Short days and Twinkly Lights

Hello Lovelies, 

I do hope you have had a good week with not too many worries and lots of happy moments. We have started to receive a few Christmas cards. They are all really nice but this one stood out to me as I adore all the detail and humour

It's sold in support of the British Hedgehog preservation society too....perfect.

 We haven't had any more snow or much frost this week. It's been largely grey and often rainy. Nevertheless I've been doing well with my walking and haven't missed a day. This weeks walks range from 1 to 6 miles. Yesterday I did 4 miles on a lovely sunny afternoon.

It's all local paths I'm very familiar with but the light changes with the seasons and when the trees loose their leaves.

The cold weather encourages the birds to come straight down for the food I leave too. This always makes me smile.

As of today I have 46 miles left to reach my 800 outdoor miles goal for 2021. It's not the 1000 miles I easily reached last year but I'm still counting it as a win. 

 Life is much busier this year.

 I'm very happy youngest is now working from home for a while as I'm not that keen on driving after sunset on unlit roads these days. Plus taking him to work and fetching him home every day was costing a small fortune in petrol and eating even more into my outdoor time.

Though I must add I'm super proud of the way he has quickly adapted to the world of work.

Yesterday was Christmas jumper day in the UK, did you join in? These days it's Christmas jumper day for the whole month of December for me. We have 3 jumpers the boys had for wearing at school on Christmas jumper days. They still try and squeeze in them if one is required for work but I wear them daily as they are a nice loose fit on me and so cosy 😊

I think it's fair to say I'm not into fashion and  there's no fast fashion in this house. The boys even buy second hand clothing on occasion, frequenting vintage and retro shops. Something I never did in my late teens, early twenties

By 3pm yesterday the moon was clearly visible, as the sun, which never got very far above the horizon, was rapidly descending.

This was 3.20pm

And as I heard the school bell ring for the end of the day at the boys old school, the sun set at 3.30pm. 

As we are quite close to the school I have our Christmas lights on a timer so they are illuminated for both school runs. Yesterday, as I didn't have to take youngest to work, I was around to hear a little one saying this is his favourite window...Yesss....that made my day 😊

Indoors we have reached maximum Christmasification too. I love walking under this garland.

As always it's full of all my red and white makes. Like these Scotty dogs....Pattern HERE

And Lucy's snowflakes.....Pattern HERE

Today, as usual on a winter's Saturday, I did some baking. Using up some more of my mincemeat.

These days I use THIS recipe for the pastry....it works well for me. 

I've already eaten two, with some squirty cream, they were yummy! I don't feel too guilty as I tend to only eat homemade ones at home and this year, as I'm not really going visiting friends, or to cafes at the moment, I haven't had any bought ones at all.

Thank goodness I'm happy at home, now more than ever.

Wishing you a happy rest of the weekend lovelies and some quiet moments to notice the sunset and the twinkly lights next week.

Jacquie x

My Welsh Dresser

 Hello Lovelies ,
well , the welsh dresser I was lucky enough to pick up for a bargain price arrived on Monday. And I'm totally thrilled .
This week I've had so much fun playing around with it ........here's what it looked like on arrival. It's  Antique Pine..............

I LOVE that all the stuff that was previously on display is now tucked away in it's drawers and cupboards........

I may paint it in a while.....I'd like to think it could look a little bit like this one , notice the price ? but then again I may leave it as it is.

But for now I'm happy to live with the pine. It's such an improvement on what was there before and I'm really enjoying arranging and rearranging things I already had on it's shelves.
Want to see ?

Here's how it looks today ,

Ready ?

Ta- dah.........

It's been constantly evolving all week as I've tried different things , it's largely thrifted , handmade or sentimental stuff I've had for many years ( and a bit of crochet, naturally ) . It's a real treat to have somewhere like this to arrange it all..........

The only thing I have bought new for my dresser are these cute flower lights. It's in a dark spot so I wanted to add some light , as there are no power sockets on this wall these battery lights , with their warm glow are ideal..........

