I think I must need my head examined!

Buoyed up by my success with the Cath Kidston blanket, I decided to embark on another one. It's a win-win as the weather gets colder - I get to play with pretty colours, and I get to snuggle under a growing blanket on a chilly evening at the same time. Happiness!

Now, I love colour, but I really struggle with putting colours together. I know what I like, and I know what I don't like ... but somehow I can't seem to see in my mind's eye how I want it to turn out. So much so that generally speaking, I will seek out a colour palette that I like, then use that as a basis to work from, rather than trial-and-error it on my own. I'd seen a blanket where I thought the colours worked well together, and picked a selection of similar shades to make my blanket with.

I'd picked the delightful Ripple Pattern by Lucy at Attic 24 . I've had my eye on this pattern for ages and kept imagining the deliciousness of the colours and how it would all look. So, in a lather of excitement and anticipation, I set to work.

I was reasonably happy with it at first, up to about the first pale blue repeat. Then I started to doubt myself. In went the yellow/green/yellow combo (as seen in the other blanket I liked, which I seem to have wiped from memory now ...!), and I wavered, but persevered. By the time I got to the top red repeat, I was having serious misgivings. The evening after I finished the top cream row, I took the blanket out of my project bag ... and realised that I really wasn't all that excited about working on it.

Well, that was it - the death knell had sounded. I thought about how much work I had put into this blanket (about two weeks' worth), and realised I was considering pulling it all back, which seemed pretty insane. But then really, the alternative was that either a) I forced myself to continue on a project I had fallen out of love with and would never enjoy using, or b) I return it to the project bag, shove it to the back of my studio and leave it to linger, unloved, until it finally gets thrown out or ... pulled back for something else.

So - I went for it. Actually, the look on my family's faces was priceless - they were horrified! My daughters in particular thought I had taken leave of my senses (I kind of thought they may have a point ...). It took me most of an evening, pulling back and winding into small balls, all the yarn I had carefully crocheted over the previous two weeks.

Then I went back to my stash, and pulled out a pile of extra colours. In with cerise, dark purple, pale yellow, turquoise and white, to work alongside the original palette. I also decided the stripes were too large and "heavy" looking, and from now on I would work 1 row only of each colour. More ends to sew in afterward (I told you I needed my head examined), but a better balance, and a chance to use up some smaller balls of colour from my stash.

Deep breath, and I began again. I abandoned the idea of following someone else's colour choices, and just went for it. Considering my first experience with this blanket, this was either quite brave or potentially foolhardy, but I decided that the risk of needing to pull back a second time was worth it. I just stopped worrying about the colours, and (watch out, cliche coming) listened to my heart telling me what to go with next. I stopped thinking, and just ... felt it.

Lo and behold, it's working.

My daughters both love this version, and so do I - the cerise adds an extra zing of colour, the single row enables each colour to have its say without being "dominated" by the stronger ones, and the increased palette adds some extra happiness to the mix. The blanket is coming along a treat now and I enjoy picking it up and working on it.

I just needed to stop "thinking" and start "feeling".

Inspiration from Cath Kidston

This project has been hanging around for a while and I finally got around to finishing it!Apologies for the awful lighting; it's very dark up here today but I needed a bigger space to display the finished object than I could manage in my studio with its lovely daylight lamp.

I was inspired by the colours that Cath Kidston uses in her styling. I originally started out with lemon yellow and peach in the mix too, but in the end I decided to stick with pale blue, pink, green, white and red.

I added a border of five rounds of the pale blue and a picot edging which gave the blanket slightly fluted appearance.

This blanket will be on its way to a friend next week - happy snuggling!

A foray into crochet

I quite like crochet, but I like it on my terms, when I feel like doing it. I didn't particularly feel like crocheting this week, but I had to take four flights (I was away at a business conference) and of course, knitting needles are strictly forbidden. So what to do? I really didn't fancy a craft fasting exercise - it calms me down and allows me to relax and mull over the events of the day. So I had to chose a crochet project that was small enough to take on the plane and stimulating enough to keep my attention.

