me crazy and stop me from sleeping. Oh, and whilst we're talking crochet, just to let you know that I'm working hard behind the scenes finishing up a full tute for edging a ripple blanket, and as soon as that is done and dusted I'll be ready to reveal my beloved coastal ripple blanket (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem very very very very excited for that!)

One of the very first things I did when I got home last week was check on my back yard pots. In fact, it was about 11pm on the night that we landed home when I suddenly thought CriKey, I do really hope everything has survived a week with no water!!!! I dashed outside in the dark and discovered that everything was on the verge of death, with some serious wilting happening left, right and centre. I spent the next 2o minutes throwing watering cans of water over everything and praying that it would all be ok....and by the following morning pretty much everything had perked up nicely. Phew. My pots are looking great actually, those flowers bring me such a lot of daily happiness :)

I snipped some stems to put on the table, do you know what, I don't think our table has been without flowers a-top of the mandala centre-piece since early May, isn't that a lovely thought?

There are now enough geraniums in flower for me to snip some stems without feeling guilty, so I did just that...snip, snip, snip, snip snip. I've got 5 different varieties/colours happening.....

.....a symphony of summer reds and pinks!

I put the jug beside my bed, does anyone else give themselves bedside flowers? You really should give it a go, the pleasure of waking up to the sight of a few colourful blooms just inches from your nose is really worth it.

When we holiday in Dorset, our bed there is supremely comfortable, it has a deep divan base and a newish mattress and a light but cosy feather duvet. But there is nothing nicer than the comfort of your own bed, is there? I love my bed, so very much, more than I think is completely normal actually.

Looking at the above photo, I think to myself I really, really must hang that beautiful framed print on the wall, it should be on the wall above my bed, not propped up there beside my bed on top of my books! I bought the print last Autumn after stumbling across it on Facebook and falling in love with the quirky style and delightful stitchiness of it. Would you like to take a closer look?

OK, here you go................................

...isn't it wonderful? Rosie Made A Thing is the name of the shop, and Rosie herself is an utter delight. Like me, she is a creative Mum to three Little People, and her work is unique and beautiful. I lover her writing style too, she has a very funny way with words and her Facebook page often has me laughing out loud. You can find the above print in Rosie's Etsy shop, along with some other real gems (by the way, Rosie has variations on the above image, with either 3, 4, 5 or 6 family members in the bed, so be sure to order the one that fits your own brood!)

Whilst settling down at home this week I have enjoyed being back in my own dinky little kitchen space. I have baked (fruity flapjacks and oaty cookies) as a little bit of home baked goodness is often very much appreciated by the Little People during school holidays. I've got some browning bananas to see to in a day or two (I love this recipe), which is perfect fodder for that "I'm staaaaaaaaaaaaarving" thing that my kiddos do without fail every day at 4pm.

I confess that it's not been so easy to ease back into cooking meals, in fact I've found that cooking up a nutritious family meal from scratch every day has felt like a real chore this past week. I loved the beach barbecues and easy no-cook salad meals we ate whilst on holiday! However,  I have thrown myself back into the kitchen, even trying out some new recipes - this chorizo and spinach paella was a great success, although the hair-raising cost of the saffron made me weep a little.

One of the loveliest things about coming home from holiday is getting back together with good friends. It's a hard thing to capture in photographic form if you don't wish to include the actual Friends in person, but the above image says it pretty well I think. This is me, sat at the kitchen table of my friend at number 18 late yesterday afternoon, enjoying a glass of chilled white wine. Tracy (my studio buddy) was also there as she lives close by, and often the three of us can be found drinking, chatting, crocheting and roaring with laughter on a weekend afternoon before we each get down to the business of cooking dinner for our families. Good friends are worth their weight in gold, and I am blessed to have them so close by.

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★...more little snippets from the Attic...★

The Starflower Mandala

Yarndale 2013 :: The Yarn Bombing

2013 :: Year End Review :: crochet

Mandala Love

Mandala Wheels for Yarndale

Saltaire Social

I took a train ride today, just me and my thoughts and twenty five minutes of passing view....

....to Salts Mill in the picturesque village of Saltaire.

 It is such a quaint place that is steeped in history....

...and even the air smelt lovely this morning with the scent of cow parsley drifting on the breeze.

These streets are completely charming, they pull at my heart every time I visit...

