Doily Contrasts

This week has been one of contrasts:

Colour, bright and neon and a sedate ecru!

Yarn, thick chunky wool and fine cotton!

Sunflower Bloom

I have finished another Patricia Kristoffersen doily for my bedspread.  It was much more difficult than the first two.  I have started the fourth one and that is really difficult!  But hey I love a challenge.

The above is a doily I have done in dk cotton from a chart I found on Pinterest.  I made it for my table outside to lighten up a shady spot this summer.  The colours are not true in this photo (it was taken early this evening).  The true colour are those in the first photo above.

 This is the next two rounds of Kates Mini rings ofchange CAL, wk 2.  I had a hard time restraining myself from doing more rows.  That’s why the neon doily was started. Lol!

It has been stiflingly hot this week, and my poor flowers are being bleached by the sun.  The grass is brown, at least it has stopped growing!

However the mini agapanthus loves the heat!

The vegetable garden is thriving and this this morning’s pickings.

This week Peggy Sue takes a star turn.

Have a great week and thank you for visiting.

Doilies and a new CAL

One of my goals for 2015 is to finally complete a vintage style bedspread.  I have fluffed about with motifs rejected them because the project was too boring for my flibergibity mind.  However, thanks to my RSI I have found just the right thing.  Last year I brought a book Absolutely Gorgeous Doilies from Leisure Arts.  There are 18 patterns by Patricia Kristoffersen.  They are gorgeous, textured and very complicated!  No room for boredom!

So far I have completed 2 and am well on the way on the third.  Doily No 1 is Park Avenue and relatively simple.

Park Avenue

Doily No 2 - Pineapple Patch was slightly more difficult.

Pineapple Patch

Now the one I am doing this week No 3 Sunflower Bloom is another matter!  I have undone rounds several times, but I am getting there.

I have decided to try and do one a week except that later on in the book they get very complicated and are larger so they might take two weeks.  I am doing them all in an ecru 2 ply satin finish organic cotton from Sullivan’s. an Australian company.  I have found that the best hook for it is a 2m.  I am not sure yet how I will join them.

I have been given a magazine Interweave Crochet – Spring 2014 that has an article on ways to prevent RSI.

I have found it really helpful with my RSI, and I have been trying different ways to hold the hook.  Normally I am an overhand holder - Butter-knife method.  I have experiment and find myself comfortable with an underhand – the pencil grip.  It uses different movements and I get little pain.  Sooooooo…… I can now crochet using wool and bigger hooks, but have decided to take it really easy.  The answer I found was via Linda of Linda's Crafty Corner.  he is doing a Cal along with Kate It is the mini rings of change  and it can be whatever you want it to be doily, blanket or rug.    It is for turtle crocheters so will be just right for me.  

I am going to do a bit of stash busting and want to make a rug for the bathroom.  I am using two strands of wool and a 6mm hook.  However it is not going to be as colourful as Linda’s and Kates.  This week is only two rounds, how will I restrain myself!! 

Well I think that’s about enough for now, except for a shot of the garden and a very difficult to photo Ambrose!

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week.

PS.  If you are interested in the article on preventing crochet RSI and can’t get the magazine, I will only be too happy to send you a photo of the pages. Email me at zanasjourney(at)gmail(dot)com

A New Year, A New Start

Yes I am still here!  December was a month full of life’s dramas and I am sorry to say that crochet and blogging didn't get a look in.  However, things are settling down and I am so pleased to be able to blog again and visit you all.

This is the scene that greeted me when I got home a few days ago; my poor garden is a jungle, lots of work to do.  Missed the best of the roses but these carpet roses seem to thrive in the heat.

For the last few years instead of making a new year’s resolution (which tended to be broken as I made it!), I have chosen a word for the year.  Last year it was Forward.  This year I have chosen Streamline.

Why streamline?  Well it is something I need to apply in all areas of my life.  I need to declutter.  I need to simplify my garden.  I need lose a bit of weight especially around the midriff!  I really just want to be comfortable with my body.  I need to focus on a few projects instead of hopping here and there and losing track.  Especially crochet!

I was unable to crochet for most of December due to RSA from crochet!  In November I went mad and completed 2 blankets plus other bits and pieces, well, I have learnt!  On Christmas Eve I picked up my crochet hook and some thread and started a doily.  No pain!  Well I managed to do this in front of the TV.  The next day I picked up my hook and some wool, the pain was there.  I must use a different technique for thread.  Whatever,  it means that I can crochet again, albeit with thread, doilies here I come.  But I will not push it too hard.

I have just finished this one and one other that I started earlier in the year. (Details in my next post)  I am blocking them at the moment and will show them in the weekend.  One question I would like to ask you doily experts out there.

Blocking – what is the best way, I have seen various methods in books and on the net.  The doilies I am doing for this project are quite textured and I want to keep that feel.  The book I am using suggests washing them, but I think I would prefer to just spray water on them.  What do you think?

It is great to be back and doing some crochet again, I missed you all too.  I hope 2015 will be a great year for all of us.

Cards and Garden

Finally some time for blogging!  I have been so busy in the garden (I think early spring is always a struggle to keep up with rampant growth!)  Although I have managed to do a little crochet from time to time.  I want to make cards using crochet motifs, so have been trying out a few ideas.  This flower is I think quite successful.  I used no 10 cotton and a 1.5m hook.  I think any bigger than that will make the cards too chunky for posting as letter post.  I might try some using no 20 cotton and 1m hook, maybe a mini lacy doily to stick on the card?