Quite by chance, the week before I went away, I came across this pattern from the fabulous cherry heart blog and fell in love. I answered all my needs - small amounts of yarn, quirky finished result and loads of colour - hooray! I broke out my sock leftover stash and got to work.

Once I got home from the conference, I went through my button stash and found the perfect finishing touches. The weather has turned this weekend and we are experiencing our first autumn storm, so I think they might get a fair bit of use over the next few weeks!

A place to play

Every child needs a place to play .. and so does every adult! Here's my "play space", a fabulous shed in the garden.

I have a lovely old oak table for sewing on, where I keep all my bits and bobs to hand:

On the left is my trusty Singer sewing machine, on the right is my upcycled lampshade that I crocheted with hand-dyed silk. In front of it is a drinks mat made from sea glass I found on the beach.

The stripy thing you can see is my little desk bin, for all those bits of thread and fabric snippings. I had seen something similar on Planet Penny's website and decided to have a go. My knitting needle holder originally had shortbread in it! And old spice jars make great button holders.

I made my "to do" list from a cheap photo frame with wrapping paper in it, and I use a white board pen to add things to it. I made the little birds from air-drying clay and copper wire.

I have a fabulous wee set of drawers that are full of lots of bits and bobs - sewing thread, beads, tape measures and "found" items. On the top I keep my pincushions (I have three but I don't know where the other two are at the moment!), plus some more air-drying clay sculptures (these were created by modelling around small bottles and tinfoil, wrapped up with masking tape before applying the clay).

More buttons, safety eyes and handbag clasps in another old spice jar arrangement. I cheered this one up with red paint and polka dots. I painted the picture but haven't got round to putting it up yet. The yarn is some I hand-dyed myself , in a lovely plate made by a ceramic artist friend of mine. The stones were painted by my eldest daughter.

My bookcase holds all sorts of treasures - my sock monkey stash, my ideas notebooks, and all my sewing and knitting inspiration books. Some are old favourites, some are new additions, all are often referred to. I used to have three times as many but I have pared them down recently. Just at the bottom of the picture you can see my Parker Knoll armchair covered in a Rainbow Granny blanket - for more pictures of it have a look here.

My favourite item in my shed is this picture by a lovely artist friend of mine Charlie Meyer - for more of her work have a look at her regularly updated Facebook page . It never fails to cheer me up!

Anything else you want to know about what you see, just ask! Do you have a place to play too?

Look, I knitted the world!

I found this lovely pattern via Ravelry and, though I can crochet perfectly well, I much prefer to knit. So I wondered if the pattern would translate to knitting ... and bravely decided to give it a go. As knit stitches do not form a perfect "square", I was a little concerned that it might come out slightly elongated. If you've ever looked at knitting graph paper you will notice that the squares are slightly wider than they are tall, so that when you create your design it comes out "square". I wasn't sure if the same thing applied to crochet ... anyway enough waffling - here's the end result:

As you can see, it worked perfectly! I was quite delighted. Here's Europe and Africa:

And look! The chart even has Antarctica on it:

If you would like to have a go at making the globe and you are not on Ravelry, visit Crochet Parfait for full and comprehensive instructions on how to crochet it.

I gave the globe to my two little boys to play with, they were delighted!

Some vintage style crochet and the giveaway winner!

I love crochet. Love love love it. And I really like granny squares too. So when I came across this crochet-a-long on this lovely blog apple blossom dreams I just had to join in, even though I'm a bit late to the party! Since this morning I have crocheted 13 roses (there are meant to be 12 but I lost count! But I'm thinking I might make it 16 anyway).

Apologies for the poor photos, I took them in electric light. But don't they look pretty altogether?

I've added leaves to some and cheekily crocheted the white border even though we haven't had that part of the tutorial yet (bad me).

I'm pleased with the colourway too, I think it works really well. I will show you the finished cushion cover when it's all done! It's not too late to join in with the CAL either - just follow my link or click the button on the right and get crocheting!

And lastly, here's the winner of my wee bunny rabbit that was featured in my sock rabbit tutorial last week. Thank you all for your comments, on here and on my facebook page. We put all the names into a hat and drew out ... (drum roll) ... Driftwood!!! Please let me have your address and I'll put him in the post to you :o)

Now I'm off to have a look at Handmade Monday to see what else crafty folk have been up to ... hope you had a lovely day today.

