Sunday 5 June 2011

Bank Holiday Monday

Bit late with this post, never mind! Last Monday both hubby and I were off work, so we decided to go to the Natural History Museum and brave the train/tube with the little one. We had a brilliant time. Little miss was absolutely fine on the way, and behaved perfectly even though we had to queue for an hour to get into the museum. (I think she must take after hubby, as I was always, and still am, a terrible traveller and very impatient!)

She enjoyed all the exhibits - especially the dinosaurs. I was more taken with the amazing architecture - I hadn't visited in about 12 years and hadn't noticed it then.

The detail was amazing


I love the creatures carved into the walls inside.






And the amazing ceiling paintings

The mosaic floor must have taken ages to complete! 

I really enjoy going to London occasionally, but I'm not a fan of crowds, so there's no way I could live there. Not that we could afford it - ha! 

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Previous crochet projects...


To get into the swing of things, I thought I would post about a few previous crochet projects of mine. I am not a natural writer, and often find it a struggle to write in an engaging way like I've seen on a lot of blogs. I guess a lot of it comes down to practice though! 





This is one of the first cushion covers I made last summer - a solid granny square on one side and a Summer Garden Granny Square courtesy of Attic24 on the other. I made it in blue and white to match the chair that I painted, and which sits in our bedroom. (The little hearts hanging from the chair are knitted ones that I made before discovering crochet). 




This is the cushion I made for my daughter's room, to go with her painted green and white chair. I used Attic24's Granny Stripe pattern. I really like the effect that the Granny Stripe produces, both in this cushion and in various projects I've seen on the internet, but I find the actual process of crocheting it rather monotonous - quite strange really, as it seems to be quite a favourite on Ravelry and Flickr. Must be something to do with all those clusters! 


A ripple blanket I made for my mother-in-law for Christmas. For some reason, I don't have any decent pictures of the finished object, and obviously now it's gone off to its new home. I think M-I-L was happy with her present - she is a chilly mortal like myself and always appreciates a warm blanket to snuggle under on the sofa. I really love the ripple pattern - I found the pattern really quite soothing in its repetitiveness. It did take a while to get going with though - I think it was only my second project, and that first foundation row was rather  a test of my patience, what with missing out stitches (valuable lesson in not making your first starting chain too tight here!), and ripples getting out of sync and thus becoming distinctly un-ripply. I think it was definitely worth the effort though! 


And finally, my very first crochet project! I rather naively attempted to master the ripple pattern first, but with all the palava of the foundation row, I set it aside for a while and browsed the net for a simpler pattern. I found the Vintage Stripe Blanket pattern, which was just the thing for easing me into crochet without putting me off. I completed the blanket within about three weeks. It now belongs on my dad's bed!