Marrakesh I heart you

We are back from our exotic, hot hot hot (fried egg on the pavement hot!) week in the wonderful Marrakesh. Our trip exceeded over and above our expectations and we just feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to visit such a diverse culture which was a thrill for all my senses. Yes, I have been truly "sensed out" ! I could write a novel about our experiences but will try and keep it short and sweet.

Anyway, here are some of my pics... first the divine hotel and oasis of a pool to cool off in, I'm loving the palm trees. At night we sat around the pool and felt the balmy african warm night sky with a million stars above us and could here all the crickets and grasshoppers making their african night sounds...such bliss.

One of the riads we visited, these are unbelievably beautiful with hand carved ceilings, pillars and mosaic walls, also a lovely cooling off chill out zone from the busy, hot souqs/markets. This is just 1 of many stunning riads in the old town.

Then there were the souqs where much haggling was had, we spent more than we usually would on holiday and came away with 2 stunning Berber/ancient Moroccan styled carpets, some beautiful ceramic bowls, leather sandals and slippers and some beautiful jewelry-my personal weakness!

Amazing hand woven fabrics...we were lucky enough to see some artisans at work with their weaving and making leather goods.

Andy bought a basic terracotta tagine to bring back home so we could continue the Moroccan spirit of our holiday a little longer. The food was heavenly, lots of tender lamb and chicken tagines for those of you who eat meat, for myself as a vegetarian I had feasts of veggie tagines, couscous, chickpeas and yummy moroccan omelette's, not to mention the Arabic breads ...YUM x

The sweet treats were SUPER sweet and loaded with nuts, honey and pastries. Something for everyone to chose from. Can you see a little of the lanterns on the right hand side of this photo? I didn't take half as many photos as I should of, but the lantern shops were so ornate and beautiful, words cannot describe them.

They don't call it the pink city for nothing....

Getting lost in all the souqs and then into the medina where the locals live is such an adventure...and all roads generally lead you back to the main square Jemma-el-fna which is full of snake charmers, fabulous food stalls, traders and henna tattoo artists. We liked sitting up on the terrace of one of the restaurants and watching the square come alive at night from this during the day...

to this at night...

my photo's don't really do it justice but hopefully you get a feeling of what I mean

my two precious people xox

and finally an Arabic STOP sign to bring what could be an extremely long "me rambling on" post to an end!

Oooops I nearly forgot to add this in... some wool dyed with vegetable dye drying out in the sunshine :o)

what heavenly colours

Two nights before we left I did me some hooky time and made some granny square fingerless gloves , the colours of the wool above reminds me of them. I just made the pattern up as I went along, what do you think? they are by no means perfect, maybe you would like me to attempt to write a pattern out...(eek that will take some patience on my behalf) or maybe you can figure out a pattern fro yourself. Let me know what you think.

now for a slightly naff one of me wearing one...

if you are wondering what I'm holding it's a papier mache world made by a very clever friend of mine in South Africa, I thought it was appropriate with us flying to north africa for our holiday.

Well that's all from me for now, glad to be back in a way but also day dreaming of when we might go back xox

In 48 hours I will be in ...

We are leaving on a jet plane in 48 hours to a destination that has been a life long desire of mine, my heart and stomach can't take the excitement any more. Here is a little hint of where we are off too.

Have you guessed yet? may be another little hint...

Oh yes it's....

Oh my goodness Andy, Alice and I can hardly contain ourselves and look at these images that I found, oh heaven ...

Heeee haaaa a yarn shopping we will go! Speak to you all when we are back in 10 days time xox

A bunting we will go...

At long last I have completed one of my many WIP's and consequently completed my bunting. I decided to do something a little different though and instead of crocheting the triangles together decided to thread some vintage braid through the natural spaces made by the "granny clusters". Alice asked if I was being lazy and I soon corrected her by saying mummy is being very resourceful ! So have a peek and see what you think.

Have a closer look at the braid

Surprise, Surprise it's that old favourite of mine pink and green again

The light is not brilliant in these photo's (blustery august greyness!) and I always seem to be attracted to using the floor as a "photo studio"

I might be tempted to put a vintage button or crochet a flower for the centre's , what do you think ?

I also wanted to share this delicious book that I have loaned from my LYS called Wa wa wool which is owned by the lovely, ever so helpful Fran (I think her website needs a wee bit more work). Her library of books is incredible and she will happily loan her books out 1 at a time for a £5.00 annual fee, brilliant idea for those of us who own too many books anyway.

