Hand therapy

Hello lovely blog visitors, thanks for popping by today. I am feeling soooo much better, more alert and in control of my deadlines both at work and home! So, how have I coped these past 10 days or so? I think it might not come as a surprise to you that my fingers did the talking... or is that hooking?

So to begin with, I found myself in a Waterstone's Book shop on Saturday afternoon (For those of you not living in the UK, it's a divine, heavenly, all consuming UK book store chain) with the intention of Alice choosing a book with one of her birthday book voucher presents she kindly received. 

Well... now that she is 10 and oh so very BIG and wanting a little more independence I left her in the children's section and scuttled up the escalator to the knitting and crochet section. Oh boy oh boy, this is not good for my purse control. After at least 1 hour of perusing the beautiful books in this section I gave into temptation and bought this beauty.

And what a beauty this baby is ! I thought long and hard over the dilemma of choosing a US book since as you know the terminology for 'crochetology' is different from the UK terminology but after a while I realised that it wouldn't be an obstacle to stop me from spending £16.99 xox 

It's FULL of patterned crochet techniques written in a lovely, simple way (I need idiot's guides I do) and have fabulous pictures to help you along. I decided to promote myself from an easy to intermediate pattern and started making this scarf for a Christmas pressie.

It's really easy peasy and dare I say addictive and a wool chomper deluxe but oh so worth seeing it appear row after row. This is the cheap yarn I used ( it reminds me of pricey Noro which I love but is a 1/4 of the price) which is all autumnal and cosy with 30% wool and easy to wash. You may remember I used a more orange/pink variety of  this yarn here to make my fingerless granny gloves.

Would you like to see a closer pic of my scarf ? here we go...

This is what the picture in the book looked like, mine is tighter and more compact as I chose to use a 3mm hook, but you can do as you please really.

and here is a pic of the pattern, I am more than happy to post this pattern if anyone fancies giving it a go ? {all you experienced crochet gals probably would be able to interpret the pattern from this picture}

So, I have got through this busy patch in my life with some fabulous hooky and knitting hand therapy and as I am sure you guessed from my "What's that mummy?" post I have knitted a tea cosy for my sister-in-law's handmade wedding pressie to go with the teapot,milk jug and sugar bowl we have purchased for her. So, I will give you a sneak pic at what I have been making to decorate it with and then promise to post some completed pictures (and the pattern link)  as I have a deadline to meet before the wedding on Saturday xox

Have a great week and I'll wish you luck as I wave you goodbye xox