....make me long for a brightly painted front door and pretty stained glass windows....

....make me vow to tidy up my own scruffy little patch of front garden.

Sigh. Just so picture perfect! I love terraced houses very much, the simplicity and comfort of them, the friendliness and neatness. In Saltaire, there are row upon row of these old mill workers houses as the whole village is designed on a grid (have a look here). It is a lovely place for pottering and daydreaming.

♥

This morning was such a lovely treat, a detour for a few hours away from the hustle and bustle of my everyday life. A chance to be just Me, to enjoy some thinking, gazing and pootling time followed by some super friendly chat and laughter over coffee and toasted crumpets. Gillian, thank you for a delicious morning, it was pure pleasure.

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♥...more Saltaire snippets from the Attic...♥

Virtual Gardening

Autumn Half Term

Half Way

We are now half way through our summer holidays with only three weeks left before school starts up again in September. Golly gosh, how these sweet summer weeks are speeding by, I can hardly keep up! The days feel long and short all at the same time, and it feels busy and lazy all at the same time too. Each day I perform my juggling act :: sixteen hours of being wife/mum/friend/yarnoholic. Housework (haha not so much), parenting (extremely relaxed), socialising (as much as I can manage) and crocheting (working flat out for Yarndale).

Whilst I have all three Little Peeps at home I am understandably not able to get to my studio, well not in the daytime anyhow. When I've felt up to it, I've been heading down in the evenings to work a few hours, which has mainly involved processing the mountain of mail that continues to flood in containing bunting triangles. During the daytime I have still needed to work, so have been fitting it in around family life at home. One of the jobs I have most enjoyed doing is creating these lovely little yarn cakes out of my Stylecraft yarn. My yarn winder is an old one which I bought second hand last year, but they don't appear to have changed much over the years and are still available to buy new (yarn winder on Amazon ). They are, quite simply, BRilLiaNt.

I've been taking the large 100g balls and winding them into smaller 25g balls. The reason? Partly for the sheer happy visual fun of it, but also for practical reasons...these balls are neater and easier to work with, and it is easier to squeeze multiple colours into my bag. Plus, it has allowed me to make up some "yarn bomb packs" to pass out to my hooky friends who are working hard behind the scenes creating for Yarndale. As you can imagine, I loved  filling my table with plates of colourful yarn cakes, they looked good enough to eat.

Talking of plates of cakes, I haven't baked much lately actually. For one reason I am really trying hard to shed some excess weight, and for another it has been a weeny bit too warm for it. Last week I found myself craving the taste of lemon drizzle cake, so that is precisely what I ended up baking early one morning. Apron on over my pj's, back door open wide open, dancing around to the radio, Little B assisting in his sweet way (he loves to suck out the lemon skins, weird child). I use an old, no-fail recipe (in my archives here) and the results, as always, were lush.

By the way, do you like my new multi-tasking plates? Equally good for yarn and cakes, they have been making me very happy of late.

These beautiful plates are part of the new season Rice melamine, which is all rather gorgeous and desirable. They were sent to me as a gift from the super-lovely peeps at Fig1, a gift that I accepted with a big smile and a certain amount of excited jiggety-jigging.

There were some bowls too, oh the bowls! These new Rice Japanese bird print bowls are beeaa-uuuu-tiful. I haven't had chance to photograph them very well as they are currently full of yarn cakes (they make excellent crochet accessories), but you can see some super pictures of them on the Fig1 website. As well as the gorgeous little print around the top edge, they have cute little bird prints sitting inside the bowl. Yummy.

In the above picture, I am multi-tasking you know. I am sitting at the top of my front steps, keeping a watchful eye on Little B as he whizzes up and down the pavement on his scooter, whilst simultaneously crocheting a patch of blue water. Uh-huh, w-a-t-e-r. Five colours of blue Stylecraft to make a puddle of water for my ducklings to swim in......

Yes, ducklings. I had this idea that the yarn bombing around the canal should relate to the immediate environment, so ducks and water it had to be. I have never crocheted a duck, and I didn't have even the faintest flicker of a design for one, so I went trotting off to search on Pinterest. Pinterest is such an amazing resource when you want to look for visual ideas, I can highly recommend it.

I found a couple of lovely free patterns....one by Annaboo's House called Wubberducky (love that!) and another one by Itsy Bitsy Spider crochet called Lil' Duckie, which is the one I am attempting above. The pattern is beautifully written and easy enough for a simpleton like me who has a bit of a brain freeze reaction to crochet patterns.

