Instagraming

It has been quite some time since I visited blogland. Apart from my quick entry yesterday I have been away for exactly 6 months. I really can't believe how the time as flown. Work and home life has taken over now I am working more hours and have little time to do the extra stuff. However I have been sharing my crochet on instagram and though I might share some of my most recent makes with you. Please pop over using the little instagram button at the side for a peek and please say hi! 

This is a cushion I started recently from the Emma Lamb book Crochet Home. I'm still only this far and working on it.

A photo posted by Sarah (@hulaloop77) on Apr 4, 2016 at 2:37am PDT

My Spice of life blanket, pattern by Sandra at Cherry Heart. I started the border once in teal but didn't like it. Planning to use sage instead.

A photo posted by Sarah (@hulaloop77) on Apr 17, 2016 at 5:10am PDT

Still only halfway through this Harlequin Blanket, pattern by Berroco

A photo posted by Sarah (@hulaloop77) on Nov 17, 2015 at 1:56am PST

My rainbow V-Stitch blanket is enormous! Still picking it up every now and then but really need to finish this before the summer. Little people love hiding under it and it's great for den building.

A photo posted by Sarah (@hulaloop77) on Jan 23, 2016 at 6:06am PST

Thank you for stopping by
Hope you enjoyed your visit

x Sarah x

Finding time...

Life has been lovely and full of fun but exhausting all the same. When I look back at when I started blogging, not that long ago either, when I was managing a post a week I can't believe I was finding the time and creating so much to blog about. 

Right now I am doing the Mummy thing. I am focusing on their needs. New schools and new routines have been started this term and it's taking a while to get to grips with all the change. I have increased my hours at work and my lovely Fella has changed jobs as well. All at once we are in a new chapter... 

I have been having fun on Instagram. It is such a quick way of sharing pics, ideas and lovely things. So, thought I might share some of my favourite pics and also give you a glimpse of my most recent project. As always I'm not finishing much at the moment but have started a scrummy new Harlequin blanket that just get me sooooo excited.

It's inspired by the colours in my garden. We still have a few flowers in our gardens here, not sure they realise it's late October. I love seeing these colourful flowers and often pick a bunch for the kitchen table.

I am a little under half way there with this blanket already. Playing with colours as I go but thinking about perhaps creating some sort of repeat within the stripes as that really appeals to me right now.  

 I have been using Drops Karisma,  a dk weight yarn using a 4mm hook. It's an easy pattern which I found here. I have to say Drops Karisma is a lovely easy yarn to work with and the colours are really lovely. 

I had so much fun taking these pictures with my phone camera. Although I am starting to be less than satisfied with the quality that my phone give me and keep noticing the Nikon DSLR we bought when Little Man arrived with the full intention of learning how to use it and taking regular photos of our growing baby. Well we have used it on occasion but, of course, like a lot of things when you have a baby the idea went by the wayside. I can see it now sitting idle, can't remember the last time we used it. Really need to put that on my list of things to do...

So, there you are, another project started. But as the evenings are drawing in so quickly now I should hope that I will find myself parked on the sofa under a warm crochet blanket in front of the TV with crochet hook in hand far more often than the Summer months allowed.

Family updates

Little Lady has started at Daycare one afternoon a week and loves everything about it. No tears, no "Mummy not here!!" She is having a wail of a time splashing in puddles, digging holes, dancing to music and doing all the fun and muck creating things they love to do at her age.

Little Man is officially at school!! He is a summer term baby so we were worried as he would be one of the youngest and could be finding it harder. Of course he loves it all and comes home covered in glue and mud every day telling us about graphemes and phonemes (say again??).  Each day I ask him what he did at school and of course this information is highly classified and therefore he can not disclose anything that actually happened. So, due to my persistence, he has started to invent quite funny and elaborate stories about his day; "We zoomed off in a spaceship to the moon and it was very cold and nobbly!". "Today we had PE and the teacher gave us these special shoes which you can walk on the ceiling with and she put cushions all over the ground and we did walking on the ceiling!" And finally "Today we did bottom printing!!" So all the usual then. 

