Can you imagine being able to dance like this? There was a Cadbury’s “Spots v Stripes” event thing going on in Millennium Square on Saturday, we (me and Fran!) stumbled across it after a scrummy lunch at Prohibition. The fact that I was stuffed full of fajitas didn’t help my envy of these street dancers! (are they street dancers? I don’t know. Certainly wasn’t ballet.) It’s amazing to watch - I decided on the spot that when I have children ballet lessons or whatever are out the window, my kids are gonna be street whether they like it or not.

Just joking. It was fun to watch though.

I so enjoyed spending time with Fran, I’ve really missed her. We saw Holly’s work at the Art Gallery too, and of course voted for it to win ;-) I’ve not really been in the Art Gallery before, it’s a fabulous building though, and bits of it make you feel like you are in Hogwarts. Ok well just one staircase made me feel like that, but I half expected it to start moving. Yeah I’m a geek.

I also managed a whole stripe on my ripple this weekend, do you want to see?

It’s pretty long now isn’t it! That is a King-size bed and it hangs comfortably over each side.

This is my favourite photograph of it so far. I like that the blanket is a little like an optical illusion :-)

It’s so windy here that loads of leaves have been blown off the trees. Such a shame - I wish Autumn could stay away for just another couple of weeks!

Another thing that I took for granted was having my logins remembered for various websites. On a daily basis I use bloglines, facebook, gmail, ravelry, flickr, my own blog, photobucket, and a couple of forums. All of these logins were remembered for me. I have managed to get into most of them, but I’m blowed if I can remember my login for flickr! Stupid Yahoo, wanting a different login than everything else. Grrr. Still need to attempt photobucket - hence the lack of photos on this post.

But I’m going to stop whinging now. I’m almost at the point where everything I say is a whinge. Wahh wahh wahh. So let’s think about happy things. Liiiike being given a bloggy award! Exciting. I have been awarded the Stylish Blogger Award by Tanskiknits, apparently my blog brightens her day - how awesome is that? Thanks Tania! (N.b, I would post the blog award image on here but that would requite photobucket, and me actually remembering my login…) oh and by the way, check out Tania’s gorgeous granny stripe blanket - I so love the edging on it, just lovely.

So the rules are to post five things (presumably about me!)

1. I was SO excited to buy “I Shall Wear Midnight”, which is the latest Terry Pratchett book and the 4th in the Tiffany Aching series. I bought it today, it was released yesterday. And so far, it’s actually quite scary! Perhaps I’m just a wimp but ooooh, Tiff, watch out for yourself!

2. Tomorrow I am seeing one of my verrrry good friends Fran, whom I have not seen since APRIL and I think you will all agree that this is an stupidly long time to go without seeing Fran, who is awesome. We are going to the Art Gallery to see our friend Holly’s print, which is being exhibited there. (Oh yes I meant to say - she got into the show! Go Holly.) I can’t WAIT to see Fran, it’s going to be ace.

3. Autumn is on the doorstep knocking on the door trying to get into my life, but so far I am saying NO, GO AWAY AUTUMN, I AM NOT READY FOR YOU. I am refusing to wear a jacket to work, and I am refusing to turn the bathroom light on in the morning. The sun WILL rise by the time I have finished my shower! I really can’t believe that it is September already. I have an overwhelming urge to buy new stationery …

4. My most embarrassing moment EVER occurred in year seven (age 11), in a rare mixed-sex P.E lesson. I had forgotten my P.E kit, and had the misfortune to have a teacher who WOULD NOT BELIEVE that someone could genuinely forget their kit. She gave me a netball skirt to wear and told me to go barefoot. When I tried to wear the skirt, the zip was broken but I was too scared to take it back and ask for another one because that would have meant speaking to the scary witch again. It fell down halfway across the hall when it was my turn for shuttle runs. I was so humiliated that I told reception I was sick and that I had to go home. My mum was at work so one of the teachers at my dad’s school had to drive and collect me. To this day, nothing has happened that has embarrassed me more than that. And to this day, I SO do not regret going home!

5. I have never actually admitted that story to anyone, but it’s been thirteen years and it’s time to get over it!

And now for passing the blog award on … I would like to give it to each one of you who reads here - I love that you come and visit my blog, and you leave me such lovely comments and I’m a bit ashamed of how bad I am at replying to comments. Thank you for being such ace people :-) (and sorry for not replying to things that I really should …)

Thank you for reading my wordy non photo blog (I miss photos), have a lovely weekend all of you. I am going to read some more of my scary book, wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed for Tiffany!