Awwwwwwwwww, lil' duckie, you are rather cute!

I need to make some companions for lil' duckie as he looks rather lonesome swimming on his tod in his blue crochet pool.

During these past few weeks, I've had to become rather good at multi-tasking. My number one job is to look after my three Little People, and I have been trying to create a good balance between leaving them pretty much to their own devices at home (which is the preference of the older two), and taking them out and about to do things. They are very undemanding children on the whole, and have been happy making short trips to get ice creams from the ice cream boat on the canal, or to a café in town for smoothies, or for a play in the local park. But actually, I do have a huge amount of work to do at the moment for Yarndale, and I have been squishing and squeezing it in to my days where ever possible. I take my crochet with me everywhere, and work up a few rows when ever I can.

Here I am, back on my front step one afternoon, drinking tea and crocheting up some rainbow granny stripes while Little B pootled about in the garden below.

My roses are blooming beautifully this year after I performed a bit of amateur pruning on them in the autumn. There are more flowers than there have ever been in previous years and I am delighted. They make me so happy.

Those granny stripes worked up really quickly and were a pleasure to do. Such happy, feel-good work!

Do you like my little crochet ladybird? I made her on a complete whim one afternoon when I suddenly needed a break from the stripes. There was no pattern, just an idea in my head of how to make it happen. She turned out a little bigger than I had anticipated, so I tweaked the pattern and made some smaller versions too...........

....aww, they are quite cute don't you think? Very, very quick and easy to make, I will write the pattern up soon if you fancy making some spotty little critters for yourselves. I think they would make lovely little pin brooches.

In between all the juggling at home, the mothering, the shopping, the cooking and the laundry, the play dates, the sleep overs, the school uniform buying and the haircuts, we have also had some fabulous little snippets of away time. This last weekend was especially lovely, a very special time spent camping with friends. You might remember that for the past three summers we have taken Connievan across the hills to spend a week in York. We lived there for eight years and have some wonderful friends there, and since we moved to Atticland we've always managed to spend time with them in the summer holidays. However, since we now have our lovely Connievan sat in a perfect spot amidst the green hills of the Yorkshire Dales, we decided to stay put this year and invite our friends across to join us instead. We are four families :: 8 adults and 9 children in total, and this weekend it was exactly ten years since our first borns were crawling little tots and we all first went camping together.
There is something special about this type of friendship, where the close bond between the ladies naturally extends outwards to include the children and husbands. Our Little People are no longer crawling babies, but they have grown up together and are instantly happy in each others company. Our husbands only get together during these annual summer meetings, but the laughter and banter is easy and relaxed. And as for us ladies, well we simply pick up where we left off.

On Saturday we all set out to walk the mile and a half across the fields to the nearby village of Arncliffe.

The annual village fete was in full swing when we arrived, with the sound of music and the scent of barbecue filling the air. It was absolutely glorious :: a really traditional village affair, with stalls and games and music and food and a running programme of events on the village green. It was quite competitive. There was a strong man/woman competition, hill racing competitions, three-legged races, a dog show and tug-o-war. Our friends dog won first prize, much to the shrieking delight of all our children.

And of course, there was the village pub where we had the most divine cheesy chips (a tray of chips covered in sour cream, fresh chives, bacon and grated cheese) and hot roast pork and apple sauce rolls for lunch. As the bar inside is so tiny (like two square metres tiny), there was a barrel of beer set up on an old pine table outside where you could get plastic cups of the famous Timothy Taylors Best Bitter. I do like to drink bitter every so often, and this one is especially good when drunk al fresco on a warm summers day in the company of friends.

The walk back to the campsite in the late afternoon was jolly and filled with sunshine, chatter and laughter.

We stayed for two nights and two days, and the weekend seemed to last forever. It is cooler now we are heading towards the end of summer, and I was very glad of Connievan's multiple blankets. Our  caravan bed is unbelievably cosy and I find it very, very hard to get out of it in the mornings. Sometimes I can persuade J to take Little B out for a while so that I can indulge in some cosy bed comfort.....a mug of fresh coffee, a little bit of crochet and some amazing pages to browse through. Bliss!

