miss marie's miscellany

What's hooking?

A lovely lazy week spent pottering at home has been just the tonic for me, with the bonus of some hot and sunny weather to top it off nicely. I've done a lot of hooking, playing around with some ideas and patterns.

Some old favourites in a pink, purple and white colour scheme

These are going to end up as a blanket, finishing soon, I hope.

Something for Christmas maybe, just thinking ahead!

I have to block these as the ends of the points are not behaving, but I think they'll look great, a long garland of these in different colours would be very festive!

And last but not least, something pretty, in summery pinks and red

and raspberry and turquoise

I really love these flowers (pattern in Erika Knight's book Crochet Stitch motifs). It's an easy pattern to follow and they don't take long to make. As the weather is a bit changeable today, I'm staying put and will carry on making my pile of flowers grow a bit bigger!

Happy weekend!

Daily snapshot:6

Today I take you into my purple shed for a look at what's happening in there.

A bit of a pink and red theme going on in there on the desk today, with a shades of pink granny square being helped along by a lovely glass of rose with my red iPod playing some mellow tunes! Also a bit of magazine reading going on, a new to me publication Mollie Makes, which I'll save to talk about once I've read it from cover to cover.

Daily snapshot:5

A rainy day, typical Scottish summer weather!..........seemed like a perfect day for watching some TV whilst playing around with some crochet ideas.

Daily snapshot:3

The weather has finally become warm enough for flip flops. I treated myself to a nice shiny new pair and some lovely silver nail polish to match. Even though it's a bit overcast, it's still warm and I feel summery at last and quite glam in these!

June 2011

Things have been hectic for a while in these parts. You've probably noticed a slight lack of posts recently, for which I'm sorry, real life has taken over for a bit; lots of worries about money and work, which I don't want to bring here. I'm trying to keep positive and this blog is one of my escapes from the austere times in which we are living. Just so you know, if I'm a bit absent for a bit, there'll be stuff happening; but I won't be gone for long!

June has been quite a good month in the end, and I've had some good times. And lots of cake! I think the cake kept me sane..........as they say, Keep Calm and Eat Cake. The photo was taken in Belfast overlooking the river, where I stayed in a very smart apartment, complete with its own gin & tonic balcony!

 

 

Lime and violet part 2

I've been working away with those lovely yarns I bought a couple of weeks ago and finally finished my rose motif cushion cover today. Here it is, out in the sun and looking pretty gorgeous IMHO!!

I made one side in the rose motif squares, 9 squares in total, each with 5 rounds.

And the other is a granny stripe pattern of the 3 colours, with 2 rows of each colour in each stripe.

It's fastened with lime green mis-matched buttons (bought on Etsy from this seller, BigFish; well worth a look, she has oodles of fantastic button!).

It's a happy coincidence that as I was finishing this off, these lovely purple roses are blooming in the garden, serendipitous indeed.

I'm liking this harmony between my crochet and my garden, it's magical when that happens!

Lime and violet

 

I bought some more wool.......which was probably a bit naughty of me, as there is plenty in this house already but, well, the colours are lovely, and very 'me',  and they were a bargain! Resistance was futile!

I started making some of these rose motifs on Friday (pattern by Sarah London)

Over the weekend I've made some more squares and I also began making a large granny stripe square (pattern is found in this book......or you can just pop over to Lucy's blog where she has done a great tutorial for this pattern).

And this is how things look today

 

A while back, I bought these great lime green buttons on Etsy

So one of them was used to make this flower brooch (pattern found here)

I think I'm craving bright colours just now as the weather in Scotland has been awful for the last 3 weeks or so, more autumnal than spring going into summer. So I think there will be lots of vivid and zingy colours on this blog for the foreseeable future :-)

 

 

 

More African flowers

Do you remember a little while ago I showed you these African flower hexagons?

I wasn't exactly sure what they would become........but I kept on making them and joining them together

and over the weekend, and with final finishing off today,  they have turned into this

lovely cushion cover. I used 2 shades of pink, light and deep raspberry, leaf green and white, edged all the hexagons in black and joined them together with the black yarn too. I think the black makes the lighter colours sing out.

i used some mother of pearl buttons for fastening

I sewed the buttons on at the point where the hexagons meet, made an extra row of hexagons with chain loops at the bottom point on the other side, et voila, a nice tidy envelope fastening.

I'm still loving making these, they look so pretty and with every colour combination, they have a completely different character.

I'm thinking about making a bag next; possibly pyschedelic, I feel like mixing colours up big style! Plus, I still have 3 half made items on the go, so I really should get those completed so I can show them here. Best get on with it!!

 

 

 

 

Sunday crochet links

I love hunting the internet for all kinds of interesting stuff, particularly of the crochet kind. I found a few great sites, some new and some old and much loved favourites, which I thought you may want to have a look at.

10 for 10 - Sarah London is having a pattern sale, 10 patterns for $10; there are some fab things, including a wonderful Granny Square Sweater, which I'm loving. I think it may go in my queue of things to make!

Sarah is also still hosting the Crochet a Rainbow appeal, originally set up to help the victims of the terrible flooding in Australia and which is now also making blankets for Japan;  if you have time to make even a few sqaures and send them, it will make a big difference to people whose lives have been shattered.

A new find which I'm very happy to have discovered is Tangled,  a fantastic online magazine for knitters and crocheters, with loads of very lovely patterns, with many of them in both a knit and crochet version. Another garment to go in my must-make list is this cardigan, which I'm very taken with, it's beautiful!

The 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week starts tomorrow! Everyone who signs up for it must post daily about a specific topic for each day, it makes for diverse and entertaining reading. I took part last year, but sadly,  I'm just too busy at the moment for this year. But I'm looking forward to catching up with some of this year's posts :-)

Crochet Spot is a great site with lots of stitches and techniques explained with lots of photos and clear written instructions. I've learned a lot of new stitches from here  and I like its friendly vibe.  This week it features how to make chainless foundation rows which sounds like a dream come true to me.

Today has been lovely here in Glasgow, sunny and warm. Perfect for garden crochet!

I hope your weekend has been fab!

 

 

 

Cherry blossom inspired

Some time back when i was starting to learn to crochet, all the crochet blogs I liked to read were buzzing with talk of African flowers. I wrote the pattern down and then got waylaid with something or other and forgot about it. Then the other day, I came across it again and after oohing and aahing about how pretty it looks, decided to try making a few.  The colours I chose were 2 different shades of pink, green, white and coffee brown.

I've seen many pictures of cherry blossom recently, particularly after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and maybe unconsciously I chose these colours as a reflection of those tributes; who knows, but they have the same harmony as the petals, leaves and tree bark of the cherry tree and they look lovely together :-)

The pattern is an easy crochet and yet they have a great rhythm to them as you make them. I think these will probably turn into a cushion cover, or possibly a bag, I'm not sure yet, but hopefully you will see soon.

If you fancy drooling over some more gorgeous colours, there is a Flickr group for these lovely flowers.......head on over and feast your eyes!