Thank you for visiting with me in the Attic, and an especially big thank you to all of you who take the time to leave a comment. I'm looking forward to seeing it repointed and brought back to life. As always, I've opted to keep my patterns freely available for you all. You might remember me showing it to you last year, it's just too lovely to walk past without wanting to capture it on camera. The bakery is just over to the right in the above photo, so I often cross the stream via that wooden bridge to get onto the canal tow path. How beautiful!! I LOVE it SO MUCH!! Oh, I just swooned my woolly socks off right there by the fruit bowl, the sight of those sunlit flowers honestly took my breath away. I remembered at the last minute that I'd meant to add a little bit of colour to the blossom flowers and had completely forgotten. Part of my dancing around yesterday involved these beeeeeeautiful flowers, oh, they really are so, so lovely. I adore this kind of seasonal inspiration and always feel uplifted by the stylish photographs and beautifully laid out pages. I enjoy these early stages of blanket making so, so much, it's gives me such a massive creative buzz! Thank you as always for your most excellent company, and don't forget to visit with Julia on Thursday. My daffodils are in full tilt now and I was delighted to find one single pale rogue flower in the bunch. All the Mummy feels, alllllll of them. Haha! I did end up changing the edging so that they look ever so slightly spiky/frosty. This weekthere was a lot of noise (and mess) as we have builders doing emergency work on the back of our house. but then you know that by now :). | Lucky kitty. The wind had dropped and for a short spell just after lunch we had the sun in our back yard. I'm currently crocheting a new bag made from pure wool in a lovely squishy aran weight and I'm really, really enjoying the yarn therapy. I've actually got this tin on my shelf at the moment with crochet hooks and pens in, it makes such a cute little storage solution. My whole heart and soul goes into each and every blanket and I wouldn't have it any other way. You are wonderful - thank you again. Gorgeous sunshine and shadows, a chilly wind blowing, but oh, that bright sun and blue sky was very, very lovely indeed. I made her a little frill to go around her stripy top, and decorated her with two little flowers. This weekI admired the old Yorkshire stone that our century old house is built from. The above photo was late on Saturday afternoon, a quiet lull in the day when everyone else was busy doing their own thing and I took the opportunity to rest a while. Sigh, I want to do it sooo badly. Lucky me, I get to be the first in line, so may I officially welcome you to the Garden Party, I'm sure you're going to have a lovely time. If you scroll back up, you can see how well they match the colours of the cotton yarn - I'm super pleased with it all, and have thoroughly enjoyed my creative time this weekend. This weekmy Little Lady officially left school to begin her A level study leave and it's proving to be a highly emotional time for yours truly, unexpectedly so. Do you remember me making them? Today was a day with no plans, so I enjoyed a beautifully slow start to my Sunday. This weekyesterday in fact, I took my Little Lady out to breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed both the food and her good natured, chatty company. It doesn't come naturally, especially in a family household when we are so used to multi-tasking and keeping busy, but I think the benefits of a good old fashioned afternoon rest are massive. Comments (67), Thank you so much for visiting me in the Attic, it's lovely to see you. I used to come here regularly when Little B was very small because we went to a lovely singing group in the church hall every Monday morning. ps here is the link again to the pattern page for this project, it's in my alphabetical list of patterns over on the left if you need to find it in future. I bought them yesterday, and although they look rather posh and florist-esque, they were in fact from good ol' Morrisons. Comments (12). I've named the pattern Summertime Tins, so if you're looking for it in my alphabetical list in the left hand sidebar then it starts with S. Now the good folks at Stylecraft Yarns did something very special for us Blogstars (and for you too) and arranged a professional photoshoot to showcase the Garden Party projects. On Friday afternoon it was warm enough to sit outside for the first time in a very long while. You can see some good ones in this blog post to get the idea, and there is also this gorgeous blanket made by crochet designer Helen Boreham for Stylecraft. On the winter garland pattern page, I explain in more detail how I crochet the chain to join all the little bits together. And the tulips are also very beautiful and were only 3 a bunch. This weekI enjoyed running errands on a