Brooch a Day in May

Well, May is done, and so is my Brooch a Day in May challenge. The time has flown by, and every day has started with the pleasure of picking out a brooch to match my outfit for the day. 

I finished my month with a pretty little vintage brooch that has tiny little pressed flowers trapped inside it, a present from my very sweet little sister. 

It has been a lovely month, a joy to choose a brooch and a chance to enjoy my collection, and be proud of the ones that I made myself. 

Brooch a Day in May

I feel like my brooch a day challenge is off to a good start! I've worn some of my laser cut brooches, and a beautiful Lucite brooch that I bought in January but hadn't worn, and of course that was the purpose of my challenge, to enjoy the beautiful brooches in my collection! 

I'll be back on Thursday to share my next choices, I really am rather enjoying picking out the perfect brooch for every outfit!

My Weekend in the Big City

This weekend I packed my little red suitcase and I took myself off on a little jaunt to the big city. With my notebook and knitting in hand I set off on my way, dashing through the rain and hopping over puddles to the British Museum, where my adventures began...

In just one day, I travelled the world and explored treasures from every continent. I started in Ancient Greece, at the "Defining Beauty" exhibition, and then moved on to Korea, and then China and onwards to Japan. 

The cabinets full of tiny things are my favourites, so many precious little objects, ancient hand crafted loveliness. 

After a tea break, I carried on to Europe, taking a little wander around the pretty jewellery and ceramics. 

By the end of the day, I think I had been in every room of the Museum, and felt utterly worn out, and my poor little feet were aching, but I had a head full of absolutely amazing things. 

After a good nights sleep, my adventures continued with a trip down to Tate Britain. I had a jolly lovely time looking around the exhibitions, and the permanent collection. 

I am home from my adventures now, my suitcase is unpacked and my notebook is full of big ideas. It's nice to go away, but it's lovely to come home again.

My Week...

Another week has flown by, and it has been delightful. The Easter weekend was quiet and full of family time and knitting, gardening and tasty treats. We enjoyed celebrating the sixty-fifth birthday of a dear friend, did lots of thrifty shopping and tea drinking, and visited Ruthin Craft Centre for some inspiration, and Llangollen for beautiful views. 

We've made the most of every moment of sunshine over the last week, pottering in the garden, and walking in the fresh air. The winter blues have happily passed and the long summer ahead is full of promise. 

A Brooch A Day in May - A Plan

A little while ago I decided that since I both make brooches and have an abundance of lovely vintage brooches, that I really should make more of an effort to wear them more often. So I percolated on that little thought and it became a plan - A Brooch a Day in May (because May rhymes with day, obviously...) 

So that's the plan - a handmade or vintage brooch every day for a whole month. I'll be sharing my daily choice over on Instagram and regularly updating here, I hope it will help me to make the most of my lovely collection!

My Week...

This week has been delightful, full of happy moments and time spent wisely enjoying the first bits of spring. Sunday was a day of gardening, taking time to have a little look at the plants peeping out, breathing in the fresh Spring air, and having a chat with the Chickens. They are quite rightly fed up of the grotty winter weather, and were very happily trotting around munching on the weeds that flew over the fence to them. 

There was a lovely little jaunt to the big city on Monday - my sister and I had an adventure in Liverpool, where we shopped, and had lots of tea and delicious cake. It was absolutely delightful. I had a couple of thrifty-finds in local shops, I picked up a peachy little vintage tin from the market, and some fabulous floral fabric from a charity shop - two of my favourite things. The week was topped off nicely with a train journey to another city, this time Birmingham, to spend the evening with the charismatic Morrissey. "Every Day is Like Sunday" was the encore, and I was so happy I could have burst. 

A Crochet Notebook

Yesterday I was handed a lovely gift by a very thoughtful lady. She had been given it, the author having passed away, and wanted someone who would appreciate it to have it, for it to go to a good home. I have spent lots of time admiring it already, looking through the pages and reading the hand-written notes. This was, essentially, somebody's notebook on crochet, with all of the samples carefully attached and each stage meticulously annotated. It starts with the basics, and works it's way along to full patterns. 

I wouldn't be able to guess at the age of it, and despite the loose pages and dog-eared corners, it is a precious thing. 

My Week...

It has been a funny old week, one full of thinking, and quietly making things and spending time with family and friends. I've been thinking about how I spend my time, and who I spend it with, and about loyalty and making better choices - as I say, it's been a funny week. So I've been cocooned in our cosy little home, with my serious "thinking-about-things" hat on, and trying to come to useful conclusions. I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet... But aside from all the thoughts and the thinking, there have been some useful bits to my week... I spent Sunday with my lovely husband, and we baked a blackberry pie and spent time in the garden, picking apples and tidying up ready for the long winter ahead. We had a little bit of excitement on Monday, in the shape of a new arrival - a bunny called Clarence, who needed a forever home and has settled into our funny little family quite nicely indeed. He rather likes apples. 