He has had quite a lot of homework already this term including finding autumn things to show and share, a colouring competition and the challenge of making a Scarecrow for the harvest celebrations they will be having this week. This was the most fun task as we had to work together as a family to make it. It was Little Man's design and he helped to find all the creatures that made homes in the Scarecrow's clothes as well as stitching on the sewing machine. Hand sewing the buttons for the face, arranging and fixing the gloves for hands and placing all the little creatures around the Scarecrow's clothing making little nests for them to live in. He named him Max the Scarecrow. 

Thank you for stopping by

love

Sarah xxx

Dolly Blanket Ta-Dah

 

 

There is one happy Little Lady in our house. We have been having fun playing with our dollies this week. I finished the little dolly blanket the other night and since then there has been a hive of activity around the wooden goose pram Little Lady got for her birthday all those months ago. She is very much a girly girl and loves her dollies dearly. Spending hours looking after baby is her favourite thing to do.

You might also have noticed the Rabbit I made Little Lady a while back features in a few of the pics today. Rabbit has now got all his limbs and ears firmly secured with chunky buttons and is a happy little chap. He still needs something to wear though...

I used leftovers of Stylecraft Special DK in meadow, plum, pomegranate, turquoise, saffron, lavender, fondant, sherbert, with cream as the main colour and using a 4mm hook. It measures 49cm by 31cm with 35 little squares each with only 3 rounds measuring 6cm square each. It was quite a quick project only taking a few evenings in front of the box but lots of fun to make too. A nice break from some of my other bigger projects. 

The pattern was from this book, Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench.

I didn't follow the pattern exactly as I wanted my little squares to be quite tight and I made the edging up as I went along using one round of dc first followed by two rounds in htr stitches. 

It's a lovely little book with lots of very vintage and retro ideas for crochet. Took me a while to get going with it but now I have mastered the basics of crochet I can whizz through these patterns easy peasy.

Best be off now for more playtime... Thank you for visiting today. Come back soon!  

Sarah xxx 

Playtime

This week is May half term... Yay!! Time has flown since Easter and it doesn't seem like five minutes since we were waving good by to the last holiday and here we are again. That doesn't mean to say that this term has been easy. Work has been hectic, we have Little Man's 4th birthday and lots going on at home as well. So this week will mostly be spent enjoying time together at home and getting a few jobs done too.

I am currently in the middle of working on lots of little projects and also starting some rather big ones.

I have been working on making a little cot blanket for my darling baby girl. The lucky little thing was given a gorgeous wooded push-along pram for her birthday months back and I was determined to make her a bit of crochet to keep her dollies warm. Far too quickly time whizzed by and the little cot blanket went on the to do list at the back of my mind. Last weekend I finally started it and here we are.

While making the little cot blanket I have given myself a short break from working on my v-stitch stripe blanket (need to think of a more exciting name for this blanket, perhaps retro blanket or rainbow blanket). Loving these colours and the fun of mixing and matching up the different colour combinations. I really love how neat it feels too. Granny square blankets are wonderful but they are high maintenance when it comes to those loose ends.

The garden is coming along too. This is our first year of living in this house and we had to make some very drastic changes to the backyard. I inherited this summerhouse and my lovely Hubby has painted it ready for me to decorate the inside now. I am really keen to push on with this now as the Spring is rapidly turning into Summer and I want to be in there making and enjoying the space soon. 

I have been working on the playhouse too this week. We bought this little lovely on ebay for just £40 when Little Man was 18 months old and it lived in our old garden before we moved it here. So far it has been used for toy storage more than play but I have always had plans for it. I am desperate to make this a lovely fun playhouse now before my Little Man becomes to old for playing house.

