Attic24

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 9

Well I think it's safe to say that I'm absolutely exhausted - I hadn't realised I would be home so late in the day, and I'm afraid I've not got a lot of blogging oomph in me right now. We set off to catch the eight o'clock train this morning, Little Lady and I, travelling north on an adventure to the city of Newcastle. We've been to visit the university for their open day, and it was a really great experience I have to say. Newcastle university is old (founded in the 1830's) and the buildings are absolutely beautiful. It's also a huge establishment with a very large campus and over twenty thousand students, but the atmosphere was really friendly and welcoming and I felt like it would be a great place to spend some years studying and living life. We took a tour of the campus and sat in on a couple of talks so that Little Lady could get a feel for the university as well as the department and subject she is considering.

Later in the day once we'd seen pretty much all there was to see around the university, we took a walk through the centre of the city and down to the quayside. The River Tyne is huuuuuuge and it's all about the bridges, of which there are many, and they are all huuuuuuge too. We found our way into a very nice Italian restaurant beside the river and I enjoyed a glass of chilled rosé with a plate of the most scrumptious pasta (butternut squash and sage ravioli with walnuts, it was mouth wateringly good). We finished off with an affogato so there is a high chance I am running on espresso energy right now.

It takes two and a half hours by train to travel from Atticland to Newcastle, so it's been quite a long day, but a really good one. I'm not sure whether Little Lady will end up choosing this particular university, but it's always fun to visit new places and consider possibilities. And eat exceptionally good pasta.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 8

Six thirty seven this morning, and I'm stood at the end of my street looking out across the twinkly lights of the town just as the day is waking up. It felt so good to be out breathing in the still of the early morning.

It was a lovely walk with lots of sky appreciation and general gratitude for October weather that is mild enough for us to ditch the coats.

Nine thirty five and I'm in one of my favourite places with some of my favourite people, settling in for three hours of good coffee, yarny pleasures, happy chatter and tears-down-the-face laughter. I can't even remember now what made me laugh so hard, but it's not an unusual occurrence for a Friday morning at Coopers.

Awww, look at my gorgeous friends, look how smiley they are! I promise you that they are all making their own Yuletide blankets without any encouragement from me, they just happen to like the way I put colours together I think. Our creative group is a mixture of crocheters, knitters and stitchers and it really is lovely to see what's on the hooks and needles each week. We inspire each other in so many ways and I couldn't be more grateful for these friends of mine.

It's early afternoon now, twelve thirty, and I'm strolling home from the café in the warm sunshine. I decide to walk home along the narrow pathway which borders the beck before climbing the steps up to the canal tow path. Feeling the sunshine warm on my back as I walk slowly homewards is the most blissful feeling.

Three o'clock and I'm in the kitchen, unpacking the shopping bags after a quick jaunt into town with J. I'm off on a trip tomorrow and need to set off early so won't be able to manage our usual Saturday morning market visit. Luckily Friday is also a market day, so fruit, veggies and cheese came home with us today, as well as sausages, eggs and bread from the butcher and baker. We buy loads of tomatoes from the market every week (often topping up again on a Wednesday), Little B in particular has a real addiction for tomatoes and eats them every day without fail.

Four o'clock and it feels like the right time to prepare my sock yarn. Please don't be alarmed by the above photo, all is under control! I learnt about stripe matching from the Sock Queen herself, she has a tutorial on her blog to tell you how to go about it. You have to split a 100g ball in half, then attempt to decipher the colours so that you can make up two identical 50g balls which start in exactly the same place (all is explained here). Fortunately this Regia yarn has very distinct stripes so it was easy peasy to find matching starting points.

I use my trusty yarn winder to make centre-pull yarn cakes, and honestly it's the most satisfying task. I mean, just look how beeeeeeautiful the yarn looks! All that glorious colour waiting to come and hang out on my feet. I need to cast on now and get started with the knitty business, I hope I can remember how to do it as it's been a while.

