Rowan Summer Crochet: Hydra

Can you spy it in the trees? Yes, at long last, I have actually managed to crochet a garment I would not be embarassed to wear. This is the Hydra pattern from Rowan's new Summer Crochet book, apparently their first book dedicated to crochet. This is great for crochet freaks like me. I don't really want to spend money on a knitting book that just happens to have one or two crochet patterns in it.



This is crocheted in 2 parts, front and back, and then the neck and sleeve bands are crocheted on once the tank top is sewn up.



The initial band is a bit of a killer to crochet. It is done on a 2.5 hook, which if you're used to using 5s or 6s for blankets, seems awfully small. It is not difficult, just never ending. However, once you've got over that hurdle, then it is easy and fast, just treble, chain, treble, chain, all up the body.


The neck and armhole shaping need care in counting, but if I can manage it anyone can, lol.

The neck band is quite plain, but the arm bands are a delight, and really make the tank top into something a bit special.

Little White Crochet Blanket and a New Dotty Project

Here's where I am so far with the little white crochet blanket, and I have to admit that I'm not really enjoying it. With the stripey blankets, there is always the excitement of adding a new colour and seeing how it interacts with the previous colours.


I think I'll persevere with this, but I need to take a break from it. It does have a great crunchy texture, and I think it is going to look great on my white bedlinen.

So I phoned my mum, and asked her if she could go down to the pound shop and get me a ball of blue wool, so that I could experiment. "A ball of blue plastic wool?" she said. Hmmm, lol, not everyone is buying into the use of this cheap acrylic wool.

Here's the idea I have: a spotty pattern - will let you know how it goes.

House Hunting and New Wool

I'm back after a couple of weeks away, house hunting. We had an offer accepted on a house, and I'd even started packing boxes, maybe a bit too prematurely. The survey came back and was bad: new electrics required, plumbing very old and a bit suspect, damp in the bathroom, floorboards and joists rotted though, and worst of all, the deal breaker: a new roof required. Problem was that it was already at the top of our budget.

Oh well! Start again.

In the meantime, I've got some new wool, a white synthetic, bought for £1 a ball at the pound shop. Yuk! Yuk! I can hear you thinking. And I have to admit, I wasn't convinced at first, but it is crocheting up really nicely: all white vintage stripe, except there aren't any stripes.

Worst of all, I've lost the charger for my camera, and cannot take any pictures at the moment, which has put me off blogging.

Back soon with some white stripe pictures, and some pictures of the newly finished, and not at all bad, crochet vest top.

Sunday: No Cost Conservatory Makeover

On Sunday, we interspersed playing in the garden in the heat, with a no-cost makeover of my mum's conservatory using things we found in the house and shed.

Previously it contained heavy, flowery, rather dated 1980's style curtains, green painted furniture, and a lot of boot room/porch junk, like scarves, hats, coats, vases, etc. Although it is on the side of the house, my mum's house like lots of Scottish houses faces its back to the wind and rain, and you have to go round the back to get in the front door, if you know what I mean. So people tend to come in the side conservatory, and leave their coats and things there.
So, here's what we did: "Mum?", I said tactfully, "Do those curtains have white linings? Maybe they'd be nice hung up on their own. They'd look like white cotton curtains". And after bleaching, they seem to be quite nice. Here they are:

Just outside the window, sheltering from the inevitable rain we had later, in the woodpile, you can spy a little white chair. These were previously green. I painted them with some white paint, and I think they look nice now. The old pine in the picture is a bench at the table, which is actually an old church pew.

Here are the chairs perched out in the woodpile. I had to paint them with gloss, because that is all that was available, and it is quite a smelly paint, so we left the chairs outside for a couple of days.

Then, while the paint was drying and the curtains were bleaching, we took some photos around the garden:

and put them in old clip frames to hang on the conservatory wall

above an old blue plant pot, waiting for a new plant to fill it,

above an old cupboard, that used to belong to my gran. She probably bought it in the 1930's. It wasn't an expensive piece of furniture, so we painted it a nice soft cream, using emulsion. It will need an eggshell top coat eventually, but we were 30 miles from the nearest paint shop, and trying not to spend any money. The little cupboard now contains all the hats, scarves etc that were lying around.
The little label is a wooden sign of my mum's saying something like "leave room for the angels to dance in your garden".

Saturday at the Beach and some Crochet

We were in Northumberland on Saturday. Went to the beach at Boulmer, walked along the sand, collecting my favourite shells : little limpet shells, and then we into the lifeboat station for a cup of coffee. They were having a little coffee morning, with delicious home-made cakes. "Go in there", an old guy on the beach shouted to us "The Victoria Sponge is delicious". And it was.


I noticed a lot of grey: The skies were pretty much grey all day, and it was not warm, but despite that, I seem to have caught the sun from my little walk on the beach. When I say "caught the sun", it is not that I go brown, just that my freckles join up.

The buildings in Boulmer are lovely old grey stone, weathered by the sea. It is a real fishing village,with the boats hauled out of the sea by tractors sitting on the sand.

I finished the back of my little crochet jumper. It is looking ok, and I am happy with it. To be honest, I'm not sure about crochet clothing, so we'll see how it goes. The pattern is quite difficult at the edges. It is probably obvious to other people, but the "treble in next but one chain space" seems to be confusing my brain, lol.

A Little Whitewashed Shed in a Flower Garden

We had this little shed delivered this week, and in the unexpected heat of an Edinburgh Saturday, we put it together and painted it. It is perched rather haphazardly on the grass here, but has now been moved to the pathway at the back of the house, where it will look after lots of little scooters and bikes and keep them out of harm's way of the rain. It is a "budget" shed from one of the DIY superstores, but I think it looks rather nice painted this soft white. I can see a little row of them, all different colours, with numbers on them, like little beach huts.

Just above the shed you can see the first rhodedhendrons of the season. Ours seem to be very late flowering this year. Here's a long distance shot - with the shed moved away - just look at the mess the blossom has made, lol. My 2 year old squeals with delight when it "rains flowers".
Here are some rhodedhendrons in a local garden, of this beautiful old stone house (not my house). These pink ones are so brightly coloured, they almost look artificial.

I'll take some more pictures of mine later this month when they have flowered. This house we live in and adore is not ours, but a rented house. We are truly lucky to live here with this flowering garden.

Little Snapshots of Edinburgh

A day off work. In the middle of the week. Children in nursery/school. Luxury. I'm almost never on my own for a whole day, and I confess that I am at something of a loss. So, a little trip to the library first - always a treat (I am easily pleased, lol). I get to park in Victoria Street, a double decker street - perhaps one of the most beautiful streets in the city. Above the pastel painted lower buildings lies another street, essentially a big balcony. Yesterday was a bright sunny day, and I was in work, and today its a bit grey and not at all good for taking pictures.

Victoria Street is home to the delightful K1 wool shop - it stocks only good wool: alpacas, wools, fair trade wools and I could easily spend a fortune here. Thank goodness it was closed, but I just have to say that it was awfully nice of them to paint it in my favourite Aga Blue colour.

Down at the bottom of Victoria Street in The Grassmarket, two British style icons sit close together: a red telephone box and a blue Dr Who police box.

Crossing the lovely cobbled road, I avert my gaze from the Vintage Emporium: Armstrongs, another Edinburgh institution. It looks like a little shop but is a very long narrow shop containing billions...billions of lovely vintage items. Want a vintage velvet jacket - they have a hundred to chose from etc. Although open, luckily for the old wallet, my parking ticket is about to run out - two pounds to park for one hour! I head home for a cup of tea.