Lots to show

Or that's how it feels.

I thought I would finally sit down and get these pictures up.
I've been trying to get better pictures but I think this is as good as it's going to get all the time I'm the other end of the camera, haha

So no real order but this is what I have to show you to date.

First up is my poncho
I made this after watching a you tube video. I love the look of it but I just don't like the feel of it so flat to my neck, it's like it's choking me, so now I'm wondering should I have made a v neck instead.
It might sag a bit with wear (tugging, lol).

I'm also debating, if I don't pull it apart to do a V neck poncho, would it look nice with a fringe at the bottom.

What do you think??

I made a little pair of fingerless gloves for my mum. I used aran yarn, so they are nice and cosy for her.

Speaking of cosy, I made my eldest son a scarf and fingerless gloves in grey aran weight yarn. For his I made a pattern with ridges of crochet, in the hopes they would trap air pockets and keep him even warmer and I'm pleased to say it seems to work. He says they are really toasty!

I also made a beanie and scarf set in the basket weave pattern using a brown chunky yarn.
I can't get the colour right as the camera insisted it needed to be lighter than real life, sigh!!
Anyhow, it's actually a nice deep chocolate brown.
Very soft.

Then I found a sort of plush thick fawn or very light brown yarn hiding in my stash.
I made a neck warmer and then made up a flower to decorate.
I can't decide how to make the closure. I thought of some large wood buttons or one button, or making a tie. The buttons would need to be between 2" - 3" and so far I haven't found any round locally, so it's just sitting in my 'to finish one day' pile.

This could be a shawl for a little girl size wise, but I made it as a little bed jacket to go round your shoulders and keep you snug.  Whether anyone would actually like to wear that I don't know.
I made it in V stitch with a granny stripe of stitches between the grey and pink cords.

I have no idea what I've done here.
I started a cardigan, bought a pattern and the correct yarn, and was happily knitting away, then it said to start armholes! It's only 9 inches long which is much too short for me and how I like to wear them, I like them longer and it also seems to have come up quite tight too.
Now admittedly, I never swatch, I know that's awful but I never have and I generally get away with it but this seems to me to be miles too small.  It's child sized!!
So that has been put away until I feel like wrestling with it and putting it right.
It's a shame as I really do like it.

So to cheer myself up I started on a sort of little tee type of top.
It's all plain so it seemed the ideal project to try knitting in the round and so far, it's going well.
I had to think about the decreases and get my mum to explain it a few times before I could picture it in my head and understood the concept but now I'm getting on well with it and hopefully it won't be too long before it's time to divide for the armholes!!

Can you see the sparkles in the yarn?

I made another chunky scarf for a friend who just came out of hospital, so I forgot to take a picture of that, which was a shame as I liked it.
It was a raspberry sort of colour I think. I can't really remember exactly now, lol

I need to finish the last cushion cover and the lamp shade cover but I lost the enthusiasm and just wanted to do bits here and there after I was ill. Hopefully I'll get back to those soon.

Anyhow I think that might be me up to date at last.
If I find anything I've forgotten to show you, I'll show it next time.

In the meantime, hope you are all keeping well

Take care!!

:)

and so it continued ....

So after my last post my mum went home and then got unwell again and it was all back to the hospital again. They kept her in and did more tests and found the problem thankfully.

So she came back to us again until she was back on her feet properly and we felt she was ok to go back to her home.
My head wasn't good either and probably the extra stress didn't help but anyway last week I really started to pick up and feel better and so I did quite a bit of crochet when I was resting.
:)

I seemed to make things and unravel them a lot for some unknown reason, I just couldn't settle or concentrate on things but I do have a couple of  finishes now to show you, so I plan to get some pictures of them tomorrow to share with you.
One  thing was something I designed myself, no pattern, and it works as I planned so that made me feel good when it was done.

Anyhow, it's been 7 weeks now so if I still have any readers, I'm so sorry for my absence but I hope to keep up better again now.

Hope everything is good with all of you

Take care

:)

Hope to be back soon

It's been about 5 weeks, maybe 6 since I last posted but I hope to be able to get back on here soon now.

It started off that my husband has been getting back problems for some time now and he had a particularly bad one come on at the beginning of November. He ended up being sent for X-rays and so now has physio starting later this month too.