Right now it's six o'clock and I think a small glass of chilled sauv blanc will feature in my immediate future. Wishing you a fabulous weekend whatever your plans - I'll hopefully have a few photos to show you tomorrow evening when I get home from my day trip, although I can't promise I'll have much energy for words.

See you tomorrow xxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

Yuletide Mandala :: Ta-dah!

I expect most of you will be familiar with the Yuletide blanket by now because I have been going on and on about it rather a lot. I'm kind of not-sorry about it, I do tend to get pretty obsessed by colours and patterns when they are really floating my boat and it takes a while for me to work them out of my system. And lucky you, you get to hear alllllllll about it because I am prone to oversharing when my boat is floating. If by any slim chance you haven't heard about the Yuletide blanket, then you can find all the deets in a blog post ((here)).

I'm not sure what made me think about making the square stitch pattern into a circular one, it was one of those ideas that just pinged into my Creative Mind mind and once it was lodged there I just could not let it go. I had a chat about the design process in Blogtober day 4,  and despite it being a little harder than I'd anticipated, I did eventually manage to nail down the numbers and make the whole thing work. I'm really happy with the Yuletide Mandala and intend for it to be used as a table mat on my festive table, to sit under a jug of seasonal blooms.

Mandalas are brilliant things to make if you have a creative itch to scratch, because they are absolutely perfect vehicles for colour play. They don't take long to whizz off your hook so there is always an imminent ta-dah moment and that makes for an exciting type of project. I've designed and made quite a few mandalas over the years, some small and some large. You can find my first ever design (pictured above, bottom right) as a tutorial here on my blog (it's called "Attic24 Mandala Wheel" in my pattern list), and it's a really good pattern for beginners to try.

The mandala in the photo above with the pink scallop edge is always on my table, so you've probably seen the edge of it in many of my flower photos. It's called the Mollie Mandala because the original version of it was designed for Mollie Makes magazine some years ago. I've also used it to teach a crochet workshop for Stylecraft Yarns, so I decided to keep the pattern unpublished and reserved as a teaching pattern for my own use. I've had loads of requests for it though, so it's been on my mind to create another similar mandala with a scallop edge to share here on my blog. The Yuletide Mandala seemed like it would work well with a scallop, so I'm really happy to give you this new mandala so that you can make something pretty for your own table. It's a great project to use up any odds and ends of yarn left over from making blankets, and I hope you have fun trying out your own colour combinations.

One more thing about the above photo - you can see that the Yuletide mandala is a bit bigger than the ones I usually make, measuring 23cm across....

....but I had a go at making a smaller version (18cm across) to see if the numbers worked out. I'm happy to report that they did - the final round before the scallops has to be a multiple of 4.

After the success of the Yuletide mandala, I wanted to try making another one in a completely different colour palette. I had in mind something autumnal, and inspired by the pages of the latest Country Living magazine (you can see them in this post) I picked out a selection of dusky pinks, golds and soft greens. I don't think it screams autumn, but it does have a link to those very photogenic images of pumpkins that are all over the internet (I shared some inspiration photos in this post).

I used Stylecraft Special DK from my stash and chose ten colours in total :

Vintage Peach : Pale Rose : Mushroom : Mocha : Buttermilk : Camel : Gold : Meadow : Lincoln : Sage

I absolutely love love love it, and kept feeling that it was somehow familiar.....

.....then finally realised that it shares many of the same colours as my Dune Blanket.

The smaller mandala I made yesterday is perhaps more autumnal - I picked out eight colours for this one : 

Claret : Tomato : Spice : Gold : Lime : Meadow : Sage : Teal

I don't like this one quite as much - I chose to blend the colours, but I think the Yuletide spike stitch pattern works best when there are strong contrasts instead of subtle blends, to make those little hearts pop out. 

If you're making the Yuletide blanket, then this pattern will already be very familiar to you. Please note that there are some small changes which make a big difference and ensure the mandala ends up as a flat circle and not a bowl shape (ie there are extra spikes, chains and treble increases worked into the rounds). That's a subtle hint to say please read the pattern carefully!

