Crisp green apples,
so pleasing to the eye,
but now we're going to chop them up
and pop them in a pie.
poem by Amy & Julie
With thanks to Ali for the inspiration and our neighbours for the generous supply of bramley apples - their tree has had a bumper crop this year.
Hope you all have a good weekend - we'll be wood walking, tidying up the garden and eating apple pie!
Thanks so much for all the good wishes for Amy's birthday and for sending me your spare good luck for her birthday sleepover. It went really well, we all had a lot of fun (me included) and the girls surprised me no end by all being asleep by midnight - which meant I had a better night's sleep than I usually get with Toby (who had gone off with his Dad to spend the night at Nana & Grandpa's).
Whilst the girls were giving each other makeovers, eating pizza and watching dance movies I was left alone quietly crocheting up in my bedroom and so I now have 15 squares in 'me old china' blanket.
I am so much happier with the more subdued colour scheme - not everyone's taste for sure, but most definitely what I had in mind for this project.
All in all a happy weekend at the Williams house!
We've had some wonderful weather here for the last few days - a real indian summer. Toby enjoys the garden so much when it's warm and dry but because he can't bear to touch wet surfaces and won't wear shoes in the garden, it won't be very long before he isn't able to play outside anymore. So we've been making the most of this last blast of summer and filling the time after school with as many bubbles and as much bouncing as is possible!
We've even stayed out until sundown and been rewarded with some beautiful skies
I do hope that this winter isn't going to be too harsh and we get some more bubbly, bouncy days to tide us over until spring arrives.
Have a lovely weekend wherever you are and please send any spare luck my way for tomorrow evening as I'm hosting Amy's 12th birthday party sleepover. I have a feeling sleep may not actually feature much!
It's here, the start of autumn, and I can't tell a lie and say I'm not pleased! Not that summer has been bad, in fact it's had some really lovely bits this year but it's hard work keeping Toby occupied and safe during the school break and even Amy has found it a bit long. She was so excited to start at her new senior school yesterday and Toby seemed very happy to start at his school again this morning.
Over the summer we did pack a lot in and Amy & H had a fab time in France despite a thorough soaking thanks to the unseasonal weather! I even managed some knitting time, although crochet did end up featuring a little more heavily as it was easier to pick up and put down without having to finish a row first - an essential when I'm at Toby's beck-and-call!
I even finished my one-a-day blankie!
It ended up being a little smaller than planned (at 12 x 15 squares it's more of a snuggle-on-the-sofa throw than a bed blanket) but it felt like the right time to finish it (and I'm itching to start on a new crochet project - but more of that another day).
I'm quite pleased with it, although there were some colour issues along the way - my mathematical approach to having each and every square different hit a snag when I discovered that some of the colour combos were truly foul - especially the darker blue, green and purple one! So I did end up repeating a couple of favourite combinations instead. For a first blanket it's not bad and it's been a great learning curve for me. Thanks to Solveig for her wonderful free pattern.
It's lovely to be back here, although I'm feeling so out of touch with everyone and being away from the computer for the best part of 6 weeks has left the blog writing bit of my brain feeling all rusty. I'm going to ease back in slowly and spend some time catching up with my favourite blogland people (I've also got an email inbox that's brimming over). But for now I'm off to savour the peace and quiet of the first day of term and enjoy exercising my knitting muscles again.
Thanks for visiting xxx
Hello again! I had planned to do a weekly post throughout the summer - kind of rounding up the events of each week, but it obviously wasn't meant to be!
Life with Toby has to be flexible or you'd go insane very quickly and he has been very demanding of late so keeping him busy is a full time job right now. He's also been plumbing new depths in the sleep department, with the current pattern being sleep at 10pm, wake at 2am-ish, play and watch videos for 4 or 5 hours (he is absolutely wide awake) before catching another 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Still, on the positive side this has given me 4 or 5 hours of extra making time (never again will I wish for more hours in the day - believe me it's not that desirable!).
Anyway, I've put these night waking hours to good use and have started another cushion cover - a bigger one this time. I have to say that when it comes to the yarny arts, knitting will always be my first love but the lure of crochet is strong and I can't seem to resist, it also feels less demanding when your mind would rather be sleeping!
I did start this as a cushion cover but I love this yarn so much (Rowan milk cotton fine - the colours are so soft and lovely) and I got swept along and ended up making more squares than I needed, so I think it's on the way to becoming another blanket!
Well, Toby needs some breakfast so I had better go. It's just him and me this week as Amy and H have embarked on a little adventure to France!
It's Amy's first ever trip abroad and her first proper motorbike trip so I'm hoping they have a lot of fun and that the weather stays mostly dry with none of the downpours that have been forecast!
Hope all is well with all of you. I've not had time to keep up with reading blogs so I'm feeling very out of touch. I'm looking forward to the start of school and catching up with everyone!
Hope to see you all again soon x