Tatton Park flower show '14

This year was my third year to the Tatton Park flower show and we were so blessed with the weather.  I even got a little sun burnt...  I don't seem to have blogged about my previous visits which is odd, but not unlike me.

The displays are absolutely stunning and the exhibitors have gone to incredible lengths to make sure that every flower and leaf is perfect.

Really I have too many photos to share so I'll try and pick out my very favourites, like this Bee inspired garden!

And this cool bug hotel

I very excitely bought some butternut squash and nasturtium seeds from Pennard Plants because they're from near where Glastonbury Festival is! ♥

The owl and the pussy cat

 

 

I was very very good and apart from my seeds, lots of food and Pimms I only bought this windchime, isn't it lovely?

My mum, dad & I were very clever this year and while everyone was queuing to leave in their cars we sat out and had a picnic!  We might have nicked the idea from people we saw last year when we were leaving...

Now it's definitely time to stop interneting, and go look for a new drill to buy so I can finish the planter me and my dad have been building ♥

x x x x

Knit for victory!

What a night, was anyone else woken up at 4am by the thunder and lightning?  It was amazing, I love a good thunder storm and I saw the bolts of lightning instead of just flashes in the sky.  Actually this happened at Glastonbury so I don't know why I was so excited but hey ho.  Oh and it's just started up again!

A few people have asked how I got on at the Cheshire Show, where I entered this knitted cushion.

Highly commended!

I'm really really pleased, ok it's not an actual prize but they must have thought it was alright!  I think their comments were fair too, I didn't quite get the colour changes right but I'm super pleased with my seams and apparently so were they

It says "An attractive design idea.  Beautifully worked seam joins.  Take care to keep knitting more even".  I can't argue with that.  Now bring on 2015!  As a WI our group also came 2nd with the most number of prizes for a new group, which wasn't bad considering we didn't even know that this was a category.

Thanks to everyone who convinced my to block my wonky blanket called 'Muriel'.  The lovely Christina explained that this has happened because I've started to crochet each row from the same end, instead of alternating my stripes.

I had a bit of a wobbly and was going to start over but I just couldn't get inspired, so I thought I'd try blocking it and I'm so glad I did!  I should have taken photos at the time because I've added a few more rows so its started to slant again, but I'm feeling a lot more positive about it now.

I'm absolutely loving this knitted retro blanket...

It's such a rhythmic pattern and I love the colours which I tried to keep to the original as closely as possibly, although I left out brown because I don't have any.  I'd definitely recommend the pattern and it makes a nice change from crochet ripples ♥

Better get off now, we've decided to our for tea so I need to get ready.  I can't decide if I'm looking forward more to the food or the wine ;-)

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A wonky blanket; help required x

Once again all of my friends have decided to have babies at once, now I may be exaggerating a little but I can count 4 who are due between September - November; there are 8 other months of the year guys!! Joking aside, I know it's not as simple as deciding when you're due date is going to be, but if my friends could plan with me first that would be great haha!

I'm currently working on two blankets and this is where I need help.  I used a random stripe generator on a site called Biscuits and Jam which is great for getting a finish that you want while still being random.  Randomness isn't something I've previously been good at so this tool is fantastic.

So far it's a complete crazyness of colour and I'm really hoping that my friend will like it.  Looks ok so far right?

But why has it gone so wonky!!

At this point I can't restart, but if there's something I'm not doing right which is making it lean like the tower of Pisa then I'd love some tips.  I'm using UK Double Crochet (US Single Crochet) and starting from the same end on each row.

I'm not sure whether pinning it straight and blocking it will help, so yeah, if anyone has any tips or advice please let me know!

My second blanket is going much better, although this is now the third attempt at getting the pattern right

It's a pattern called Rocky which I bought from Ravely, by a designer called Suzie Johnson.  It isn't all that complicated but I found until I'd established the pattern that I kept mis-counting, so on my first attempt I completely messed it up, attempt number two was nearly there but I'd missed the increase at the start on one of the triangles which didn't get any better the more rows I did, so I started again.  Attempt number three (as in the above!) isn't perfect but even I can't tell where I've had to increase or decrease to get back on track so I'm sticking with it.

For a baby blanket it's a lot wider than it needs to be but there is absolutely no way I'll be starting again!  This will probably be for our new niece or nephew so it can last them forever ♥

I'm going to enjoy some more bloggy reading and catching up on what you've all been making while I've been awol! Back soon!

x x x x

Glastonbury 2014

*writers block!* 

It shouldn't be that hard to come up with something to say, I've been very busy after all...  I'm back from Glastonbury and ready to get back into normal life.  *sigh*.  It's the same every year, I go, never want to leave, come home and feel very blue about it all.

It's not all bad though, I've decided to start looking for a new job because I want to do something creative or challenging and unfortunately my current job offers me neither of those things!

I'll share some of my favourite photos of the weekend and then it's onto knitting and crochet talk because I NEED YOUR HELP ♥

I never usually write a great deal about Glastonbury here but I've realised that the little things are all becoming a blur from years gone by!  So, things I did, learnt and would like to remember from 2014...

• Camping under pylons isn't as bad as I thought
• Camping 10ft from a bar is a good thing
• My poncho was an excellent investment
• Take more long socks and less leggings
• Don't take chocolate, it melts and I don't eat it
• Fruit snack pots are breakfast winners
• Go with your gut for clashes (London Grammar vs Kasabian, London Grammar won, best set of the festival!)
• Cream tea was a winner
• Hanging out at the Circus on Saturday was a good choice
• As was getting a Glastonbury Free Press poster (should have got the type face one though)
• Getting a coach was remarkably less stressful than driving
• Arcade Fire, Dolly Parton
• Making a leather bracelet in the craft fields
• The electrical storm shut down!
• Visiting the London Underground tent

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And the winner is...