I made a PDF pattern for you, well it was a joint effort because J does all the layout stuff for me and turns my written blurb into something that looks like an actual pattern. I also spent the majority of today creating a tutorial to go with the pattern - I know many of you said you didn't need one but I hated the thought that anyone might struggle without additional photos to help.

❂ DOWNLOAD YULETIDE MANDALA PDF PATTERN ❂

❂ YULETIDE MANDALA TUTORIAL ❂

At the start of the tutorial I added in some additional photos to chat about crocheting a circle, mainly focusing on how to create a neat join and how to "read" the stitches so that you avoid adding in any extra stitches which is a common mistake. I hope it's useful, especially to those of you who are new to working circular patterns.

Well I think that's about all for now, I hope you've enjoyed seeing the results of my creativity this week. I've been on such a happy high working on these lovely circles of colour, they really have delivered a lot of joy.

See you tomorrow xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 6

Early morning walks at this time of year start out in semi darkness, but there is something very uplifting about witnessing the first light of a new day. I think I mentioned the other week that J and I have moved the time of our daily walk from mid morning to first thing, and I'm really enjoying the change. Because of the low light levels we've stopped walking in the woods for the time being, and instead we walk a circular route which follows the canal towpath, into the park and then a climb up through hilly residential streets.

We walk between 6.30 and 7.30, and it isn't always easy to make that happen I must admit. Take this morning for example - I was actually sound asleep at 6.30, right in the middle of a dream where I was taking part in a fashion show. J came and woke me up and I literally tumbled out of bed with my eyes still half closed, pulled on some clothes, brushed my teeth, splashed cold water on my face and was putting my shoes on a mere ten minutes after walking the catwalk in Dreamland. I impressed myself quite honestly, and as always I was so, so glad I seized the day (with J's help). Getting outdoors to stretch my muscles, breathe deeply and wake my body up with exercise and fresh air is a great way to start the day, I can highly recommend it.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to go back to setting my alarm for 6am, so that I stand a chance of caffeinating myself before I have to go and climb hills. 

It's been an absolutely stunning day today with endless blues skies and warm sun and I have been so happy about it. The weather does really affect my mood, well not so much the weather as the light levels I think. Having the brightest of blue skies above me all day I've felt full of energy, and I've really been thankful for that.

So what do you make of this room, with it's William Morris wallpaper and olde worlde charm?? I tell you, I am so spoilt living here in Atticland because we have some truly amazing independent coffee shops and cafés, and this delightful room belongs to one of my favourites. It's a small, upstairs café - on the ground floor there is a shop where you can buy a huge variety of coffee beans and loose leaf teas. Downstairs is also home to the old roasting machine, and on days when the coffee beans are being toasted the smell in the surrounding area is wonderful. And because they roast their beans freshly on the premises, the resulting coffee is really, really good. Like unbelievably good.

Needless to say I'm a regular customer and frequently stop by to collect takeouts, but this week J suggested that he would enjoy taking a break from his computer screen in the middle of the morning, and would I fancy a proper sit-down coffee? Well what a ridiculous question, honestly, it took me a nanosecond to agree to this new arrangement and oh, it's suiting me very well indeed. If I tell you that this delightful place is a mere one minute walk from my front door, you can see how my love for a frothy milky coffee has been pretty inevitable living here. Lucky, lucky me.

The rest of my morning was spent darning in ends and taking a few photographs for the Yuletide mandala pattern. I'll have everything ready to share either tomorrow or Friday, and I'm excited to show you more of the colours I've been playing with.

I needed to go out and run a few errands this afternoon, and it was heaven being able to leave the house without wearing a coat. So different to yesterday when my bones felt chilled all day. I snapped a quick photo of my view before I set off down the hill, it's been a while since I shared it with you and it's still looking quite summery for October.

It was busy along the canal today, with plenty of boats cruising back and forth and a good number of people out enjoying the sunshine. 

Ahhhh......back doing "the school run"!! I still think of this part of the canal in terms of walking to school, and I wonder whether this will change in time or if I'll always feel the attachment to the memories? 

