A Bank Holiday Walk

Hi,

   I hope you all had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend those of you in the UK.  We didn't go away but I have had a super weekend at home.  I went on a girly shop with some of the ladies in my family on Saturday and then had a quiet day around the house yesterday.

   Today we decided to take the dogs for a walk around one of our local parks that we visit Pooley Country Park.  It has a lovely woodland walk and you can stroll along the canal too.  So we did a circular walk heading towards the woods,

 

then past the lake,

until we came to the canal.

    It was just what we needed on a such a gorgeous afternoon and once home it was a good cuppa in the garden and out came the crochet.  

    My daughter loves Sloths and from our recent visit to Toft she had eyed up the Sloth pattern that I had got as an added extra from buying my Edwards Menagerie book direct from the shop.  So I was 'strongly encouraged' to make Harriet the Sloth for her.

    She absolutely loves him but has decided it is not a 'Harriet' and has called 'him' Keith instead.

Sorry Toft!  My son has now jumped on the bandwagon and has requested the Elephant so I think that will be my next project.

Bye for now

Von x

A Visit to TOFT

Hi,

    We decided to take a visit to the TOFT Alpaca Shop in Dunchurch this week.  I was really excited to see the Alpacas and have a lovely peruse around the shop.  When we arrived we opted for a short walk to take a look at some of the Alpacas in the grounds.  It was a lovely day so we enjoyed the gentle stroll through the TOFT grounds and down to Draycote Water Reservoir.  There were plenty of young Alpacas in the fields and we stood for a while watching them eat and play.

We had a short walk around the edge of Draycote Water which looked wonderful in the sunshine.  It is definitely worth a walk around or you could even cycle round too.

 We had a great time exploring inside the shop and my daughter, Heather, fell in love with one of the hats on display so ended up buying the wool and an Alpaca pom pom.  This was a knitting pattern and as I am not as skilled in knitting Heather has asked her Nan for a bit of help with this.  I bought the popular crochet book "Edwards Menagerie" which I love and because I bought it direct from the shop I received an additional ten patterns.  I must say that the staff at TOFT are fantastic and can not do enough to help.  We had some lovely chats with the staff whilst we were there.  There is a cafe on site too so we sat outside in the sunshine with a drink before the journey home.

I would highly recommend a visit but make sure you have some pocket money as you will definitely want to spend in the shop.  I am currently having a little go at creating one of the animals from the book and have made a start on 'Rufus the Lion'.  

I soon made all the body parts and sewed him together. Not sure I quite got the head right but he has become a real hit in our house.

What do you think? I love him.  My daughter has insisted I have a go at the sloth next.

Bye for now

Von x

Crochet Hats - Twit Twooooo!!

Hi,

    During our recent holiday I decided to take a smaller project with me for crochet time in the evenings in our caravan.  I love the cosy feel tucked up in the caravan on the evenings and while the others are watching TV I am more than happy to crochet away.

   The project I took with me this time was inspired by the super crafter Sarah on her blog Repeatcrafterme .  I love love the owl hat pattern she has created and decided to make some of these for my Etsy shop as Sarah is happy for others to create and sell as long as she is noted as the creator(which is quite right - in my opinion).

   I made a small selection of hats using the classic pink and blue as the coordinating colours.  This is a great pattern to follow and I enjoyed the variety within it to make the different elements for the owls.

And here are the finished hats...

 Really pleased with these and I have made a small number of sizes so far.  Take a look on my Etsy site.

Bye for now

Von xxx

Christmas Crochet Stocking

Hi,

   I try every year to be super organised for Christmas, especially working in a school, as it becomes such a manic time.  Although I must confess I do love it!  Out shopping I noticed that the stores were already beginning to add their Christmas stock on to the displays so I set about thinking of Christmas. I have really wanted to have a try at crocheting some Christmas stockings and I managed to find this super pattern on Red Heart.

     

I had come across this fabulous glittery wool and ended up buying quite a stash thinking that it would be for Christmas projects.  So I set about using the Red Heart pattern to create my own stocking.  The first part of the pattern creates the leg of the stocking and I found this quite quick to make up and I think it looks great with the glitter effect( a bit tricky to show in my photos).

I used a lovely dark green to contrast which is a Stylecraft Special DK to create the heel and toe  of the stocking.  I really love the contrast and the two colours really have that Christmassy feel.

I then used a white DK that I had in my stash to crochet the cuff to finish off the stocking.

I think it looks great, especially hung above the fire place - mind it will definitely be moved when that is turned on!!

I have made some more of these and added these on to my Etsy shop.

Bye for now

Von xx

A Visit to North Wales

Hi,

We have been away in our caravan this last week and stayed at the lovely Caravan Club park Lady Margaret's Park in Chirk.   It was a small site but the staff were extremely helpful and welcoming and it was very peaceful.

We enjoyed a walk through the grounds of Chirk Castle and had a tour of the castle which is a National Trust property.  As we walked through the grounds there were some gorgeous cottages with beautiful gardens surrounding them.

The Castle's gardens were stunning with plenty of beautiful flowers to enjoy.  

We, also, visited another National Trust property, Powis Castle, during our stay which was a bit of drive away in Welshpool but was definitely worth a visit.  The Castle was lovely inside but I must admit the gardens and grounds were most definitely a highlight of the visit.

 We opted to visit the Blue Planet Aquarium on one of the days as the weather was forecast to rain.  This was well worth the money for a visit and the underwater tunnel was fantastic with some great views of  the sharks.

On the evenings I managed to get a bit of crochet time in and I will share this with you next post.

Bye for Now

Von xx