Hooking up the blues

It's time to welcome March already, can you believe it? In my head that means daffodils, Mother's Day and of course Spring! For the moment though winter is clinging on as much as possible. Cold it may be but the days are getting longer and the lighter evenings are on their way which turns my thoughts to sprucing up the house and garden. On my last visit to my local wool shop there was an offer on these which I just couldn't resist.

I've been meaning to buy blue yarn for a while now as I have a very plain cushion  which could do with jazzing up, so with a blue and white guest room this will be ideal. It's Robin acrylic double knitting yarn which can be tossed into the washing machine and tumble dried, quite important here in the west of Scotland where we have quite high rainfall!

So having bought the yarn, the next question was what to do with it. Should it be shells? Ripples? The cushion is a very plain Ikea bolster and the guest room already has blue toile de jouy bedding and curtains so after a bit of a play about with it I decided to do plain stripes. I have three shades of blue and one cream, worked in trebles here to see how it looked.

 

I decided I liked this, it looked nicer than double crochet (single crochet in the US) and isn't too fussy for all the other pattern going on in the guest room. I hope to be able to show you it finished soon, in the meantime it's doing a great job of keeping me warm while I hook it up.

This week is going to be a busy one with the Glasgow Stitching, Sewing & Quilting and Hobbycrafts event starting on Thursday and running to Sunday 8th March which I'm really looking forward to. I'm especially looking forward to the Glimpses of India exhibition and the Mr Selfridges costumes as well as all the yarny, stitchy shopping oportunities and demonstrations of course. I have so many ideas for projects I've had to exercise a lot of restraint to stop myself ordering more yarn before the show. I still have some of the discontinued Rowan Kidsilk Aura (in blue of course) which I bought at a previous event and haven't used yet. It's a beautiful yarn which is heavier than Rowan's popular Kidsilk Haze. Luckily I have ten balls of the Aura so have plenty for a future project in the pipeline for this year. I adore fuzzy, lacy type yarns and lace weight shawls and scarves, don't you? They just take sooo long to hook up though!


H x

A Touch Of Spring

Hello there, are you looking forward to Spring? I am, it's my favourite season. The snowdrops have been out for a few weeks now and already the daffodil shoots are peeking up into the weak sunshine.

It was rather grey here last week so what better to do than snuggle up on the sofa with a big mug of tea, my favourite hook and some bright yarn to make some colourful little flowers. Do you like them?

I was thinking primroses when I made them, I saw some in the shops recently but although they looked lovely I think it's still a little too cold here for them. So these are my colourful, cheerful little primroses. Aren't they pretty? They really have brought a bright note to my day. Have your thoughts turned to Spring too?


Whilst in the mood for flowers, I remembered I had made a couple of Russian dolls (Babushkas) from Nicki Trench's Cute and Easy Crochet book a while back. I hadn't finished them, so I duly dug them out and added some little flowers to them too.

Here they are, spending a cold day warming up on the radiator. The weather can't make it's mind up today so we are having sunny spells, snow flurries, rain and a cold, cold wind.  I think these little ladies are cute though they are definitely a bit chubbier than the ones in the book!

The Babushkas were worked in the round and were very quick and easy to do. I used bits and pieces of double knitting yarn from my stash to use it up instead of the yarns used in the book. It was an ideal project for those. Now I just need to think of somewhere to use my cheerful little primroses too. I hope something brought some lovely colour into your week.

H x

Hello and welcome.

 Hello and welcome to my craft corner. I love to crochet having taught myself during a very snowy winter a few years ago. Creating crochet items for family and friends I always seem to end up altering the original pattern, so I'm finally getting round to sharing my makes and designing my own patterns. I hope you will enjoy peeking into my world as I crochet my way through the year. Please check back soon for my first make of the year and thanks for stopping by.

Helen