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We are working on a solution (I imagine it will involve Linux ubuntu) but I don’t know how long it will take or if it will work. Long term solution of course is to buy a new one, however we can’t afford that right now.

Argh.

Remember folks, always always always back up your computer- andy made me do this all the time and it pays off because I haven’t lost any photos or anything. Buy an external hard drive and back up your computers. Do it now!

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Rather sadly, and very soon after Whiskey, Rocket the guinea pig passed away last week :-( He was my sister Rachel’s piggy and was about 5 years old which I think is the usual life span for a guinea pig. Usually we don’t “replace” pets so soon(I hate to use that term because you never replace an animal that you love, but I hope you know what I mean.), but with Rachel returning to uni in a few weeks time she wanted to get to know her new furry friend before she left. It’s also getting a little late in the year to introduce new outdoor pets, it’s just not fair to put them outside as the weather gets colder.

On Saturday, Toffee and Betty (sandy and white, and ginger) came home with us. One piggy for Rachel, and one for my brother Patch (Whiskey was his bunny.) Aww. So cute. So incredibly cute. They love to snuggle and as soon as you sit down with them on your lap they run and bury themselves in the crook of your elbow, or run up your arms and sit on the back of your neck. Preferably in your hair.

On Monday morning I was sat on the sofa with all three of them … wait? Three?

Yep, all three of them. On Sunday morning (whilst my sister Alice was racing at Marlow) my mum and me nipped down to town and bought the pale piggy in the middle of the photo. She is from the same litter and was a surprise for Alice, who was a bit upset that she didn’t have a guinea pig. She was with us when we bought Toffee and Betty, but didn’t think that she could have one. But she can! Guinea pigs like to live in groups, and fortunately as these three had only been separated for about 15 hours they took to each other fine. Alice called her pig Clover.

They are quite content to sit still SOMETIMES, but they are mostly just squigglepigs who like to run away and climb into your hair. It’s a bit difficult to get a good photo!

Toffee in particular is having none of it.

and once one of them goes …

They all go!

As I was saying earlier, yesterday morning I was sat on the sofa with all three of them. I’d just washed my hair and it was wrapped up in a towel. They all scurried up to sit on my neck as usual, and there was a bit of a scuffle and the ALL climbed into my hair-towel. Yikes. So I called all siblings to the sofa (calling all siblings! calling all siblings to the sofa!) to retrieve their pigs. Only Rachel didn’t come, but I didn’t realise. So when I tried to unwrap the hair-towel, Betty was still in there! eeeek.

Tell you what though, not much beats having a cuddle with three baby guinea pigs :-)

We are back in Leeds now and I miss them already!

(I can’t believe I was blog absent for so long by the way, I like to think that I’ll update every day but in reality at the moment I’m just going to work and coming home again - very boring and totally un-blogworthy. But leaving it for a week is a bit embarrassing. My technicolour dreamscarf is coming along a treat though, I will have to take a photo and show you all.)

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I’ve wanted to visit for a number of years but other things always got in the way - university, working during the weekends, having no money, moving back home - but this weekend we made it. Oh my, I’m so glad we did and I can’t wait to go back again.

(I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed so I just sneaked one!)

The bookshop is housed in the old Alnwick Station and it was fascinating seeing so many old and interesting books - especially books from my childhood. I was a bit surprised to see Topsy and Tim books in the glass fronted (read: pricier books) cabinets, we have a lot of those at home so I will have to make sure they don’t get thrown away.

As “paper” is the gift for the first year of marriage, we each bought the other a book. Mine is from 1944 and is called “White Bell Heather”. I bought Andy a Ladybird book about honeybees (he likes bees). We didn’t get them to read as such, rather to keep in our wedding box of special things as a memento of our day.

We lunched at Barter Books and read the little story on the back of the menus about the hidden room that became the buffet. I contemplated the red walls and pondered the possibility of a red painted living room. Maybe this only works with high ceilings? hmm.

Instead of exploring Alnwick further (couldn’t find a parking space, and didn’t have enough money to visit the Castle or the Gardens), we made a spur of the moment decision to go to the beach at Alnmouth. I love the seaside with every fibre of my being and truly wish I could live at the seaside, ahhh I could have stayed there all day.

We pottered along (ok that’s a lie. We tiptoed along the more compacted sand at the water’s edge because we were unprepared for beaching and were wearing jeans and trainers. The car is full of sand. I am instructed that I have to make the car not full of sand at some point in the near future. Oh and Andy stepped on a dead jellyfish which nearly caused a comedy banana skin style moment.)