I spent some time in the back yard this afternoon and absolutely loved being outdoors with the warmth of the sun on my face. I ate a late lunch sat on my lounger and it felt so good, like an unexpected dip back into summertime. I did some gentle deadheading too, and admired the abundant floral colour which is still thriving out there. Brightly coloured flowers make me happy right down to my toes.

I hope you're still enjoying my daily posts and that you're not finding things too samey. Thank you for all your chatty comments so far on my Blogtober posts, I really love to hear from you and find out what is making you happy and how you are spending your days. See you tomorrow xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 5

I was out and about into town quite early this morning, in fact I managed to wangle the timing so that I had to leave the house at the very same time as Little B. He walked out the front door laden down with his school bag and games kit not realising that Mum was following closely behind, and the look of utter disbelief on his face was priceless. He even went so far as to run away down the street (and I mean no idle jog but a full blown sprint) until I yelled at him to stop and wait for me. I guess the thought of me walking with him to Big School was just too horrifying to contemplate, and in the end I took pity on him and let him go on ahead. My, my, it was bitter sweet I can tell you. Anyhow, child cruelty aside, I was off into town to meet my good friend at a favourite café of ours which is a pretty usual occurrence for a Tuesday morning. It was lovely - a fantastic latté, some sourdough toast with homemade raspberry and lime preserve and a jolly good natter with plenty of laughter. When I came home mid morning the postman had been, and today I had not one but two smile-inducing packages waiting for me. Oh, I do so love a Happy Post kind of a day!

The first parcel was squishy and I knew exactly what was inside.......I've had a hankering just lately to cast on a pair of socks, having not made any since J's blue pair a year ago. 

I chose a beautiful ball of Regia which is one of my favourite sock yarn brands. Regia yarn is very robust, it knits up beautifully but most importantly it wears and washes exceptionally well. I can pop the socks into a mesh laundry bag and wash them at 40 degrees in the machine with a normal  clothes load and they don't ever shrink, felt or pull out of shape. 

The other reason I love Regia is because they partner with some well known designers to create the most beautifully coloured self striping yarn for sock making. The above yarn was designed by none other than colour guru Kaffe Fassett (whom I love to bits) and if you are interested in this kind of thing, the yarn is called Regia Design Line 4 ply by Kaffe Fassett in colourway "Cool".

I'm really looking forward to casting on and seeing these stripes emerge on my needles, well actually I'm mostly looking forward to wearing these colours on my feet. I can't wait for that.

My second happy post was the latest Country Living magazine which is the November issue. As you may have guessed (because I am very predictable) the summer issues are my absolute swoony favourite, closely followed by spring. Autumn comes third, winter last. I tend to find Autumn styling and story themes all a bit brown, but having a quick look through this issue made me re-think.....

....the Seasonal Decorating pages are absolutely beautiful and full of glorious colour.

Nature is such a constant source of joy and inspiration for me, and seeing these pages sent me scurrying to my shelves for a creative rifle through my yarn stash. The pinks and golds reminded me of my "Crochet Pumpkin Patch" post from a few years ago, which inspired a very pretty autumn colour palette. Dusky pinks, oranges, golds and soft greens - this isn't the usual thing that springs to mind when you think of autumn, but oh, it really should be. It's yummy!!

I took some yarn to Coopers café this afternoon so that I could work on a second Yuletide mandala. I wanted to check over the written pattern to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes, and the best way to do this is to for me to actually use the pattern. All is well (only two small errors which is good going) so I'll ask J very nicely if he can work my blurb into a proper downloadable PDF pattern for me to share with you. 

By the way, thank you SO MUCH for all your enthusiasm on yesterdays post, I'm thrilled that so many of you would like to make this mandala and I'll try and get the pattern together in the next few days. I'll also be able to show you the mandala I made this afternoon (I ran out of time/light to photograph it properly today), it really is pretty and has a completely different feel to the Yuletide version.