While we're down at the bottom of the garden I might introduce you to Dinosaur Land. Yes, you read it right! Tucked away in between the summerhouse and the playhouse we are creating at bit of a sensory-come-small world play area. Under a newly planted Maple tree we have a sandpit and an area of rough ground where we have added a collection of slate chippings, pebbles and shells with larger pieces of slate and rock to create Dinosaur land. We also have a large planter with herbs growing for the little people to feel, smell, taste, use in their play kitchen, make dens for fairies to live in, that kind of thing. We have a large blackboard and I am planning to add a secret garden window using a perspex mirror behind some trellis with a clematis or honeysuckle growing up it. I would also like to create a bug hotel if I can too. The little people are rather fond of this area of the garden. It's not huge but big enough to escape into and explore with those amazing imaginations they have for play and discovery. 

And not forgetting the other full time job I have at this time of year. The Allotment! We have had it for 4 years now. It lives near our old house which a short 15 minute drive away from us. Not ideal but it gives us so much enjoyment. It's a lovely outdoor space for our little people to get muddy in and learn so much about life, how things grow, where food comes from, how nature works to help our veg grow and so on. But it is also extremely hard work. Neither me nor my Hubby can bring ourselves to let all the hard work go. My lovely Hubby and I have a good system going at the moment where he does the digging (quicker that I can) and I do the planning and planting. We are always behind but we get good results nonetheless. Here is a pic from last year... it has changed quite a bit since this photo. Will have to take some more pics soon.

  I found this photo on my phone and I think it really sums up just how lovely it is at our allotment...

So this week has been spent working on a few of these jobs and hopefully with a trip to the seaside and a visit or two from some friends before the week is spent.

Thank you for popping by. Hope you have a lovely half term too, Sarah xxxxxxxxx

I Love Crochet

I love Crochet! I love Love LOVE the therapy it gives me. I love the repetitiveness, the rhythm of the stitches, the challenge of following patterns, learning new stitches, making new things. The easiness of slipping into my crochet world, hooking away while I watch the little people play or with the TV on in the background while I zone out. I have noticed I don't often join in the conversations I hear about what was on TV last night and it's because is wasn't paying attention, I was busy with my crochet!

In my world I need a creative outlet. Yes, I'm an art teacher, I do art all day and love it. But that is my job. This is my therapy. This is my time and I crave it. I would love to be getting my hands dirty every day making all manner of things using the textiles that I love and have done since I was a child. And I will get there one day but right now I don't have the time or the space in my life for that... well not very often anyway.

I haven't been crocheting for long either. A little over two years now. It feels like longer. When I look at some of the things I have made, the things that I made first, I made them for my little baby girl before she was born in those long months waiting for her to arrive. Before that I had wanted to crochet and had tried really really hard, got really frustrated, gave up and then eventually tried again and again until I got it. Crochet, I decided, was not easy and even now I still think it's not easy. I can crochet but my crochet is not perfect. Perfection is hard to achieve and I am not a perfectionist. I love a handmade feel and I'm happy with things that have a rag tag look to them.  Especially if they are homegrown in my home. They are more than just handmade things, they have a story, a purpose, a reason for being made and that is more important than perfection to me.

My blanket is not perfect but it won't matter. My little family have already christened it the way they do when they decided something is worth noticing, using and having around the place. It has been sat on, snuggled under, hidden in, slept with and kept us warm when we needed it to. It has been dragged around here, there and everywhere including the garden and the beach. This blanket has a home for good in our house.

You might remember some weeks ago I posted here about an arrival of some lovely Drops Nepal yarn and here about my dreams of creating a lovely chunky blanket. I did have some fun playing with colours and planning, researching, starting to make, undoing and starting again until I made my decision about the type of blanket I was going to make.

I am so pleased I decided to go with Granny Squares. There is something very appealing about a Granny Squares blanket. I love playing with the colour combinations, making rainbows and clashing contrasting colours together. They are so quick to make too.

Joining the squares together was a very exciting and satisfying process. This took me most of a day, in between doing the Mummy thing.