I've also made more mini bunting from some pretty CK papers I had ( like the plant bunting I made earlier this year............

If you read my blog regularly lots of this stuff will be familiar, but I hope you don't think It's a bit strange dedicating a whole post to a second hand piece of furniture . Mr BM does , he's just said as much.

I'm ignoring him though . Thank you for sharing your dresser I love in your comments on this post.
I'm sure this display will continue to evolve over the months and years so I think  it's nice to capture it as it is now .

Hope you have a relaxing weekend
Jacquie x

"Sail Away" Crochet Pattern

Hello Lovelies,
I've  managed to find some time  this week to put my crochet hat back on to finally get this pattern /tutorial published for you . Several of you  have asked me about it since my previous disaster, when I lost my original draft due to blogger problems.

I'm sure you can appreciate the amount of time and concentration that goes into this sort of post ...it's not a quick process.....this one was particularly time consuming , but you lovelies always make my day with your kind comments , you are worth all the effort.
Please do let me know  if you make this project. I would LOVE to see how it turned out...........here's the pattern.......ENJOY ♥♥♥♥

This pattern is written in U.S. terms and the abbreviations are as follows:-

hdc = Half Double Crochet  ............U.K. half treble crochet
sc = Single Crochet..........................U.K. double crochet
ch = Chain........................................U.K. chain
sl = Slip Stitch...................................U.K. slip stitch
tc = Treble Crochet...........................U.K. double treble
sc dec = Single Crochet Decrease.....U.K. double crochet decrease

It's a relatively simple pattern but you do need to be confident with the above stitches. I would not class this  as a beginners project  but I've included lots of description and photos to try and make it as simple as possible.

I've used various Double Knitting Acrylic yarns for this project .You could use whatever you prefer working with.Cotton would be good.
N.B. throughout this pattern turning chains always count as 1 stitch

Lets start with the boats' hull, it's worked from the bottom up........
To begin  ch 10,
Row 1....... hdc in third chain from hook.......

hdc in each ch across. In last ch make 2 hdc ( 10 stitches ).....

Row 2 .....ch 2 and turn , then make another hdc into the same stitch  (marked with needle ) it's important you get the correct space here...it's right at the base of the two chains...can you see it ?

Work 1 hdc in each stitch across and finish with 2 hdc in final stitch of row 1( you should now have 12 stitches)

Repeat subsequent rows in this way.... increasing an the beginning and end of each row to form the shape of the hull.
row 3 = 14 stitches

row 4 = 16 stitches

Once you have made  4  rows stop but do not fasten off.
To neaten the edges of your work make sc around the sloping side,bottom and second sloping side (not the top).There are no specific spaces for these stitchs along the sloping sides , just make them close to the edge......

along the bottom make one sc in each stitch across........

Then work up the second side. Once you reach the top edge , fasten off and leave a long tail to attach sail.

Right , next the sail. This is worked from the top down , also in hdc stitches, increasing at the start and end of each row in the same way as the hull.
Begin with ch4
row1 ....insert hook into third chain from hook ( shown with needle )

and make 2 hdc stitches

 chain 2 turn.
row2......make 1 hdc in same stitch as turning..again shown with needle

hdc across and finish with 2 hdc in final hdc of row  ( 6 stitches ), chain 2 turn.

row 3 ...repeat pattern , increasing at the beginning and end of the row ( 8 stitches )


   repeat pattern over subsequent rows, increasing on both ends of rows to make a triangle shape.
row 4.....10 stitches
row 5     12 stitches
row 6 ....14 stitches
row 7 ....16 stitches
row 8.....18 stitches
row 9.....20 stitches

( NB the yarn I used for my sail was a bit thinner than the hull yarn ...so If your sail is ending up too big you could stop after 8 rows )
 When you have made   9  rows do not finish off but make sc stitches up to top of sail .....

At the top work 3 sc in the point and then go down the other side .Again there are no exact spaces to place stitches , just judge for yourself where best to put them. It's not necessary  to put them along the bottom of the sail as this is already neat.


