Crochet Clothes Peg Bag

I haven't got a lot to report on the "domestic" front at the moment as I seem to be having a bit of a slump. I do, however, have lots of crochet to show - I have been busy on that front!!!

As part of The Art of Crochet magazine I have hundreds of patterns for various items from clothing to items around the house. I got fed up with carrying my pegs around in a carrier bag so I decided to use one of my patterns to make a peg bag. 

It really didn't take very long, it's the lining that was the tricky part for me.  I ended up sewing 2 hankies together, albeit very badly - I would love to be able to sew properly but I just don't have the patience! I reasoned that on this occasion no-one would see the lining anyway so I wouldn't worry about it.

I love the finished result! It looks beautiful hanging on my washing line in the sunshine!!!

xxx

New Beginnings

We went down to stay with my parents last weekend. They've just recently moved into a new house after having lived at the previous one for 15 years. It was an opportunity to down-size a little bit & I suppose is a "new beginning" for them as it is their first house since they got married 32 years ago that is just for them - no children to consider!

It's a lovely house with a nice garden. Considering they've only been in there for a few weeks they've done an awful lot to make it cosy & homely already - not a single box in sight!

I took a couple of pictures while we were there but the light wasn't great. I LOVE their conservatory/dining room, it's fantastic to sit in & look at the garden. The lounge is also really cosy without feeling cramped - they had a rather big lounge before & I worried that all of their furniture was going to be too much for the space but it worked really well.

I'm so pleased for them, I know that initially they were worried that maybe they were making the wrong decision with  moving.  Good luck Mum & Dad in your new home!

Garden Fun

Despite the lack of posts from me over the past month I have been busy beavering away in the background - admittedly not the domestic-goddess-related things that I strive towards but still, busy nonetheless.

This past week has been beautiful so we spent the majority of it outside in the garden. We came back from playgroup on Thursday morning to find that Hubby had put up the bouncy castle, paddling pool & tent in the garden. The girls were beside themselves with excitement. The rest of the day was spent playing in & out of the water & just generally relaxing with the family. 

Our tent was bought the Christmas before last in the hope that we could start going camping, however with Abby being born last year & moving etc it didn't happen.  We decided we'd do a trial-run in the garden first, which is what we did on Thursday night. I'm so glad we did! Abby freaked out about being in a tent at night & sharing a bed with her sister so, after the initial hour it took for us to get her to stay in the tent without screaming there was an additional hour & a half of the girls giggling/fighting/rolling around on the air mattress before they finally fell asleep! Then I spent most of the night waking up to check on the girls &/or dog!  It was fun as a one-off but while Abby's still little I'm so glad we hadn't booked a week away!!!!

Still, I FINALLY took the opportunity to decorate the garden with pretty lanterns & tealight holders that I bought about 3 years ago & have been sitting in my cupboard ever since!  I had to go out & buy some shepherd hooks but I was thrilled to find these in Poundworld. Yep, for £1 each I got some fantastically pretty butterfly hooks that not only look fab but are also REALLY heavy & sturdy! Bargain!

The tealight holders were from Morrisons as per this previous post. My dragonfly lanterns were from Bombay Duck years ago (I think I bought these before I even fell pregnant with Freya & she'll be 4 in December!!!)

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how pretty this part of the garden is looking now. Plus, my stargazer lillies have come out & my hydrangea is looking beautiful, so all-in-all I'm quite enjoying our garden at the moment.

I hope you've been able to enjoy the weather where you are.

xxx

Baby Blanket #3

My nephew, Max James, was born on Saturday 7th July 2012 at 7.50am. He weighed a whopping 10lbs 9.5oz!! We knew in advance that my brother and his girlfriend were expecting a boy, which was good news for me as I took advantage of all the small amounts of blues and greens to make up this blanket.  I hope they like it!

Flowers

I'm trying to get our garden looking lovely but the weather isn't really helping at the moment!!!

