Patchwork October

Hello.............. October was a month of slowly moving forwards here at the Summerhouse.

Thankfully my energy levels have slowly been improving, after a year of full on relapse, there is just the tiny hint of a little more energy.  Restarting my herbal medicine with the addition of some Ginseng and going back on the antibitoics seem to have really helped, it's slow going though and this last relapse has left me so much weaker.  I'm still mostly resting as the slightest thing finds me exhausted. 

Sorry I've not been about too much in blogland these past months, I've really missed catching up on you're lives and crafty antics.

October did see a couple of Ta-dahs and some new crafts I even managed to write a song, new songs have been few and far between this year.

Out in the Summerhouse garden there was still lots of lovely colour to be found.

October saw my complete one of these long term projects, as for November I hoping to get my hand warmers finished asap as it's getting really cold now and my hands are freezing.  I'm also hoping to get on with some blanket making.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Woodland Flowers Mandala

 

  

Hello.........  Over the late May bank holiday weekend I found my crochet mojo again, loosing myself in the wonderful colour that comes with Mandala making

Yes I raided my stash and had a play around with the colours, looking for shades to represent the colours and tones to be found in a woodland, pretty woodland flower colours, the plan was to make a mandala that was big enough to go into a hoop to be mounted on a wall.

Woodland is one of the themes for our next craft club exhibition and when I spotted Marit's Voila Mandala  over on instagram, I just couldn't resist having a go.  I've added a link to the pattern.

So here's my woodland in a yarny themed mandala

First up we have

Spring green

followed by white to represent snowdrops

Closely followed by pretty pink blossom.

I hope you are following along with my thinking on this one, 'P' was not so convinced and kept saying 'I don't get it!!'

Next came the first spattering of Bluebells

more Blossom and

of course the trees bursting into leaf.

Now at this point I took a bit of a leap, away from my usual Summerhouse colour palette, adding in some red yikes, what was I thinking, I did get a bit nervous at the point but I braved it out and I'm glad I did.

So we have red to represent poppies.

Next up came blue skies and clouds, I really am loving this woodland wander.

Following along were

Violets

Honesty

and more Spring green

At this point it was time for a bit of blocking. pinning and wafting with the iron. As you can see I've added a few more rounds here:

More Bluebells, as you can never have to many!!!

Poppies and

then some rain to make the flowers grow, just a little shower.

To keep the tree's nice and green

 I'm not sure what it is about this time of year but I always seem to be drawn to making mandala's it's so restful, working on a round or two each day,  almost like meditation.

So a little catch up

 after the leafy green of summer

comes some Cow parsley

more violets 

and then the blue blue summer skies

Finally to finish we have the berries of Autumn represnted in three different berry toned rounds

and one final round of green

Here's my mandala all blocked measuring about 45 cm, I'm not sure if I'm going to add any more to it yet, I keep thinking wow that would make a lovely cushion, but I'm resisting as there are already far to many cushions here at the Summerhouse.

Now all I need to do is find a hoop that is big enough for the mandala, which is made from various shades of Stylecraft special DK, I do hope you enjoyed this wander through the woods with me.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Cosy Catch up

Hello............ It's been quite a while since I last did a post about my 'Seaside Pebble' Cosy blanket, in fact the last one was here way back in September eek.

Well progress since then has been kind of slow, what with a relapse of my chronic illness, plus Christmas and then crafting for the local exhibition.

I've picked it up on and off thoughout the winter, adding a row here and there. 

The pattern if anyone's wondering is Lucy over at Attic24's Cosy Stripe, I started this make in the Autumn of 2014 joining in with Lucy Crochet Along, but due to my limited crochet time and poor energy levels, where most people finished there blankets well over a year ago mines turned into more of a endurance event..... 

but I'm still loving the soothing colours and sparkle of my seaside theme

As you can see I've been a bit naughty with the ends, not sewing them in as I go, but now I'm kinda loving them as they remind me so much of the sea, so I'm wondering if tassel's might be the way to go when I'm finished.

I'm a way off  that yet though, as I want my blanket to fit a double bed.

 Here's a update on the colours if you are following along

silver 111-112

cream 113-114

brown sparkle 115-116

white  117-118

blue sparkle 119-120

parchment 121-122

silver 123-124

white sparkle 125-126

cream 127-128

Happy Crafting

Linking up with Jennifers
Winter link party

Clare xx

Five on a Friday - Lately

 Hello.......... Today I'm going to be joining in again with Amy's Five on a Friday link up, where I'm going to be sharing five things that have been going on lately, here at the Summerhouse.

The Summerhouse had been getting Spring ready with pretty Primroses and Polyanthus, I've never seen pastel pink Primroses before and just had to have some for the window boxes, mixing them in with white and these gorgeous purple ones.

A big thank you to my lovely sister for texting me a photo when she spotted them in the garden centre and kindly getting them and delivering them to me.

Lately I've been playing around with fabrics, after my Sewing machine starter course a few weeks ago I just couldn't wait to get started, they'll be a post all about this make soon.

As always there has been a little bit of crochet too, I'm really hoping to get my Seaside Pebble Cosy blanket finished sometime this Spring. I'll share a colour order update very soon.

Now as for all those crochet ends well I've been saving them up for about a year, to do a little experiment, I'm not sure if this is going to work, but I've put them into a bird feeder and I'm hoping the birds will use them for nesting materials.  I have no idea if this will work or not but I love the idea of the birds knitting there nests from my left over ends.

