end week.

It's the weekend. Hoorayyyyyy!!!!

Farmer Bren has gone to pick up the girls from school and I'm sitting here dreaming about all that I want to do this weekend and all that I don't. I feel like we are in desperate need of some slow time in this family. Some together time, some quiet time, some time to catch up.

Maybe I'll get a bit of crochet done. A stripe or two of the granny blanket or a fourth ears beanie for my farmer boy who looked at his girls all wearing them the other day and suggested that he just might like one too.

I might even get a chance to write up the pattern for those of you who have been asking.

We'll probably make some more pesto because it seems to be disappearing on toast and pasta as quickly as I've been making it.

Hopefully this weekend will involve a fair bit of hanging out here.

Maybe a dress will come of this pile this weekend.

A new dress would be nice don't you think?

Do you have piles of projects dotted about the house like I do?

I might get a chance to read the new Peppermint magazine over a cuppa.
Oh look there's our caravan!

If the weather is sunny we might get a chance to fill up and plant out some new kitchen garden beds. We need more space and these parts from the old apple sorting machine look perfect.

I know the girls are desperate to come home and keep colouring their babushka colouring books. Manda made them. Aren't they divine! I must say I'm a bit excited that Manda included a colouring book for me in the parcel too so I don't have to share.

Ms Manda is going to be selling them soon so be sure to keep an eye on her blog for the details.

And I'm really looking forward to slowing down and noticing the details, to movie night tonight, to doing the farm chores, to preserving the apples and to having Bren's folks up for lunch.

Maybe it'll all happen, maybe it wont, it really doesn't matter to me as long as we can slow it all down and be together.

What have you got planned?
Are you heading into a wild, exciting weekend or a calm and relaxing one?
Whatever you have planned, I hope it's wonderful.

See ya. xx

Crocheting up my scraps.

The problem.

The problem with my plan to crochet a queen sized granny blanket that uses up all my straggly half balls of yarn, is that I'm about a quarter of the way through and I've already finished the good colours.

My intention was to neaten up my stash. But in the process I've used up all the brights and all that's left is the greens, pinks and blues. Don't get me wrong, I do like those colours a lot, but the blanket is starting to look a bit flat, and that is not the random, stripey look I was going for.

The solution.

So I went out and bought some more wool.

And then I had to buy a new/old basket to put it all in.

Of course.

So now I am all sorted.

I wonder if I'll have to crochet a use up all my scraps blanket to use up all my scraps from this use up all my scraps blanket when I've finished it. Get it? Good.

So, I'm wondering, what do you do with all your woolly/fabric/paper/haberdashery scraps?
Do you have a special basket/bag/box/drawer?
Do you devise special plans/projects to use them all up?
Do you give them away? Hoard them? Check them out?
Do you love the look of a wool filled basket as much as I do?

See ya later hot potata! x

Cheating on granny.

So there I was crocheting away at my looooooooooong, biiiiiiiiiiiiig, queen sized granny blanket, when my mind wandered. Just like that. One minute I was excited beyond words at crocheting each double triplet into the space left the row before, and the next minute I wasn't.

I started to think about a rag rug. Very much inspired by Jodie's rag-a-long, I began contemplating methods and shapes and colour combinations. It took everything I had to stop myself from pulling down some floral sheets and ripping them into strips. It took almost more than I had to stop myself from doing a google search into ways of stitching the long braids together and a pinterest search for some rag rug eye candy.

But I succeeded. The rag rug will wait.

But the dress could not.

We came back from the beach and I made a dress.

An ugly sheet, just to get the pattern right, dress. But a dress none-the-less.

Not a few rows of the blanket.

And just like that the blanket has been neatly folded and popped on the shelf. A WIP (work in progress).

Hopefully I'll pick it up again soon.

I'm fascinated by that moment though. The exact minute when your current crush becomes yesterday's news. When your mind wanders. When something better comes along.

Is it inevitable in a slow burn project? If you rush and hurry can you beat it? Cheat it? I wonder.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Does this happen to you in your patch-working/novel writing/scrap booking/mosaicing/embroidering? Do you go back? Is there hope for the granny queen?

xx

So random.

I'm granny stripping.

I'm aiming to use up a lot of the odds and ends of balls of yarn that I've got rolling about here.

I'm making it queen sized to cover the foot of our bed in the winter-time, to warm our footsies. That means it's 441 stitches long which makes it sloooooooooooow going. I'm not certain how wide it'll be just yet. I think I'll know when I get there.

And I'm trying to choose the colours randomly. Not shut my eyes and grab one random, but more like pick each colour when I have finished the last. No long term plan.

I'm not so good at the old random. I prefer to have an order mapped out before hand. I feel more comfortable when I know where I'm going, what it'll look like in the end.

So this is a challenge for me.

Late last night after I finally popped the hook down and lay in bed I decided to rip it all out and start again in the morning. To hook a blanket that graduates in colour and shade through the spectrum. I know that would look good and it would be safe.

But this morning I changed my mind. I am going to keep going with the random. It's challenging me but so far I like the results and I am hoping that when there are lots of stripes, that the colours will blend a bit and the order wont be so important.

I think I can do it.

How about you? Do you do random? Or do you like a plan? Can you paper bag piece your quit layout ie. take the cut pieces of your quilt out of a paper bag and lay them as they come? (is that right Jules?) Can you randomly choose colours as you go? Do you have the end in sight or do you just make it up as you go along?

Whatever the weather, I hope you and yours have the most marvellous weekend.

Love Kate xx