Catching Up

Spring seems to be on its way which is lovely to see. I love to see QT venture outside for longer lengths of time, rather than his usual quick dash and race back in for biscuits. It's been making me think about spring cleaning and all the decorating that needs doing. We plan to start with the chimney pots that need attention first and then some general decorating 'everywhere'.

Over the winter months we've had some trees removed from the property and those with TPO pruned back. Our house sadly has been neglected and now it's the time to lavish it with TLC both inside and out. To start the ball rolling M has bought me home a lovely present today, a patio cleaning brush! I did ask him to buy one on his way home but... maybe the teens would like to try it out first at the weekend!

I've put these photos together as a collection of things I'd made over the years. They were posted on my facebook page but I'm aware that not everyone follows on social media. A knitted cardigan that the children never wore as they grew too fast to ever fit into it I was too slow, at the time I preferred doing cross stitch. 

Some cross stitch pictures and years later knitted a frog for teen 2 primary school teacher, who weirdly, was mad about The Muppets. I'm not keen on them myself but every Christmas the family love to watch the 'Muppets Christmas Carol'. I shouldn't mention the word Christmas really as it seems to creep up real quick. I'm determined to enjoy this year fully, after so many years of hospital visits and sorting diet issues, not only will time be spent sorting the house but my projects list will be severely tackled and ticked off.

This is actually the second frog I've knitted as I made one many years ago for my Father-in-law who's sadly no longer with us. He loved all things 'froggy' and had built up quite a collection. I guess we bought him quite a few frog gifts over the years too, that's the thing with collectibles, people help you collect them. The frog is from the Jean Greenhowe book Knitted Animals. 

This cross stitch kit was the largest picture I've done but thankfully without lots of shading in the design. I adapted it M adapted it into a birth sampler by omitting some of the cherry blossom in Pooh Bear's tree and using graph paper, penciled in the birth details. This kit had french knots as part of the flower decoration so I had to quickly learn how to stitch them. As this was to be a special keepsake gift we paid for the picture to be stretched and framed professionally. The work was undertaken at my good friend Julie's favourite craft shop in Westgate Kent, such a treasure trove of goodies were sold in there. 

Getting back into knitting I enjoyed making some socks and also quilted some table mats at the 'Stitch and Purl' group who used to meet in the village secondary school. After reading Debbie Macomber's book A Good Yarn, where the characters knit socks as part of a knit class it inspired me to have a go. The book has a pattern inside it to make socks with 2 circular needles. I believe the pattern is only available inside the book here which is part of the Blossom Street series, full titles are available here

The knitted washcloth was a C2C (Corner to corner) and very easy to knit with Rico cotton yarn, the free pattern and video tutorial is here. I then went on to crochet a washcloth which had US terminology, the free pattern is here. Friends of mine thought the cotton yarn was expensive to buy locally particularly as the pattern could be for dishcloths too. It is available online here. A US/UK crochet conversion chart is here As a quick guide in reading any crochet pattern, any mention of SC (single crochet) determines it's a US pattern. Of course you can still use it, you'll just need to convert the stitches first.

The Moorland blanket remains a work in progress and photographing the making of a granny square has kept me occupied frequently throughout the week. I'm determined to master some decent photographs using the SLR camera. The trouble with me is whatever I do has to be exact, perfect and clear. If it doesn't look 'just right' it doesn't make it. The next time I stop by I'll try and get more photos of both to show you.