Trumpet-blowing

Well, the blurb has been sent - the article for Craft and Lifestyle Norfolk magazine has been submitted - with the above photo.  The editor had asked for a photo of us rather than what we make, and, although we're not usually known for being camera shy in our family, it just felt a bit weird submitting a photo that complete strangers will see of us.  So the blanket photo has been dispatched instead ..... I think it shows our obsession with colour perfectly. 

I've had a very lazy day actually - just doing stuff around the house, a bit of admin, getting in a pelt with a new crochet pattern - I hate crochet today - finishing a shawl, finally getting the washing dry, etc.  I have a list of things as long as my arm of jobs I SHOULD have done, but, hey ho, there's always tomorrow! 

Girls

Today, we've had a fab girls' day out - Mum, Amanda, Shannon and I have been to Blickling Hall National Trust property near Aylsham for their spring craft fair.  The aim of the day was to get some ideas of how to dress our craft fair stalls later in the year, but I think we were probably just using that as our excuse to go and have fun, eat cake, drink coffee and have lunch out. Add a bit of retail therapy to the mix and we're on to a winner.

All the stall holders were really friendly and happy to tell us how they ply their trade and give demonstrations of what they do.  I'm sure that, given that all their prices were so reasonable, not one of them can be doing this as a profession - there's no way that mortgages would get paid on what they make.  What they all shared though was a love of what they do and joy in spreading the word to others.

We did lots of oohing and aahing as we walked around the marquee and smelt practically every soap, lotion and potion as we went round.  Amanda and I even had a hand massage and moisturising session halfway round - my hands have been permanently cracked and bleeding for ages - I'm not sure if it's because it's been so cold or whether I'm just whipping them into a frenzy with my knitting and crochet - but handcream at the moment does not soothe at all.  It just stings and hurts so I haven't been using it as much as I should.  Which then makes my hands even more cracked and painful.  So a hand massage was not high on my wish list today - however I couldn't resist the sales pitch - and this stuff is magic - it's made of Himalayan rock salt, elderflowers, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, apricot kernel oil, jojoba oil, with essential oils of lemon, lime, spearmint and lemongrass.  My knitting is going to smell divine! 

We stopped after the first circuit for coffee and cake - exhausting work, this! - and to write up our blurb for a new online craft and lifestyle magazine coming out in June.  We have been asked to contribute to an article called "Meet the Maker" and had to come up with 250 words about ourselves and what we do.  I had managed 70 words on my own so was in desperate need of some help.  It's so hard to blow your own trumpet and, as a family, the Long women are famously self-deprecating, which doesn't help.  But I think we've come up with something that the editor will be able to use - we did chuckle when we worked out that, between the four of us, we have 150 years' experience of knitting and crochet! 

After another circuit of the craft fair, we headed outside towards the lake to the Vintage marquee - and it was like a treasure trove of kitsch and crochet!  The fabrics!  The knitted tanktops!  The brooches!  It was fab.  The button lady was doing a roaring trade at the entrance - in fact, Mum and I spent quite a lot of time - and a little bit of money - there.  I've had some bag ideas and found some beautiful green and gold buttons which I think I can put to use as embellishments.  Amanda and Shannon had been long gone - saying afterwards that the marquee smelt of old ladies and wee!  Mum and I didn't notice - we were in vintage heaven! 

Next stop was the plant stalls - although we didn't hang about very long as it was pretty cold again today, despite the sun being out.  So just one more craft fair circuit - just in case we'd missed anything on our previous two perambulations - and then a drive up to Reepham for lunch and more retail therapy at Reepham Station, the converted railway buildings selling all sorts of beautiful arts and crafts for your home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day out and have vowed to do it again - although Mum has requested that we don't do it too often in case Dad gets suspicious.  I'm not sure what of - and we never did get to the bottom of it!   We already have a date in our diaries for the end of June - for Southwold and Aldeburgh - and to ensure that Dad doesn't come with us, Amanda has got him to babysit Sid for the day.  Sneaky!

Pottering

I have been pottering today - the spot of light weeding I had promised myself this morning turned into two hours of weeding, cutting, tidying and harvesting spuds until my back was about to give out.  The garden currently has been taken over by aquilegias which are rampaging - rather beautifully, it has to be said - in not just their allotted spaces, but between all nooks, crannies and crevices, hiding all the weeds.  And I noticed this morning that not all the weeds are actually weeds either - the next rampaging swathe of greenery looks suspiciously like tiny poppies coming up.  The garden is going to be so colourful, if a little uncouth this year.  The black/ dark purple aquilegia seeds were given to me by Mary and Jim from their Surrey garden and the lovely pink variety are from Maria's Snowdonia home. 

The bluebells are gorgeous this year - and, although they arrived quite late, they've hung around a long while.  Sadly, my camellia was very disappointing this year - just four flowers on it when normally there are hundreds - we've had such a cold winter/ spring, I'm sure that's why there's been no flowers.  Perhaps next winter, I'll cover it with a garden fleece thing and see if that works?  I haven't planted any summer bulbs this year either - I'm hoping that last year's will reappear for some colour - I've been mainly concentrating on foody things.  