The discovery of this blanket by the Little People was a funny one. They sometimes watch me crocheting, steal my hook, find a ball of yarn and quickly scruff it up in 5 seconds flat in an attempt to play pretend crochet. This time, as I was joining the squares, they watched the blanket coming together giving their opinion as always about which square should be next and why, 'this ones a Lightning McQueen Square', and sharing their observations about the colour combinations and the ones they liked best. Little Lady generally just walking off with them.  Little Man decided to make a game out of all the squares by placing a toy to match the colours of the square. Love my creative little bunch! 

And here it is on the bench in my back garden. Oh how I wish I could crochet some life into my little back yard. It's on the to do list...

So thank you, my little Bloggy Blog! This blanket is not only finished but finished in double quick time too. One of the reasons I started a blog was as a way of creating motivation to make and do and finish things. I am terrible for jumping from one project to the next, not keeping my focus and getting distracted by new ideas... sooooo many ideas. The other great thing about my blog is that I am now taking photos all the time and hundreds of snaps of the little people. No more guilty feelings about not taking enough photos and recording the memories. So, the blog works!! Yay!

If anyone is out there in cyberspace reading my ramblings then I hope you enjoyed your visit! Come back soon :0) 

Sarah x
 

Rest and Recovery

The last couple of weeks have been a bit bonkers around here. I seemed to be rushing around all over the place dealing with car troubles, work things, the usual school runs, supermarket trips, all the boring bits of life that seem to take up so much time. And then, when I least expected it, I was hit with the winter sickness bug and totally derailed for several days. We have now had a good rest and a few lovely days out at the beach, the farm and the park. We have spent lots of time together snuggling up watching films, eating comfort foods and reading great piles of books. The little people are both very good at gathering up six or seven books they want to be read and planting themselves on my lap wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, making themselves comfy ready for a good long read. Can't complain really. Any opportunity for a cuddle. Some creative things have been happening as well...

Last week I finish this little lovely...

It's the mandala pattern from the latest Simply Crochet magazine. I changed the design slightly so mine has yellow triangles instead of hearts. I simplified the edging as it was getting late in the evening and I had lost the ability to fathom crochet instructions. I also had a rummage in my big box of yarn to find my cotton Drops Paris to use for the mandala and made a nice discovery. 

This is a mandala seat cover I made for a stool a very long time ago. I had forgotten all about it. And it's nearly finished too :) Thinking that this will look fab in my new studio come spring.... Oh, roll on Spring!!

I have now spent several evenings since my fluffy yarn post arrived thinking, researching and sampling. I want to make a blanket and am having to be quite firm with myself on this as there are so many lovely crocheted things distracting me at the moment. I have been having fun playing with my little peg people and their coloured jumpers as well. Mixing and matching colours, playing with ideas. And of course I'm not the only person who has enjoyed these little pegs. The little people in my house have been taking them off on adventures, making them new homes in all sorts of places and having chats with them. Look at them all stood in a row. I think I might have to paint little faces on them next...

The other night I started, unravelled and started again a rainbow ripple blanket, a chevron blanket and a moss stitch patterned blanket. I decided to go with moss stitch and managed 4 rows before I realising I was never going to finish this blanket if I used this stitch. I did a bit more research and am now making a granny squares blanket. I am really pleased with my squares so far. Granny blankets are quite quick to make and nice and creative. You can play with colours along the way it is easy to pop yarn and a hook in your bag for granny squares on the go!

Coming along quite nicely don't you think? :0)

Thank you for visiting my world of colour and fun xxx

Making Me Smile...

It's rather chilly here in Suffolk right now. We have had our first real glimpse of snow this afternoon and now there is a sprinkling on the rooftops and cars. Here are a few things that have been making me smile this week...

My little back garden looking white and snowy...

The first bunch of daffodils this year to decorate my kitchen and some hyacinth bulbs to look forward to.

Watching my little man playing by the sea at Felixstowe on Sunday and finding treasures to keep forever... That was his big long shadow as he looked through the binoculars out to sea.

Getting outdoors and taking the little people for a stroll over the bridge, by the lake and into the woods...

Finding collections of special things...

Keeping warm under my finished crochet poncho and enjoying hot chocolate and the scent of a new candle.

Hope you have a lovely week xx