Happy sunset ripple blanket

[Foreword: I already wrote a whole happy post about this latest crochet project and blogger has myseteriously decided to disappear it. GRRRRRRR! Rather than be defeated and angry about the way that technology just keeps completely failing me this week, I've decided to rewrite it the whole thing again at once. Apologies for the fact that it is slightly less joyful and detailed than the original post!]

So since moving to Bordeaux I've been more or less failing to blog anything other than my weekly haikus with any sort of regularity. But that's because I've been busy enjoying life and working hard on my thesis so I won't feel bad about it! I have been keeping up my crochet however and that's what I'm here to share today.

I decided before moving here that I wanted to make a giant ripply blanket for the bed, in all my favourite sunrise/sunset colours. I had made a smaller version for a gift last December (see here) and had really enjoyed the rippling process so I couldn't wait to get started! Within days of arriving I located a wool shop (Berger de France) and bought some supplies. 

As the days and weeks went by and we started filling up our home with furniture and happy memories, and exploring this lovely old town, I rippled away...

Happy ripply beginnings

I joined a knitting/crochet group for the first time and discovered the joy of crocheting in company. I'm now rather tempted to take up my knitting needles again, having seen the wonderous lacy delights that these inspiring ladies create! It's been a lovely source of inspiration attending these weekly sessions of wool and French chatter :)

A sneak peek!

I had to go back to the wool shop several times for more supplies as I somewhat underestimated just how much wool is needed for a blanket of this size.That made it a little bit pricier than I intended but the wool is all good quality and so soft and warm (its mostly a blend of acrylic and different types of wool) so I don't mind the extra centimes (haha or rather euros) that I had to part with and the pattern is easy hooking. 

 An in-progress shot back when all we had in our bedroom was a bed!

The patter was easy, fun, joyful hooking (it sort of hooks itself up once you get going, leaving your brain free to concentrate on other things. In my case this meant watching the whole of Twin Peaks! haha! this blanket will forever remind me of that series). Finally after about five weeks it was complete (although it's taken me a lot longer to photograph it in all its glory). 

Without further ado I present..... my giant ripple blanket........

It's really rather big! Getting a photo of the entire thing was really rather tricky and involved balancing precariously on a chair!

The pattern for the ripples comes from lovely Lucy of Attic 24. See here.

I edged it with a few rows of double crochets and my favourite bobbles (also seen on another blanket I made here)...

 

Close ups of the bobbly edging

I love the way the colours sing together in their random ripply lines of colour! Some of the combinations almost glow! It makes my heart happy :)

The nights are a bit too balmy to appreciate this lovely warm blanket right now, but I love how bright and colourful it is on our bed in the morning sunshine... 

Here's to happy crocheting and home-making! 

I hope this post manages to survive on the internet!
What have you been hooking up lately?

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Catching up with my crochet

I haven't shared any crochet pictures pretty much all year long and it's almost halfway through April already- eek!. But that doesn't mean I haven't been reeeeeeally busy crocheting, oh no! Quite the opposite in fact. Today I'm going to share some pictures of a finished project that was hitherto classified as secret as I made it for my mum for her birthday (I shared a wee peek here). It's a giant granny square blanket in shades of pale greens, pinks and creams - a colour scheme which I wouldn't normally choose for myself but which fits right in with the decor in my parent's home. Plus my mum loves to garden and I liked the idea of making a blanket that looks a little bit like a garden, with sandy paths through the grass and leaves, with pretty pink flowers peeking out - at least, that was the idea in my imagination!. So to get you started, here's all the woolly goodness...

I found these colours extremely relaxing to blend together, they are really soothing calm colours and a delight to hook up during the stressful weeks of January and February as I packed up all my belongings back in London. The greens and creams are all cheap acrylic wools and the pinks were more expensive wools from my former local haberdashery, but despite the differing qualities they all worked together to form the softest blanket :)

Every square is a different combination of colours...

Some are big and some are small - there is a giant centrepiece square...

I even learnt how to make circles inside granny squares (I love the way they look but I much prefer the process of hooking up granny squares the simple square way). They look like giant flowerbursts!

