miss marie's miscellany

Shed surprise

You may recall a while back, I was dropping hints like bricks about a mysterious project; possibly a crafty space down at the end of the garden. Things were going well, until the snow started falling, and work had to stop for a while. But thankfully,  once the weather bucked up a bit, we got it done and I'm very happy to report that, barring a little cosmetic tweaking, I now have a little studio!!!

Would you like to come and take a look inside?

It started out as a humble garden shed, but it has been made lovely outside and in - lined, painted and floored, so it looks like.......

this! 

I have a nice new comfy chair to park myself on, next to my 'Keep Calm and Crochet on' poster, a table/desk, some crochet adornments and a cork board for inspiring images and so on.

Plenty of space to be filled up, I'll show you again when there is more to see.

This corner bookcase is made using 3 storage boxes from IKEA which I bought a couple of years ago. I glued them together with wood adhesive and hey presto, a neat little shelving unit for my books and bits and bobs, perfect for this petite space.

I can't believe I am posting a photo of the floor but it's so good I feel compelled to!

I can look out of the fairylighted window at the garden

while I get busy with the hook.......this is my  inaugural row of stitches!

And now I'm ready for many happy hours of craftiness

It's the next best thing to being out in the garden, and if I have the door ajar, I can hear all the sounds and smell the outdoor aromas as if I was sitting out in the open air, except that I am snug in my cosy space.

It's taken quite a while to get this little dream finished; cold weather does not love plaster and paint and there have been quite a few times recently when I've found the paint frozen solid in the tin!  Kind family and friends have given me lots of things, most notably the heater and the flooring  and helped me do a lot of the hard work, so I owe them a huge and heart-felt thank you. 

 I can't quite believe it has finally happened but when I look out of the window, I can see the fruits of a lot of scrimping and saving  and much hard graft. It has been well worth the wait too......I love my little shedstudio  :-)

 

 

Crochet a rainbow

Sarah London has a wonderful blog which I have mentioned loads of times here. She has put together a great idea to help Australian families who have lost everything in the recent devastating floods - a worldwide making of granny squares which will be joined up into blankets to be given to those who have lost their homes and belongings. I have signed up to make my own small contribution, and so far,  just over 200 others have done so, but I'm sure as many as possible would be welcome. Here's a link to Sarah's blog with all the details, do pop over and take a look.

This week's hooking

All very busy here at MMM Towers. Which is good, I'm definitely glad to be in demand! 

But there's always time for some crochet.

Experimenting with Valentine's cards

Trying something new, 4 colour square

And a commission from someone special, I hope they like it!

I hope your week has been full of good things :-)

 

2010 retrospective

2010 seems to have sped by with great speed, and to be honest, some of the ride has been very bumpy. But despite that, when I looked back over my photos, there were lots of good recollections and happy moments.

The weather and seasons have been quite a feast for the eyes, sunsets and snow seem to be greatly featured in this collage.

I have carried on my love affair with crochet. It has kept me sane over some difficult times this year, and it makes me really happy to see how far I've travelled since I first picked up a hook early in 2009. And I made all of these! 

I've been on a few trips to places interesting and beautiful

And last but not least, the garden has been a wonderful source of inspiration and pleasure

Thanks to you all for reading and commenting, lovely blog friends; let's hope 2011 is full of adventures and new wonderful opportunities for us all!

Happy New Year  xxxxxxx

Christmas crochet

After all the excitement of Christmas, I had a day of total leisure on Monday; absolutely nothing to do but sit, relax and enjoy watching Pride and Prejudice and Upstairs Downstairs and crochet. I have been keeping some of this lovely wool, Brown Sheep Worsted, for a rainy day, and I ended up making these wristwarmers for me.

I used a beautiful green, Kiwi, for the hand part. I wanted a bit of texture to these so I plumped for moss stitch.

Then I edged the top and bottom with a deep pink, Fuschsia; at the top I did a row of double crochet stitches and then a row of crab stitch

and at the bottom I made a long strip of rows of double crochet, working each alternate row in the back loops only to give a ribbed effect.

They are very cosy as the wool is lovely and thick; very luxourious.

 They go very well with my new pink coat too! 

 

3 good things - day 1

During this week, I thought I'd post 3 good things which have happened each day.

1) A long overdue haircut is a nice pampering treat, and makes me look human again! My hair is quite curly and once it needs cutting, can't be got under control. I don't look like Miss Frizzy anymore :-)

2) I finish off some orders for crochet stars and a hat, and am so pleased when they are delivered to happy recipients.

3) To a friend's for a mulled wine and mince pies party, my first festive socialising.........a lovely, and slightly drunken evening was had by all.

Christmas roses

I'm not sure where I found this flower pattern, I have a little book in which I jot down patterns and things I find when I'm browsing on the computer and it was in there. I thought they would make a good Christmas garland, and I think I was right :-)

They would also look good in what I call 'me' colours, purple and green, maybe with a hint of blue.....I may try that today as I will be staying put at home again. Tales of people being stuck all night in their cars on the main Glasgow-Edinburgh road and cars and buses skidding on the snowy/icy roads have put the fear in me, so it's stay here and go anywhere on foot for the time being.

Hope you are warm and safe wherever you may be.

Snowy crochet day

 

I woke up today to find it snowing again, and so it has continued all morning and into the afternoon, only stopping at about 2 pm. It's up over my ankles now! Still, it really does look beautiful

I have a few days off work, so I can enjoy pottering around at home. The house is getting a thoroughly good clean, I have sorted out piles of papers and books, done several batches of washing, made soup and cake, been out for a walk, well, more of a snowy scramble, dug a path AND have spent some happy hours doing a little hooking. A friend asked me to make a hat for his 4 year old daughter, so this is what I came up with

The effect I was aiming for was a 1920's cloche style hat - what do you think?!

I'm also making a new festive garland, Christmas roses.

These are just being blocked, then tomorrow I'll join them together and let you see them finished off.

This corsage has been a winner, I made some in this multi-coloured chunky wool for the craft fair a few weeks ago and they sold like hot cakes and I was asked to make a few more on commission too. 

It looks pretty sitting in the snow :-) 

Quiet night tonight, I think!

Winners and Christmassy thoughts

Happy announcements today, the 2 winners of the giveaway are;

Petit Filoux, who has won the red rose corsage and Miss Folies who won the star garland. I'm sorry everyone who left their name couldn't win something,but thank you for stopping by and saying hello. I will be emailing the 2 winners to get their postal addresses so their parcels can be sent off soon.

This time last year, I did a post every day in December, an Advent calendar of posting. I have missed the deadline for doing that this year, so I will do some festive posts when I can throughout the next few weeks. To get started, here's a lovely photo I took in the garden a couple of days ago, nice and cheery to get everyone in the Christmas mood!

 

Blue sky day

It has been lovely here in Glasgow today, my favourite kind of winter weather, cold and sunny. 

The sky hasn't been this beautiful colour for some time

The sun makes all this snow look lovely

And the snow is a perfect background for some new crochet items :-)

A little reminder about the giveaway I posted about a few days ago, you still have time to get your name into the hat before Wednesday. I've had lots of visitors over the last few days, but everyone is being very shy!!