Sunday 20 April 2014

Day tripping and some almost edible crochet

Happy Easter to you all! We had a glorious celebrations of Jesus's resurrection at church this morning and once again it humbled me to know how much he has blessed my life.

I have had quite a few relaxing days doing bits and bobs and thinking about charity shop sort outs and our potential packing if all goes well with our house buying. It's such a funny thing buying and selling a home, just like the buses nothing happens and then all of a sudden it's a flurry of bank appointments and lawyers and signing this and that, then it goes all quiet again before the next lot arrives :o)

We went to Rye on Good Friday and it was just the perfect elixir our little family needed, pottering in old antiquity shops, fish and chips and tea and cake!

The air was nippy and fresh and we wrapped up warm despite the sun peaking out from behind the clouds. We love going to see "the glass man" from the antiques roadshow, Andy McConnell in his shop, where there is always a warm welcome from him and his wife with a cup of tea as you browse around. His wife sells gorgeous mid-century and vintage goods which I love. Alice was very chuffed when she spotted these Manhattan 1950's plates and bowls.




After a little negotiating, they were ours! I love the design, sorry this photo doesn't do them much justice, but they are all wrapped up now waiting for our move.







I loved this folk art tea caddy but it was a tad to expensive the justify me purchasing it.

There is also a fabulous shop that sells kitchenalia goodies called Crock and Cosy, I could spend all day drooling in there at all the utility crockery and old scales and cutlery and stunning handmade tea cosies like these.







I would love to knit something like this one day.







Fancy having high tea with this crockery set!







I also discovered a new to me shop which sells local hand spun yarn, it was divine....more on that some other time.

I wanted to share with you what I have been making over the last week or so, crochet wise. My little niece turned 2 the other day and we gave her a little book like we always do and the promise of a treat to come. I had it in my head to make her some fruit and veggies of the crochet kind for her new little persons kitchen. So I googled up as many images as I could and got cracking. I didn't use any patterns as I could find any easily and soon realised that as long as you can do, htr and inc and dec in crochet you can make any shape you desire.

I have been popping them on Instagram this past week and have had such lovely comments and sweet support, thank you dearly for this.

So here they are...




I secretly love the Aubergine and peas in their pod... And then came the others...




I think the radishes are up their with my secret love too x







Musical mushrooms to add to the pot.







And last, but not least all of them in a basket that I found in Tunbridge Wells last Monday. It's perfect for my fruit and veg and I plan to line it with some ditsy floral fabric to make it super sweet for Connie. I made some cherries last night to add to the basket and could not resist doing a little fry up for her to cook too.

Veggie bacon anyone?

I have LOVED making these, such instant fun and gratification from crochet, sorry about the quality off the photos some are a bit hazy, not sure why iPads have such poor quality cameras?

hope you all enjoy the rest of this special weekend and see you all soon

xox




 

Sunday 13 April 2014

Happenings

Thank you all for visiting and your comments on us trying to sell our home. Well you won't believe it but our second viewer put in an offer which we accepted and our offer was accepted on the 1930's home we wanted and voila....the deal was done!

It all seems too good to be true really and it's still a long way off, but we are counting our blessings and moving forward with the lawyers and mortgage company etc (all the dead boring necessary stuff). So, I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime we have made our home messy again with just living in it and I have been absorbed in crochet craftiness. I am running a little workshop for beginners in my friends art studio where she teaches art classes. The same place I made my needle felted hen at the end of March. To prepare I have been rolling out loads of little balls of colourful mostly Stylecraft yarn so that I can teach everyone how to make a basic granny square.

I am feeling a little nervous about teaching people how to crochet, I learnt from my mum and am no expert. I am going to try and make the experience full of fun and hope to install a real passion for this craft. It has also given me the opportunity to make loads of different granny squares to use as examples. I have had a bit of an addiction going on in the past couple of weeks...

I made a granny cushion to hopefully inspire them to make one and will be taking a few of my other granny square projects and blankets along to inspire the makers to keep going. I eventually sewed the buttons on my cushion this afternoon and rather like the end product.

Here is the cushion buttonless...

And now with buttons...

I used different colours on both sides and just loved making this simple but pretty thing. I have decided that Nothing but,Nothing beats a good old granny square :o)

Other than that it's all been about getting out on the weekends and enjoying the good weather we have been having, oh and some gin and pink lemonade!

How about you lovely people? What have you been up to lately?

xox

See you soon

 

Saturday 5 April 2014

Selling up

Hello dearest blog




I really have not been particularly attentative lately, been far too busy working and tidying and cleaning up our home with the view to putting it on the market. Stressful having to do all the paper work and having a proper spring clean and throw out to pretend that we live clutter free which is not the case! Amazing how when you are selling your home you almost have to create an illusion of not living in your home!







It was a good opportunity for me to sort out all my fabric bits in the loft where I have an old Victorian wooden chest full to the brim of fabrics and where I normally do my sewing in the Spring and Summer. It was really rewarding to give a lot away to charity shops too hoping that they will find happy homes to be recycled in.








It was also good fun finding things that I have made and have forgotten about in amongst my sewing bits and bobs.







I am quite keen to sew a few African fabric skirts this Spring, my wonderful mum packaged some beautiful navy African fabrics over to me which I received the other day. Will show you when they are made, I will have to jog my memory on how to insert a zip again.







I am actually enjoying having a rather neat and tidy home, not that we are very untidy normally, but we do live in our home it certainly ain't a museum!







I am feeling a bit nostalgic about potentially leaving our terraced Victorian home, with all it's beautiful character and original features...but am very excited about the 1930's home that we are hoping to purchase. We'll see what happens and no doubt I will log our progress here.

Hope you are well and enjoying the longer and lighter northern hemisphere days and maybe doing a little bit of spring cleaning yourself?

See you all soon

xox