I also did some strange patch squares (which reminds me, I need to show you this finished blanket from last year too!).....

And some stripy bits and mini cross-style squares (lawns and giant flowers!).....

And had a great time making pops of pretty pink for the border....

Here it is in all it's glory spread out on my parent's living room floor (See how it matches the colour of the carpet)!

 

It was so much fun to make this all the while imagining my mum being able to snuggle up in its warmth. I'm pleased to say that she really loves it!

 

Ahhh it's fun to share pictures of crochet after all this time away! I'll be back with another blanket very soon - yep that's right I told you I've been busy!

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Paisley is my favourite...

I've been busy this last sorting through my wardrobe in preparation for moving to France. In doing so I've uncovered quite a few things that I had sort of forgotten about. Today I bring you the transformation of this gem of my wardrobe that has been sadly ignored, namely this dress...

I bought this on a trip to France because once I tried it on I simply couldn't leave the country without it. You see I have something of an obsession for paisley. A large portion of my wardrobe is composed of various different paisley prints in all kinds of colour combinations. I wore the dress for New Year's Eve last year, but sadly its a bit too tight and low cut on the chest to be comfortable for everyday wearing (why I didn't notice this when I tried it on I don't know). I was thinking of saving it for another occasion, but really paisley print this pretty is too good to be shut away in the land of Wardr Obe (Spare Oom) and should be worn everyday. Look at the upclose details of this amazing print!

To make that happen, I decided to transform it into a skirt using my new favourite trick - creating an elastic waistband (as seen here)!. And so I snipped the dress in half at the waist, using another skirt as guidance for the length (this bit was scary - taking scissors to something means the point of no return - eek!). Then I measured out a length of elastic, folded the fabric down at the waist and sewed around it, creating a tube for the elastic to be threaded through. Once the elastic was in it all got sewed up and TA DA! A fab new skirt....

Here's a close up of the new waistband...

I love it! No longer will this be a sad discarded dress, unable to fulfill its destiny. From now on, it'll be shimmying around in all its paisley glory on a regular basis! I won't, however, be carrying this peacock feather with me wherever I go - that's just a prop I picked up for my impromtu photo shoot because I thought holding something might make me feel a little less awkward about taking photos of myself. (It didn't)...

Why not transform something you love but never wear? It's like going shopping in your wardrobe, which is perhaps not quite as fun as getting to Narnia in your wardrobe, but it is free and you get to be creative and sew!
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Patching things together...

My latest sewing project involves using up all the lovely co-ordinated scraps of fabric I have left over in my stash from other things I've made. Moving to another country means delving into the piles of stuff in the cupboards and sorting through it all. Lots of things will have to be left behind in storage or given away, but rather than leave these gorgeous fabrics sitting in a box, unloved and unused, I'm finally using them up! Rifling through my stash was much more fun than other bits of packing and sorting that I've been doing - sort of like a visit to my own personal haberdashery :)

Despite being inspired by all things patchy for my crochet projects, sewing patchwork out of fabric is a bit of a new venture for me - I've only attempted it once before for a bag I made a few years ago so here's hoping all the edges meet up once I get sewing! At the moment I'm thinking I'll make a skirt, or maybe a dress, but I'll see how I get on with sewing the patches together first.

Here's a glimpse at some of the fabrics which include paisley, dots, scraps of a sari, squiggles, butterflies and an old miniskirt, all in shades of red, orange and gold...

Do you have any patchwork tips to share?
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Badger of the week (5)

Inspired by the design of a lovely skirt made for me by a friend, and my love of woodland creatures, I got the old sewing machine out last weekend and stitched up this crazy beauty...

I didn't have a pattern, it's just a long panel of fabric folded in half. The waistband is done using a thick piece of elastic - I measured the length by holding it around my waist and finding where it was comfortable. Then the top of the fabric is folded over and stitched down, making a sort of tube which the elastic gets threaded through. Then the ends of the elastic get stitched together, then the sides of the skirt are stitched and the bottom hemmed. And that's it - an easy peasy sewing project that took less than an hour to complete!

