30 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in My ramblings
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Congratulations Rachel for being chosen as Inside Crochet magazine’s favourite blogger for this issue! I’m very happy for you and very grateful for the mention of my Crochet for Kidney Research UK event in the interview! I never expected such great publicity. Thank you so mucy!
25 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Crochet For Kidneys, My crochet, My ramblings
In my last post I shared with you the generosity of Stylecraft Yarns, who asked me to make something for Breast Cancer Awareness using the Stylecraft Special DK they sent me. At first I wasn’t sure what to make until…. I started paging through old issues of Simply Crochet magazine. Soooo much inspiration in those magazines. In issue 5 I came across a super quick and easy flower brooch pattern. Absolutely perfect for Breast Cancer Awareness.
For my readers outside of the UK, I just quickly have to explain that here October is All About Pink and raising awareness about breast cancer.
Breast Cancer Care is a charity that does a great job supporting and advising women about breast cancer.
When breast cancer and its treatment overshadow everything, we see the woman underneath. Breast Cancer Care is the only UK-wide charity dedicated to providing emotional and practical support for anyone affected by breast cancer. We campaign for better support and care and promote the importance of early detection, involving people with breast cancer in all that we do.
Last year… 1.5 million people sought information or support from our website, 950,000 copies of our expert publications were ordered or downloaded, we answered more than 12,000 calls to our Helpline and more than 1,500 Ask the Nurse email queries, we reached 3,375 people with our breast awareness talks, over 7,000 people used our face-to-face or other specialist services
Breast Cancer Care also thought up Pink Fridays. It’s a brilliant idea. Stylecraft Yarns are holding their Pink Friday today, so it’s only right that I share my “something creative” with you today.
The nitty-gritty of my Breast Cancer Awareness brooches:
Here they are – six pink flower brooches for Breast Cancer Awareness. As you can see, I’m wearing the cowl made with Stylecraft Espresso yarn that I won. I love it!
John has taken these brooches to work so that it can be sold the ladies in his office for their Pink Friday next week.
15 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in My ramblings
On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.
What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!
From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.
xxxxxx
Greetings from Spain! How gloriously colourful are these houses?!
Sadly it’s our last day here today. I will share more photos later in the week, but now I’m going to have another coffee at a cafe on the beach.
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday!
Adios
Natasja
10 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in In the press, My ramblings
Susie Morgan of the About Thames Ditton magazine interviewed John and I about yarnbombing and kidneys. It’s a crazy combination of topics I know, but that’s what makes us tick. I approached Susie to ask her to say something on the Facebook page of About Thames Ditton about the Crochet Event of 9 November. She then suggested an interview in stead! I couldn’t believe my luck! About Thames Ditton is delivered to 5,700 homes which is a much bigger reach than their Facebook page. Without this interview there’s no way that I could have reached even half this amount of people. John and I used the opportunity to say a bit about my yarnbombing, promote the event of 9 November and John talked a about his kidney donation experience. Thank you so much Susie for the opportunity!
You can read the interview by clicking on the photo below. It will open as a PDF document. You can also go the About Thames Ditton homepage to read the whole magazine in electronic format.
In less than a month it will be the Crochet for Kidney Research UK day! (In precisely 29 days, 23 hours and 24 minutes. Not that I’m counting or anything.) It’s been busy couple of weeks for me. I’ve been:
All of this without knowing how many people will be attending and kinda forgetting that I will need to interact with everyone and “host” the event. For real! It’s not just words on paper or a to do list, it’s really going to happen! 9 November I will wake up and know “this is the day that all the list making has been for”. It’s a bit scary, but my mind is (thankfully) not allowing me to get too caught up in the big picture. Brain is breaking everything down into manageable task which is much kinder on the stress levels. Thank you Brain, you’re ace! That, or you’re just blissfully ignorant about the event.
If anyone from Thames Ditton area is reading this, it would be really great if you could use this form to tell me that you will be there. You don’t need to know how to crochet, or indeed do any crocheting at all. If you bring your “entry fee” of something baked, you can buy a slice of someone else’s something baked, buy tea or coffee, buy raffle tickets, try your luck in the crochet quiz, and listen to John and Pieter talk.
**I can’t attend the Craft Sale in person as John and I will be in sunny Spain! *I’m taking purple and white yarn with me to make table decorations, and pink yarn that Stylecraft Yarn sent me, to make things for Breast Cancer Awareness.
08 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings, Terrific Tuesdays
On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.
What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!
From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.
xxxxxx
It’s a colour explosion! This is what our patio table looked like on Sunday afternoon. The sun came out so I rushed outside with a granny square coaster for my coffee, the smiling kidney granny squares (the free pattern is here) and my Sunset Shades chevron scarf. The balls of Vinni’s Colours were rolling all over the paving and I lost my crochet hook a few times through the gaps in the table, but it had to be done – when the sun comes out and the light is this perfect, I do my business al fresco.
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.
Natasja
29 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in My ramblings
Who is the lucky lady to win five balls of Vinni’s Colours Nikkim cotton hand dyed yarn?
Congratulations Brenda B!