gorgeously warm and sunny spring afternoon. Our back yard is still in disarray because the scaffolding hasn't yet come down. I really hope that Summer will bring plenty of warmth and sunshine as I desperately feel a need for both. As well as sitting at the dining table, I also have a white piece of wood (the top of an old Ikea childs desk) which I balance on the arms of the big chair to take photographs. A little note about all the pattern details : Most of the patterns I used for this garland already exist as part of previous projects, but I did make some tweaks and alterations along the way. It's been such a lovely thing to work on, either sat quietly at home, or at the caf with friends, slowly creating my little pile of flowers and leaves. In the case of the above bowl of courgetti noodles, it was the beautiful colour of them - so vibrant and fresh looking, and somehow perfectly suited to mid March. I did mean to share this with you earlier in the week, but with one thing and another the days have slipped by. Always enjoying my morning coffee (yeah!) I'm so in love with it, and it was most definitely worth the time and effort to make something that I know will give me pleasure every winter for many years to come. :: @handknittedthings on Instagram. I also realised that although I'd crocheted all the berries, I've still got the faff of stitching them to the fern leaves before I can get busy with crocheting the garland. Julia will be sharing her project with you in two days time, on Thursday 12th May. I find that when I'm working it can be very distracting to have to listen to it when I'm sharing this one room with the whole family. The photos are incredibly atmospheric and very beautifully styled, bringing the whole feeling of a summer garden party to life. I have very low concentration for pattern reading, I mean, I have a lot of brain fog going on during a normal, non-concentrating type of a day, so anything that requires this level of brain work is usually a no-no. I've never seen carnations this colour before, kind of a dirty, vintage pink, aren't they stunning? This weekI enjoyed coffee in the park with a good friend, loving the sunshine on my face while we chatted and caffeinated. It's been lovely to see all the sunflowers popping up. I don't know if you remember, but it was around this time last year when I bought this very clever little spiralizing gadget and got way too obsessed about eating courgette and butternut noodles for lunch. As soon as I started thinking about a winter garland, I knew that hellebores had to be included. I also loved having a playing with it all too - this kind of faffery and photography is soooooooo much fun! I need the flowers for some photographs I want to take for the aforementioned Organic Cotton Secret Squirrel project, so I felt justified in buying them. I must remember to do it more often, especially because the LP really loved me for it, haha, gold star for Mum. I generally work around five months in advance which can be quite challenging for someone like me who much prefers the do-it-right-now spontaneous approach. There you go - all laid out in order and ready to join, how exciting!! I know this has turned into a long-winded post, so I hope you're still with me at this point because I've got a few more things to tell you. Gosh, I do love them, especially the ones with bright orange centres that remind me of fried eggs. I'm so pleased with how they turned out. The blankets had been left out there all winter (unintentionally I might add) and were in dire need of a wash and an air out, and so that's exactly what I did on Sunday afternoon. I roughly followed Jane's photo to pick my sunflower colours and chose the following shades: Gingerbread, Gold, Dandelion, Buttermilk, Spice, Tomato, Cypress, Meadow and Lapis. You can buy them easily on Amazon : 30cm white coated metal craft ring on Amazon. I did some baking on Sunday afternoon for the first time in ages. Butterflies are taking flight in swarms for this one! It's really exciting but also quite draining at the same time because my brain never feels like it rests properly when I'm operating in this way. It's still very wintry cold here in the north of England with early morning temperatures sitting only just above zero degrees. Soon though - the garland will be coming to fruition in the next few days I hope. After my lunch, I took advantage of the fact that I had the Big Chair to myself and settled down with a blanket, a cup of coffee and the latest issue of Country Living magazine. It's a simple concept - I figured I could crochet some pretty pastel jackets to fit around everyday food tins that would normally find their way into the recycle bin. Little Lady spent some time with me downstairs yesterday afternoon, and it was lovely to have her company. Yes, the lacey edged one is especially lovely I think. A Thursday Ta-Dah would be a very good thing so I