On the way home from the café I stopped to pick up some fresh ingredients for our meal tonight. The weather today has been shockingly cold, wet and miserable so I decided to make a warming Thai style coconut curry. I like to make my own green curry paste using a recipe I found many years ago, you just cannot beat the flavours when you make it from scratch. 

I know it doesn't look like much, just green sludge on a spoon, but trust me the smell and taste is absolutely incredible. It's a very powerful curry paste, but once it gets diluted with coconut milk it makes the most wonderful curry. I added in red peppers and king prawns, and we ate it out of bowls with basmati rice and flat breads. Yummmmmmmm.

It's definitely fire lighting weather today, and the above photo was me this afternoon, around 4pm. I came home from the shops feeling absolutely chilled to the bone, so I immediately got the fire underway, pulled on some woolly socks and a jumper and cosied up under a blanket. Little Lady came home from school and very kindly made me a cup of tea, so all was well in my world as I gradually started to feel myself thaw out. 

Right now it's 8pm and dark outside and I can hear the rain hitting the windows. I heard from a reliable source (my milkman) that the weather is due to warm up as the week goes on, so I hope he's right about that. I'm not a fan of cold, wet Octobers, I'm much happier when there is a smidge of sunshine. I hope you've had a wonderful day, do tell me what has made you happy today, I'd love to hear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

Blogtober 2020 :: Day 4

I've got the most beautiful flowers on my table at the moment, a spontaneous £3 purchase from the supermarket. After a whole summer crushing on my sweet peas I feel like I'm cheating a bit on my home grown blooms, but I just couldn't make myself walk past these flowers without bringing a bunch home. 

They are soooo swoon-worthy that I'm sure I must have little hearts dancing in my eyes every time I look at them. The colours are incredibly vibrant, like a shot of summer brightening up the room - how can they possibly be for real? Totally dreamy.

Despite my fixation with the summer season, it seems I can't get enough of my Yuletide colour palette and I've not been able to leave it alone just yet. I've got bits of a Yuletide Garland in progress, and yesterday I started working on a Yuletide Mandala.

I had the idea to turn the Yuletide stitch pattern from a square into a circle, thinking that it would be a simple thing to grapple with. Ho-ho!! Simple it is not. In fact, it's quite a vexing matter trying to work out flat circle increases while also attempting to throw those spike stitches down into previous rounds.

You can see that I wasn't vexing all alone though, that's good to know isn't it?! I had the Yuletide blanket on the table because I needed to see which order to use the colours for my mandala and Tilly decided that I'd obviously put it there just for her. It was very sweet actually, and I did really enjoy having her quiet moral support.

After much faffing, ripping back, restarting from scratch, ripping back again and so on, I did eventually make some progress with the crochet maths, and managed to pause long enough to scribble down the numbers and make a few pattern notes. 

This afternoon I picked up where I left off yesterday, and despite needing to rework a few whole rounds I eventually cracked it. Oh, happy, happy me! It was insanely satisfying to reach the final round, do my sums and realise I had the exact right number of stitches to work one of my favourite scallopy edges...

....look!!!!!!!!! Isn't it a cutie?

I was ridiculously pleased with myself by this point in the proceedings, whizzing along making these sweet little scallops.

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

This mandala came out a bit larger than the ones I usually make, it measures 23cm across (the one on my table with the pink scalloped edge measures 17.5cm).

I'm super happy with it, and furthermore I'm delighted to say that I managed to hastily type up the pattern in a word document before I forgot what the bloomin' heck I had done with each round. 

Last winter I bought a really lovely enamel jug for my Christmas table (it was from Amazon) and I remember thinking at the time that I would like to crochet a new mandala mat in festive colours to go with it.

My enamel jug is packed away with the Christmas decorations so I haven't been able to see how it looks with the Yuletide mandala just yet, but I do think it's going to work really well.

I'm more than happy to share the pattern for this mandala if you think it's something you'd like to make? Of course you don't have to use festive colours, you can use any scraps left over from crocheting blankets to make whatever flavour of mandala you like. The possibilities for colour play are extremely tempting I have to say, and I'm already thinking that Autumn shades will be next on my hook.