So where's this week's badger? Here! sneaking out from behind some berries, near a giant ladybird!

There are actually 2 badgers altogether as well as squirrels, deer, foxes, rabbits, butterflies, birds, raccoons, and more. I also stitched on this little heart shaped patch that I've had sitting in my sewing box for years, waiting for the right project...

And here's what it looks like on (excuse the slightly awkward pose). It's really comfortable, and because of the elastic waist, can be worn in different ways, high up on the waist or low on the hips!

A happy badger sewing project :) What have you been making lately, badger themed or otherwise?!

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On my hook....

It's been a while since I hooked up any Granny squares and I had forgotten how enjoyable they are to make...

Round and round, my hook goes, along the side, round the corners, cluster by cluster. The colours change, making patterns as they go, contrasting, zinging with one another. These lovely square are so rythmic and straight-forward once you get going that they pratically grow themselves. Before you know it, theres a whole pile amassed (ends all tucked in as I got this time)....

Here's a wee sneak at my latest project (I won't be sharing any more pictures until the end as it's a secret - shhhhhhhhh!)

Ooh I do love to crochet. And I do love my camera!
What's on your hook at the moment?
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Ce qui m'inspire en ce moment...mish mash of happy things!

Lately I am feeling very inspired! But rather than by one thing in particular, it's by a mish mash of happy things! So here they are....

1. My snazzy new camera, a beautiful Canon digital SLR. It's super fancy and I have a LOT to learn about photography but I'm really excited to learn. This is officially my new hobby. Already it has been so much fun to play around and I have been busy trying it out, taking pretty pictures of anything and everything!

2. This leads me to my second happy thing - birds! Armed with my new photography machine, I've been sneaking up on them like the paparazzi, capturing their fluttering wings when they least expect it! From bluetits on the feeder in my parent's garden...

...to gulls flying around at sunset the coast of Scotland...

...and this pretty little sanderling skipping on the shoreline...

...to this rather handsome tufted duck spotted right here in London...

I'm so happy to finally be able to capture these creatures up close and get a glimpse of all the little details that set them apart - like the green patch on this tufted ducks face which you can't see with the naked eye, or the way that that sanderlings feet skim the surface of the water, making tiny little ripples.

3. Third source of joy - birthday fun! Ah yes, I aged another year this last weekend and had a lovely time celebrating quietly and happily with my man, who suprised me not only with birthday cupcakes, but also some bubbly, some vin rouge, some olives and, best of all, a selection of cheeeeeeeeeeeese (stilton, cambozola and dolcelatte to be precise: stinky goodness)! So yummy! Is it weird to say that you feel 'inspired by' cheese? Well I care not, cheese makes me happy, and being happy inspires me...

4. The amazing skirt my lovely friend stitched up for me for Christmas. It's made of beautiful paisleyish fabric, it fits perfectly and it's handmade! All of my favourite things :) It's inspiring me to get my sewing machine out and get creating...

5. This song. As far as I'm concerned it is perfection :)

6. I spent my Christmas holidays completely immersed in Haruki Murakami's latest book, IQ84. I don't really want to write a big long review - just go and read it - but I will say that I absolutely love this man's writing and his crazy weird imagination. It was wonderful to get so hooked on a book again and I feel inspired to both read more on a regular basis and to get writing myself....

7. And the most exciting thing of all that is making me happy and inspiring me is... in a couple of months I'm moving to France! More precisely, "the most beautiful city of France", Bordeaux. That esteemed title comes from a plaque found in the city itself, (see below) so it's clearly not biased at all! haha! But yes, my lovely scientist man will be starting a new job there in March and seeing as I'm free to finish off my studies there (my PhD is, rather handily, in French literature), I'll be 'fleeing the country' with him. I'm so excited for more French adventures. There's just the small matter of finding somewhere to live first! And then the croissant eating can commence!

We've visited the city twice before. To say that I am excited about living there is an understatement!


It's Wineland!

What's been inspiring you lately?
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