shall try hard to make it happen. But stitching stamens into a crochet hellebore, or crocheting little yarny snowdrops? In past years I've really enjoyed making seasonal wreaths and garlands, and you might remember me making my first garland for Autumn, and then one for Spring too.here are the links to those projects if you fancy taking a look. ((AUTUMN GARLAND)) and ((SPRING GARLAND)). I am delighted to tell you that you raised almost 5000.so we topped it up to that lovely round number All of us at Janie Crow are over the moon at your generosity and we are just delighted that we can give a nice donation to the UNHCR on behalf of our wonderful crochet community! Our brief was very wide (my favourite kind!) In my case today, the yarn bundle will be the six balls of Organic Cotton for you to make my Summertime Tins - you need to hop over to the Stylecraft page on Facebook to enter >>, Secondly, if you feel inspired to make any of the Garden Party projects featured in the coming days and wish to share on social media (please, please do show us what you're making!) But the kitty has been such a sweet companion and despite the messy chaos, I felt grateful for this rather haphazard home-based working life of mine. It's Sunday evening and earlier on this afternoon I was looking through the photos on my camera and thinking to myself how lovely my days look from a purely visual point of view. I thought you might appreciate seeing my very professional photographic studio (! Those colours!! It's been a long while since I sat down and tried to follow somebody else's crochet pattern, and it was an interesting experience for someone like me whose brain really, really dislikes written patterns. Ahhhhhhhh, don't they look fab? We took a flask of fresh coffee with us and sat a while on the bench in the above photo enjoying the sunshine. I noticed that she was carefully watching me as I danced around photographing my lunch and my flowers and my yarny pursuits and I have to say it was a bit odd being observed. So pretty. I did get a little moment of visual pleasure when I folded up my freshly washed and dried woolly socks though, so there was that. J and I went out for a walk, just a local stroll from our front door along quiet rural lanes (well if you ignore the tractors coming and going) and back along the canal. Here is my Spring garland (I'll hang this one up in April I think). Along with her gorgeous photo, she announced that during this month of March all profits from pattern sales would be donated to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to assist refugees in Ukraine. We applied to the council for a permit to close the road to traffic, hung up strings of red, white and blue bunting and gathered together enough food and drink to feed a small army. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be brighter in more ways than one, and that I can finally see my lovely Winter Garland over the finishing line. I seem to be in a very heightened creative phase at the moment, with a huge surge of ideas and inspirations crowding my mind day and night. So yeah, it was a very intense week, not stressful as such, but highly emotional and draining nevertheless. It turned out to be the most inspirational book, I promise I'll show it to you very soon because I think you'd like it. It's switched into creative overdrive 24/7 and it's hard to dial it down. What a beautiful way to start the day. I searched high and low and I cannot find them anywhere, so I'll just have to crochet up some replacements. They're a bit fiddly, because the whole thing is crocheted with chains and slip stitches, but I really love the look of them and think they are worth the faff. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Posted at 09:29 AM in Crochet | Permalink The ferns already existed as a pattern from a previous project, but I made them much shorter than the original design. One thing that really struck me was how massively my word count has increased as the years have passed. and the only specifications were that we use a pretty pastel colour palette and come up with something decorative that would fit a garden party theme. I adapted Jane's blanket pattern to create the final round which attaches the motif to the hoop and love how it turned out. This does not result in any additional cost to you thank you for your support! Before I get carried away with springtime chat I wanted to thank you all so, so much for the really lovely, positive comments you wrote in response to my Winter Garland. It made me ponder on which style makes for better reading - longer, chatty posts published less frequently, or short blog entries posted four or five times a week? I've got a pretty clear idea of the overall design, but am still in the sampling stage where I'm working out how exactly to bring my idea to life. This weekend I've been crocheting, of course I have - I've been working on