Blue & White Stuff!

I'm a sucker for blue & white stuff. I love it!

Blue has always been my favourite colour. When my sister & I were little she got the pink dresses & I got blue, my choice!

I use white crockery for everyday but my best stuff is blue & white willow pattern. I used to use that every day until Wedgewood in their wisdom stopped producing and I couldn't replace it.

Blue doesn't seem to be very fashionable & it's often difficult to buy things for the house. I struggled to replace my blue carpets a few years ago, I could get a hideous bright blue synthetic one but wool was difficult. I eventually ended up with a medium grey, not as nice as my previous airforce blue one but OK.
Blue has a reputation for being cold yet I find it very relaxing & fresh. It hasn't been in fashion for clothes though for  years, well other than denim which seems timeless. Odd but navy was out of fashion for donkeys years, I couldn't buy navy shoes, coats, jackets or dresses until a couple of years ago & I never wear black so it was a nightmare.

I can never buy light blue jumpers or T shirts and it's not easy to buy blue fabric. Luckily blue wool is easier to buy and so is light blue cotton yarn, I've had some stored away for a few years. I had intended to make a couple of jumpers but never got around to it. A few months ago a lady from our charity knitting group gave me some white cotton but I had lots of other things on the needles so never did anything with it.

Last week I decided to get cracking on making this. (It's a blanket not a cloak just in case you were wondering!).

Well an easier version of it just using a single square to get it finished quicker.

I've made twenty squares now so more than half way, I need at least 36 if I have enough balls of white cotton but I think I fancy joining the squares in light blue.

Hope I don't get distracted and start something else before I get it finished! I'm a terror for doing that. 

I've just finished crocheting a shawl for a friend & a knitted chick to hold a Cadbury's cream egg.

• Currently I have a lace shawl on the go which I have been knitting for over a year now. It's been pulled out at least 3 times but I can't seem to accept that I can't finish it for some reason. 

• I am also making another crocheted blanket made up of tiny little squares, that's an ongoing activity which could take years!

That's not a photograph of my squares, it's the gorgeous picture from Annies Place Blog which got me interested in making little squares. (There are lots of great crochet ideas there.)

• I have two advent calendars half made which didn't get finished at Christmas as I was in hospital and a large Christmas stocking cut out. They can wait until next autumn.

• I have three replacement cushion covers for my dining room chairs to finish and at least four cushions for the living room cut out and ready to sew.

Think I had better stop it's getting too depressing!

Cats!

After I lost Oscar I didn't want to replace him for a long time but I do miss having a cat. 

My daughter was the same after her cat Zara had to be put to sleep. However she decided she would get two rescue kittens and here they are, Ginny the tortoiseshell & George the ginger tom.

                                     

Claire bought a sort of  tree house for them & below George is coiffuring his tail in the top section. The cushion needed to be covered so I made a cover & then crocheted another multi coloured one to go on top. George laid claim to the top of the tree!

It has a lower crescent shaped section & Ginny seemed to be relegated to it. I made a cotton cover but shrunk from doing a crochet one.

Eventually I gave in & made a crescent shaped one. Not exactly perfect, I had no pattern. 

As you can see below it was an instant success & was much appreciated by Ginny!

 Mostly I have been knitting & crocheting with the charity craft group. I like knitting these as they can be made so quickly & look so sweet.

It's hard to believe but this wool we have been using is really cheap and it's lovely quality. We've been getting it from Poundworld I think, I always get mixed up but I think Poundland do wool too. It's only £2 for 3 balls, amazing quality.

I'm still struggling on with the gansey I'm ashamed to say. I'm blaming the bad light as it's very difficult to knit navy wool in artificial light. I make too many mistakes! Also the fact I hate doing circular knitting. I'm on to the sleeves now & have had to abandon the circular needle & go for a set of aluminium couble pointed needles which I can manage a little better but I still don't like thid type of knitting. Would have been much quicker to just knit the pieces separately & have seams, I never mind sewing things up. Also you can hide the ends of the wool in seams much easier! 
Now the days are getting longer I'm going to have to do more or pardon the pun I'll miss the boat!

I've Been Knitting & Crocheting Like Mad!

 

 

 

Once I retired I started to knit again. I managed to keep my wool buying to a minimum for a while but I got really hooked on knitting lacey shawls. I have about five lots of wool waiting for shawls but I'll do those in winter. However I have bought quite a lot of wool in sales in recent months. I've done quite a lot over the last few weeks but I need to slow down with it but most of all the wool buying!