Just to be clear on how the draw took place, I used Random.org to pick a random number between 1 and 24 seeing as I had 24 comments. Brenda’s comment was the 15th. (UTC time of 15:00 is GMT 16:00.)
Brenda please use the Contact Me form to send me your address and I’ll get your yarn in the post for you. Please let me know what you think of the yarn. In fact, send me photos of what you make! You must be so happy, seeing as your favourite colours were purple and now you’ve won the purple shades! Lucky you!
Thank you to everyone who commented. It was really an eye opener to see what shades you guys like the most. One surprise was that Mahogany came up five times. Who would have thought?
A lot of you said you like purple shades which is exactly the shades I have for sale in my Etsy shop. Remember, 25p from each ball sold goes to Kidney Research UK, so you’ll be doing your bit for charity whilst “enhancing” your stash. Win-win and no guilt for spending money on yarn!
29 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in My ramblings
The draw for these five balls of hand dyed cotton yarn will take place in about 3.5 hours.
Place your bets comments here.
Good luck!
27 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in CAL, My ramblings, Other people's crochet, Pattern
Do you remember this three dimensional flower square that I designed? I called it Granny Square in Bloom and used it in a cushion for my friend.
Ring a bell? Well, this free pattern has been translated from the US crochet terms into UK and Australian terms by Shelley Husband of Spincushions! Shelley lives in South West Victoria, Australia and runs a weekly crochetalong called In A Spin. She asked for my permission to use my pattern as square 45 for the In A Spin CAL. Of course I said yes! Shelly’s CAL has a Ravelry group and Flickr group. I had a great time flicking through all the photos of the squares. There are some pretty amazing blankets in the making over in Oz!
I asked Shelley to tell me more about herself and her crochetalong. Here’s what she said:
Early 2012, I decided to teach myself to crochet by doing a weekly CAL as run by a craft chain store here in Australia. I had so much fun doing it over the 25 weeks, I was a bit lost when it was finished. I decided to run my own CAL to take it’s place so I could continue to learn as much as I could. A lot of folks who did the same one have also tagged along on to the In a Spin CAL. As most are here in Australia, I have been asking permission from pattern designers to translate their patterns into UK terms. Its been great working with so many lovely folks. We are up to our 47th pattern now 🙂
I’ve been challenging CAL participants with some pretty tricky stuff, as well as some just beautiful patterns. We are coming close to the end of the project now – we’ll be done before Xmas 🙂
It’s been a great learning experience. I am so much more knowledgeable about this crochet thing 🙂 I still have heaps to learn.
I’ve begun to design my own patterns now and I just love sitting down with my fave hook and ball of yarn and seeing what comes out.
I feel very honoured that my pattern was chosen for this fun crochetalong. Shelley did me a huge favour by translating the pattern in to UK / Austrlian terms too! If you click here you will be taken to Shelley’s post entitled “In A Spin Week 45” and see the translated pattern. The Ravelry pattern page has also been updated to include Shelley’s translation.
If you are making Granny Square in Bloom squares in purple and white for the Crochet for Kidney Research UK event, Shelley’s translation will be very helpful to you.
I wish Shelley and her crochetalongers (is that a word?) all the best for their big project. I take my hat off to anyone that can stick to a crochetalong that runs for a whole year with a new square every week!
Thanks again Shelley for including my square in your crochetalong.
25 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in My ramblings, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me crocheting what I have crocheted. I hope you like it.
I didn’t have time over the weekend to video how I crochet, so I’m showing you what I have crocheted so far. It’s the Sunset Shades chevron scarf, using Vinni’s Colours Nikkim. Don’t forget, I’m hosting a giveaway of purple and white Vinni’s Colours Nikkim in this post. Please do enter! It’s really easy and you will love the colour explosion.
The shades you see in this scarf are Natural, Stone, Baby Yellow, Ballet Pink, Peach, Red Violet, Violet and Wine.
Click on the photo to see the video in my Instragram feed.
24 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in My ramblings
I’m so super excited about the Crochet for Kidney Research UK event on the 9th of November. Seriously people, this thing is coming together in such a blessed way! It’s amazing how the Universe provides when you just sit back and let it do it’s thing.
I firmly believe “whatever the mind can conceive it can achieve”. I’ve imagined how this event will turn out so all I had to do was ask people and companies to contribute, sit back and watch how it all falls into place. Easy. In some cases I didn’t even have to ask – they contacted me.
Let me give you some examples:
I have truly been blessed with the responses from people from all across the world who are crocheting squares. Have a look at the conversations on the Ravelry group, and you will see what I mean. There are ladies who plan to send me a box of squares. I kid you not!
All I can say to the sponsors, the companies and the crocheters is thank you, thank you, thank you. You have all been extremely generous.
At the moment I only have four confirmed attendees for the event but I know I will reach my goal of 40 people. There’s no way things can be falling in place the way it is, only for people not to show up. All the good vibes from everyone involved so far, will attract more good vibes and more good people. That’s just the way it is.
45 Days, 18 hours and 4 minutes to go. Bring it on!
crochetime 