A pale green and pale purple post

There's something so calming about this colour combination. My eyes find it soothing.

These ones have CiM Dirty Martini cores encased with a thick layer of Effetre pale emerald green 031 and the polka dots and spacers are Effetre light lavender blue (which is sometimes called pastel ink blue which was its original name) 247.

These beads are available in both my Etsy shop and my my webshop.

I made a confession to my sister yesterday. We've always loathed Crocs and swore we'd never own any. I've been mercilessly rude about them and I think they're one of the ugliest items of footwear ever created. Yesterday I had to text Sally and tell her that I've bought some and guess what? So has she!

It started when she bought her husband a pair of what she called 'Mocks' (imitation Crocs) from the middle of Lidl. Sal said she'd started slipping Paul's Mocks on whenever she needed to pop into the garden. I said that Chris could do with something similar as he kept treading mud into the house on his trips to and from the garage so Sal bought Chris some too and then I started slipping his on whenever I needed to pop into the garden.

Obviously Chris' ones were too big for me so I looked on Amazon for some Mocks of my own but the reviews were scathing and some pale purple actual Crocs were on offer for just a couple of quid more than the imitation ones, so I got them.

How are they so hideous?

Oh my word, they are as comfy as every Crocs wearer has ever told me they are. Humble pie well and truly scoffed. I still think Crocs are totally fugly and I will never wear them out and about but they're really good garden and shed shoes.

Talking of the garden, my sea holly is making a comeback. It didn't flower last year so this year I gave it some fresh soil and fertiliser and it's doing great.

You can just see its blue tinge starting to appear. I love this plant and so do the bees and ladybirds.

In crochet news...

I've got nothing to show you today. I've got a shawl on the go but it's a very lacy, slow-growing one and it's black so it just looks like a pile of black yarn at the moment.

The yarn for an octopus for my nephew is arriving today. He asked for a bright purple one so I was very chuffed about that.

And I'm working on finalising my first crochet pattern. It's for a shawl that I designed last year and I wrote a rough pattern draft, moved on to a hundred other things, and now I'm back writing it out properly. It's got a chart and everything. I've enlisted a few testers to help me make sure the pattern works and then I'll send it out into the world.