Evenings at the campsite were especially wonderful. We did what we usually do when we camp as a group and cooked together (we last camped together five years ago, do you remember?). Two barbecues were lit up and the men cooked up a feast of burgers and sausages. I took care of the bread products, someone else did salad, there were hot barbecued corn on the cobs and chargrilled peppers and melty cheeses, and it all worked out amazingly well. Seventeen of us fed and happy. We kept one of the barbecues going, stoked up with more coals and a constant supply of dry twigs that the Little People kept delivering. Marshmallows were skewered and toasted, and we all gathered around the campfire to keep warm and wait for the stars to come out.

The night sky was amazing on Friday night at the campsite, and we decided to let all the children stay up late to see it. By about 11pm when it was completely dark, we were all sat round the fire wrapped in blankets staring upwards, taking it all in. It was incredible...so many shooting stars! It was the first time the Little People had seen shooting stars, and I was so happy that they got to experience it. Even Little B stayed up to see it, he was so cute snuggled up on my lap chatting non stop about the satelites he could see moving slowly in the sky and the shooting stars as they streaked across. We found out afterwards about the perseid meteor shower and realised that probably explains the large number of "celestial fireworks" we saw. Isn't the natural world just wonderful?

Well I've been writing this post across two days now, fitting it in here and there, trying to catch up with my thoughts and memories. Sorry it's so long. Life is good. The sun is shining, and we are really enjoying the summer very much. I just wish it would slow down a bit.

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Sociable Crochet :: Part I

I'm delighted to be sharing these pictures with you today, it's made me so happy just looking back at them and remembering the wonderful evening they were taken. They provide a really sweet little window into the past, a snapshot of a sublime evening at the end of May. I remember this day so vividly! I remember how hot and busy the day had been (it was a Monday). I remember the happiness when my friend suggested that we move our evening pub hooky to her back yard to take advantage of the gorgeous weather. I remember the marvelous anticipation of a warm, relaxing evening spent outdoors in the company of good friends. I remember the excitement of going to the supermarket to purchase a bottle of Pimms and a punnet of strawberries for the occasion.

I've been to Tracy's house many times before (I showed you a snippet of her beautiful home a few months ago), but I had never been in her back yard before. Her yard is small like mine is, but it is very much fuller than mine is. Walking in through her back gate was like walking in to a perfect little oasis of verdant beauty and calm. So much greenery! Trees and shrubs, herbs, flowers and vegetables grow in abundance, spilling out of pots, growing up the walls and fences. It honestly took my breath away, it all looked so beautiful on that hot, early summers evening.

Tracy had created a beautiful table setting for our crochet evening. Her old garden table had been draped with a beautiful vintage table cloth, and was dotted with lots of little old glass bottles filled with pretty flowers from her patch.

This allium was particularly stunning, what a marvel of nature it is!

As well as the floral element, there was a scrumptious edible element to the table too. A plate of the sweetest sun warmed cherries, dishes of plump, shiny olives and fat little stuffed red peppers. Bowls of incredibly moreish handcooked crisps. It was all so lovely!

Now on a hot summer's night, there is a definite need for cooling liquid refreshment wouldn't you say? Pimms had been declared the liquid of choice, oh sweet joy as I adore this drink!

This was the first of many glasses that were poured that night, what a beautiful sight hahaha! Now just in case you don't know about Pimms, let me give you a little information. It's a very British drink, gin based with a secret mixture of herbs, invented in London in the 1850's. The traditional way to make it is in a large jug, 1 part Pimms to 3 parts lemonade. Add  some crushed ice together with chopped strawberries, cucumber and orange and a few sprigs of fresh mint. Pour into glasses and enjoy.

I have such great memories attached to this drink. Because you make it in a jug, it begs to be shared with friends. It's easy to drink, summery, fruity, refreshing. And it has magical Laughing Properties. Oh yes indeed.

There were seven of us sat around Tracy's pretty summer table that night. With the exception of Heather, I taught all the others to crochet, and so my friendly little hooky group was formed. We've been meeting on a Monday night for over two years now, and I absolutely love the sociable mix of crochet and chatter, laughter and yarn, beer/wine/pimms/tea and creativity. We share a love of yarn and crochet, but also many other aspects of our life, particularly the precious Mothering jobs we all have. It's a fun group, lighthearted, warm and friendly. On this particular night when the air was so warm and the pimms flowed so freely, oh my goodness did we laugh! At one point I honestly thought I would turn inside out, my tummy was squiggled into impossible knots of laughter. It was five solid hours of absolute fun and merriment. And do you know what? I sat and rippled until gone midnight when the stars came out and I could no longer see the stitches in the dark.

