Terrific Tuesday

13 Tuesday Mar 2012

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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

Source: flickr.com via Natasja on Pinterest

 

Isn’t this the most amazing crochet vase?! If you click on the photo, it will take you to Pinterest, which in turn will take you to the original photo in the Flickr photostream of Liset, of HandmadeLiset.  With a vase like this, who needs flowers?!

Wishing you all a Terrific, colourful, Tuesday.

Have a good one!

Natasja

Breakfast in a treehouse

12 Monday Mar 2012

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Have you ever had breakfast in a treehouse? I have, and it was magical!

Three friends and I went to Fanny’s Farm Shop near Reigate in Surrey on Saturday.

Fanny’s Farm Shop was created in 1979 by Fanny Maiklem, selling her glut of runner beans, courgettes, lettuces, dahlias and gladioli on a barrow outside her shop. Nowadays Fanny’s Farm Shop is known for its’ fabulous clotted cream teas, delicious locally made cakes, award winning marmalade, honey, eggs and even marmalade sausges.

We were booked in for the 10 am breakfast slot in the treehouse. Breakfast consisted of two of the most delicious, steaming, fresh from the oven, croissants and a roll and a hot drink. Spreads included honey, jams, peanut butter, Marmite and chocolate spread. The jams, honey and peanut butter are local Surrey produce. If you book the 12 noon, 2pm or 4pm sessions you can choose from set menus that include scones, sandwiches and cake – literally High Tea, high in a tree.

Even without food and drink, our hour in the treehouse would have been something to remember. Its cozy, quirky, rustic, private and pretty all in one. You never seem to get used to the fact that the table you’re sitting at, is built around three tree trunks!

The whole farm shop is area is filled with the same quirky, rustic, pretty things. It really is sensory overload. I couldn’t walk two steps without having to take a photo.

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As a note, the milk jug in the treehouse was covered with a doilie so there’s the justification for sharing my treehouse breakfast with you.

If you are ever in the Surrey area, a visit to Fanny’s Farm Shop is a must!

Keep calm and crochet on

09 Friday Mar 2012

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It’s 13:00 on a Friday. That means I will be going out to lunch soon (to post a baby blanket that was bought on Folksy last night! Yeah!). It also means in 4.5 hours it will be the start of the weekend. I just love Friday evenings, don’t you? It really is my favourite day of the week. Just knowing that once I walk out of the office I have two whole days, plus an evening, of total relaxation and time to do what I really love.  Utter bliss!

Things I have planned for this weekend are:

  • This evening I will start hooking a cardigan using a Garnstudio pattern and the baby silk alpaca I raved about here. I’m excited, but also a bit scared of my venture into wearables…
  • The Tesco man is also coming round to deliver the weekly shop tonight. What a blessing online grocery shopping is!
  • Tomorrow morning three friends and I will be going for breakfast in a treehouse! Seriously. I kid you not: a proper treehouse! I will definitely be taking photos to show you.
  • Do the usual housework things
  • Do as much crochet as I can. Well, that’s not specific to this weekend. It’s kinda my motto in life.

What are your weekend plans? Whatever you plan, I think this poster by PosterPop has the right idea 🙂

Have a good one Hookers!

Terrific Tuesday

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in My crochet, My ramblings, Terrific Tuesdays

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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

Here’s me modelling the result of a leisurely Sunday afternoon spent jazzing up a Boden skirt with a croched edge. I have two more skirts I want to beautify with crochet, so I’ll do a proper blog post soon.

Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.

Have a good one!

Natasja

Circular Coastal Colours Cushion

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in GIF, My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

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It’s all about the sea “c” today in this Circular Coastal Colours Cushion blogpost. Sea See what I did there?  You sea see, *okay, I’m stopping now* Lynn Holland asked me to make her a 12 inch round cushion in coastal colours after seeing *told you I’d stop* my square cushions.

I’ve always wanted to make a round cushion, but now that our home is full of crochet things I dont’ think my dear husband would survive another crochet cushion venture of our own… I therefore jumped at the opportunity to hook something round and cushiony, even if it is for someone else.

I sent Lynn a couple of photos and links to round cushion patterns, and she decided on the back of Lucy at Attic24’s Blooming Flower cushion. That’s exactly what I would have chosen if I had made the cushion for myself! 

I already had yarn in coastal shades in my (huge) stash of Stylecraft Special DK that was left over from the Identity Crisis blanket.  That meant all I had to buy was the duck feather inner. I bought a 14 inch inner (two inches bigger than the crochet so that it would be nice and puffy) from Design-a-Cushions. If you live in the UK, I highly recommend this company for cushion inners.

So here it is. Lynn’s circular coastal colours cushion! Ta-daaaaah!

From this GIF you can see that the front and the back is different. I did the side with the green stripes first, and then realised it looked a bit dark, so the other side has no green and more white and light blue.  It’s amazing the difference one colour can make don’t you think?

Of course I had to put the cushion on our bed with the granny square cushions and Identity Crisis blanket.  It looks soooo good! 

As of 12:45 today the cushion is on its way to its new home. I really enjoyed our time together but I’m sure it will be very welcome and loved in its new home.

(There is a slight possibility that I may have the opportunity to make another one of these. My niece, the one for whom I made the Bayb Born jackets, is coming to visit at the end of March. Maybe, just maybe, she’d want a pink stripey round cushion to take home with her. Here’s hoping.)

 

Crochet on TV (The Big Bang Theory)

01 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in As seen on TV, Other people's crochet

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It’s been a while since I’ve spotted any crochet on TV. In fact, I still haven’t seen any crochet since my last post. Where do the images in this post from Big Bang Season 5 Episode 18 come from then, you may ask.