Finished!

At last, I have finished remaking my rainbow granny!

Originally I had decided to add another 14 squares down the sides so that it was wide enough to drape properly over my chair, but when I came to look at my poor sad blanket I noticed that it had come apart in several places. So I decided to take it apart completely (you should have seen the look on everyone's faces when I started to hack into it!), reorganise the layout to add in the new squares amongst the old ones, then crochet four rounds around the edge to finish it off.

In the end I placed the squares fairly randomly, just making sure I hadn't got squares in the same colours next to each other. I'm glad I didn't overthink it actually!

And here it is in all its technicolour glory, on my Parker Knoll chair in the shed. A little ray of sunshine happiness!

Rather than sewing the squares together this time, I used a fab technique I found on grumpy girl's blog - it's so clearly explained that even my crochet novice brain could understand it! I'm so pleased with the result, it lies really flat and is quite unobtrusive (and neat). It's definitely stronger than just sewing the squares together too. I will definitely use this technique again, maybe in a contrasting colour next time, Here it is in close-up so you can see how cool it is!

It was a bit bright and sunshiney when I took this photo (unlike today!) , but you can see how neatly it all joins up. Thank you for visiting!

I love Pinterest!

I discovered Pinterest a few months ago and it has really changed the way I research what I am going to make next. I was doing my own version of collecting on-line inspiration, but boy it was hard work, cumbersome, and often involved losing stuff! If I had a good colour printer I would probably have contemplated printing some things out, just so I could keep them!

For many years I have kept what I call "happy books" - scrapbooks filled with pictures I love or find inspiring - and I still do keep these to hand for pictures I cut from magazines or birthday cards I receive. There's still a place for the book and the paper record after all. But I find Pinterest incredibly absorbing and a great way to find inspiration whilst I have a quick cuppa tea.

It was on Pinterest that I discovered Planet Penny , a fellow crafter who is as mad about rainbows as I am. I first discovered (and fell in love with) Penny's rainbow mice:

Aren't they just gorgeous?? Penny has now written a pattern for these so I shall have a go at making them myself.

I also found a picture of some lovely storage jars that Penny has decorated - look:

 I fell in love with the "stuff jar" and decided to do something similar to a container I use for putting in all the little bits of cotton and scraps that I always seem to accumulate (usually on my sleeves!) when I am sewing. It was plain plastic and a little boring. However it looks a bit more interesting now!

 A little progress has been made on the shed. It is still in need of painting (I fear that might take a while!), but I did manage to put up some bookshelves earlier in the week. That means about half of my worktop is now clear, so I can utilise it a little better. The aim is not to just clutter it up with junk!

My current evening project is making some more granny squares for my rainbow granny that is covering my old Parker Knoll chair in my shed. This is my "sitting and knitting" chair which is ever so comfy but definitely benefits from a cheerier look! As you can see it doesn't quite cover the chair at the sides so I am in the process of adding a couple more rows down the side.

I've also been making some lovely spring goodies for sale ... watch out for a post later in the week!

Putting a little light on the subject

At last, it is finished! The first of my long-term projects which I showed in close-up earlier on this month. And here it is all done:

This is not its final resting place, as it will be going out in my shed/studio when that is decorated, but I put it on my bedside table just for now so you can admire it.

There's a lot of work gone into it. Firstly I wrapped the wire frame in pale blue silk. Then I crocheted squares in the right sizes to fill the gaps, attaching them as I went along. This was perhaps a little easier than you might think, as crochet is very stretchy so I didn't have to faff about with the pattern to make it fit the shape, just stretched it into place! For the second row down, I just used a slightly larger hook and slightly thicker yarn (I've used a mixture of silk and cotton, all hand-dyed by a lovely artist friend of mine).

The third row down was the trickiest as I had to increase the square towards the bottom - however after a bit of trial and error I found it easy enough to do.

However it really looks its best when you switch it on ...

Pretty, huh?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

That was me last week. No internet! For almost a fortnight! Not quite sure how I survived. We are back up and running now (with a different provider, natch).

