(First photo Sophie and the amazing cake she made for sports relief, isn't it pretty???). Life in the house is suprisingly busy of late, I've got a comission for 100m of bunting for a friends wedding (they had bunting on the invitations so we are trying to match that, the main colours are candy pink, a mintish green and a sort of fawn/cream. When I first got the colour scheme I was immediately reminded of neopolitan ice cream but the bride to be wants all the different materials to have a vintage/pattern theme). So with the brief firmly in place (and written down so I didn't get carried away) we set off for Mason's (I took Jam with me as he is really good at matching colours, not many people know that!). It took a while but we have now selected three different materials for the flags (we also managed to get 2 rolls of bias binding but that's only 50m so the other two are on order), we also bought a rolly cutter as I didn't fancy cutting all those flags out by hand! While I was crocheting the other night (more on that shortly) Jam cut all the material so now I just have the task of hemming it and measuring/attaching to the bias binding (this is only going to be single sided bunting, as its going on the sides of a barn). I'm thinking this might be best all done at once over a weekend. Sadly (or not) that won't be this weekend as my friends Zoe and Steve are coming to visit and we are all heading off to a gin and literature (Zoe picked it, honestly) talk at Oxford Literary Festival, hopefully preceeded by a lovely lunch.
There are two other works in progress at the moment, one which deserves a post of its own (and is nowhere near finished so I think I'll hold off blogging for the mo, although to give you a clue its chicken themed) and the other is this blanket.
My violin tutor has just become a dad for the first time and a week ago was searching for possible names for his new baby girl. Knowing his wife is a native Quebecian, I suggested Aimee (with accents) which has french roots and means 'beloved' which I though was lovely, and the more british Clara (I didn't know the meaning, I just liked the name, but apprently it means bright/famous and has latin origins). I added a note at the end that they were just the names I liked and I'm sure they would receive many other suggestions. To my delight I received an email back this week saying they had chosen Emmaline as a first name but Clara as a middle name! So I thought in the absence of cuddling her I'd make her a blanket. I bought the wool (originally I wanted purple or a yellow, but there were no colours in this super soft yarn that I liked). I know blue, cream and brown are maybe though of as boys colours because of the blue but I'm sure Emmaline can carry it off. I'm still a bit undecided about the pattern though, originally I had my heart set on this wave pattern but now 1 repeat in its starting to curl like crazy (I don't know if that's my fault for crocheting too tight or if there just isn't enough yarn there to weigh it down yet). I'm tempted to rip it back and just do a straight blanket (there being time pressures as well). What do you think?
My violin tutor has just become a dad for the first time and a week ago was searching for possible names for his new baby girl. Knowing his wife is a native Quebecian, I suggested Aimee (with accents) which has french roots and means 'beloved' which I though was lovely, and the more british Clara (I didn't know the meaning, I just liked the name, but apprently it means bright/famous and has latin origins). I added a note at the end that they were just the names I liked and I'm sure they would receive many other suggestions. To my delight I received an email back this week saying they had chosen Emmaline as a first name but Clara as a middle name! So I thought in the absence of cuddling her I'd make her a blanket. I bought the wool (originally I wanted purple or a yellow, but there were no colours in this super soft yarn that I liked). I know blue, cream and brown are maybe though of as boys colours because of the blue but I'm sure Emmaline can carry it off. I'm still a bit undecided about the pattern though, originally I had my heart set on this wave pattern but now 1 repeat in its starting to curl like crazy (I don't know if that's my fault for crocheting too tight or if there just isn't enough yarn there to weigh it down yet). I'm tempted to rip it back and just do a straight blanket (there being time pressures as well). What do you think? 
So (or should that be sew? :-) all I seem to be doing lately is sewing for various different people (all of whom are lovely so that's okay). The first project was a delayed valentines present for the boy. He is a bit of a tea fiend so what better than to give him some hand made heart shaped teabags? Why not have a go yourslf all you need is some loose tea, a bit of muslin, needle & thread and quite a bit of time/patience. Cut out lots of hearts from the muslin (cause it is so thin you can do a couple or more at a time), it's worth making a template for this bit as that gets them a bit more uniform & also then you can make sure you have enough room to put the tea in. Put two together and stitch round them till you get to the top part of the heart, fill with tea & then stitch up the gap. After that you can add an extra bit of thread to the top so the tea bag can be fished out. I made the box for mine too, but I'm sure you could put these in all sorts of containers and give them as presents. I don't think he has used them yet so I'm still not sure if my workmanship will stand up but the finished things were really pretty (and I think he liked them so that's good :-).
crochet all the way homemade and big enough to keep her warm/wrapped up from those summer chills. When I started we weren't sure whether 
she was going to be a boy or girl so I wanted to do purple, but there were no nice colours in that so I went blue instead but I'm sure she'll be able to carry it off. 
We (in this instance me and physicist/should have been a dressmaker, Malcolm) managed to figure out a pattern so now it's just the hard work of sewing the things. The material is lovely (green but in some lights yellow, some lights purple) but it does seem to be having a tendancy to shed everywhere. Also as usual Mabel is trying her best to convince me that she should be the one doing the making (she has always been facinated by my knitting/crocheting (she likes the wool and has the tendancy to try and pick it up in her mouth and run away with it, not so helpful when you are doing it, especially if you haven't noticed, she also used to have her own stash/nest under my bed. I had to raid it and take most balls back however as she has quite expensive tastes). She also thinks the sewing machine is magic, and just sits and watches (which is quite nice if it's 2am the garment has to be finished by 8am and your housemate has gone to bed with earplus in (yes it's happened before)). 
Hopefully we won't be in for a repeat experience on this one, I've been trying to stick to a schedule and have been allowing myself some breaks so I don't get tired and have to redo stuff. The other definite advantage is on this partiular commision although there is still no money (one day) we are swapping crafts, so I get a cross stich done for me in exchange for my labours (I have patience yes but not the amount needed for that :-) 
