Cosy crochet blankets....

Hello all - and a very Happy New Year to you! I hope that 2016 is a healthy, happy and peaceful one for you.

In 2015 we had the usual year of ups and downs, with a few health problems and a low point for us was being in a car accident on the M25 in the summer - a very scary experience.  Thankfully we were all ok, despite some bumps and bruises!  But we were also very fortunate to have many 'high' points and much to be grateful for, most involving our blessing of a family, including our son doing so well with his GCSEs, our daughter passing her PGCE and qualifying as a primary school teacher and of course, being blessed with a delightful granddaughter in November!  And I'm sure 2016 will also bring it's share of joys and concerns - I just hope the joys outweigh the worries!

But through all the busy-ness of family, work and home, it's crafting that provides a wonderful 'escape' therapy (although it would probably do my body more good if I enjoyed the gym....!).  I've managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of card making in the last few days before I start back at work next week, and I love my crocheting - a kind of 'yoga with yarn'!  I thought I'd share a Christmas present I made for our daughter Lauren (as she loves her snuggly blankets), using the approximate colours and pattern that the oh-so-talented crochet designer Lucy provides on her Attic24 blog (HERE) but with a few slight variations of my own!

I just managed to get this finished a few days before Christmas (talk about cutting it fine!).  But I love the rich colour combinations and snuggly stripes

It's roughly a single bed size, so plenty of snuggle room!  Made with Stylecraft DK, it's super soft and washable too.

I do like to have blankets about, they always seem to add a cosy, comfortable feel.  And my daughter Lauren was very pleased with it too!  So it has now made it's way down to Sussex and I hope it will be put to good use.  Lauren starts her new job as a primary school teacher in Sussex next week with a class of 8 & 9 year olds - and I'm sure there will be a few tired evenings to come when she'll be glad to get home and snuggle into a blanket with a hot cup of tea!  I'm pretty sure I would be if I had to cope with 30 little ones for the day! 

I'll try and get some photos tomorrow of the cards I've been making and share them with you soon. 

I hope you enjoy the remainder of your weekend - and that the first week of 2016 is a good one! 

Back soon,

Kim x 

Very Special Christmas Crochet!

Hello all and I hope that you had a good Christmas and now have a moment of calm before the New Year!  We had some lovely family time, probably far too much to eat, and survived the awful weather that has been plaguing the north west of the UK! My daughter and her boyfriend have now headed back to Sussex after being with us for a few days and the house seems rather quiet once more.  Mind you, our son is still here of course and I keep hearing him playing his guitar upstairs so it's not really that quiet!  Much as I miss my daughter when she leaves, the one positive of their departure is that I can have my 'craft room' back (i.e. the spare little bedroom!), and I'm looking forward to a few hours sometime in the next few days to do some therapeutic colouring!

I just wanted to share a rather special 'commission' for some Christmas crocheting I was given!  My lovely step-daughter (who made us very proud grandparents last month!) had spotted a very cute project on Pinterest and asked if I could make it as she thought it would be ideal for some Christmas photos featuring the gorgeous Isabella!  How could I refuse?!  So I tracked down the pattern on Etsy and got busy with hook and yarn.

The stocking and hat were made with lovely soft chunky yarn from Stylecraft - and I thought the stocking could always be used later for our cutie granddaughter to put out for Father Christmas. 

But these are a couple of pics of the supermodel herself with the stocking - a bit unsure in the first one and definitely not too impressed in the second photo! It just made me laugh out loud when Lucy sent me the pics!  And I hope they make you smile too! 

Hope you like the project and pics! 

And a quick selfie of son Jack, daughter Lauren and me on Christmas Day! I'm not too sure about my paper hat and apron on.....Can you guess who was cooking Christmas Dinner?

I'll try and get back on to blogger shortly, but we're out again tomorrow and it's my birthday on New Year's Eve (no, I've given up counting!) - I'm hoping I get some quiet me-time to catch up with crafts and blogs. 

