Crafty Stuff

It's a beautiful day, sunshine and blue sky, but having spent most of the weekend working on my little garden and trying to make it pretty my back is aching so I'm having a day off gardening!

I thought I would share with you today some of my latest crafty projects. I used to do a lot of dressmaking and knitting when my children were small, and then a lot of cross-stitch, but all were abandoned when I decided to do a degree and teach. Then for years the only crafts and stitching I had time for were 'After School' craft clubs with the children!

But now I have lots of time on my hands.... for me, me, ME!

I started knitting a blanket in squares, not for Poppy Cottage, but for another even tinier cottage which we nearly bought but didn't!

This ended up on our guest bed

If you'd like to see more pictures and details of the pattern they can be found on my Ravelry page!

Then my granddaughter, Miss M, decided she would like a blanket for her bedroom here at Poppy Cottage

She chose pink and lemon to go with her room, and I knitted it in 4 ply squares, making up the patterns as I went along

It took ages to knit the border!

But looks pretty on her bed and she often brings it downstairs and snuggles under it in front of the television!

I borrowed my daughter's (Karen of Henrys-shed) sewing machine and made lots of pretty cushions to go on the bed too

Meanwhile Karen had joined Ravelry and was busy making lots of beautiful knitted and crocheted items and she taught me to crochet! Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

I started with a few granny squares, but didn't really enjoy doing them (and I HATED sewing the squares together in my knitted blankets!) and I was loving the Ripple blankets Karen had made using Lucy's pattern on Attic24. So... I chose colours to go with my living room in Poppy Cottage - yes, of course, RED!

I started with a practice piece to get the hang of it...

Then when I started the blanket I decided to add in some chocolate brown stripes...

I'm about halfway through - hope it's finished before the cold weather sets in, and I can snuggle under it in front of the fire!

My next project is Little Woollie's crochet-along mixed stitch stripy blanket, which I'll tell you about next time!

Thank you for visiting me at Poppy Cottage! Would love to hear from you!