Anyway we proceeded along the sand, breathing in lungsfull of the sea air and marvelling at the deep blue colour of the water. Collecting little stripy stones, and battered sea glass.

We took soppy daft mushy photos of our feet ;-) and generally just enjoyed being at the seaside and being with each other. Revelling at how un-stressed we felt on the beach compared to being at home!

Then, noticing that Boulmer beach was only three miles away, we thought “Why the hell not!” and nipped up there for a while too.

We were waved at by a man in a helicopter!

and then at half past three (Wedding O’Clock) we giggled a bit and congratulated ourselves on One Whole Year, and took a soppy photograph. Andy is blog-shy (fair enough) but here is me and my “just for the camera” smile:

Ah yes and I forgot to tell you how windy it was.

… and then with one final photograph and gaze out to sea, we started our epically long journey home (damn metrocentre and 50 limits). But goodness me, what a wonderful day. Here’s to hopefully many more ♥

Thank you all for your kind comments about Whiskey-bun. It’s always really sad to lose a pet, it never gets easier no matter how many pets come and go. We’ve had pet rabbits and guinea pigs since I was ten years old and it’s terribly sad every time.

This week seems to have flown by, I can’t quite believe that it’s Friday. Time is going so quickly at the moment, I can’t keep up! It’s our first wedding anniversary this weekend so we are off out to (hopefully) have a splendid day tomorrow. I can’t wait :-)

Back in March I started the ripple in the photo above, but then cast it aside for other projects like Rico baby blankets, knitting, birthday blankets and cushion making. It was too hot to work on a woolly blanket. But then the other day I found it in the living room in the starry bucket (because that is the natural place to store a WIP blanket of course) and just started it again. Previously I wasn’t sold on the colours, I’d chosen them in a hurry when asked what I wanted for a Christmas present. The navy blue was Not Right and I wished I’d chosen something else. But now, when laid out flat, it looks a bit like an optical illusion because the stripes contrast so strongly with each other. I really rather like it. I think that some of the colours are discontinued now, so I’ll only be making it as wide as I have enough yarn for now. It won’t be a big blanket but it looks pretty damn good as an end of bed runner. It also makes a good shawl for when I get chilly in the evenings :-)

I’m trying to do one stripe every day after work. I’ve done two stripes in three days … not bad :-)

Have a lovely weekend everyone :-)

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Rest in Peace Whiskey bunny, you were so soft and beautiful. We’ll all miss you.

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One week is exactly how long I lasted before breaking into the Rico Cotton. (It’s also the length of time left until my wedding anniversary!) Does anyone else tie a little of the yarn to each label so that you have it for future reference? I always do this, the next step I have to master is keeping them all together - I am forever finding labels like this throughout the house, most recently in my sock drawer where I shoved them in a hurried “tidying” session and forgot about them for ages.

I was a bit slow to start with this yarn because I didn’t really know what to make with it, and given all the hype over it and the fact that it took three whole weeks to get here made me sort of nervous to use it and as if what I made had to be really “special”. I realised yesterday that I was overthinking the whole thing and so I just picked up some of the colours and started hooking. My go-to granny square is Lucy’s Summer Garden Granny Square, no matter how many others I make or see, this one is always my favourite.

In the end I went for a bit of a hybrid - Summer Garden Granny crossed with a solid granny square: the round of treble stitches sort of frames the Summer Garden square in the middle.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop and I made nine in quick succession. It’s the first time I’ve felt really REALLY enthusiastic about crocheting since I made my 400 squares blanket (I don’t think I’ll ever make anything that I love more or am prouder of than that blanket).

I think I am going to have to bite the bullet with these squares and actually block them. Do you block cotton any differently from blocking wool? Ie, pin it how you want it and then make it wet, and then leave to dry. Because I think that cotton is less forgiving of wonkyness than wool, and that these squares need blocking before joining.

With regards to splittiness, I have not found that to be a problem at all - the exception being that the ends unravel badly and because I crochet them in as I go I find that the splitty ends stick up and poke through the stitches.

