miss marie's miscellany

November and making stuff

I thought these photos will be a good way to summarise my November, because there's been a LOT of crcoheting going on this month.

I've made loads of there flower brooches recently; I sold a lot at one craft fair, sold not very many at another and quite a few have gone to good homes through Etsy and with my colleagues too. I thought I should take a photo of them all before they all disappear, and share  these lovely vibrant colours with you!

 

Poppies and roses too :-)

 

There are lots more makings to show you but I'll save them for tomorrow.

Happy Saturday!

Cool and cooler

More African flowers on the go lately, I like this pattern a lot as the possibilities of colour combinations are endless and delightful. I usually favour what I'd call cool colours ie not too bright, but I thought I should get out of my comfort zone and spice it up

I bought these vividly coloured yarns when I visited Liverpool in this fantastic Aladdin's cave of a shop, well worth visiting if you are in Merseyside or North Wales, or you can order online too. I really couldn't decide if they worked or if I was completely mad to try pink, yellow and orange together. but I'm glad now that I went against my instinct. It is bright and summery and the black edging brings it all together IMO.

Just for a cooler contrast, I made some in a different colour mood; there is a bright pink along with pale pink, turquoise/green and white, again edged with black.

Although the green and bright pink are pretty vivid on their own, the combination with the 2 paler shades gives a more spring like palette.

I like them both, the first is very uplifting on a wet cold windy day like it is here in Glasgow today, and the second is soothing on a hot sunny day like it was on Tuesday in Glasgow........yep, it's the good old British Summer, feels like Autumn today and a couple of days ago I was roasting myself in the garden!!

 

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: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!

Snapshot from this week

I whizzed down to London on Monday; travel delays meant it was a whistle stop trip; just enought time to catch up with my lovely friends G&G for dinner, wine and gossip, then it was time to set my head on the pillow for some much needed sleep before Tuesday dawned. Business matters took up the morning, and before I caught the train back, I made sure I had time to pop into here.

I struggle a bit with London's crazy busyness, all those people, all that traffic, it can be overwhelming. So I really do love this wonderful shop, it's a haven of calm and elegance, with lots of gorgeous stuff to smell and touch and wow at. I had a peaceful and de-stressing wander around, and felt much better!  I must say a special thank you to the lovely kind lady in the bath department who was so friendly and helpful, and who chatted to me for ages!

I did make a small purchase, it required huge restraint not to go completely bonkers and buy, buy buy! Do you want to see inside the bag?

Something pretty to put my face in!

 

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!

 

 

 

February

It was quite hard to choose just one photo this month; should it be something crafty, something garden-related or to do with the advent of spring. In the end I decide to pick this photo, for the colour and the oncoming season which brings us such lovely flowers.

I'll be showing you my big green blanket later this week, it's turned out very nicely and is also very spring-themed......soon :-)

 

 

 

Treading a purple path

I really can't get enough purple at the moment, I've been wearing purple garments, using purple wool in my makings, and these are my most recent acquisition

purple boots, I HAD to have them!!

And now there is some more in the garden. The route to the purple shed needed sprucing up, so some constuction has gone on.

It is a recycling of the sandstone slabs which were there already; they were lifted, cleaned, given a good solid under carriage, replaced and edged with purple slate chippings

Halfway there...........

Finally finished

so now, I can walk up my very own purple path!

 

 

January

I've decided to have a change; new year, new look. My end of month round-up will now be a list of good things with my favourite photo in the background. I hope you like my idea!

 

New to me this week

Isn't this great?

I found it at the Ravelry shop and it will soon be adorning one of my walls! Good advice too, I intent to follow it :-)