Ready for Halloween?

Master R, a couple of years ago, getting ready for a halloween party.

 

 

 

 

The whole family went off with a knitted wig and various other bits and pieces I keep in the dressing up box

 

 

 

 

 

And on another occasion the green wig was teamed up with Big Bro’s incredible hulk mask

to terrify Uncle M

Wig sales always hot up at this time of year – there is still time to knit a wig to scare the demons away! You can find the patterns in my Etsy or Ravelry or Craftsy shops.

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17 for 2017: March and April

Life has been unpredictable and very busy since my return from a crazy fortnight holiday on 20th April. My attention is mostly away from the computer at the moment, but I just wanted to record my 17 for 2017 progress for March and April before May skids by.

A few targets for 2017 have been ticked off:

17 – walks longer than an hour

SIX

One in March : Badbury Rings

3 in January, 2 in February

16 – handmade greetings cards.

SIXTEEN – DONE!

You can see the Never-ending cards here.

15 – beachy things (split into 3 x 5s – 5 pieces of beach related art, 5 beach cleans on new beaches, 5 beach clean sculptures, assemblages or mandalas)

14 – items for my Etsy shop

FIVE

1 in Feb, 3 in March,

Three wigs that were in the WIP box were completed and put in my Etsy Shop in March

as well as 1 new pattern in April

I’m particularly excited about this one as I have been developing the pattern on and off for so long. I have loved making this jacket for Little Miss M and as presents for babies, but getting the pattern ready for general use is a whole other business. Gosh it takes such a lot of concentration!

13 – drawers, cupboards, shelves or boxes sorted out.

SEVEN

One in January and a shelf in February.

I cleared a Drawer in March, which led to clearing out the whole chest of drawers, 5 drawers in all. What a stash of yarn and abandoned UFOs I found

The UFOs have been unpicked and all yarn rolled and stashed in better order. I found things from over 10 years ago – so many projects abandoned for one reason or another – still, the yarn lives on to see another day. Chaotic life events have often interrupted the creative flow – it’s been an ongoing life-long theme. I’m sure I’m not alone.

12 – WIPs finished

SIX in March: see #14 above

and I managed to finish three blankets

3 blankets, first the Mexican Wave. I hope to give details of this one when life calms down a bit.

Then

a ‘Blanket for a Mermaid’, which I started for my niece (S) when I went to Japan

Again, details to follow.

and

the Dorset Hedgerow Blanket for my other niece (L)

Go the my PAGE of Throws to see some more photos and some links to POSTs about them

11 – paintings/ art works

10 – house and garden tasks

9 – textile books worked on.

8 – hand written letters to grandchildren

7 – find 7 interesting objects

6 – items made for Pippin or improvements to Pippin.

5  – random acts of kindness

FIVE – done!

The Hedgerow Blanket, for my niece and the Mexican Wave blanket which was a present for my daughter’s best friend were both Random Acts of Crafty Kindness.

Whilst in the Caribbean I was crocheting seahorses in all sorts of odd places. I had some wonderful encounters with both children and adults taking an interest in the craft and the seahorse – I gave away 5 all together. I’m hoping to write a bit more about these encounters, but the way things are at the moment, that might be a long time coming.

4 – new National Trust properties visited

TWO visited in April.

A 3.5 hour drive to ad from Gatwick Airport took me past two National Trust properties. They provided a welcome stop each way.

Hinton Ampner

and Petworth House

3 – make three up-cycled items of clothing 

2 – meet two fellow bloggers

1 – car boot sale

0 – Buy zero new clothes

ZERO – even though I was tempted to buy new shorts to go on holiday – I resisted – well done me!

~

Still much to do!

A list of others I know to be taking the challenge:

Mrs Snail, Nanacathy, Gillyflower, Murtagh’s Meadow., Ouch My Back hurts, Ruth’s Arc,  Cherie Langlois, Erin’s Big World, Country Ways and Cottage Days, Mrs. Craft

I have no idea why the post has gone all thin and down the middle – I’m having trouble with WordPress at the moment. Click on any photo to see it larger.

Headgear

top young florist, Kay

in the limelight at Chelsea

a well deserved award

~

As I was walking past the Grand Pavilion at Chelsea Flower Show, I heard cheering and clapping and dashed in to record the moment when Kay Willis of Christchurch in Dorset! Yes Dorset! was being presented with her award for Top Young Florist of the Year! Well done to her, an amazing floral display.

Below are some of the other entries

The brief was to create a Brazilian Carnival Headdress

The winning one. I love the colours, now can I recreate this in crochet…….

 

Click on the link to see further details of Chelsea Young Florist of the Year

Joining in with Ronovan’s weekly Haiku Challenge: prompts TOP and LIGHT

and our 52 Week Photo Challenge: prompt HEADGEAR

I could not let the subject of ‘Headgear’ go by without showing you the latest additions to my Etsy Shop – which are adding to my 16 for 16 target of 14 new items put in the shop this year.

Now I’m off to find some crochet flower patterns.

Four of us created the list for the Photo Challenge, you can join in anytime, the next prompt is

NATIVE

~

I do a round up of all the entries each week which I hope to get out by Sunday, so please leave a link in the comments on this post of on Cathy’s post to be sure I don’t miss your photos.

Abu Dhabi

This blog had been a bit quiet recently due to a little bit of hibernation followed by a self styled knitting retreat in Abu Dhabi – oh boy was it WONDERFUL to get some sun on my bones this winter:

My favourite knitting spot

Just soak up those sunny warm peaceful rays!!!!

I went for a fortnight – Now how much yarn would you pack for 14 days of virtually uninterrupted knitting

Of course I took far too much and hoped the airline would not Xray my case to see a severed head and umpteen dodgy looking balls of something.

I went to stay with my brother-in-law who is working in Abu Dhabi. He was at work all day and I had the place to myself to work on my Hat Wig designs.

I thought I was taking so long to get new ones finished because I have so many other calls on my time at home, and a fortnight away would see a batch of new patterns ready to put in the Etsy Shop and on Ravelry. It turns out it just does take me AGES to finish writing a pattern. Ideas, creating designs, knitting new creations – easy, but actually getting them down on paper for others to follow – that is HARD work. If anyone has any tips or computer programmes that can help PLEASE let me know!!!

I like to add photos to the patterns to make them easy to follow

and that does take time of course, but it is the methodical, ordered, organised careful writing of knitting patterns that my grasshopper mind resists.

 

And then of course the view could be a bit distracting ……