Last but not least, it's a yay for new craft materials, I couldn't resist this book and some merino when I spotted it on Amazon the other day, I'm looking forward to having a go at making some felt fairies, fingers crossed it's not to tricky.  So hopefully sometime soon, there will be a 'Something New' post all about my felt fairy adventures, I'm loving my new years resolution to try new crafts.

Well that's about it for now, have a fabulous weekend

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork August

Hello......... I know I'm so late with this one, but here are the patchworks for August.

A month full of holidays and crafting and lots of rain, with a ankle disaster at the very end.  I crafted on beaches, in cottages at home and in the garden.  Lots of old WIP's got a airing, all in all a pretty good month if you ignore the bit at the end.

Out in the garden it's been pretty wet but the Flowers are looking lovely apart from the sweet peas which have been a bit of a disappointment this year, out of 40 plants (two separate lots)  I've only had 3 flowers, I've never had trouble growing them before so I'm putting down to the weather.

As for my Seaside Pebble blanket well I've been working away on big cosy over the summer and had a bit of a photo shoot out in the garden a couple of weeks ago.  I have to confess things have slowed down a little lately as I've been somewhat distracted by my 'Broken Ankle Blanket' 

Here are the colours to get you up to date if you are following along.

97-98 Mocha

99-100 Cream

101-102 Silver Sparkle

103-104 White

105-106- Parchment

107-108 Sherbet

109-110 White Sparkle

As for the Broken Ankle blanket well, you can see why it's such a distraction I'm loving all the colour.  The ankle itself is not feeling so great, since it's been in the boot it completely ceased up again and the swelling is back, I'm finding it all so exhausting and my ME/Lyme's is flaring up under the extra physical demands of the boot and crutches.

I'm still experiencing some technical issues here at the Summerhouse, as a AVG update seems to have messed up the laptop, which is really annoying as all the photo's are on it. It's completely the wrong time for it to happen as life is such a struggle already at the moment I can only really get online if I'm out of bed and downstairs where the desktop is grrr which isn't too often

Any road I'll try my best to do a post once a week.

Hope life is treating you kind

Happy Crafting 

Clare x

Patchwork July

Hello........... Here are my July Mosaics, yes I know it's towards the end of August eek.

July was a month for Summer,  well at least it was supposed to be hot and sunny !! but never mind with holidays, crochet and a little stitchy project, there was plenty to distract from the not so great weather.  The Summerhouse was looking very pretty too with it's summer planting, I spent the month hooking away on my Cosy blanket and finally got around to a WIP from last summer.

Out in the Summerhouse garden things were blooming great, with summer bedding, Roses, giant daises, while the wonderful scent of orange blossom filled the air.

So that was July, here are the projects I plan to be getting on with in August.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Cosy Stripe catch up

Hello.......... It's been a little while since I posted about my Cosy blanket so I thought I'd best do a Stripy update.

I'm slowly working on it, in fact this week I've done quite a bit (for me anyway).  As sods law would have it, I've managed to pick up a nasty cold the week before we are due to go away on holiday.  The irony that the only place I've been to pick up a virus, is the Immunologists is not lost on me.

Really not good news as colds tend to linger with me and cause relapses. So I've not been the happiest of bunnies, the last few days, I'm taking loads of vitamin c and garlic and resting up as much as I can.  Which has been the perfect opportunity to snuggle up under my Cosy Blanket while adding a few rows.

So much so, my Seaside Pebble blanket has now got to the half way point, at about half the size of a double bed.

I'm still very much in love with all the sparkle, it's tricky to get a pic but here it is in the evening when the lights are on, how it twinkles and how different it looks in different lights.

Oh the lovely, lovely stripes, these tones really represent the seaside to me the water, pebbles, sand, sea foam, driftwood and sea glass, I can see it all in the blanket.

 

 I'm loving how it changes row by row, I'm still picking at random as I go, except for the browns and blues which are occurring in a sequence which is involving way to much maths for my liking, but as they are the colours that pop, I hope by doing this I'm adding some balance to blanket as a whole.

(Please mind the gap, not sure whats up with blogger, anyroad)

So next up we have Stone, which I'm using sparingly, every 24 th row (ish) as I'm not overly keen on the yellowness it brings, so just a bit sand on the beach here and there.  Then I'm going for the blue sparkle.

So to get you up to date with the colours if you are following along.

87-88 Silver

89-90 White Sparkle

91-92 Cream

93-94 Stone

95-96 Blue Sparkle

I'm using Lucy's Attic24 Cosy Stripe pattern

This will be my last post for a week or so as we're off to Pembrokeshire the middle of next week, I'm really looking forward to see some stunning scenery and the beaches, I just hope my energy levels hold up.

Linking up with Frontier Dreams KCCO

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork May

Hello........ Well May went by in a flash, I think I missed most of it as I spent the month feeling pretty rotten, medical mystery that I am, fingers crossed things are improving now and thankfully my pancreas seems to have perked up again.

So May, well there were lots of flowers here at the Summerhouse and lots of yarn too,  plus a wonderful trip to the magical Bluebell woods.

There was lots going on out in the garden, at least I'm pretty sure there was, I didn't make it outside that much, so I missed most of it. So when I came to make this mosaic there weren't too many photo's to choose from, but hopefully you get the gist of it, Bluebells and the first Roses of the year, plus the Horse Chestnut in the garden looking at it's very best in full of flower.

I'm still slowly working away on my Seaside Pebble Cosy blanket, above is a picture of the pebbles on our local beach, the inspirations for my blanket

Here are the latest rows to keep you up to date if you are following along

79-80 Cream

81-82 Brown Sparkle

83-84 Sherbet

85-86 Parchment

So June is here roll Summer!!

Happy Crafting 

Clare x