Crochet Club 2014

Just in time for the weekend I received a VERY exciting package; my Janie Crow Crochet Club 2014 pack.  In case you haven't heard of it, Janie Crow is a British crochet and knit designer who each year runs a mystery crochet club.  Over 6 months, a section of the pattern is delivered to you via email, and there is forum and online support to help you create the perfect blanket.  It allows you to develop your skills in new techniques and stitches and this year, you could buy the yarn bundle as well to make the exact blanket that Janie designed.  I have been waiting for this for a while, it seems like ages since I begun paying my monthly instalments to cover the cost of the club (it was a little expensive but I asked/told Coop about it conveniently when he was playing his Playstation so he agreed without hesitation!) before finally I received my email telling me that it was on it's way. I rushed to the post office with my little red ticket, hoping that it was my yarn stash and not something else I'd forgotten that I'd ordered, but once I saw the size of the pack and gave it a good squeeze, I was certain:

I ran my package straight up to my craft room to try and avoid Squitchy hair as much as possible.  It's moulting time again and unfortunately that hair gets everywhere!  I was a little bit stuck as to where I was going to keep it so that it was free from Squitchy and kept all together and safe, but luckily, the team at Janie Crow seem to have read my mind:

It all came superbly packaged in a neat linen bag to keep it safely stored away.  How charming!  Inside the bag was an even bigger delight:

28 skeins of Rowan yarn, 6 bags of beads and one crochet club sewing label.  Rowan yarn is the posh stuff I only treat myself to when I have been given a John Lewis voucher, and even then I might only buy 4 or 5 skeins before I felt like it was excessive, now I have 28 of these little bundles of colour!  

I lost track of myself pouring over the yarn.  I spent so long looking over the colours, giving them a squeeze, putting different colour combinations together to guess what the mystery blanket might look like.  I even popped my new macro lens onto my camera and snap snap snapped away, trying to master the blurry/focus balance to make the photos look extra professional.  I'm a little embarrassed to say I wasted  indulged for over an hour doing just this!  Taking a photo, rearranging and taking another.  Here's a little glimpse of some of my shots:

For now, I've safely tucked the stash back in the project bag and placed it high on top of my cupboards for fear of Sas getting hold of it.  Not that he's ever touched any of my yarn before, but I wanted to be on the safe side.  Now it's just a case of waiting for the email with the first pattern on the 6th, just 4 days away... ooohh I'm excited! x

My birthday :D

Last week it was my birthday and what a fabulous birthday it was too.  Not quite a big one yet, but creeping ever closer.  

It was a nice quiet celebration which started as every birthday should; with a modest pile of presents!  Lovely Coop treated me to a fantastic new close up lens for my camera accompanied by this fabulous book 'The Crafter's Guide to Taking Great Photos" by Heidi Adnum.  I've only had the chance to flick through the pages so far, but I can't wait to sit down and have a good nose through the recommendations listed for each craft and have a chance to try them out.  

I was also spoilt by my fantastic friends too.  Leanne Leanne bought me a beautifully bright lunch bag so that I don't need to take my lunch to work in a carrier bag anymore (i think she may be ashamed to walk in with me?!)  she also treated me to a new cowl as I do like snuggling into a warm wooly scarf on these chilly winter days.  

I was also especially impressed with my next presents from A Bunch of Buttons.  Check these out...

Yep, hand crafted stamps just for me!  I can't even explain how overwhelmed I was by such lovely gifts; I really am lucky to have great friends and family who know me so well.  

It was a beautiful day luckily weather-wise and so Coop and I spent the afternoon on Gorleston seafront, trying out Sasuke's new scooter.  Yes, you read it correctly; a scooter for a dog.  I had the same reaction when it was sneakily delivered to my house without my prior knowledge.  But actually it's quite good!  As you know, Sas is a husky and so requires lots of exercise.  Being able to pull a scooter satisfies his innate urge to pull but also means that he is getting more exercise than normal.  Although I was a bit sceptical, it's actually pretty good fun.  

Very beautiful Gorleston beach

There were a few hairy moments involving pedestrians...

Although Squitchy is an exceptionally well behaved husky, they do so love to pull on their lead.  Having witnessed Sas with a scooter, I now know how much he must be holding back on a normal walk, as scooter pulling is almost effortless for him.   And fast!  Boy can he soon rack up some speed.  I'm a bit of a chicken about things like this, but Coop looooveeed being dragged up and down the seafront, and we certainly attracted a lot of attention!

We also went out to one of my favourite meals for an extra special treat in the evening.  The Wildebeest is a glorious restaurant just outside the city which serves picture perfect food.  We splashed out on a three course meal...

Ahhh it was sooooo good!  It's not often that I clear my plate for anything, let alone all three courses but I just couldn't resist.  It also made a nice change to get dressed up and make a bit of a fuss; it seems like ages since we have eaten out for the evening so it really felt like the perfect ending to a fantastic day.

So birthday number 29 lived up to my expectations surprisingly (early January birthdays are never good - everyone is too full up and spent out from Christmas).  Best I start planning on birthday number 30 if it's going to beat this one...  

Sometimes you need a little perspective...