I spent Thursday with a dear sweet friend, catching up, after months apart, over tea and cake, buying nail polish, swapping crafty ideas and swooning in vintage shops. It was a very splendid day, and a reminder to make the time to enjoy good company and be happy. 

Makings...

As the Summer is drawing to a close and the Autumnal chill in the air seems to be a more regular visitor, I feel the need to spend as much time as possible cosy at home and crafting. Knitting socks is my comfort-craft of choice (along with making granny squares of course) and no matter how many other crafty projects are happening there is always at least one pair of socks on the needles. 

These ones are lovely Drops Fabel "Pink Dream" yarn, and I think they're pretty splendid if I do say so myself. The moment they were finished I immediately cast on a new pair, these ones are super-thrifty "Frankensocks". They are made from leftover bits of yarn from other pairs of socks, and since I have rather teeny feet there is always quite an abundance of leftover yarn. So these ones are going to be a fancy-pants pair with pinky/greeny stripes. 

 My other thrifty project is to make use of a big bag of vintage quilty hexagons that came to me as an appreciator of vintage floral goodness. I am having a delightful time picking out and putting together patterns and colours and making squishy little puffs. Progress will no doubt be slow on this project, I think it might be a labour of love but eventually it might become a quilt. 

My Week...

As with all good weeks, this one has been full of lovely crafty opportunities and spending time with wonderful friends. On Sunday I discovered some long forgotten goodies at the bottom of my yarn stash, including some delightful Colinette chunky pure wool, which I started whipping-up into a very cosy scarf ready to be gifted at Christmas. I also absolutely had to try out a very pretty crochet heart pattern that I found, it's one of the most spiffy ones that I've made so far, from many, many attempts at hearts! Monday was a "work in a cafe" day, followed by a "tea with little sister date" and it was just splendid. On Tuesday there was vintage and charity shopping accompanied by lots of tea (and possibly a very large piece of cake...) with a dear friend, where the adoption of yet another lost-looking little bird may have occurred. There was also the acquisition of mustard beads and a book on the collections of Victorian folk, which promises to be a very good read. After the shopping portion of the day there was an extended hound-hugging session with my two favourite Greyhounds, Freya and Chester. They are wonderful cuddle-buddies. 

Thursday started off perfectly with gorgeous mail. There is something so exciting about letters, and the tales that are shared. The afternoon was spent on one of my favourite seasonal adventures -  Brambling! It was a real family outing with my sister, my dad and his fluffy little dog. We found lots of Blackberries, and there are big plans for baking this weekend. Friday was a special, really rather important day - it was the nine year anniversary of the arrival of our special little companion Honey, who despite being a grumpy-pants, is the friendliest cat I've ever known. She was a skinny-miss when we found her, and she was very pleased to have a new home after seven months in RSPCA accommodation, her little life being saved by a member of staff who fought for her. I like to think Miss Honey was just waiting for us to come along so she could adopt us, I hope she is pleased with her choice every day. 

A Little Bit of Shopping...

I must confess that I love to shop. I know it's a stereotypical "girl thing", but I just can't help it. My favourite places to shop are little quaint independent shops, charity shops, markets and antique centres. So I took an opportunity to have a mooch around the sweet little local towns of Shrewsbury yesterday, which is just full of lovely shops and quirky little nooks. 

 I had a small but quite exciting haul - a hardback copy of the "Tamara Drewe" graphic novel, an adorable ceramic bird and some brightly coloured plastic bead necklaces (to be split for bracelets!) all from the charity shops, and a very sweet 1940's brooch from the antiques centre, which apparently is a "Sweetheart" brooch, with dried flowers. I've tried doing a little bit of research online but haven't found anything out yet, but I love it and all of it's pretty pink and floral goodness.

My Week..

It's been a very busy week, and between our trip to London and a lovely family wedding yesterday, I've barely had time to take a breath!

As so often happens, my work and personal life overlapped - my cousin, the bride, commissioned thirty-five of my vintage embroidered fabric birds as wedding favours for her guests, so I've been quietly working away on them since January, and had the last one finished in June. It was just splendid to be part of her special day!

So here they are, on the tables in pride of place, and I thought I would share my favourite of the photographs that I took -  a slightly blurry moment between the bride and her brother. Just lovely.