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. 

On My Mantle

I like to take quiet moments to have a little wander around the many nook-and-cranny-like spaces of the internet, and I stumbled across a lovely intagrammer called Ada who also has a very pretty blog called Vintage Sheet Addict. Inspired by her post called "On My Mantle" I thought I would share a little peep of my fireplace, and some of the bits-and-bobs and happy critters that live there...

I try to fill our little home with thrifted knick-knacks and handmade loveliness - a lesson I learned at a very young age from visiting my beautiful gran, who had something on every surface, and more books than an average library. I learned about thriftiness and craftiness and the love of reading from her. I hope she would be proud of my crafty adventures.

My Happy Handmade Hallway

There are often little plans and schemes and plots in my brain, that tick and percolate and quite often drive me to distraction. There is usually some kind of crafty-making at the root of this, and the result is almost always the immediate need to make the thing that is causing such overtaking of my thought process.

 As it happens, the latest make to cause this started innocently enough with my plans for stash-busting good behaviour. As I made little squares and pompoms, without a real plan but as a way of using up the tiniest of bits-and-bobs, it occurred to me that this would be a way of adding extra fanciness to my lovely yellow hallway.

And so, with my super-tall husband playing the part of helper, we started to install some rather delightful (if I do say so myself..) strings of pompoms and mini granny squares. My hope is that they will bring some cheer and sunshine during the winter months, and they already bring a smile to my face every time I come through the front door!

My Readings - August

If there's one thing that I like particularly about the summer - and I must admit there are lots of things to like - it's the opportunity to have days out, and how that can often lead to reading in a cafe or a park, or just making the most of sitting outside in the the garden. I have spent lots of time grabbing those opportunities, and that means I have read lots of books in August. I generally like to read lots of books, so I am rather pleased.

So in August I read - 

• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• Out of the Ordinary and What I Do by Jon Ronson
• Secret Britain - the Hidden Bits of Our History by Justin Pollard
• Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds

Some Makings

My granny square blanket is growing slowly, it's at a stage where I barely see any progress because it's already so big, but it still has a long way to go! I am hoping to keep going until it is the size of a double bed, so there will be extra cosyness as the winter approaches, and I have decided that the combination of losing stamina and running out of the right colour and shades of yarn will not defeat me!

As usual, the plan is to run down my yarn stash (it's getting somewhat out of hand) but my blanket plan left me with a quandary over lengths that are too short for a round but still have usefulness. I've gathered together all of the odds-and-ends, and I'm making pompoms and mini granny squares. This however may end up becoming a project...

Last week I finished Groot. He's utterly splendid, and has a very fancy pot and bit of grass to sit in. He has his own shelf and seems to be settling in quite nicely.

Thanks to Twinkie Chan for the "Grootorial", it was really fun and easy to follow!

My Week...

Well, as last weeks of summer go, it's been a rather splendid one. It started with a bit of chilly weather on Saturday, which of course meant that I had to bundle up in my work-in-progress blanket as I added more rows to make it extra cosy. Sunday was a delightful day, catching up with a dear old friend and making friends with his lovely lady-friend. There was tea, and cake, yarn shopping and much chatting. Monday was spent in typical rainy day style, with lots of crafty makings, films, tea and time with my other half and our kitty family. 

On Tuesday I took an opportunity to visit Peterborough, and enjoyed having a mooch around the very pretty museum, housed in a Victorian Hospital, and full of interesting bits and bobs, including Butterfly specimens and treasured letters and handmade things from World War One. Wednesday was another cosy day, and I spent the evening in the close company of our oldest kitty. On Thursday we ventured to Shrewsbury for shopping and spent the afternoon watching "Lucy", before I finally gave in and took some rest to clear a particularly unpleasant headache. I spent Friday sewing pretty things for my shop, very quietly as part of headache recovery, but today I have Allo Darlin' for company as I work, choosing their first album as the soundtrack to my morning. Splendid.