Teds Poncho

 Thank you for all your lovely comments it's great to be back again and I'm going to try and blog more often, it may be easier now that Autumn is officially here and the garden is winding down, I'm a fair weather gardener and rarely venture out once the weather changes.  I'm looking forward to Spring already and have bought lots of Spring bulbs, I'm going to plant them in pots and will look forward to them emerging in the Spring, I still need to buy some crocus as well and these will be dotted about my lawn both front and back of the house. 

Teds Poncho

Have you heard of the Red Hatters?  click on the name if you haven't and it will take you to the Red Hatter site.  We have a Red Hatters group in our u3a which has just started up again since before Covid.  We have a few male members who don't mind wearing the obligatory red hat and purple clothing.  One of them is Ted and although he's in very poor health it is obvious that Ted wants to embrace life and throw himself into as many activities as his declining health allows. Ted approached me and asked me if I would crochet him a purple poncho, I think our upcoming outing to a Abba thank you for the music evening  triggered this request as poncho's were very much the thing in the 70's

Well we sat and pondered, time was short as I was in the middle of making things for my upcoming grandchild and charity makes, so it was decided that a granny square poncho would be the quickest to make. I made a few samples so that he could choose which pattern he wanted...

He chose number two and I started making it, but it soon became apparent that because of all the other stuff I was trying to make there was no way I would finish it in time, so I made the decision with Teds blessing that it would look much better if the patterned  squares were just around the edges and plain purple squares in the centre. 

 I could have approached my crochet group and asked for their help but as you must realise everyone's tension is different and for the poncho to look good the squares need to be the same size, however because time was short, Pamela who runs the knitting group as well as being as member of my crochet group insisted on trying to help and she made quite a few of the plain purple squares thank you lovely Pamela! 

I'm so pleased to say that we did it!!

It consists of 69, 6 inch squares - there are 116 tassels! yes I counted them and the ends that needed to be woven in were in their hundreds. 

I used Stylecraft special dk and it took 1000 grams.

I found this such a lovely project I love making granny squares don't you? 

Fingers crossed Ted will like it I will try and get a photo of him wearing it and show you with his permission of course. 

Have a great Sunday 😘😘

Linking with..

Slow Sunday Stitching

A New Addition

As always my apologies for my very sporadic blogging, time just gets away from me, it seems to go faster the older you get, I will get back into the flow someday because I really don't want to totally abandon this little space of mine.

 I think we all look forward to the day when we will become grandparents, I know I did and I made lots of baby things and put them in a special granny suitcase up in the loft.  My wish was granted five years ago when little Mikey was born to son number one.  Since then it has been a very trying time for my lovely family, if you remember Mikey's mummy sadly miscarried a couple of years ago and there have been several unsuccessful attempts at IVF for another two members of my family.

Then son number two and my lovely daughter-in-law came to visit and presented me with a photo of a scan at twelve weeks, I was overjoyed for them but it always comes with trepidation, the hope that all will be ok after the previous IVF heartbreak that they have been through. I feel that now I can breathe easy as the pregnancy is going well and the baby is due end of this month.

My daughter-in-law asked me if I would make a baby blanket and sent me a photo of what she would like, silly question really OF COURSE !! I will make a baby blanket and anything else your heart desires, it will be an honour.😊

So here is the one that she chose, it didn't me long to make as it's made in Aran yarn, 

I couldn't help but think how times have changed, we used to make baby blankets in fine 3 or 4ply, then we moved onto dk but nowadays the younger generation seem to prefer the thicker yarns like aran or even chunky.

I used James C Brett Baby Aran Yarn in cream and you can find the pattern here

With some of the yarn I had left over I made this cute little hat

You can find the pattern here

I will show you what else I have made in another post because the crafting has been going on quite steadily throughout the Summer, at the moment I am trying to finish this for my daughters birthday next week..

Its an experiment and I'm not sure if I'll like it when it's done, I got the idea from Lucy at Attic24, my daughter said she needed a pencil case and I thought that I would try this out, I will let you know how I get on, I'll be working on this today whilst sitting in the sunshine making the most of this lovely weather we are having before it comes to an end.

My garden in September 😍

I hope you are all enjoying a lovely Sunday 😘😘

Linking with..

Slow Sunday Stitching

Oombawka Design: ...

Wednesday Link Party

Saying Hi And A Lovely Summer Display

 I can't believe that my last post was Easter, where does the time fly? the year is almost half over already.

I thought I would just show you the Marina display that we have been working towards for the past year, we eventually erected it at the beginning of June and it has been providing lots of fun and enjoyment for the people of Seaham

Choose your flavour of ice cream

Shamus keeps his beady eye on things

So much nicer in real life of course, it's impossible to capture the full effect on camera.

I hope that all my lovely blogging friends are happy and well and are having a lovely Sunday 😊 xx