Crochet out of my comfort zone

When it comes to my usual crochet I like bright colours and tend to keep to circles and squares. But with my friend’s birthday I enjoyed doing something out of my “crochet comfort zone” and reached for calmer natural colours (which she prefers) and I used this pattern to make a heart shaped decoration. At least I intended to make a heart shape decoration, which turned out to NOT be a very defined “heart” I also managed to struggle along the way and improvised a lot and got quite stressed as my time was running out… But overall the colour and shape change was quite refreshing and since then I’ve been itching to use calmer colours again.

a little bit of flowers and crochet

The temperature outside is rising and the sunshine is so warm, which means that Spring is just round the corner…and while waiting to finally welcome Spring I’ve been enjoying some lovely winter flowers…

..and trying out this crochet stitch/pattern… I like it because it doesn’t look very feminine and should make a good scarf (or cowl) for a little boy…who has lost his scarf a few weeks ago. The colours are quite wintery but can’t blame little boys for not wanting to wear bright spring colours:)

Mandala

Late night crochet…

And a drawing I made a couple of weeks ago.

Crochet flowers

Working on some crochet brooches at the moment

Ahhh weekend

My weekend was full of cold winter walks and pretty little snowdrops…

lots of granny squares crocheting and a little bit of joining them together… (not quite pleased with messy picture)

How was your weekend?

Thursday was a bit of everything…kind of day…

..it was a day of construction…

Jonah woke up in the morning and found a wrapping paper tube. He immediately put it into use constructing tunnels for tiny cars and skateboards. It was great to watch his little imagination at work.

Then I gave him masking tape and more tubes…and new construction followed…

…it was a day of lots of cups of green tea and crochet…

..trying out new watercolour paints (they are so brilliant and mess free)..

…and sharing some lovely creative time..

and we even had some snow!

The boys have been more tear’y the last two days, so a relaxed day was what we needed… well, what I needed:)

New crochet mandala

This was made for a present…I thought it could be easy enough to utilise around the house, as a tea pot coaster, or under a plant pot, or other places a doily would be used. (Though I guess even though I’d love to receive a crocheted present…maybe not everyone would?)

Celebrating harvest

At the weekend we visited Attingham Park, which is part of National Trust. It is an 18th century mansion and a great big estate, with amazing deer park, miles and miles of wonderful woodland as well as gardens to inspire (though I manage to bring my camera with an empty battery so didn’t take many pictures). It was a weekend of harvest festival and it was great to take part in it. There was some apple pressing using apples from their orchard, locally made cider, butter making and many other things to taste and see. I love these impressive harvest displays:

I haven’t been too enthusiastic recently when it comes to veggie picking in my garden. Knowing that with every basketful of tasty tomatoes, we re getting closer to the end of the season and am aware of all the digging and green house cleaning that will have to happen soon. But the wonderful harvest atmosphere stayed with me and I am more appreciative of our last few crops we re yet to enjoy.

On a quick and different note, this is where my blue African flowers found their home, brightening our hall way.

Monday

Recently I found myself between first week of school nursery (with my older son) and terrible two’s kicking in with my younger son, which made for a crazy, busy and extremely tiring week. If I could only wave a white flag and surrender… I would have done it daily. But starting the second full week of nursery and terrible two’s- with a beautiful, full of sunshine Monday morning felt a lot more manageable and I am very grateful for that. It’s funny that I could deal a lot better with stressful days and weeks at work, but my own little tiny children have super powers to break me in minutes!

Last week required a lot of my focused attention and I didn’t get up to much crafting, but here are a couple of little things I made:

 These earing are for a present which I wanted to give a very long time ago…huh there are still waiting to be wrapped and posted…

I really like african flower motif, and it was nice to take quick 15 minutes, while boys watched “Thomas” to learn it. I want to use it in a tiny house decorating project.

And here are photos I took on two of our trips to National trust places. I love those natural beautiful vibrant colours!

It kind of looks like a mandala…

Happy Monday!!!

Spending time in nature

The temperature seems to be dropping down everyday and I can feel every degree of it! It almost feels like I can smell Autumn in the air and it feels like it’s just around the corner! …so we ve been taking advantage of the last few days of the summer and still mostly dry weather and we ventured out to a few forests and meadows over the past few days. Being close to nature is wonderful and it stimulates children’s imagination in so many ways. From finding ” a bouncy branch” on an old oak tree, finding slippery slopes to run down or roll down from, to looking out for animal foot prints and collecting different tree leaves. It makes children feel free.

Beautiful heather, that we collected on one of our walks- it brightens up our kitchen windowsill.

…huh…with many outings…my crochet blanket has been growing quite sloooowly…but still growing :)