I admit it, I'm a moaner.  A complainer, a whiner, a negative nellie.  It's easier for me to see the bad than look for the good.  Not an attractive quality, I know, but I feel like I can be honest with all of you out in Blogland.  That's not to say I don't try to be better.  As I've got older, I've become mindful of the time wasted bothering myself about what other people are up to,  especially as I never feel like I quite have enough time in the day.   And Coop is a good, calming influence on me in this regard.  Eternally optimistic, almost always positive we balance each other out perfectly.  Still, life at times catches up with you and it's easy to get ground down by mundanity until a bit of perspective is thrown your way.

This week, we had a family bereavement of someone not much older than me.  It's not often that I think anyone is all-round good; (there I go again) in my opinion everyone has a little quirk in their personality that you see every now and then which is not quite so shiny and nice.  But not in this case.  She was one of the truly good people, ever positive despite a life of real hardship at times.  Although we were much closer when we were little and time and life had come between us, I was more upset than I expected to be when I heard the news.  Upset for her, for her family, for the years that will never come to be.  And it gave me that little shake needed every so often to make you step back and gain a little perspective on how lucky you really are.   

I started to think about documenting the small but important things that happen every day in my life that make me feel happy and loved so that I don't wait for something so dramatic to happen before I appreciate them in the future.  And I thought that maybe you would like to see some of the things that have inspired me so far.

1) Jenerally Speaking

Jen is a fellow East-Anglian crafter who was inspired by this Pinterest post to keep a record of life each day on an index card in just a sentence or two.  Each year, you reuse the same card for that date so you can track your life from one year to the next.  I think this is such an excellent idea; it's so easy to be swept from one week to the next without realising that it's even passing you by let alone year to year.  It would be nice to be able to look back through the years and trace your life back every now and then.  

2) Mollie Makes Inspiration

I stumbled across this video from Hailey Bartholomew on the Mollie Makes Inspiration blog page and found myself blubbing for ages afterwards.  Hailey embarked upon the task of photographing each day something that made her feel grateful so that she learnt to recognise the good things she has in her life.  She's collated these now into a video, narrating what she learnt along the way.  N.B.  Don't watch this if you're feeling emotional, it's a tear-fest!

3) One Sheepish Girl 52 Weeks of Instax
I know you know how much I love Meredith's One Sheepish Girl blog.  And this is one of the things I have found particularly inspiring.  Using an instant camera, (you know, the kind that prints out the photo straight from the camera, not high quality but quite fun) Meredith photographed something that happened each week of the year and displayed it in a picture frame.  

I tried to do this earlier this year after crazing Coop to buy me a Polaroid camera for my birthday.  Although I kept it up initially, I soon forgot to take my camera out and about with me (it's a bit of a chunky monkey) and the weeks soon whittled away.  

So what's my plan?   Well, I'm not quite sure yet.  I think whatever project I decide upon, I won't start until the new year, as I want to make sure I set aside the time to make a proper job of it.  I'm thinking of perhaps using my Polaroid camera to try a month of gratitude, finding a small thing each day that makes me happy and capturing it in a photo to display in my frame to remind me.  And if I can keep it up for a month, who knows?  Perhaps I can keep it going for 2014...

Gifts for myself

I love receiving post.  Ok, not bills and mundane day to day normal letters, but parcels and packages are always exciting, even if I've bought it for myself.

This week I waited for 2 deliveries.  Firstly, I had treated myself to some new yarn.  Back at Christmas time, I asked for John Lewis vouchers so that I could treat myself to some 'posh wool'.  My friends and family were very generous, and so I bought a huge amount of Rowan's Amy Butler Organic Aran.  In my very limited experience, it is the best yarn I've come across.  A huge variety of modern bright colours, doesn't split and is nice on your fingers and as a finished item.  Ahh, I love it.  But the reason it was in the christmas sales was because it was being discontinued.  Hmmmph!  Well, I've mostly worked my way through my huge Christmas supply and have yet to find something that feels as soft, at a good price with a variety of colours.  I was thinking of hanging on until Yarndale, where I'm hoping there will be many yarn companies for me to chose from, but I gave in.  

Being discontinued, I have had to search hard to find a range of colours, and eventually bought my supply for several different companies.  But how happy I am!  4 different packages brought me my new supply with lots of lovely bright colours and I was inspired straight away.

My favourite colours in the batch; I love love love grey!

My little cupboard is now full up!

The other package I was even more excited about I've had to wait for, for around 4 weeks.  As I may have mentioned (just once or twice ha!) I'm off to Yarndale soon - 4 weeks today in fact.  I want to take my new DSLR camera with me as I'm sure there'll be lots of things to photograph, but the camera bag we have is huge, as it is large enough to carry all the accessories, extra lens and other things.  I didn't want to lug that around with me (it might limit how many new purchases I can carry!) so I found a beautiful handmade case on Etsy,  It was made specifically to suit my camera and lens so took a while to get here, but oh it was worth the wait!

The inside is made of a soft antistatic material

What was  really nice was the kind touches included in the package.  Not only had my camera case been beautifully wrapped to make sure it got to me safely, but the seller had included a postcard of her home town and a little thank you card which was very sweet. 

This weekend, there is plenty of crochet planned.  I am in the middle of making a small gift for a friend and am keen to find some fingering weight yarn so that I can take part in the Fresh Stitches Tiny CAL. I am also making plans for the Sheepish Yarn Bomb which I hope to take part in next weekend.  What are your plans for this weekend?  Will you be crafting in the sunshine?