By Helen

out, out, out…

We have been out!  Out and about enjoying a glorious week off work: enjoying the warm early spring weather.  Taking full advantage of our National Trust and English Heritage membership.

The week started with a trip out to Fountains Abbey, which is just an hour away from York and is one of our favourite places to visit…

It has everything, an amazing abbey…

Beautiful light…

But also the Studley Royal formal gardens….

And lots and lots and lots of amazing Snowdrops…

Wednesday meant a trip to another National Trust property, Nunnington Hall…

Then on Friday back to another abbey, Jervaulx Abbey, which is more of a romantic ruin, especially compared with Fountains…

One thing to be said about Jervaulx is that it has the most AMAZING tea-room, which is well worth a visit!

Each evening it was back home for some serious hooky time, the results of which will be posted in the coming weeks and months, curling up with hot cups of tea and settling down to some reading…

How wonderful this week has been!  Perfect!

February’s flower of the month…

As promised here is the crochet flower of the month for February…

I decided to continue the Valentine's Day theme, with a crocheted red rose.  The truth of the matter is that it was my intent to crochet  myself a dozen red roses for the days itself.  As ever, life and living got in the way and I ended up with seven! 

The rose is crocheted using the super soft Debbie Bliss eco-baby yarn...

The rose is sooo simple to make, it really is.  All you do is crochet a long chain, and then work your way back along the chain using the taller stitches of trebles, double-trebles and triple-trebles.  This naturally makes the rose coil…

Give the coil some encouragement and secure with some stitches through the bottom.

I don’t think that this rose is a bad representation of the real thing….

What do you think?

crochet stitches...

I suspect very many of you are like me: and have shelves and shelves full of books.  It has been my thought to gradually, over time, to blog reviews of each of them (well the crochet ones: other wise reviewing ALL of them would be a whole new blog).  So far in the year (yes it really has been almost a year) of blogging I have reviewed a grand total of one book that is devoted just to crochet.

So, here is number two...

This is one of my favourite, fall back books.  When you are reading a pattern, or wanting to crochet something beautiful, this is the book that takes you back to basics and offers you an array of stitches to chose from.  It has an amazing illustrated stitch index, making it really reader friendly.  Each stitch is then explained in detail and charted.  My only negative here is that some of the charts are printed in yellow.  Yellow on white printing, is something which I struggle with. 

On one of those mad days I did come up with the idea to crochet my way through the book.  Then after mastering each of the 200 stitches (including the section on Tunisian crochet) I could call myself a real-life, proper, grown-up crocheter.  Need-less-to-say this is one of those things that I haven't yet got around to doing!

This book should be on all crocheters' book shelves, as it is brilliant as a book for beginners and equally good for those with more knowledge. 

Go on treat yourself Now...

 

a belated happy Valentine’s day…

Well who needs just the one day to share the love?   I thought that I would crochet a decoration for Valentine’s Day.  It is based on the tiny hearts, which came from the wonderful Attic 24, that I made way back at the beginning of my blog.  I added a couple more rounds, so the tiny hearts got a little bit bigger….

They were then blocked, using the water and glue method, like I did with my Starflake…

Stitch three together…

And ta-dah…

A decoration to hang on your door.  Or you could make lots and lots and make them in to bunting, but that is for another day...

making up a gargoyle...

Remember the collection of gargoyle body parts that my amazing friends knitted for me? I managed to find the time to make them up. Actually I found the time a while ago, I have only just found the time to blog about it. So, without further delay…ta-dah…

My friend (who is a VERY VERY talented and competent knitter) did find the pattern a challenge to work-up, and I also found the making-up a bit of a challenge. There was some level, on both our parts, of interpreting the pattern and making some assumptions. But things seemed to work out.

My crochet brain kept asking why wasn’t this made in the round? It made me think of how I would go about crocheting a gargoyle…

…that will have to wait for another day…

Today I have to work on an order for a hat, a cowl and a scarf…

To the hook!

Please note

The knitted gargoyle was placed in the garden on the last sunny day we had. He was placed there only for the photograph for this posting. He does not live in the garden. The stone gargoyle does reside in the garden: but he is hardy and tough and has lived there for at least eight years. No gargoyle was hurt in bringing this blog to you.

 

let it snow...

The snow came and came and came.  Then it froze.  Now it is snowing again.  I should confess at this stage that I LOVE snow.  What else changes the appearance of the whole world?  Everything is different when it snows: the world even sounds different.  It gives you the perfect excuse for wrapping up in woolly jumpers, hats and scarfs and going on a snow walk.  That is exactly what Si and I did...

Then back home for a steaming cup of tea, and some hooky time in front of the fire...

last month's flower of the month...continued...

Gosh, isn’t it cold?  No snow here yet: but it meant to be on its way.  For now the Snowdrops remain the only flecks of white on the ground…

I guess that this is very appropriate, given that we are in the midst of the very old festival of Imbolc heralding the start of Spring.

So where had we got to?  I was starting the making up of the Snowdrop…

I was quite surprised to discover that using wool gave a better finish to the petal’s, than using cotton.  If you had asked me before I started this my money would have been on the cotton finish…

The petals were joined together, to form the inner and outer parts of the flower (will try and learn the proper terms for parts of the plant) and a stem was attached. 

I feel a ta-dah moment coming…

I am pleased with now this has turned out:  though need to work on the finishing.  I think that if I showed someone the flower they would say that looks like a Snowdrop…

Or I hope that they would..?