Back soon,

Kim x 

Christmas Wishes

Merry Christmas! I can't believe that it's already Christmas Day as the first part of December vanished in a flash. 

But it's here, and before I start being 'busy busy' in the kitchen, I just wanted to put on a quick blog post to send you all good Christmas wishes. I hope that whatever you are doing, you have a good day and that it is a peaceful, happy day for you.  

We've got family here for dinner later, guests in and out over the next couple of days and then off to see our new baby granddaughter Isabella, who is now 6 weeks old! And I'm so looking forward to having some more Nanna Kim cuddles! 

Merry Christmas!

Back soon,

Kim x

Christmas is getting nearer...!

Hello all and I hope that you are enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon (or at least having some relaxation time at some point!). After a busy week here and a list of things still to do, I am just taking a brief 5 minutes to catch up with my blog (and myself!). Thankfully it was our end of term on Thursday and so I'm hoping that, in between all the usual seasonal cooking, visiting, etc., that I can enjoy some quiet crafting time and also to browse around blogland again. Our Christmas decorations are now all up - and despite Grumpy Poppy the Cat doing minor readjustments to the tree decorations whenever she goes past - they're all pretty intact. My lovely daughter and her boyfriend stayed with us last night (a slight alteration to the schedule!), and have now gone to visit Tom's family for a few days and then will return to us on Christmas Day for their dinner and to stay with us for a few days which I am really looking forward to!

But I thought I'd better share another Christmas card with you before the season passes!

This trio of penguin stamps from LOTV are so cute! 

I've coloured the images with copics and promarkers, with some added glamour dust. The papers and sentiment tag stamsp are from LOTV, and some added die cut snowflakes.

I usually end up making Christmas cards with traditional reds and greens, but I quite like the purples on this one for a change! 

Hope you do too! 

And I hope that you enjoy some crafting time over the coming week, whatever plans you may have. 

Back soon,

Kim x 

Chaos... and more chaos.....!

Hello all! No, I haven't emigrated without telling you, or moved out to go and live in a cave or stayed in bed under the duvet with a pillow over my head for the last 2 weeks - although to be fair, any or all of those options was a real possibility at times!  I've been busy trying to make 'Christmas' happen at our house, including putting the tree up, writing & posting cards, buying (and starting to wrap) pressies and ordering food.  To add to the general mayhem, we've been preparing for some work at home so half my hall floor had disappeared.  And then, to add a good layer of extra pressure, we had awful storms last weekend.

You may have seen news items about flooding, which was awful for those in Cumbria (not far from ours) but I live in Lancaster and we were also flooded - but, more critically for us, when the River Lune burst it banks it also flooded the sub-station so Lancaster and Morecambe were plunged into darkness!  A power cut that lasted, for us, over 42 hours, which was a bit of a challenge I have to say!  Now I know I like candles, but really.....  My son and his friends coped very well I have to say, being deprived of all electronics - no laptops, x-boxes or phones, because of the loss of power, there was no mobile signal either! So they were off school for 2 days (as no power there either!) and were out playing football, hunting round to see if any shops were open to get some milk and bread for us, etc. But at least we had a dry home and weren't flooded like so many, and I'm somewhat relieved that my freezer wasn't full of Christmas food! And it was so wonderful when the power finally came back on! It was proving a bit of trial at times to make tea and wash up by candlelight - and boiling water on the hob to have a wash. Once the shower was working again it was bliss lol!

Anyway, less of my waffling. I just wanted to share another couple of Christmas cards with you - I can't believe it's only 10 days away! The last few weeks have just vanished so quickly.  I decided to make a few cards with some of my stash of lovely papers and had a therapeutic session die cutting poinsettias with a Spellbinders die!

The papers and sentiment stamps for both of these cards are from LOTV, with hessian and gingham ribbons from stash.  I think they make quite simple but effective cards. 

And a couple of pics of the flooding in our city centre.  The first one is of the bus station (with Lancaster Castle above at the back) and the second is by the old Waring & Gillows furniture buildings.  It was definitely a bit wet in town! 

