Hooked

I taught myself to crochet when I was about eleven or twelve. My Grandma was amazing at crochet and after watching her one day I asked if she could teach me how to do it. We were just leaving to go home and she popped upstairs and fetched me a crochet hook, some crochet cotton and an old Coats crochet instruction book so that I could have a go and see if I could do it.

Although Mum was a fab knitter she didn't know how to crochet so I sat by myself with the things Grandma had given me and I taught myself how to crochet from that little black and white book of wonder. Next time I saw Grandma I showed her my doubles, trebles and clusters and she showed me how to neaten things up and how to do a couple more stitches. I gave her the crochet book back and I bought my own copy which I still have.

Now, although I've always been able to crochet and have occasionally made the odd item here and there, I never liked it as much as knitting. My BFF Jen sent me Jan Eaton's '200 Crochet Blocks' for my birthday and these past few evenings I've been sat making squares aplenty. I'll stitch them together to make a blanket as soon as I have enough.

I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. The nice thing about crochet is the speed at which it grows; way faster than knitting. It's really good to be able to switch from working tight, intricate cables on a knitted sock to crocheting bold stripes and flowers within a blanket square. Crafty equilibrium.

'Poppies'

I made some poppy lentils like this a good few years ago. Since then they have been one of my most requested bead designs but I've never remade them ... until now.

The 18mm clear lentil beads are decorated with bright red poppes. The use of enamels gives the petals a variegated, almost painterly effect. Each one of these lentils takes me about half an hour to make and they are such tricky beads to photograph. Red glass, like lavender glass,  hates artificial light. They look best taken in bright sunshine but alas, there is none of that today. 

These would look beautiful as a bracelet and lentil beads are so comfy to wear. I've teamed these pretty poppies with some small spacer beads.

They are available over on my Freshly Baked Beads page now.

'Splash Of Scarlet'

Classic black and white with a splash of gorgeous red.

These are for sale in the the usual place right now.

Halfway to seventy

Tis my birthversary today. My best friend, Jenni, made me this groovy, colourtastical and jollymaking scarf. I love it! I've had lots of wonderful presents and cards and the sun is shining so it's a pretty dang good birthday so far.

I'm going to sit in the garden with a pot of Earl Grey and have a natter with the guinea pigs now.

Zoom!

I went home to Hedge End this weekend to stay with my sister as it was my niece's birthday party. The weather was lovely. I took the above photo of my niece pushing my youngest sister on my nephew's bike. Crazy pair were making me giggle!

Whilst the wonderful Wartime Farm has been on I've been adding beads to my Freshly Baked Beads page and editing some photos of bracelets that I made last week.

My laptop is becoming hilariously bad to use. I've given up swearing at it and I kind of just go "Aw, you're just an old technobiddy!" to it instead. Poor old Sonya. She's hanging on, bless her dodgy spacebar.

Tomorrow I must remove the weeds in the back garden. Some of them are shoulder height. I have no idea what they are but they are big and plentiful. Seriously, the guinea pigs look like they're in a forest when they venture into the weed patch.

I'm off to find some strawberries to munch. I'm on a diet, a proper Slimming World one, but that's a whole other blog post ...