If you're familiar with the Yuletide blanket pattern, then this mandala follows pretty much the same kind of construction. But please do let me know in the comments if you'd like me to work on a full photo tutorial, or whether a written pattern would be enough, and I'll see what I can do.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 3

Today has been perfectly Sundayish, a slow sort of a day which unfolded with ease. The weather has been very fickle with glorious blue skies, then sudden rain showers which seemed to come out of nowhere, and then back to sunshine again. We decided mid morning to take our chances with the skies and head out for a walk, and I'm so glad we did as it was lovely out there, all damp and fresh and mellow. We went to Bolton Abbey, a favourite place for us to visit at weekends as we have an annual season ticket and enjoy walking along the riverside in all seasons and all weathers.

We had Little B in tow today, however Little Lady could not be persuaded from her bed no matter how hard I tried. We walked a circular route which took about an hour and a half, and included a stop at the half way point to pick up some refreshments. I know I'm such a simple, predictable soul and my daily morning coffee makes me so stupidly happy with life, you have no idea. I stood there next to the river sipping my latté and felt the joy flowing right down to my toes. Pure happiness, right there.

The river was full and fast flowing after all the recent rain, and as you can see in the last photo there were quite a few folks taking in the Strid (oooh, do follow ((this link)) and watch the short video of the Strid, it's fabulous!). I was far too busy swooning over the mossy rocks - look how vibrant they are! I do so love a gloriously mossy rock.

This afternoon I spent some time dancing around taking photographs of the project I'm working on which has to remain a mystery for the time being. I'm at the stage where I need to involve J with graphic things so I'm glad I was able to get that done.

I also spent some time at the dining table working on an idea that pinged into my Creative Mind a few days ago. I wanted to try crocheting the Yuletide stitch pattern but making it in a circle instead of a square, which I thought would make a cute little festive table mat. Oh my word, this is crochet design at it's most challenging because it involves the dreaded Crochet Maths. There is a lot of faffing needed to get the circle to lie nice and flat (stitch increases) while also getting the numbers to work with the spike stitch pattern. I ended up with two partially made mandalas, lots of numbers scribbled and crossed out on bits of paper and a pile of yanked-out yarn, so I'm calling it a win for now. I'll come back to it tomorrow and hopefully blogtober day four will have a Yuletide Mandala in it, or at least the beginnings of one. Wish me luck xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 2

Saturday today, and a day with no plans which is something I really do think of as a luxury. Well, I say no plans but Saturday mornings usually involve a jaunt into town to visit the market and local food shops, followed by coffee and breakfast in our favourite café on the way home. It's a routine of ours which I really enjoy and I can tell you that local food shopping (especially supporting our hard working market traders) most definitely beats the supermarket any day.

We don't usually do our woodland walk on a Saturday, but this morning I felt a strong pull to be there. We had a lot of rain yesterday and I found myself craving that damp, fresh woodland smell and it did not disappoint. I love it when you walk in the woodland and it really smells like the colour green somehow. Walking in the woods before our market visit was sooo nice, it really made me feel energised and full of weekend feel-good.

Autumn seems to be rocketing in at a pace this year, and summer already feels like a fading memory. The mornings feel chilly and the light is softer, but it's the colours in nature that always grab my attention.

This beautiful creeper was rambling over a stone wall at the side of the pavement as we strolled towards the market this morning and it literally stopped me in my tracks. So much glorious seasonal colour.

This afternoon I spent some time sat at the dining table with my laptop, catching up with emails and social media comings and goings, and reading through the comments from my first blogtober post yesterday. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment here on my blog, I read every single one and always love to hear from you. I spent some time adding text to the image above so that I could share my blogtober news on Instagram - the photo was taken last year and I really love it. Flowers, coffee, crochet and the kitty, it's cosy and colourful and very much what my home life actually looks like every day.