We were given an orchid by some friends last year when they came to stay with us on the weekend of the Royal Wedding. I haven't really done a lot with it so was really surprised when a beautiful pink flower appeared!

We also have a rose in our garden that we got as part of our wedding flowers 6 years ago.  We had these exact roses at our wedding & we got the florist to make up 3 pots, one for each of our Mums & also one for us. The rose is called Once in a Blue Moon &, although we have had buds & flowers before, this is the first year that the rose & colour has actually resembled those lilac roses that were present at our wedding.

I've also been planting lobelia and geraniums, which I have in abundance thanks to my Mother-in-Law planting about 600 seeds!! I'm also pleased that my hydrangea is returning this year (another flower that we had at our wedding), although when I bought it last year it was a mixture of blue, purple & pink flowers whereas it looks like it might just be pink this year, but will still look wonderful, I'm sure!

With the rain & a poorly household this week I think the garden is going to have to wait, but fingers crossed I'll get round to it soon.

xxx

Baby Blanket #2

I finished my second baby blanket of the year a month or so ago & it has already been received by my school friend, who had a little girl on the Jubilee Weekend.

It was my first attempt at a ripple & I was really pleased with how it turned out. I got some ribbon free with an issue of Mollie Makes magazine so decided to use some on this blanket to "finish it off".

All in all, a very successful blanket!

xxx

Holiday

I've been awful lately with this blog!  So much for my new-year resolution!!

We went on holiday at the end of May to Fuerteventura. We went with my parents for a week & had a lovely time.  We hadn't really had a holiday since our honeymoon in 2006 so it was a well-needed break. I would really recommend it if you're looking for somewhere warm to go but don't like the heat. Although the temperature was high, there was a constant breeze to cool you down so at no point did any of us feel like we were sweltering!

We took the girls to a massive safari park/zoo, Oasis Park on one of the days, which was amazing. On top of the usual animals, monkeys, wild cats, hippos etc we saw a few of the shows. The sea lion show was fantastic & they actually brought a HUGE sea lion out into the crowd. We also saw a parrot show where they had lots of different parrots doing various tricks (very clever).

The best show for me though was the reptile show - mainly because Hubby was picked out of the crowd to participate, along with 3 other people.  Hubby actually volunteered but the others were picked out of the crowd and were obviously petrified at the thought of getting any closer to the 3 crocodiles that were swimming around in front of us! They were taken into the enclosure/stage under the impression that they were going to help feed the crocodiles. The keepers had them all line up & had a fantastic way of winding up the nervous ones to make them more scared - it was hilarious when one of the keepers crept up behind one man & pinched the back of his knee & made this poor man jump out of his skin!!!  I'm cruel, I know but it was funny. In the end they didn't have to go near the crocodiles & instead were presented with this massive python that was lifted from out of a box behind them all, over their heads & straight into their unsuspecting hands - again, a very funny moment!

The Oasis Park was a lovely day out but it was sooo hot! It was in the middle of a desert almost, so there was not a lot of breeze.

We also spent a morning visiting the sand dunes & chilled out on the beach. The girls absolutely loved paddling in the sea (first time ever for both of them) & it was fabulous to watch them having so much fun.

To be honest, we didn't really venture that far from the hotel too much more as we were happy chilling out by the pool.  Our hotel, Hotel Suite Atlantis, was in the northern part of the island, Corralejo.  Despite some initial problems when we first arrived with checking in, I really liked it. There were a few pools, one of which was directly ouside our room & was never very busy. The girls had their first swim on holiday & they really enjoyed it. The pool was not heated so it was very cold when we first got in & the girls didn't like it at all, but by the end of the week they were loving the water!

All in all, we had a really lovely week - it's a shame that our week away coincided with the week of gorgeous weather in the UK so we came back to the rubbish weather!

I've got a couple of photos but our laptop died this week before we had backed up our videos & photos - grrrrrr!

xxx