However I did survive, and now I will bring you up to date with the last couple of weeks' happenings. First, lots more owls and chicks have been made for the upcoming Easter rush. Here are the chicks nestling in their new home:

Don't think they will be there for long though! For sale at Eye Candy in Thurso. Also at Eye Candy are some more owls and some knitted eggs - they'll last a bit longer than the chocolate ones!

I have been very busy making bunting for the Puffin Croft Farm Shop too: Firstly a lovely set to hang up in their shop space (scuse the wonky spacing on my wall, it'll look much better in situ I'm sure!)

Here's a close-up of the puffins (they match the bags I made for them earlier):

And I also made some bunting to sell in her shop - here (am rather pleased with the packaging!):

All the items shown here are available to order - just email me on jill@miaoucrafts.com or message me on here!
More new items in the offing, will share soon!

Lots of news and deliciousness!

So much has happened over the past week!

Firstly, I have started working with a lovely local gift shop called Eye Candy who sell some fabulous gifts. She has some cupcakes and owls that I have created, look!

They look like they are jostling each other for the front spot, don't they?!

 I also made her some little Easter chicks - aww cute!

Soon to go into Eye Candy - exclusive bags and birthday bunting. Watch this space! It's lovely to work with a local business who "gets" handmade craft :o)

Another local business who I mentioned recently has just taken delivery of some more gorgeousness for their shop. Puffin Croft Farm Shop in John O'Groats now stocks these yummy lavender hearts:

And the commissions continue - here's a cupcake phone cover I made last week:

It even has cupcake lining fabric and a cupcake button - more cute!

As you can see, I have been busy, with lots of things in progress behind the scenes too!

I am very busy at the moment trying to improve my workspace. Currently I have all my things squished into a couple of cupboard shelves, with the overspill behind the sofa. However the overspill is threatening to take over and so Nick has cleared all his things out of the cupboard this afternoon so I can organise my own things in there a little more efficiently. I reckon that once I have sorted everything out I will save at least a couple of hours a week that I currently waste looking for things! Well, that's the theory anyway. If I am brave I might post some before and after pictures. Hmm.

Slow Progress

Urgh - I have the lurgy. A nasty virus has been working its way round the family and settled on me last Wednesday. I am now on day 5 of being poorly and still getting worse, which is very unusual for me!

The thing I hate the most about being ill is that I can't work (either at my salaried job, or at my lovely craft work). I have neither the concentration skills to work on the challenging Harry Potter socks, nor the ability to sit at the sewing machine to make any of the mounting orders of phone cases, bags and toys without descending into a coughing fit. Fortunately everyone is very kind and patient, but I still wish I could just get on!

However as any crafty person will agree, it's impossible to sit around and do nothing. At first I pulled out my scraps blanket and added a few rows to that, then when it was long enough (it's been needing an extra few inches for a while now!), I swapped my crochet hook for knitting needles and started making mini squares. At first I had no particular design in mind for them, I was just pulling scraps of yarn out of a huge bag and knitting mindlessly, but Calum has requested that I use them for making a blanket for him. Hooray - another project! Like I need another project on the go, hahaha. Here's my first few squares:

In the background you can see Calum's newly revamped chair - up until a couple of months ago it was still painted pink and white from when his big sister (now aged 13) owned it!

Hopefully, normal service will be resumed shortly.

Winter again!

For the last few mornings I have woken up to this view:

Good thing I have been knitting mitts and hats!
 Calum got a new pair of mittens, knitted in pure wool. They have gone rather fluffy but he still loves them:

His favourite colour is yellow, so I knitted him a hat in the closest yarn I had to yellow!

Eilish's favourite colours are red and black (closet goth!) so I crocheted her a stylish hat in those colours:

It's not sparkly wool - she had just been out to feed the rabbits and it was snowing heavily!

In other news, the bunting has arrived across the pond, so now I will share a full picture of it:

Recipient is very happy; I am going to make more bunting in the future as it is fun to do.
No picture yet, but the first Harry Potter sock is almost finished; tonight I will be shaping the toes!