Kitty Chaos

Ok so this post isn't crochet-related but I HAD to share our 5 new fluffy bundles of joy. This is the expectant Mum about 12 hours before she popped...fat and fidgety! (crochet blanket alert...) 

 My beautiful little Dusty gave birth to 5 kittens the next day on 24th May. 

She actually came to get me at 8am and wouldn't leave me alone so I made a cuppa, got my hook and wool beside me in case I was there all day and enouraged her in to the nest I had made....

Ten minutes later she started giving birth and by 11am we had 5 beautiful and absolutely perfect kittens all happily nursing from one very tired but proud mummy. 

This ginger boy is Beau

 This naughty Tortie is called Mo and we are keeping her

We named the others  Leo (ginger), Flo (ginger and white), and Lola (ginger and white) .

So as you can imagine I have been rather distracted over the last couple of months. As I write today we still have 4 left as the 3 we are letting go cannot leave til the new owners return from holiday...bitter sweet really to have them all this time as we are just falling in love with them more and more each day so it will be all the more harder to say goodbye in a few weeks time...


 

CATCH-UP TIME

It's been FAR too long since my last post...life and hooky just seem to take precedent I guess! So I have lots of new stuff to share but no idea where to start???

SOME TIME IN MAY....

I guess I'll start with a proud parent alert from back in May...this is the blanket that my 12 year old daughter made for her teacher who was off on maternity leave at the end of term...

She designed it by herself,

chose all the colours,

and even crocheted it all together...

...but guess who sewed all the ends in? Now THAT'S motherly devotion for you! 

Pom-Pom Poncho

Gosh I really have had a full week of hooky madness...mandalas, a cardigan, my 365 blanket, a Pistehead hat and to top it all on Sunday I got a sudden craving to make a poncho. Well I was full of cold so just wanted to veg on the sofa with my hook. Any excuse...

I didn't want to start a long project with lots of squares as I did one of these last year...

This was made with Popcorn Squares and a ribbed back using James C Brett Marble Chunky. I absolutely LOVE it but it is very heavy. Great for sitting round a camp fire /fire pit on a cool British Summer evening but not for skipping around Sainsburys. 

So I needed something lighter and quicker. Ravelry came up trumps with a simple pattern from Drops. 

I used James C Brett marble chunky again, with  a size 6 hook and it was super speedy to hook up. Simple though it is, I felt it needed a border of some description and remembered this cool crochet pom-pom edging 

so decided to give it a go... Ta Dah...Pom Pom Poncho!

Coffee-time Cardi

I had a lovely couple of hours on Friday morning drinking coffee and chatting with a friend and hooker who needed a teeny weeny bit of help with a project she's working on. But I couldn't sit there doing nothing so had taken one ball of this rather lovely wool with me...just in case. 

I had bought it on a whim from the lovely ladies in Stitchery Do...the very beautiful local wool shop in Wokingham. It was on offer at only £3 a ball so was crying out to be made in to something beautfiul.

I decided to make another version of the Jamie cardigan (that I have made twice now of out of very delicate lace-weight),  but as this wool is chunky it would have to be adapted as I went.

Two cups of tea, one latte and a toasted tea cake later and I was well on the way.

By Saturday evening it was finished...I did cheat a bit and omit all the pineapple pattern as it got rather lost in the  colour changes. I blocked it and added buttons and hey presto ta dah! ...my 'Monsoon' Sleeveless cardi. Very pleased with it actually. And it only came to £12 so a bargain!

Mandala Madness

I'm afraid I've succumbed like most hookers around me at the moment...I've just been unable to resist the colourful pull of the crocheted Mandala anymore. Despite not really knowing what they're for exactly,  except to use as a mat or pot holder, I still think they are really very very beautiful. 

Some of my faves are here on this fab blog . 

The combinations are endless, as are the types of yarn you can use, so it's a great way to use up some of those scraps we all have laying around. 

The lovely Lucy from Attic 24 is asking hookers and groovers from around the planet to send in a Mandala each. She has designed one herself and she hopes to display them all in a massive mandala yarn bomb/art installation at Yarndale this year. 

So I had to have a go. Here's my first one...

It still needs to be stiffened with PVA glue but I'll do that when I have a few...I have asked some of my lovely Barkham Hookers to have a go too so we can send in a group offering. Lucy is very clear on one thing...you can only send in one each! 

There was also a link to a beautiful Star Flower Mandala by Zelna Olivier on Lucy's page .....all these beautiful designs and colours just make me want to make hundreds of them and hang them randomly around my house, my garden, trees in the park....

I hooked up this one below last week with cotton...such a lovely pattern and oh-so-addictive...

There will be more...watch this space...

Birthday Bike and Bunting

My gorgeous hubbie promised me a Dawes bike for my birthday back in March but I had set my heart on this particular grey/powder blue version of the Duchess model which apparently hadn't even been made yet for general sale,  so I had to order it and wait.....

...it finally arrived yesterday so I was dropped off at the bike shop 4 miles away and peddled my way home in the glorious sunshine, sporting my Hi-Vis crocheted jacket, of course. Safety first. 

Can't imagine why my 14 year old pro-cyclist son who was accompanying  babysitting me threatened to leave me stranded if I put it on...

I think it went rather well actually; I changed gears and everything. 

Anyway, once home I had only one thing on my hooky mind...BIKE BUNTING!

So I opened a bottle of red, grabbed my hook, logged on to Lucy's blog to use her triangle bunting pattern and hey ho within the hour...ta dah! 

I thought that little HexOwl deserved a spin in the sun although she slept through the whole thing it has to be said. How rude.

Watch this space for more bike bombing...

***STOP PRESS***

I really still can't believe it but...daughter number 2 just came running into the kitchen yelling, "Mummy!! Look what I've found behind the sofa...!!!!". Naturally I expected her to produce a half-eaten-mainly-mouldy-very-smelly-deceased-rodent of some description which my gorgeous cat had deposited there some time ago. But NO! 

It was :

a) Woolly (always a good start)

b) Neither alive nor fetid (very good on both counts)

c) Purple (also good)

d) A bit dusty (bad housewife)

Can you guess what it is yet? 

Well, if you have already read my 'Calamity Cardigan' post in my Ta Dah column you know all about me making a rather time-consuming-labour-of-love-and-also-bloomin-expensive-cardi last year. And then losing the thing in Reading.

No No No!

Or so I thought. 

Yes Yes Yes! Miracle of miracles,  it has just turned up behind our sofa! I am still gobsmacked as I really did think that was it. One dilemma now though. 

I made another one to replace the 'lost' one. ..

...so now I have two....

..why  oh why didn't I do it in another colour? ??