I've been thinking a lot about sociable crochet recently, about the huge importance of it in my life. I marvel at how much the direction of my life changed when I was persuaded to go and purchase that 3.5mm stick of metal and start sticking into some loops of yarn!

Tomorrow I've got a very exciting story to share with you. Please come and join me for "Sociable Crochet : part II"??? I'll pour you a glass of Pimms!

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Friday Blurble

Ahhhh Friday again, how whizzy and wonderful this week has been!

I love my Friday morning potterings around town when I visit local shops and the market to stock up on produce for the weekend. I'll try and photograph the fruit/veg stall one day to show you, it's really quite visually lovely with all the beautiful, colourful fresh produce on display. Today I bought a couple punnets of English strawberries, I love how they come in a variety of shapes and sizes (unlike the supermarket ones) and are deliciously ripe and sweet. They really do need to be eaten pretty much straight away whilst still a little warm from the sun. Little B and I shared a whole punnet on our way home from playgroup today, sat in the shade of a weeping willow beside the canal. The strawberries hardly touched the sides, they tasted incredible.

Also in my bag today was a bundle of English Asparagus which I am really looking forward to smooshing up tomorrow. My love affair with this seasonal vegetable has not let up over the years (I laugh to myself when I recall this post), and I continue to think rather passionate thoughts about devouring these gorgeous spears.

When I came home from the market this morning, I unloaded my bags, put a fresh coffee on to brew, then ran up to the attic eaves to rootle around in my rather large box of Home Textiles. I was after a table cloth, a dash of summer colour to throw over the brown wooden outdoor table. A big improvement, but the table was missing a little floral something. I pondered over it a while, then decided on a sudden impulse to walk up to the park and gather some cow parsley. I remembered that a few of you suggested enjoying it outside instead of bringing it inside, so that's exactly what I did. The sight of it on my table has made me so happy today, I've loved being able to sit and gaze at it as I've sat eating, drinking and hooking.

I had a little play with hook and yarn this afternoon, trying out a few ideas from my new book.

The above sample is a variation of the "terraces" pattern on page 79, although I had to do it my own way. Sorry Jan Eaton but your pattern was really difficult to read and I just couldn't do it your way. My way worked out pretty good though, and I've got an idea for using it to make a small square cushion cover. It's a fabulous colour-play pattern, I'm quite excited by the idea of playing with it on a larger scale.

4.30pm now, and we are in that sweet lull that comes after the school run and before meal-making time. A friend called by to enjoy a little bit of Friday Afternoon Yummies. This tends to happen most Friday's, a spontaneous gathering of friends and neighbours, lots of children coming and going, a few nibbles and a glass of something delicious and chilled. My current Friday Afternoon tipple of choice is Demi Sec Cava. Oh it really does hit the spot rather nicely. Those bubbles! That fruitiness! Divine. So funny, I just had a look on the supermarket website for more information on this drink, and discovered the "tasting notes" for it.....Fruity nose due to the varietal blend and the short bottle ageing. Harmonious on the palate with apple and hints of toast. Very well balanced, good freshness and pleasant acidity level. Who knew all this could be applied to my drink????? Apples and TOAST??? Hahahaha, gosh I laughed out loud when I read that. I so wish my memory was good enough to recall those sentences, I would really love to be able to say all that just to hear the uppity words tumble out of my mouth.

Ahh, this is my back yard wall. Little B, bored with chasing woodlice, practicing a spot of photography. That kid, how very much I love his company. We've had a sweet, happy, toddling kind of a day together, he is quite wonderful to hang out with.

Now then.....before I toddle off and snuggle up with J on the sofa, I would like to mention three things.....

Thing Number 1 :: Janet Bell. Do you know of this lovely lady?? She is an artist with incredible talent, and moreover she is a super-nice lady you know. That's a print of hers up there on my bathroom wall, I absolutely love love love Janet's work, it makes my heart flip over and wibble with excitement. Janet's blog was the very first blog I ever encountered, so you can thank her for opening the door into Blogland for me. Did I say she was a super-lovely lady? I did? Go see for yourself, bob on over to her blog and say hello...she is peeking back through her own door after taking a baby-break and I'm sure she'd be thrilled to welcome you in.