We should get the results from the X-rays anytime now.

He was just about getting mobile again when I got concussion from a bang on the head. That was on the 14th November and although thankfully much improved now from how it was, I'm still suffering some of the symptoms from it and have to be careful what I do.

As if that wasn't enough, my mum was taken into hospital with a suspected heart attack and believe me, travelling in a car to go to her and walking round the hospital to different wards when you have a minor head injury yourself, is not recommended, lol

I think they thought they would have to stick me in the bed next to her.

With the worry over her as well, it made me pretty unwell.

Thankfully it wasn't a heart attack but it was a bad angina attack so we brought her back home with us the next day and have had her staying here since, where we can look after her.

She's doing better now and seems to be picking up at last, although she has had a couple of smaller angina attacks while she's been here.

So up to now I haven't been able to sit and do anything on my projects, which is so annoying when you consider all the time I've had on my hands since the 14th, but the constant head pains/ headaches, concentration issues and swaying feelings etc, etc have made it impossible. 

Well last night I picked up my last cushion cover and was able to work on it for awhile, so I'm really happy about that. 

Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I am back on my feet and have things to show you again.

Just wanted to apologise for not keeping up with your blogs either but it's just all very difficult at the moment. 

Take care everyone

:-)

My name's Kim and I'm a serial starter....

I know, I know ... it's shameful. I just can't seem to help myself though.

So I was being really good, well almost good because I had made a start on my mystery project, but that doesn't really count as a new start because it's still something for the home, for the living room in fact, so surely I can lump that in with the cushions can't I??
No??

Oh well .... ok, so yes, I started something new ... my mystery project.
I'm really enjoying it so much.  I have no idea where I'm going with it, I'm just making it up as I go along, lol
Any guesses on what it is??

Actually, I don't think it's much of a mystery now, looking at it, lol

Once the main body is complete, I'm thinking I might put some small crochet flowers on the green part of it.

So I had every intention of getting the Tee finished and giving it to my mum and working on the final cushion cover and also on the little shrug and my tube socks.

I wanted to get them all finished up and then I can start more things without pangs of guilt .... but it wasn't to be.
We are going to an anniversary party for some friends and there's entertainment, some of which is in the form of a few short sketches. My son's are both in them and so I found myself enthusiastically volunteering to my friend to make up a couple of bits as part of their costumes, as she and her husband are sorting that part of the evening.

My youngest needed a sort of balaclava, as he plays the part of a burglar in a fun sketch and I've never made one before so that was a bit challenging to work out.
I think it worked out not too bad myself.

Then my oldest plays a bit of a funny piano playing character, so he is wearing bright yellow sunglasses and we wanted a really fun/silly hat .... so I made up this, lol

So as you can see, I've had great fun, but now they're both finished I'm getting an attack of the guilts over the projects I neglected. lol

Here's how far I am on the last cushion cover. This is one side. 

Then this is going to be the opening cover, for putting the pad in and out and I am thinking to just do one plain colour on this side because the flap is so colourful, being a granny triangle. But we'll see. 

Also, the dreaded teal tee ... I CANNOT get those sleeves sorted. So I have two options. Ask my mum for help AGAIN or I do it myself.
If I do it my way I could crochet round to even it up and either pick up those stitches to knit from or just do the sleeves in crochet.
I'm thinking on that still.

Can I admit to a poncho or shall I forget that for now and admit to it next time, so I don't look quite so bad??
Look at this yarn!!
Sirdar Evita  

It's a bit of a mix ... see label

I've never used this before and there was a bag of it hiding in the charity shop. I couldn't ignore it. The colour is so lovely and perfect for this weather plus it's an aran weight, so nice and thick. Should be lovely and warm.
A perfect poncho hopefully!!


So now I'm off to catch up on the blogs I read and watch the Vlogs I like to keep up with as well.  I have a few I subscribe to, but I have no idea how to comment on video's as I don't use my google plus if I can help it.
I'm still trying to work it all out.

Hope everyone is well and I'm looking forward to catching up with all your lovely projects too.

Take care everyone!!

:)

Cushion catch up

It seems ages now that I've been working on these.

That's what comes of just doing a bit here and there rather than getting stuck in and finishing them all before moving onto other things I guess.