I am very pleased with this camellia I brought it last year and it displayed three flowers this year but as you can see it is rather showy.  Er lost the label and can’t remember the name!  But I love it and can’t wait till it get bigger it is only 40cm at the moment.

Here is evidence of my labours in the vegetable patch.  I decided to keep the two front beds for vegetables as they get more sunlight, the ones behind will be the cottage flower beds.  There are still leeks and fennel from my winter garden which I hope to use up very shortly.

This year I have decided to plant more soft fruit , especially blueberries.  However yesterday I managed to get some pots of raspberry canes from the car boot market.  

Peggy Sue always has to inspect any new item brought onto the property!

Today the weather is damp and dismal, so no gardening, a chance to do some blog reading catch up and do some crochet.  Or maybe I should chill out like my three furry friends!

Have a happy day and see you soon.

Bear Hat

First of all welcome to my new followers,  Paula and Compostwoman.  Also I would like to thank Ilona of Life after Money for the link and mention.

I have been doing a bit of stash busting this week.  I have been invited to a baby shower and needed to do something for a baby boy.  I had been told that something for 3 months to 6 months would be nice as the mum-to-be is awash with new born gifts already.  I thought I would do a bear hat as I think they are so cute. 

So I went to Ravelry and Pinterest, there were hundreds of variations and patterns!  You would think that I would able to find something, but no, I have realised that I am picky!!  In the end I picked a basic pattern and started it was dreadful, so I frogged it and just got to and made it up as I went on.  It worked!

So much so, that my visitor this afternoon wants me to do a pink version for a 2 year old girl.  I am thinking that I might write a pattern for it, improving on some of the kinks.  I will post it when I do.

I have been doing some other stash busting and will post them when they are finished.

This week has been about the garden, spring is well and truly here.  I have been digging compost into the future cottage garden bed and the vegetable patch ready for planting in a few weeks.  Also I have been sowing seeds galore and the potatoes are nearly ready to plant..

Blooms are starting pop up everywhere and I was pleased to see the bees swarming over my white borage.

In the flower garden the Bergenia  or ‘elephant ears’ is putting on a wonderful show.

Well that’s it for today, thanks for looking and see you soon.

I am linking the hat to Linda of Crafty Corner’s Septembers Stash-buster link party.

Stash Buster and Giveaways

The weather has been a bit turbulent here; a massive storm left me without a land line for a few days (made me realize how I need my internet fix every day!!).  Had some damage to the guttering and I lost my greenhouse,  it decided it wanted to fly next door!!!!  This is the second time; it got damaged in a storm last spring.  I have decided that’s it,  I am tired of being on edge every time there is a storm, the weather patterns seemed to have changed of late – more extremes.  I will make some cold frames out of the remains, and I will be able to move them about the garden.  Also I decided to have less vegetable garden and turn 2 of the veg patches into cottagey flower beds.  That will still leave me 2 beds for veg.  Being on my own I don’t really need so many veg.  Also my Rheumatoid Arthritis is starting to limit my activities a bit - got to save my energies for the crochet and flowers, ha-ha.

We have had a calm day, and after a week of being shut indoors with the stormy weather I decided to take a stroll around the block.  No wonder it is so bitter, there was snow on the Tararua Ranges.

Anyway, I have been doing a bit of stash busting and have made 2 cushion covers, the pink one will have as white backing and I have some sweet pink flower buttons for the back.  That will go to a friend’s daughter who snaffled my pink mandala in the same wool.

The next one is from the remains of the baby blanket I am making for a friends first granddaughter (I have just the border to do now).  I need to buy a backing as I want a small flower print in those colours.  This will join the blanket.

These two I am entering in Linda of Crafty Corner’s Summer Stash Buster link party.

GIVEAWAYS

This week I discovered two give-aways for wool, one at Amanda’s Crafty in the Med details here

The other at Mrs Micawber which I discovered via Linda’s blog. details here

Both have lovely colours to give away and the closing date is soon so check them out.  

The Garden

Luckily the area by my back door is sheltered and the storm did no damage.   

I am pleased that the Daphne is still scenting the area.

Under the eaves of the house I discovered this succulent starting to flower despite the cold.

Along from it I am really pleased to see some limes on the bush I planted last summer.  There are only five, but it shows me I have chosen the right spot.

Well that’s it for today, hope to see you soon.

Have a great crafty week.

Blanket WIP

This week I have been working on my (Japanese) flower garden blanket, it started out as a shawl, but I decided that it would make an awesome blanket.  It took me ages to work out the pattern as there are several variations of it on the web; in the end I used Lucy of Attic24’s photo.  I was a bit concerned that my petals were too full, and tried a smaller hook, as I am a loose crocheter.  However it still puckered!  Curious I tried different wool and it worked out flat.

(The light colours are really pale greens and lilac, I had to use a flash as the light is bad today.)

So it is the type of wool.  I prefer the raised 3D effect as it gives the blanket texture.   The wool is King Cole Riot Double Knitting, there is an amazing range and so far I am using 4 colour ways.  I might do some blue and teal and purple colours on the outer edges.  Leaves floating along in a stream!

It is such fun to make and very fast as I don’t have to decide what colours and so on for each motif.  Being a ‘join as you go’ project there has to be some thought to placement, but that’s not hard.

The colours make me think of the colours of autumn/winter and I found some photos of my garden I took a few weeks back.

Along the boundary, they really are next door’s trees, don’t you love borrowed landscapes!

Under the plum tree, I think I will have to move the cotoneaster as it will take over if given half a chance.

I also did some doilies this week but will leave that for another post.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week everyone.