Thing number 2 :: a wacky crochet tie, isn't it marvellous? Not my creation though, no, this was made by a good friend of mine. You may remember me chatting about this particular friend when I showed you her inspirational blanket?? Well this tie was made for her son to wear at school as part of a fund raising effort for the amazing charity Oxfam. Tomorrow some  of my lovely hooky friends will be taking part in an extraordinary walk to raise money for Oxfam. It'll be an incredible achievement and I am so in awe of them for taking up this challenge. They'll be walking a mind blowing 100km over 30 hours (yikes!), I can hardly get my head around it actually. I promised I would pass on their details in case any of you would like to donate to Oxfam via the Hooky Ladies of Yorkshire. The link to their team page is here.

And finally, Thing Number 3 :: the Sun Is Still Shining here and the sky is a most gorgeous shade of cloudless blue!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yipppeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a fabulous weekend, enjoy every precious little minute of it ♥

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Perky

Oh what a difference the weather makes, we have been basking in some beautifully warm, glorious sunshine the past few days and it has made everything seem so happy! I was trying to think what the opposite of Droopy might be (ie the title of my last wet post full of misery) and Perky was the first word that sprang to mind. How happy I am to declare my current perkiness!

Yesterday and today has seen us spend a lot of time outdoors doing perfectly perky May things, and it's been such a relief to let go of all the weather-induced resentment. We've been eating outdoors, picnicking with friends in the park (that's my new little picnic lunch bag there, I am quite smitten with it), and generally just spending time sitting around soaking up the sun rays. I kind of felt like my internal battery had run flat and I was desperate for a bit of solar power to recharge and feel energised again.

Last night at eight o'clock, I strolled up the back streets on my way to Tracy's house. The light on the hills was so pretty, they were lit with a sweet rosy glow that made my heart squeeze. I thought to myself ::  ahhhh this is more like it! This is precisely what May Evenings should look and feel like! Pheww. I'm so glad May has sorted itself out a bit, I was feeling proper cross with it last week.

I usually meet in the local pub on a Monday night with a lovely group of yarny-minded friends, but occasionally circumstances mean that it's easier to transfer the location to one of our houses. Yesterday we met at Tracy's house, which we are always mighty pleased about cos Tracy's house is rather gorgeous and special. Plus she makes her own homemade garlicky hummus for us all to tuck in to, not to mention great slabs of homemade cake. I had the delicious experience of drinking Pimms whilst eating almond slice and hooking up roses, it was a rather unexpectedly lovely combination.

The banter was happy, the munchies were super and the hooky time was great too. It was a lovely, relaxed, sociable and productive evening.

I came downstairs with Little B this morning at about 6.30am, and as I walked in to the living room I was completely bowled over by the light. My house is currently in a huge, disgraceful mess (been a tad lazy of late with the ol' Home Blessing stuff), but the sun made it all look so lovely. Even the piles of plastic toys looked good bathed in golden light.

I treated myself to a bunch of flowers today to celebrate the return of the sun. A really gorgeous, vibrant bunch of Scented Stocks with their incredible sweetly spiced scent. They are sitting on my dining table and I can smell them now. So beautiful.

My plantlets have really put on a growth spurt in the past two days, and it made me realise that it's almost Pot Time. I usually wait till early June before sorting out my back yard pots and planting them up with annuals, and I can't wait to get going with it this year. Need to visit my lovely Plant Man and get my usual haul of geraniums and lobelia (my favourite summer pot combo).

When we returned home from toddler group at lunch time today, the temperature had really soared. We were in the mid 20's I would say, oh it was such a treat! Little B and I ate our lunch together outside, then I got busy with providing some sunshiney outdoor entertainment for him in the form of an underbed storage box filled with warm water. What fun! He stripped his clothes off and leapt in, it was such a joy to watch him play. He was in a complete frenzy of excitement at one point, squealing and splashing and frolicking around, I sat and watched him and laughed out loud at his antics. Sweet boy.

I've really enjoyed the past couple days (can you tell?), it has been so warm and blissful on the domestic front. All rather ordinary I guess, but satisfying and very happy nevertheless.

I'll have a Ring o' Roses blooming for you tomorrow, don't think that's been forgotten. Looking forward to a bit of pretty Ta-dahing, see you then............

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