I hope that your December is going a little more smoothly than ours - although I'm hoping now that we've got all the chaos over with and that there are no more 'surprises' before Christmas Day! 

Back soon (I hope lol!)

Kim x 

Getting busy for Christmas!

OK.
On Tuesday it's 1st December and my preparations for Christmas amount to approximately '0'.
A big fat 'Nil'.
Apart from a selection of (too few) handmade cards and a few other handmade bits, I feel particularly un-ready for the arrival of the chubby man in the red suit.
Number of presents bought = 0.
Cards written =0.
Food bought or prepared =0.
I feel an official Christmas failure. Sigh.

I've been using a variety of excuses, ranging from being busy at work, getting things ready for a craft fair, new medication that the doctor has prescribed for me for my migraines that is seriously knocking me out (a genuine whinge there!), and probably a general lethargy/weariness associated with being a female of a certain age!  But I've decided I've got to put the excuses to one side, pull my big girl pants up and get on with 'Operation Christmas'.  I need to get back to my normal control-freaky behaviour of making lists, booking shopping slots, and getting everybody organised (even though the family usually ignore me anyway...!).

So, I've had a sort of spurt of energy this weekend(!) and made another half a dozen cards. I'm trying to get a surprise crochet project finished for someone that will be a special pressie (I can't really share pics of that yet - it'll have to be a post-Christmas post if you understand me!) - and even bought some food goodies for the freezer for when we have a house full over the festive period!

One of my cards is using the gorgeous trio stamps from LOTV

The images are coloured with copics and promarkers and the backing paper is from LOTV with some ribbon from stash. The sentiment is die cut using an All Occasions die. 

And thank you for all your good wishes about the craft fair - it was on Friday evening and was very busy despite the weather! And I was quite pleased to sell a few things - and had lots of nice chats with people too! 

I'll let you know how I get on with Christmas planning - wish me luck!  I'm always convinced every one else is more organised than me! 

Back soon,

Kim x

Keeping busy.... (very busy...!)

Hello all - and apologies for a bit of an absence! I don't know where the time flies to sometimes and I must also apologise for being a bit of a rubbish blogger! I will really try to make proper time to sit and have a browse at everyone's blogs and catch up with all your crafty makes.

It seems to have been a busy time at home and work - and with crafty things too.  I'm busy preparing for a Christmas craft fair on Friday this week - so all sorts of papercrafts and crochet bits are being gathered together. I've made quite a few of the crochet mini Christmas stockings that proved pretty popular at fairs last year (and buying chocolates and goodies to put in them!)

And I've also made a few more of the crochet garlands with the cute crochet 'stars' - these are the ones from last year that sold so I'll take some pics of the new ones for this year! 

And I've also kept busy making some orders for Knitted Knockers! It's so nice to use my yarn addiction to help other women! Catch up with their Facebook page HERE to find out more! 

I've also been trying to make a few Christmas cards for my own 'stash' - but I've a feeling that I'll be a bit behind with my own cards (& have to buy some!).  I did quite like this simple design using stamps I've had for ages from Chocolate Baroque and I love the sentiment on this one.  

I've used distress inks and added some gilding wax to give a slight sheen but sadly this doesn't show up on my pics! 

And there seems to be endless things to do at home! We've now sorted a little car as our youngest is learning to drive - can't believe my 'baby' is driving, another thing for me to worry about! And our daughter Lauren had an interview this week and has been offered her first teaching job at a lovely primary school in Sussex!  I'm so thrilled for her (even though I wish it was a bit nearer lol!). And of course we have our new addition to the family and we went for lovely baby cuddles last weekend with our new granddaughter who is just adorable! (But it's only natural that all new babies are adorable I suppose!).  And our son Jack enjoyed having cuddles with his new niece Isabella

Sorry for the rather long and rambling post - and I'll try and catch up with all your lovely blogs during the week! 

Back soon,

Kim x