Thank you to the lovely ladies who entered my mohair giveaway.  You had some great ideas so I know it's going to a good home!

I went for the good old "draw out of a hat approach"

Although I actually used a bag because I didn't have any hats to hand :p

And the winner is....


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Et voila!

Congrats Chrissie, I'm really looking forward to seeing your cushion or whatever you choose to make. Will be in touch shortly.  Thank you again Nana Go-Go and Dovile x

♥♥♥

I entered a show!

Last January I joined the WI and it's one of the best things I've ever done!  I've met a lot of lovely ladies and most importantly fellow crafters 'get it'.

Understandably when I mention our WI I get the odd look of surprise, possibly because I'm not quite 30 and they think it's all jam, knitting and Jerusalem.

I like to reassure people that the WI is for everyone (unless you're a bloke!) and there is no such thing as "old" either.  I also try and convince people that we're not all knitting and cake, but this is all lies because we eat a LOT of cake (we have a cake rota and a committee role of cake organiser and cake taster) and we have a craft club full of knitters.  I also happen to really like Jerusalem too.  So there people with your odd looks!

Every year there's a show for our Federation (Cheshire) and I guess it's just like any other country show where you can enter preserves, cakes and crafts into competitions. I didn't enter last year because we were a new group and I didn't have much time, but there were no excuses this year. As a WI we've entered 32 things so we'd better win something!!

I'm down in the yarn category. How I settled on a pattern I'm not entirely sure but I decided I wanted to knit a fox, and then that became a cushion and that's what I did. I made it up, which is why I ended up making the cushion inner as well because it didn't fit the original one... Thank god there were no size requirements!

I know that the judges are very picky so I decided to use a few techniques, and I also really like moss stitch, which is why the flap looks like this.  The pic above was in a cheap horrid acrylic which I soon scrapped in favour of a much lovelier Stylecraft Lite (I think?)

And so not content with entering my first show, I went ahead and made this with no idea really how to do intarsia, but I think it's passable!  In fact, I'll be honest, I don't even know if this is intarsia...

Then he got little button eyes ♥.  Importantly, VERY importantly these buttons match the ones on the back, because yes; the judges are that picky.

Because I made the pattern up the fox is a bit off centre and has a lot of space above him which I felt needed filling.  I embroidered some stars but they all ended up wonky and different which I reckon the judges would be oh so picky about, so I unpicked them all save this one, which I thought was alright

And here he is! He went off to the show today and I think the judging is tomorrow. Exciting isn't it? I wish I'd taken a photo of the seam because I'm incredibly proud of my mattress stitch, I know you shouldn't blow your own trumpet too much but I spent bloody hours on it and it's good :p

Don't forget to enter my competition too, yarn for free? How often does that happen!

x x x x

It's giveaway time!

Hello lovely crafters!  I'm having a major clear out here and I'm about to take a car load of stuff to the charity shop ♥ It really does feel great to de-clutter!

It's hard to part with yarn but I've got to give in.  I picked up this beautiful bright mohair with good intentions but I've yet to make anything with it, and being honest I know I'm probably never going to.

So there's no point in it being stuck in my yarn stash is there!  I'm certain one of you could make something absolutely lovely with it, and it's also a way to say thank you because I could probably sell it but I'd like to give it away.

I've got 9 balls, three red, three gold and three green

So lets keep it simple, if you'd like some mohair to add to your yarn stash just leave a comment and let me know what you'd like to make with it, that way I get to read some interesting ideas too and wish I'd come up with them!

I'll pick a winner at random and they can have the lot.  Don't forget that if you don't have a blog or someway I can contact you you'll need to leave me an email address.  I'm also happy to post worldwide ♥ Giveaway closes a week today, Saturday 21st at 11.59 pm UK time ;-)

A bit about the mohair, I believe the yellow and red are Hayfield Mohair but the green is Jaeger Mohair silk, although I don't think you'd be able to tell that they're different brands.

x x x x

A new look

I think the change if fairly obvious if you've ever visited my blog before, but look I have a new banner!  I haven't used Illustrator in ages so it took a while to get back into it.  I was getting annoyed with my other banners being off centre, the wrong size and my little head was itching to design something.

The constellation background is just a standard one from Blogger because I always want to go to Space, it's just never going to happen!

x x x x

Chunky Cowls

I'm trying to keep the rain at bay with winter knits, I thought I might have succeeded given yesterdayss sunshine ☀ but unfortunately I don't think it has been enough, today has been a wash out!

A couple of years ago my mum & dad bought me some wool as a Christmas present, but come Christmas day it never materialised because they lost it!  It became a bit of a running joke ("I can't believe you lost my wool!!") & we decided that they must have accidentally binned it.  Can you imagine!?

I'd even forgotten what it looked like, so when it eventually turned up I was surprised to say the least!

I had a look through Ravelry and found a pattern for a chunky cowl, which you can find here for free.

I think this knitted up in only a few days, which is the brilliant thing about chunky yarn & 10mm needles.

I really like the uneven rib stitch and it's so easy to do, k1 *p2, k2* and that's it for every row ♥

The one thing which was not easy was grafting it together using kitchener stitch.  Now the fact that I've never done this probably didn't help, but doing it on an uneven rib made it even worse.  I thought it might be a 10 minute job and it took me a whole evening.  I wouldn't have been happy with it any other way though.

And so we have it, ta dahhh

x x x x