 

I thought I had got over the habit of starting new things & then leaving them but obviously I haven't.

 

I started to crochet the blanket above & I really like it. I changed the colours to blues, beige & cream as I just don't do pink. I'm making it in pure wool & I've got quite a lot done. Would have had it finished but it was too heavy & bulky to take on holiday so it's standing in the corner of the dining room. I'm not putting it away in case I forget about it!

 

One of the 45 squares (I've done 35)

I did manage to crochet a little summer bolero last week from some cotton that's been lying around for over a year now. The pattern below was very quick & easy to do. I made it in white & it's lovely. However it's quite heavy so may not make it into the case for the next holiday! 

 

My next tour is to the Orkney & Shetland Islands in September. I'm not expecting warm weather in fact I assume it will be pretty windy, cool & possibly wet. I don't wear hats as I don't think I suit them probably because I wear glasses. However I know I really need one for that trip. On our last tour in the Hebrides it was very chilly & some ladies bought pom pom hats on the Isle of Mull. They were very nice but cost them nearly £30! So I decided to knit one a couple of weeks ago. I liked the one below.

 

 

The Baby Alpaca Silk  was lovely & soft to knit with, however after I finished it I decided the pom poms were a tad twee so I crocheted a flower.

 

This is the finished product below.



 



  

I'll probably never wear it again after the tour but I don't want to have to spend a mint on buying one in Scotland. 

 

I also made an Estonian shawl for a friend. It's the Triangular Summer Shawl from Nancy Bush's book Knitted Shawls of Estonia. I've made it four times now & I love the pattern despite all the nupps! She hasn't got it yet so hope she likes it.

 

 

I'm more than half way through making this jumper below in blue cotton but I've stopped. I know the reasons why I usually stop, either I'm not sure I like what it's looking like or I've altered the pattern! Yes, I've altered the pattern. However I need to keep going, I can't have more stuff lying about.

 

 

I also have the cotton for this back fastening jumper!!!!!!! Don't bother watching this space, I have no idea when I'll get it done as I've decided I want to make a quilt, not a huge one though!

 

 

I Haven't Been Slacking - Honestly!

Aurora

Well I've had a bit of a break from blogging but I have been quite busy. Enjoying myself mostly, on a Panama Canal cruise!  Now I will post about that later as there are lots of photos to upload. Meanwhile above there's a photo of the ship Aurora which was very nice.  It's docked at Puntarenas which was not quite so nice!

Anyway since I got back apart from the washing & ironing, I've been quite busy trying to finish a crochet blanket I started a couple of months ago.  If I'd had room in the luggage I would have taken it with me on the cruise but it was quite bulky & heavy. We only had 23 kg of luggage for a 23 night cruise which needed posh frocks (for me) plus a dinner jacket & a suite for Eric so I took a shawl pattern to do.  I knitted it for two weeks, didn't like it & pulled it out so I had nothing to show for my time spent knitting on the ship. 

My time wasn't totally wasted though.  I went to Spanish lessons which were great. I joined the ship at the end of March when the ship was doing its final leg of the world cruise it had started way back in January. So I only had three weeks to catch up with most of the other passengers who had started when the ship, left Southampton in January! Have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it & we had a great laugh with the young Spanish tutor who had a wonderful sense of humour. 

So now I really need to keep the Spanish up. I had planned to learn some Italian on the cruise for my two trips to Italy in the summer. That went by the board though like the knitting. So apart from trying to finish the blanket, that's on the cards for the next couple of months.

Anyway this is my progress with the blanket so far:

10 of these done!

10 of these done!

Now for the bad news. Only 5 each of these done because I've run out of wool! Never mind the flowery centres are finished so the easy peasy bits are left to do. Well apart from joining the whole caboodle together which I'm dreading.

So will have to order more wool this week. Hopefully it will eventually look something like this.

I changed the colours as I don't do pink & I made it in wool not cotton.

I'm nearly always amazed at how good camera photos are. Bearing in mind I've never bothered to find out how to use it I just point it at the thing & click. It's great, no having to upload the camera photos, they just go. Just like magic!

Wish it was as easy to learn Italian!

All Sorts of Everything!

 Lindisfarne Castle

Apologies but I'm pretty hopeless at posting these days.  I'm convinced we only have 3 day weeks now.  I just seem to get up in the morning & a couple of days have gone!  Maybe I've slept through!  It's a sign of old age, mind you it does seem to be worse in winter.  Christmas has a lot to answer for.  Thankfully we don't have Thanksgiving here or I'd be to take away!