some designs that I'm doing for Stylecraft, a little secret project that I'm really, really enjoying but can't show you just yet. I'm still trying to come to terms with many things to do with my Mum and the way her life came to a very sad and abrupt end, gosh this kind of deep rooted stuff isn't easy is it? J also works in this room in the winter months so I'm often listening in to his conference calls and we have to juggle where we both sit - one room living with a family of five is a challenge at times, especially with two of us working from home. HoweverI really wanted to be able to support Jane's generous fundraising venture and so I made a determined effort to stick with it and see it through. Here are the links again for you >>. I have a passion for crochet and colour and love to share my creative journey. Here is the link to Jane's page where you can purchase and download the pattern either via Etsy or Ravelry >>, https://www.janiecrow.com/fields-of-gold.html, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I had lots of creative fun trying out my new watercolour pencils, using them to add a little extra colour and detail to the petals. J and I went out for a walk this morning. | I'm used to inhabiting my own world when I'm photographing and talking to myself inside my head, wrapped up in my own colourful bubble. EDIT >> 1st AprilA message from Janie via her Instagram page : "Thank you all so much for the wonderful support of my Fields of Gold pattern throughout March. | This weekI received a beautifully wrapped gift in the post, a surprise from a very generous friend. I used Cream and one of Stylecraft's lovely new neutral shades "Hint of Silver" to make my hellebores, inspired by the ones I'd seen in the shops. Comments (43). I am really delighted with these houses, they make me sooooo happy and I have no idea why, so I'm just rolling with the joy they bring me and leaving it at that. I hope you enjoy your peek into my colourful little world x. I don't usually find plain water especially appealing, but cucumber-water, well, that's on a whole new level - so refreshing! A springtime project that eases gently into the summer months well who am I trying to kid, I never do these kind of things gently or quietly, it's always full throttle and full volume. This is Stylecraft Highland Heathers which is a DK weight acrylic yarn and it really is very lovely. She was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about designing tin covers and I absolutely adore her. She dressed up so beautifully for her farewell celebrations and it reminded me of this long-ago post when she was just four years old. ..Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I look at them and feel butterflies in my tummy (and I really do with these) then I know I'm on the right track. | On Sunday it was the Spring Equinox and here in Atticland the weather was absolutely beautiful. You can see me working it out in the above photo, using the hellebore as a centre focal point. I made 24 of them in total (each fern leaf has 3 berries attached) .and think they look quite cute. Sunlight makes me really happy, it's as simple as that. What a difference it made, massively increasing the visual pleasure which I'll enjoy for many days to come. I added a little drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice to the noodles, with a liberal sprinkling of sea salt and a heavy grind of black pepper. The garden in front of the church is in an elevated position, so it gives a lovely view right down the main high street of the town. I combined Cream and Pistachio yarn to make the stamens in the centre. Originally I was going to stitch flowers all the way around like a crown, but in my head I always saw this tin with real flowers in it. I was awake quite early when it was still dark but spent some time sat quietly in bed with a scented candle lit and a mug of milky coffee in hand. Now it's time for me to tell you about who is coming next in the Garden Party tour - say HeLLo to the lovely Julia who is the talented designer and author behind "Hand Knitted Things". Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow with a ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-dah! I do still intend to make a tutorial and share the pattern but I've got a couple of time-sensitive projects that I need to prioritise first. I've got some fandabbydozy daffies on my table this week - remember me telling you last week that I wished we could buy bunches of these paler varieties? Every time I bring bulbs into the house I get a thrill of anticipation, and I hope that I never stop finding pleasure in keeping up these small seasonal rituals for myself. Eventually I think I wore her out with my carryings on because she quietly snuggled herself down on the sofa with the Harbour blanket and had a nap with the kitty. It was as if she was four years old all over again..ah, happy memories.