Well I'm on the last one now, so I hope it won't be too long before I can declare them all finished!! 

So I thought I would show the ones I've finished to remind us of where I'm up to with them so far. 

Cushion one.

Cushion two.

Cushion three

I meant to take a picture of the one I'm working on, but of course, I forgot!! 

I've been working on these for so long now I can't actually be sure I even like them anymore. 

How mad is that?!!

Anyhow once I've got the final one done, I was going to make a little throw for the back of the settee but I've had a different idea. I'm not sure it will work but once I get started on it, I'll show you but for now at any rate, this is the cushions. 

:-)

Holiday catch up.

So I thought it would be nice to show just a handful of pictures from our holiday, just to give an idea of what we did.

We went to an open air 'living' museum called Beamish. We didn't manage to get round it all but the tickets we bought last a year, so we'll be popping back over.

It's very large and we have walked round in the past but this time we used the buses and trams they provide, which made it easier on my mum and D, who we took with us.

Then just a few pictures from the cottage we stayed in 

Living room

Kitchen

Main bedroom ( it was 3 bedroomed)

Small private court yard area. 

Steam train
If anyone has seen the old TV series called 'Heartbeat', this was the local train station they used 'Aidensfield Station but actually a place called Goathland.

Bernie's garage.

This is the pub they use as the 'Aidensfield Arms.

Anyhow, best I ease up on the holiday pictures now, don't want to overload you.

 Must show you though, this is the yarn my mum bought me. It's lovely and soft.

I bought this pattern to use it on. Can't wait to start it now, lol

Oh, and I pulled out my cushions last night and actually made the effort to finish them off at last, so only one left to make.
I'll update you on them in my next post now though.

Take care everyone!!

:-)

Horrible, horrible

I couldn't update while I was away even though I had bought mobile internet for my iPad because the signal was SO bad.

Since returning home, I've had things going on which put everything else on hold.

My diet, which I came off for my holiday, I haven't been able to set my mind to either, so I still have to get myself back on track there, so that I don't end up back where I started. 

While we were away, Joe, my youngest picked up the cold D, who we took with us, had. So he felt pretty rubbish towards the end of the holiday, with a streaming cold.

The thing with him is, that anything he gets, because he has health issues, you need to be careful and he seemed to start to get over the cold once we were home but then suddenly, when a horrible cough came out on him, went down with a smack. High temps, bad chest, coughing, headaches, being sick. It's been quite worrying. 

He's still unwell but I'm hopeful he's starting to improve a bit.

Something else really horrible happened as well.

My eldest son and myself, along with others in our village, have had our cars keyed. 

My son's car

My car

The police came but made it clear they can't do much about it. So annoying and so mindless. 

I really don't get what people get from doing stuff like this.

With my sons car we have just tried to t.cut and paint over it. 

Mine is going through the insurance but it counts against me as a claim. Grrr!!! 

So with that and Joe, it hasn't been a great time. 

That said, it was lovely over in Yorkshire and it was our 27th wedding anniversary while we were away. Steve bought me a sweet little aquamarine ring in the local flea market

And a set of items based around Yorkshire tea which I love.

Of course that meant I couldn't resist making a cute tea cosy complete with pom poms.

So that was something I enjoyed making and it was quick too.

I made a start on the TEAL neck and sleeves. The neck I decided to make like a little roll over as this is too big for me so I have decided I'm going to give it to my mum once I'm done.

I'm working on the sleeves. I've had to take them out once already as they didn't look right so I'm on attempt 2 now

When we went away I took this stylecraft cotton to make a shrug. I started it but I didn't do much on it and now, I'm looking back at it and can't remember what I was doing with it. Oops!! 

Might need to frog it and start again.

Note to self: make notes!!!! 

So I wanted to show you some pictures of my holiday, just a few, but I think I'll have to make another post with them. 

I was so good while I was away and despite visiting lots of yarn, I resisted every urge I had to buy any, telling myself I need to use some of what I already have.

However, my mum insisted on treating me to some plus a pattern as well, for a nice chunky cardigan, so that too will appear on my next post. 

Hope things are good for you all

I'm hoping to catch up with my blog reading now.

Take care!! 

:-)