Finish off and sew in ends.


Next the mast . This uses sc made through the centre of the sail and is made like this ........
Attach your yarn using a slip stitch , to the centre of the base of the sail. Insert hook through work as shown... 

Yarn around hook and pull  through  sail...2 loops on hook.....yarn over and pull through both loops. Repeat up the whole height of the mast and when you get to the top don't fasten off .

 Chain 4 to make the start of the flag, turn.
3 sc along ( one in each chain ) starting where shown with the needle..........

then sl into top of of the surface chain for added stability......

Chain 1 and turn
1 sc,1 sc dec,chain 1 turn
1 sc dec
ch 1 and finish off leaving a long tail  like this at the point of the flag.........

then weave the tail to the top of the flag with a darning needle,securing it at the top so it doesn't pull you flag out of shape.... you can use it to join the boats together later.

Right , hopefully you have a cute little sail and mast with a flag on the top.Next simply sew the two parts of the boat together with the hull slightly over lapping the sail and your boat is finished.Make a couple more in the same way if you want your decoration to look like mine...or you could just go with how many you like.

Onto the sun now........
Using yellow yarn ( mine was stylecraft Saffron ) ch 4 and join to form ring.
Round 1 ...chain 2 , make 11 hdc into ring and join by slip stitch into 2nd chain of initial 2 chain.
Round 2...chain 2 (counts as first hdc) and 1 hdc into same stitch as joining ,2 hdc in each stitch of round 1 ( 24 hdc) slip stitch into initial 2nd chin of initial 2 chain to join...that's the circular centre of the sun ,next onto the rays.....

These are a  little bit tricky but hopefully the pictures will help a lot
 first ray...chain 2 then make 1 tc in the next stitch........

Make a  picot ( chain 2 then slip stitch into first chain) in the photo you can see where to insert your hook for the slip stitch ).......

once your picot is made it's another slip stitch...this time into the top of your treble crochet...this is where to insert your hook this time......

then chain 2 and sc in the next stitch of round 2.
In the next stitch begin the second ray in the same way you made the first.
Repeat around.
When you have made 11 rays your sun should look like this.....

Make the final ray in the next stitch then slip stitch into the stitch where the first ray began ( no sc ) ...

Yay...you now have a sun and some boats :0)...I'm feeling seasidy already !
As you can see they are a bit wonky and would benefit from stiffening up a bit........

I use spray starch for this ..........

Place a towel over some foam ( like a seat pad or flat cushion ) and pin your motifs (right side down ) into the shape you want them to end up. I stretched out the suns rays so they were nice and pointy. Spray liberally till they are quite wet and leave till completely dry , you could put them somewhere warm to speed this up.....

Then the fun part...embellishments......you can add as much or as little as you like here , it's purely personal taste....I went with shirt buttons for portholes and a little felt heart on the sail........

then sew the boats together using the tail you left for this purpose ...I added beads between mine and buttons to the sun, but again , it's up to you .........

So that my sun didn't get pulled out of shape by the weight of the boats I used the tail from the top boat to hang my decoration up, catching it onto the back of the sun first........

Ooooops , nearly forgot the little fishy....... he is made like this. chain 4 and then make 6 dc in first ch. Make 1 treble crochet in the same chain ( that's his nose ) as you can see from my pictures the chain you are working in opens up a lot but that's o.k.

   

next make 6 more dc into the same stitch...........

then slip stitch into the top of the beginning chain to close, at this stage you also need to pull on the beginning tail of yarn to close up the fishes middle....

To make his tail...chain 2 then into the same stitch work all the following stitches.... 1 dc,ch 1, 1 sc ,ch 1 , 1 dc , ch 2 and slip stitch to finish off

you could add a little eye to your fish if you like.I simply wove in the ends and kept one long enough to thread on some beads and used it to attach my fish the the bottom boat .

Phew , I hope this is all well explained a clear for you lovelies.

Please let me know if you have any problems and I will try and help....using the reply button ...so do check back here if you ask a question.

Jacquie x