This week I decided to buy my husband a laptop for his combined Christmas & birthday presents.  Well his old one has been driving him batty for a few months now.  My fault really, I've loaded it with photos of my trips & grandchildren.  Well it has taken me hours & hours to set it up for him.  I've lost a weekend. Thought it would be a doddle like it was with my little Nokia tablet but no.  The basic set up was fine.  However I won't go into the problems I had with the laptop after I downloaded Google Chrome because I just can't hack Internet Explorer.  YUK!!!!  After that I set up his email.  Problem?  Well I just couldn't get his BT Internet email to load.  Gmail was OK but crumbs I spent hours on trying to sort it. Eventually I discovered that it & a lot of other Internet email systems just aren't compatible with Windows 8 because they're using old technology.  Just wonder why my bills are so huge if they're not updating their stuff.  Spending too much time with their BT Infinity broadband kingdom!  Their advert is running as I type, hence the large bills.  Wonderful!  Well he'll just have to manage with Gmail.  Now I have to train him to use Windows 8. Takes a bit of getting used to after XP & Vista but I do like it.  Works great with my phone too.  I've written this post on the little Nokia Lumia tablet & it's been so easy uploading the photos from One Drive & so fast too.  I treated myself to a keyboard cover with an extra battery & it's brill!  Great for when I'm on tour.

What else?  Well I've been making lots of different things over the last few weeks. 

Sorry the picture quality isn't brilliant.

Some knitted poppies to wear for Remembrance Sunday. I always buy them but keep losing them so I decided to make some.  I don't have a pattern so every time I make one it's slightly different which is nice. 

Some candy cane ornament holders for the Christmas Fair at my granddaughter's school. 

The pattern is here.  There are some good patterns there you just have to register there first.

...... and some little snow socks to hold the candy canes too! 

The pattern for these is here 

Still need to make some baby doll's clothes for one granddaughter for Christmas before they go to France & to crochet a matinee coat for a niece's baby who is due this week.

I'm trying my hand at designing a scarf in lace wool & writing the pattern.  Don't bother watching this space, it may not come to anything with everything else that's going on.

Oh I nearly forgot.  I made a crocheted snowman hat for my granddaughter (which I forgot to take photograph of)!  My daughter bought her the mitts but there wasn't a snowman hat she liked to match so I had to make one!

Apart from the crafty stuff I've helped load a container from our local churches with aid for a community in Zambia.  I couldn't believe how many sports T shirts & running gear from marathons & fun runs there was.  Zillions!  It took groups of us three mornings to fill it.  One of our priests goes out to Zambia each year to work with a congregation & their priest comes back with him to our parish.

I'm still listening to children read at my granddaughter's school & they've very kindly invited the volunteers to go on the pantomime trip with the whole school. I had a wonderful time last year.  The bus ridge was great before we even got there.  Not sure whether I enjoyed watching & listening to the children's reactions or the pantomime.  The comments were great.  One boy asked whether the ugly sisters were really women!  They weren't but I wasn't going there!  Loved every minute of it.  Well apart from the numerous trips to the loo!  This year it's Little Red Riding Hood.  Goodness knows what the comments will be. 

Also went on a retreat last month.  I haven't done that since I was at school.  It was nothing like those ones.  I haven't laughed so much for years.  The photo at the top is of Holy Island, Lindisfarne, where we spent the time.  I'll do a separate post on it as I took a few photos & it's a lovely place.

I was asked to apply for a tour manager post with another tour company which specialises in UK tours & cruises.  Wasn't too keen at first but filled the application form in which took hours!  Full of what you would do in hypothetical situations & what kind of person I am.  Crumbs!  Then they wanted a CV!  Think I must be daft.

What haven't I done?

No decorating unfortunately.  Light isn't good enough now, a great excuse.  Not a lot of housework either but as my friend says "nobody on their death bed ever wishes they'd done more housework".  I keep saying I might be the first. 
No cruise booked for my 70th birthday, dithered around too long & the one I'd been considering is fully booked.
Not much Christmas shopping done either.  Mainly because I don't know what to buy.  For once my granddaughters haven't asked for anything much.  Nor has my grandson but there's time yet.  It's his birthday next week so it will probably be a money job.  Will have to get onto the Internet methinks.

Well time to go!