I lit the fire this afternoon as the rain started falling, and spent some happy hours sat in the warmth with yarn and hook in hand. I'm sorry I'm going to be really irritating because unfortunately I can't show you what I'm working on at the moment. Arrrgh, it's soooooooo hard not to show you! I think by the end of October I should be able to, so at least that's something to look forward to. And yes, that is a teensy little glass of chilled vino sitting right there, well it was four o'clock and J decided to open a bottle, so who was I to make him drink all on his lonesome? I know, I'm all kindness.

I took the above photo earlier in the week, but the kitty has pretty much been in this exact same position all afternoon. I keep telling myself that I should pack my Yuletide blanket away for now, stash it in the Attic eaves with the Advent and Christmas decorations. That way I'll get the pleasure of unpacking it on the 1st of December and it will feel properly festive and seasonal. Somehow I just can't bring myself to do it though, I'm still love love loving those rich colours and don't want to be without them just yet. Maybe next week....

xx

 

 

 

Blogtober 2021 :: Day 1

Hello my friends, and welcome to this humble blog post which is the first of thirty-one offerings I'll be posting throughout the month of October. Yup, it's time for #blogtober2021, a daily blog fest where you get to visit me each and every day (only if you'd like to of course) for some colourful snippets of Attic life. I hope some of you may remember that I did Blogtober for the first time last year and absolutely loved it, although it has to be said it is a pretty big challenge to keep up with. You can read my Blogtober 2020 round-up post ((here)), and if you fancy a jig through all of last year's October posts, then Day One is ((here)) - you can then follow them in order.

As per usual, no plans have been made for blogtober this year, none whatsoever. I am simply not a planner, and am much happier  going with the flow day to day and hoping for the best. So there won't be any themes and I won't be following any prompts, you will just be getting a string of spontaneous images and words which I hope will spring forth at the end of each day.

Today being Friday I woke up feeling very happy, knowing that I would be spending the morning at Coopers café in the company of good friends. Since the schools returned in September we've been back to our twice weekly creative sessions at the café and I am so grateful for these times, and for the real life yarny friends I am lucky enough to have in my life.

I wanted to show you the start of this beautiful blanket that my friend Sue is making, isn't it a beauty? She's using my Yuletide square pattern with her own choice of colours in Stylecraft Belissima yarn.

The above photo could very well be me (frothy coffee and a crochet blanket on the go), but nope, it's my friend Sarah who is busy crocheting her own Yuletide blanket. It gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure to see my designs being created, it really does make my heart squeeeeeze with joy. Yuletide yarn packs continue to be in high demand and have been out of stock this week - a yarn delivery came into the Warehouse this afternoon so if you've been waiting there are now a small quantity of Yuletide kits in my shop, with more coming in next week I think.

I've had a few questions lately about my studio room at the café, so I thought I should tell you what's happening. I'm still working from home at the moment as last summer my studio room was needed to provide additional seating for the café. I packed up everything except for my yarn shelves which I was able to leave in situ and this lovely room is currently being used by café customers (I hope they enjoy my colourful yarn shelves while they eat). We hold our creative social sessions in the bigger room next door as we always have done, but I really miss my working space, I miss it a hellava lot. I'm not sure if I'll be able to have it back again in the future, but I'm keeping everything crossed.

In the meantime, I'm just about managing to work ok from home although I find it very, very frustrating. We eat our evening meal at the dining table each day, so whatever I'm working on has to be cleared up and packed away. I find this often really disrupts the flow of my work, especially when I'm designing or working on samples, but there isn't a lot I can do about it at the moment. I'm lucky to have the shelves and a built in cupboard for storage, but it doesn't stop me wishing I had my own working space at home. 

This afternoon I needed to pop to the supermarket which meant a stroll along the canal. I'm still adjusting to the absence of the school run in my life so I often find myself "needing" to go to the shops which gives me a reason to walk this way.

I love it when you see plants or flowers growing out of stone walls, and this one caught my eye this afternoon. I think it's a silver ragwort which is a wild flower, and I just thought it looked so pretty growing happily in this wall beside the canal.

Talking of pretty, my sweet peas are still flowering in the yarden and make me smile every single day. I'll be sorry when the cold weather takes them away, but for now I'll continue to enjoy the the sight and smell of them.