Overall though, totally loving this cotton :-)

• This is my 200th post. Two Hundred! Goodness me, what a lot of waffle.
• This month we will have our first wedding anniversary - can you believe it’s almost been a year? Such a lot has happened and it both feels like the time has flown by, yet also that soooo much has happened I can’t believe that it has only been a year.
• I looked up the gifts you are supposed to give each other year by year. I know wikipedia isn’t always the most reliable but if 2nd year is (Rico?) “Cotton” and the 7th year is “woollen” then I’m not going to complain ;-)
• Autumn is creeping up on me again, I’m not too happy about this. Make it stop!
• I would love to visit America: planning fantasy trips that probably won’t happen is one of our favourite things to do.
• My crochet mojo is suffering a bit at the moment and I’m finding it difficult to start a project and stick to it. I’m either feeling underinspired, or SO inspired that I don’t know what to work on! I have lovely yarn but can’t settle to one project. I have three half started cushion covers in this room alone.
• I thought that my 200th post would be more exciting than this. It’s not exciting. Perhaps it’s writing in bullet points? yeah probably.

That’s better … ahh freedom to write in real sentences!

Does anyone else plan fantasy holidays? We’ve been doing it for years, I remember one occasion when we both had the day off work and we spent the whole afternoon in the North Bar in Leeds getting steadily more merry, and planning our epic round the world trip on the back of some napkins. Eventually agreed that this was probably a bit TOO epic for a trip and so narrowed it down to just visiting all of America. I still have the napkin with all of that on :)

I think if we WERE going to do it, we would start with a long weekend trip to New York, and then the next trip would be a longer road trip, starting in Maine and visiting New Hampshire and Vermont. We would do this in the autumn, so that the leaves on the trees would be lovely and I could take photos.

I would like to visit Chicago, and meet my internet friend Manda (we have known each other for years via the internet but never been able to meet). Other cities I would like to visit are Seattle and San Francisco.

And I want to visit the Hoover Dam. and the Ozarks. and the Appalachians. Oh and the coast. Any coast! Mostly I am drawn to Maine, but also the west coast (but not LA, further north.) I want to go to Martha’s Vineyard (and Squibnocket! that’s my favourite word ever.)

We divide our trips into different categories. Cities vs Tourist vs coast & countryside. I don’t think any of them will be happening for many years, unless we have a big lottery win or something, but they are fun to dream about, fun to look up on the internet and fun to look at on streetview. Ahh streetview. I can’t remember what I did before google maps!

Where do you dream of travelling? I also dream of Canada, Estonia, New Zealand, France.

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Before I start this pattern, I want to be very clear that I copied these squares from this photo by Dottie Angel. You can see her blog here. I didn’t use a pattern to make these squares, I made it up as I went along and I’m going to explain how I did it.

If you need to know how to make UK TR (treble) stitches (which is what I am writing this pattern in) I direct you to my Solid Granny Square Pattern, this also shows you how to join your yarn etc.

First off, chain 5 and join to make a ring.

Then, chain 3 (this counts as your first TR stitch) and work eleven more TR stitches into the ring so you end up with 12 “spokes”. I like to think of them as spokes :)

When you have made your 12 spokes, join with a slip stitch into the last chain stitch of that chain 3 you made.

Then, join your next colour yarn and bring it to the front.

In this round you will be working out of the spaces between the spokes. You need to make 2 TR stitches inbetween every spoke, and separate each of these clusters of 2 with a chain stitch.

(For the first cluster of two TRs, you will chain 3 and make one TR in that space.)

When you have made clusters between each spoke, join with a slip stitch to the last chain of the first chain 3 you made.

Join your next colour.

For this round, you will be making clusters of THREE TR stitches in the gaps made by the chain spaces of the previous rounds. Again, separate these clusters of three TRs with a chain stitch.

I used Vanna’s Choice and a 5mm hook and  I was not joking when I said that the circles were the size of my hand!

Now, for the round that makes the square square (that sentence does make sense, I promise.). You will notice that there are no corner clusters in these squares, as ther are in the usual granny square. Instead, there is just one cluster of 3TR stitches in every gap, but to make it into a square there is a chain 3 in lieu of corner clusters.

Make clusters of 3TR stitches in the first three spaces.

Then, chain three stitches.

Then work your next cluster of 3 into the NEXT space, and NOT the same space.

You will need to do this to make every corner. So, this first corner is a chain 3 between the 3rd and 4th clusters. Your next chain three will be between the 6th and 7th clusters, and the one after that will be between the 9th and 10th clusters.

When you get to the start, chain 3 and join to the last chain of your inital chain three.

Phew!

When I had made all my squares (it only took 9 squares to cover a John Lewis “Value” cushion) I joined them using Lucy’s crocheting together method. I haven’t finished the cushion cover yet but I will post photos when I do.

In the meantime, if you can get this pattern to work for you (I have lack of faith in my patterns - I always worry if they only work for me, or only with this yarn or something) then I would LOVE to see photos :-)

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