They were taken by my dear Hubby. He was watching Big Bang in his Man Cave, while I was crocheting in my usual spot on the couch, watching Desperate Housewives. (He has been known to say things like “I can feel brain cells dying” when he is unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Gabby/Bree/Susan/Lynette fretting over missing dead bodies/poisoned brownies/run-over PTA members).

He may be waaaay to cool for Desperate Housewives, but luckily not so cool that he wouldn’t take a photo of a granny square afghan for his crochet mad wife.  Love you Hubby ♥. 

But enough gushing for now, back to the hooking.

My very first “Spotted on TV!” post was about this very afghan in Amy’s apartment. You can see it here. These photos however give us a much better picture. It looks like the afghan is made up of 4-round granny squares, with the fourth round of each square in the traditional black. 

Usually the squares for an afghan made up of different colour combinations, are put together very randomly, but here the red-and-black squares are grouped together in clusters throughout the blanket. I can see at least three clusters of red-and-black squares. There’s also a diagonal line of white-and-blue squares. I can’t decide whether I like these groupings or not…. I wonder whether this was intentional? What do you think?

No matter whether you like the placement of the squares or not, no-one can deny that Sheldon looks so sweet and comfy under his blanky. Covered with a granny square afghan is like getting a hug from, well, your granny. Got to love it!

Spring is here!

01 Thursday Mar 2012

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Greetings on this First Day of Spring for us Northen Hemisphere peeps.

I can really feel, and see, the change all around and I love it! It’s noticeabely lighter in the mornings when my alarm goes off, temperatures are much milder (13 degrees feels like a heatwave!) and daffodils, like these in our back garden, are all around.

 

I’m also seeing more summery clothes in the shops and online and a lot of these summery things include crochet.  These little numbers I found on Free People. I don’t have the guts to carry off a crocheted bikini or swimsuit, but man it looks good!!!

 

Who knew crochet could be this sexy?!

If you want to hook your own sexy little crochet number, Garnstudio has four free crochet bikini patterns. 

I won’t be doing a blogpost showing you a crocheted bikini however. I think the closest I will get to crochet + beach, is sitting on the beach crocheting something, in my boardshorts and spaghetti strap t-shirt.  Not quite the same, but it’s close enough.

Terrific Tuesday

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Etsy, My ramblings, Terrific Tuesdays

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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

Source: etsy.com via Natasja on Pinterest

 

I love everything about this image. The granny square fabric covered mannequin (which you can buy  here, on CorsetLacedMannequin’s Etsy shop), the sky blue chair, the white wood panelling, the mirror, the Attic24 style hexagon blanket: everything is gorgeous!

Surely this is enough to turn Tuesday into Terrific Tuesday.

Have a good one!

Natasja

 

Alta’s infinity scarf

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

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Do you remember the Infinity Scarf I made for my friend Helmien? I blogged about it here.

Well, Sunday evening I finished the third infinity scarf. This one is for Helmien’s friend, Alta. I’ve met Alta twice and she’s just a lovely as Helmien. Obviously with the same good taste 😉

Helmien tells me that she and Alta went to a coffee shop the day after I gave Helmien her scarf. When Helmien got up to go to the ladies, a woman followed her to the ladies to ask her where she got her scarf because she wants one too! Lovely Helmien told her about my Etsy shop and told the woman (who is a South African, visiting her daughter here in England) to Google “crocheTime” if she wants to contact me. I haven’t heard from the lady (yet), but it’s still an amazing story don’t you think?!

Anyway, back to this scarf. Alta wanted a scarf purely in Drops Delight shade no. 15 because she loves red. I think the red really pops in this yarn. It doesn’t matter if you wear this scarf with a red or blue coat, your eye will always be drawn to the red – ideal for a red-lover like Alta.

As with my and Helmien’s scarfs I also used a My Picot pattern. This one is pattern no. 2005. It’s the most intricate of the three I’ve used so far – not the type of pattern you can mindlessly hook whilst watching Desperate Housewives! I tried. I had to undo a couple of rows.

I used a total of five balls of yarn and a 3.5mm hook. Next time I think I will make the scarf a bit wider with this pattern, as it’s a very open and lacey which means it needs to be quite wide so that it will scrunch up better around your neck.

Don’t you just loooove this yarn? Even the most boring crochet pattern (which My Picot no. 2005 certainly wasn’t) will be a pleasure to hook because the numerous colour changes keep things interesting.

For now (i.e. until next Winter) I’m finished with infinity scarfs in Drops Delight. The next project awaits: a special order round cushion for my biggest supporter.

Big Benny

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in GIF, My crochet, My ramblings

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Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Can you see how time flies?

I thought my first GIF must show one of my ticking clocks – it just makes sense considering the theme of this blog don’t you think? But what clock should I choose for the GIF debut?

It’s got to be the biggest one I have – the 45cm Big Benny in shades of green.  I don’t think people realise just how big it is! Big Benny is for sale in my Etsy shop for £40. Just click here.

As for GIF’s. Well, a GIF is the name of a file extention (like PDF, JPG or DOC).  It stands for Graphics Interchange Format (geek speak to my ears) and basically means a file of moving images in a loop – not a video, but not a static photo either.

I was introduced to GIFs in blogs, by Christelle who told me about One Sheepish Girl’s blog. She has the cutest GIFs! I use a iPhone App to create mine but a quick Google search will produce many other GIF creating websites.

My GIFs are nothing compared to the amazing, fascinating, beautiful GIF-type images by fashion photographer, Jamie Beck. Honestly people, have a look at these photos – it’s not photos, and it’s not GIFs – it’s cinemagraphs.

The GIF possibilities are endless, so expect to see a lot more on my blog.