I hope that something pretty has caught your eye today and made your heart happy!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Days of Summer

Well there's no getting away from it now, the Autumn Equinox passed by on Wednesday and I've had to face up to the fact that summer is over for another year. Luckily, September has been a real treat in terms of the weather and I have been out and about drinking up every last drop of the season. The Little People returned to school and I'm now in a period of major adjustment as I try to get used to my new normal. I do miss the morning school run which was a pleasurable walk alongside the canal and a lovely way to start my day. However, I realised quite early on that of course I can still walk this route in the mornings if I want to as there is nothing to stop me, so quite often I do just that.  

The last week of summer time was really beautiful here in my patch with plenty of warmth and sunshine. 

I was even able to spend some time sat out in the overgrown yarden which is quite a sheltered little spot, and as you can see from the above photo it's pretty wild out there at the moment. 

I've had many neighbours stop and tell me how much they've enjoyed my flowering pots this summer, and to ask me what my secret is - the flowers really have been prolific (this post shows what they looked like when I planted them in June). The answer to the overgrowth is regular watering, and a weekly liquid feed. I've been using a Doff feed ((it's this one, although it's generally much cheaper if you can find it in a local shop)) and it makes a tremendous difference to flowering pots and tubs.

I spent a while out there earlier this week deadheading the geraniums and marguerites so that hopefully they will keep on flowering for another month or so. Some years when the weather has been mild, I've still had flowers in early December which sounds crazy, but it has happened.

A few weeks ago, J and I started a new routine together in the mornings - I can't quite remember how it came about but one day we were both up early and decided to take our usual daily walk while the Little People were still asleep instead of waiting until mid morning. Both J and I are "larks" and go to bed pretty early in the evenings (usually by 9.30pm) so we are often awake and up around 5.30 in the mornings. It gives us time to have a coffee and come into the day gently before getting ready to head out around an hour later.

We enjoyed it so much that we started to make it a regular thing, it really is a glorious time of day to be out and about. We tend to reach the top of the hill before the sun rises, but on a couple of mornings we've been slightly later and have had the sun beaming out at us. 

I can't describe how wonderful it is to feel the first rays of the sun warm on your face in the quiet still of a new morning. It's quite magical.

Just on the other side of that white building is the bakery so it's a very convenient kind of early morning walk when a loaf of fresh bread often comes home with us. So far I've managed to resist the baskets of freshly baked croissants and pastries which sit on the counter top, but I think it's only a matter of time before I cave. It's the smell that does it.

At the other end of the day I've been finding myself drawn outdoors as the sun starts to dip low in the sky. It's as if my soul knows that our days are rapidly shortening and I am compelled to make the very most of this late summer sunshine.

I don't go far, a slow meander around the park....

....then back along the canal towards home. It's just enough time for me to breathe deeply and mull over the day, to drink in the golden light and feel at ease.

On Saturday morning when J and I walked to the market, it suddenly felt like Summer had slipped away from us. It was chilly, and already leaves are beginning to fall from some of the trees, a reminder to make the most of every day and to appreciate each season we are in. I've been getting better in recent years with Autumn and don't feel nearly so full of melancholy as I once did, and for that I am thankful.

I've really been enjoying the freedom of my days during the past few weeks, heading out to meet friends for coffee or just walking into town to run errands as and when I've needed to. I really do appreciate that I can choose how to spend my child free hours and never take it for granted. I'm unbelievably thankful for my freedom.

My friend surprised me with this bunch of berries last week, and I absolutely love them.

The colour of the berries is so pretty and it's been a lovely change from having flowers on my table. I've been working a lot at the dining table just recently so it's all been a bit of a mess to be honest. I'm still needing to use the dining room like a studio as I've got nowhere else to go at the moment - it's a bit frustrating but I'm muddling through as best as I can. Yarn everywhere, creative chaos which gets push aside in order to eat family meals each day. Ah well, I am happy at least, yes, happy and free, and I am so thankful for all of it. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx