Comfort Crochet

Hello lovelies,

Well my "playing with yarn" day on Wednesday may have meant I managed OK at work yesterday, but today the lurgy finally got me. So today it's been a "lemsip and hankie" sort of day.

No shopping has taken place and I've ,once again, been taking comfort in my crochet.
I'm up to 90 squares now and I couldn't resist laying it on the bed to get an impression of what it will look like. It's 12 squares wide , which I think will be enough , once I add the border.They're not he best pictures as it's so dark here today.......



What do you think ? I must say a absolutely adore it . The bright circles remind me of summer flowers and are just the thing to cheer me up during the dull days to come.
As you can see I'm planning the colours for each row as I go. Hopefully this avoids too many similar colours close together.....



Thank you for all the Circle Love you've already sent my way. I'll leave you with another picture. The boys are out to tea so I'm just off to sit down with another lemsip and hook few more squares :0).....


Jacquie x

Playing With Yarn

Hello, how was your Wednesday ? Hopefully not too bad, and remember ,it's all down hill to the weekend now :0)

I've been feeling a little bit yuck today. So to cheer myself up I've been playing with yarn.
I have a rather large yarn stash these days. Mostly cheap and cheerful acrylic .I really think this stuff is great.
Yes, sometimes it can be a little scratchy , but once you get to know the nicer brands (like Hayfields Bonus, Patons Fab or Cygnet )it's generally great to work with, and reassuring to know it will stand up to repeated washing and won't attract moths.
The reasonable cost is a big factor too. In a household where there are so many demands on our finances ,it's great to have a hobby that costs so little.

Using some ice cream colours ,I made a few more circles for my blanket....



Of course I do occasionally buy yarn that ,in hindsight, is a bit tacky.The colours are a bit too "neon " when they are viewed in the daylight. They languish ,hidden at the back of my stash .
These two are prime examples....



Lime green, and neon orange, the colours that taste forgot !!

Still you never know if they may come in handy one day, and today turned out to be just such a day.I found this pattern via Ravelry. and made this........
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A bit of fun for Halloween.

She is quite a pretty Witch , don't you think.........



And she was enjoyable to make, on a day that I wasn't feeling like doing much at all.

Jacquie x

Monday Smiles

Hello, hope your week has started well.

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments on my last post.
Well the weekend flew by , like they do .
Today it was back to work and school, alarm ringing in my ears at 6.30 am

Never mind , I had to smile when I finished work and was greeted by warm sunshine.
Stopping off for food essentials on the way home I picked up these cheerful flowers , reduced to half price.........



Checking my watch I reconed there was just enough time to pop in the charity shop , and not be late for the school run. I'm so glad I did, because I picked up a ball of yarn, and this beauty.........



Yes, I'd found three things , for less than five pounds in total, that made me happy. All in the space of ten minutes. Don't you just love it when that happens :0)

Have a great week .
Jacquie x

Oh , nearly forgot , I added some more circles to my blanket at the weekend,I'm up to 66 so far..........

Joining the Circles

Hello , hope your Friday wasn't too hectic.

My day was bliss. No clock watching except for the school runs.

No trailing round the supermarket. Just a friendly Sainsbury's man dropping my shopping off .

I even found motivation to go for a run, then it was crochet ,crochet ,crochet for the rest of the day. I don't know about you but I like my own company some days . After being sociable all week at work I was so ready for some peace and solitude.

Reading back yesterdays post I had to smile about my Housework comment. Anyone who visits our home knows it is far from a show home. Do you want to see.....


Every thing in here is pretty old. I can't lie , I would love to replace all this , but for now it's livable and I'm not too stressed when something else gets spilt . As I type 4 boys (my 3 plus a friend) are playing a pretty rough game in here, nothing nasty ,just you know, how boys play .
I guess there will be time, to have a neater, newly furnished home in the future :0)

Any way back to something prettier.Did you spot my crochet on the rug?.....


Twenty squares were finished by lunchtime, Here is my creative space, and where I blog. It's in the dining part of our lounge diner and I like that it's not tucked away, but easy to supervise boys games!...........



In the afternoon I finished my first ball of white, you were right Victoria , it does use more than you think. I'm also thinking I'll need more circles too.
I got the dull weather I had wished for , which made it hard to take decent photos !
Here's my afternoon snack, A cup of tea and a toasted teacake, yummy .....



And here is where I'm up to right now.........



40 squares, I think it's looking pretty good so far.Hopefully I'll manage to add a few more over the weekend.
Have a good one.
Jacquie x

Planning Me Time

Yay, it's nearly Friday.

I always look forward to Friday as it means no more work till next week, for me, and the weekend is nearly here.

This week I'm sooo excited though, as I have a plan for tomorrow.
My extra work day means I am suffering from a lack of pottering/crafting/me time these days. So this week I have been plotting and preparing to make sure tomorrow I can spend the WHOLE day doing just that ( don't tell Mr BM ! )

I've done an online shop , so I don't have to waste any of my precious craft day in the supermarket.
I've also done extra house work so I won't feel too guilty about indulging myself .

I was actually hoping for rain ! I love being snuggled up indoors when it's pouring outside.
Looks like it is going to be another exceptionally nice day, if the forecast is correct. Never mind, I was out and about yesterday, admiring the gorgeous autumn scenes. The freshly planted crops looked so spring like......



And the villages looked very pretty in the sunshine......




So I won't be sad to be indoors tomorrow.

I've also been preparing by sewing in the ends on my circles........



And buying white yarn, 5 balls is probably excessive but at £1.19 a ball ,from The Range , it's not going to break the bank.....



I can't wait to start joining my circles , to see what they look like with a white border. I'll be joining as I go , great tutorial for this method here.

Yes , I'll be drinking lots of tea, hooking away , and checking out my favourite blogs. As well as looking at all the great inspiration here .

I'll be taking photos to share with you lovelies , so pop back soon to see the results of my hooky day :0)
Jacquie x

Squashes, Piles and Pies

Ummm, that's about the weirdest post title I've come up with so far!

Hope your week has got off to a good start. I've got loads I want to share ,again, but not much time so I'll get on with it ,shall I ?

The squashes in the title of this post is actually one squash, this one....



Picked up with my shopping , I think it looks lovely with the sunflowers rescued from our rainy garden..........



Here's a close up of the sunflower, got to love these too .......





Next to piles......piles of brightly coloured circles.........



I've got 120 now. I've been making them in groups of three similar colours over the weekend. Meet Blues and purples.....



Orange and greens..........



Blue,pink,red...........



Yellows and greens.....



and my personal favourite Pinks and turquoise.........




I'm thinking I may have made enough now, no maths involved , just guess work :0)

I want to add a wide border like I did for this smaller blanket I made earlier this year.....



This is my favourite thing of all time that I have made,it's inspired by Lucy at Attic 24.



As you can see from the picture it's not big enough to cover our bed , I wish it was. So these lovely piles are destined to become a double bed sized blanket.
I've used brighter colours this time and I'm planning to join them with white.....



Now quickly onto the pies. Another misleading title, as there are no pies yet !
Just several jars of this .......



Homemade mincemeat. I followed this recipe . It was very simple, the boys did a lot of the work.......




I'm hopeing it makes some great pies when the time comes. Maybe it will become a BM household tradition. Speaking of the Festive season, I've also joined my first swap !
Yes Hooking with La La's secret santa swap was just too tempting.......

Have a great week, speak again soon .
Jacquie x

Button Closure for Crochet Cushions

Hello lovelies ,hope your Friday is going well. Firstly I must say THANK YOU SO MUCH for your comments.You lot are really the best :0)

After a hectic work day yesterday it was such a nice surprise to return home to 23 lovely comments on my cushion.

A few of you asked about how I make my button closure.I'm more than happy to share my method ,which is just made up by me, I'm not sure what others do.

So here goes-

When using this method I finish both halves with 2 rows of U.K. double ( U.S. single crochet) .This serves two purposes.
1. It means that when the two sides are sewn together you end up with 4 rows of close stitches around the edge which looks neat and holds its shape well...



2. It also means I can make simple button holes on one side of one half.
I really don't think it matters if the buttonholes are worked in the back or front.
What does matter is making sure they are not too far apart. ....



As you can see from this picture, in this cushion there are only 3 stitches between buttonholes. This means you don't end up with the pad showing through,as I have had happen in the past.

The buttonholes are simply made by skipping 2 stitches in the last row and chaining 2 before D.C. (UK) S.C. (US) in the third stitch of previous row.
I hope this makes sense. Remember you can always click on my pictures to enlarge them.
If you have bigger buttons you may need to adjust the size of your buttonholes accordingly.

Once you have finished making enough buttonholes,which will depend on the size of your cushion,complete the row and finish off.

I join the two halves by putting them right sides together and over sewing in outer loops only.Remember to leave an opening on the buttonhole edge.

Once the two sides are joined turn the cushion right sides out and attach your buttons opposite the buttonholes.......


Well I hope this helps , feel free to ask if anything is still not clear.
Hope you have a great weekend .
Jacquie x