Ooooooh it's delicious and caters for beginners, intermediate and advanced ... one  can only hope xox

And last but not least a pic of my lovely 1970's hen that I needed to complete from over a year ago. Her very simple pattern was found in a Charity shop 70's embroider / sewing book. I like her and have added my own touch of vintage to her eye and beak. Any name suggestions? ( I must ask Alice too...)

Have a wonderful week of wooli-ness

Edit: Thank you to http://crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com/  for naming Mrs. Hen, Dolores. My little Alice (age 9 and 7/ 8ths !) has agreed with her, hooray another win win xox

Aardvark happiness

I love these prints by Aardvark  who are based just a 20 minute cycle down the coast from me and the idea of creating your own "life manifesto" like this first print

 what do you think?

Yes please...

Thank you Samuel Beckett...

,

I also want my boat of life to be light...

I am not sure what your manifesto would be, I think mine might change from time to time but today it's something like:

Where there's hope there's TEA

Star gaze at night

Wherever you are there you are

Make sand castles

Climb trees

Eat cucumber,mint and cream cheese sandwiches

Give flower posies

Get hooky happy

Celebrate your children at all moments in their life

Create romance

Have vintage parties

Blow raspberries ;o)

A few of my favourite things ...

WOW I was pleasantly surprised to see some new comments and followers of my blog , this is such fun, Thank you to all of you for visiting, it feels like another win win situation whereby you get to see what I am up to and then I get to go into your creative worlds. The internet never ceases to amaze me, can anyone remember life without it? 

Thinking about it now I am kind of glad I grew up without technology in the beauty of South Africa and where imagination was as high tech as it got in my little world. Alice loves stories from my childhood, climbing trees, reading Enid Blyton, sticking, painting and glueing allsorts and of course getting up to mischief!

Anyway, I digress today is about a few of my favourite things in amongst :

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;

These are a few of my favourite things".

Let's start with some of my bunting which I made out of old tea towels and took camping a week ago, it looked pretty flapping away in the breeze, especially when the sun went behind the clouds and we needed something to cheer us up!

Now, progress with my large granny cotton blankie which is eventually getting a border to complete her. First a row of dc and tr (UK) or sc followed by dc (USA) , I did a half treble in the chain space of the corners. I have ended the blankie with one of my favourite colour combinations pink and green. I plan to do some sort of bobble / shell after this tr/dc row for the finale. I love the feel of the organic cottons ...yummmm

I have just noticed from this pic that I started off bright then went mute almost dull ? I blame it on the weather we are having in august :(

Here is a pretty doillie that I attempted to crochet some time ago and have decided to include in one of my pillowslip projects and thought I would share with you. As you can see the pink and green theme continues!

  

I have also put some of my charity shop button finds to good use and started making a necklace for a friend who likes nautical themed goodies, can you spot the little purply red flowers I crocheted and popped a red button in the middle ? My plan is to knit the rest of the necklace and make it into a choker type of necklace. I'll pop a pic on when it's completed.

 

And then there were more bunting triangles...thank you to the lovely Alice for inspiration

Then a temptation to teach myself to knit cables came my way from this website Lionbrand which is an american website and patterns are free when you join xox This is the left hand of fingerless gloves which I am knitting with 25% wool and 75% acrylic...EEEKKKKK is usually what I say when I touch, hear, or see acrylic but I have to eat humble pie and say this very cheap ball (£1.25) from my LYS did the owner proud and I have become less of a snob about man-made yarn.

Last but not least here a couple of pretty authentic british pics from last sunday on my cycle ride that have made me smile this summer :o)

Happy hooky heart skippy moments to you all xox

Sunday, fun day

Yesterday afternoon it was a little breezy but sunny too so I cycled down to the seaside on my bike to visit my favourite art deco heavenly building in Bexhill-on-Sea where I live to see the latest art exhibition and the annual august free sunday afternoon concerts and here are a few pictures of what I found...

Firstly a peak at my art deco delight, The De La Warr Pavilion

and now a postcard from the shop which is far better photography than mine !

and one of the stunning staircase and it's famous chairs

I saw the famous Anthony Gormley ( he made the Angel of the North) "Critical Mass" exhibiltion on the roof terrace, it was eery and beautiful

What do you think ? I feel very privledged to have this art gallery and theatre on my doorstep. They have recently been focussing on installations and I found a few interesting bits downstairs

 like this Tomoko Takahashi installation inside a shed

I like it a lot, especially with Tchaikovsky playing when you poked your head inside the shed door

here's her explanation ...

then I pootled downstairs to find this beautiful ensemble from Ghana whilst having a little beer in the sunshine in a deckchair ;o)

and of course a bit of this ...

Got to go it's bed and story time for my Alice xox next time more crochet / knitting to share x