The Chelsea Flower Show is on this week - the 100th anniversary.  I add it to my list of places to go to each year, but always forget.  Maybe next year!

Restraint

I really need to learn some restraint.  For the past week I have been immersed in a little crochet project - I fancied a bag.  I had seen a fairly straightforward pattern posted on the web that had photos showing finger and stitch positions and everything - how hard could it be?   However, what I hadn't banked on was my inability to stop making it bigger - I increased the stitches so many times, that my bag is now the size of a small wheelie bin.  And obviously is way too big to be a bag. 

It is rather beautiful though - I love it.  I have decided to use it to house all my scrap wool - not that there is much left now as I've used most of it on the bucket.  It's quite floppy - next time I know to use a smaller hook than appropriate for the wool - apparently this makes the stitches more stiff, so it would stand better.  It's only a bucket shape at the moment as the bottom is stuffed full of wool and the top has been Andy'ed.  When he saw my pitiful attempts to get it to stand up, he went out to see what his "man shelves" in the outhouse held and came back in with some wire which he had twisted round on itself to make a large circle.  We then spent a good twenty minutes weaving and folding and cursing and cutting and, hey presto, a bucket.  It's fab and I love it!

In the meantime, Shannon has been very busy on sewing up these gorgeous flowers which now are gracing my mantelpiece, until I can get them to the shop.  She's also emailing me on, what seems like, a daily basis asking for more hexipuffs and granny squares.  She's insatiable! 

I am quite busy at the moment.  Andy has asked me to make a Man City blue pouffe and to embellish it with a club motif - I have been on ebay to see if I can find a Man City badge which I can sew on the top, but no luck so far.  If ebay doesn't come up trumps soon, then I shall have to go on the Man City website.  I have started the pouffe, but am aware that it probably needs to be a bit meatier than my first effort.  So, while in Norwich yesterday, Andy and I had a good hour or so in Loose's Emporium on Magdalen Street and popped up to the flea market too, looking for pouffes.  None of them were quite what I wanted, but I'm thinking that might be the way to go next - at least then, you have the correct shape and meatiness and I would just need to make the cover.  I can see many contented Saturday afternoons spent mooching around the flea market from now on.  Happy days! 

Scarf

Shannon has been a busy bee sewing up some of my grannies into this lovely scarf - I only took them over on Tuesday evening (it's Thursday now) and she's already demanding more.

I'm going to have to give up work altogether soon to satisfy the demands being made on me.   I'm woefully inadequate in supplying hexipuffs too.  She's a hard taskmaster, is Shannon!

Outhouse

I fell in love with my house on the first viewing four years ago.  Not just because of its location a thirty minute walk from Norwich city centre, or because of its price - although that was probably the most important consideration for me at the time.  But because of the space.  As well as a living room, a nice sized kitchen, two bedrooms and a compact little garden, plenty big enough for me to cope with, it had a lovely big outhouse arrangement with space to put the washing machine, fridge, chest freezer, all my junk, etc - and I immediately saw that I could use it as a greenhouse.  It has a corrugated see through roof so gets plenty of light and remains warm, perfect for seed sowing.  Up until that time, I'd used those little greenhouse things with the plastic covers that blew off in the wind and split, so I was delighted to see I had something a little more solid. 

I love seed sowing - I love feeling happy and hopeful waiting for things to grow.  I go out every morning before work to see what's happened overnight and it's the first place I go to when I come home from work - after having been mauled and cuddled by Finn of course.  But because he lives in the outhouse while I'm at work, I tend to multi-task and check my seeds out at the same time as the mauling! 

This morning, I've sown mixed salad leaves, rocket, spring onions, little gem lettuces, cucumbers, courgettes, sweetcorn and mangetout.  I'm very behind with my seed sowing schedule which, until this morning, was typed on an Excel spreadsheet.  However, as I'm four months behind - the shame of it - I needed to rejig it all.  So I dug out a hard backed notebook from my stationery stash and am using that instead.  I hope that, as a result of sowing everything so late, we're not eating salad at Christmas - I'm rather hoping for something a bit before that! 

These are the seeds that I actually DID sow back in January - carrots, cauliflowers and tomatoes.  All looking very healthy I'm pleased to say.  I'm not a big carrot eater, but Finn loves them, so they're his treat - which is why they're elevated and not in the garden, ready for him to dig up and have for his elevenses!

Not quite the weekend for doing anything much outdoors in the garden - very showery and my washing has been out for three days now as it doesn't dry sufficiently between downpours.  I really need to get out there and work - at this time of year, things grow so quickly that the entire garden can be two inches taller in the time it takes to come in and make a cup of tea!

Grannies

I have been in a positive frenzy this past couple of weeks, crocheting granny squares.  I had my first crochet lesson some weeks back now but had neglected my practice for a while, as I was concentrating on my hexipuffs and flowers.  So, two weeks ago, I decided to crack on with the grannies before I forgot how to make them altogether.  I've made loads ..... eighty-two to be precise.

I've made them in two sizes.  Small and weeny.  They are much too small to ever be made into a blanket, so I'm thinking scarves and colourful shawls.  I think they might be a bit lary, unless Shannon takes charge or lets me have the colour wheel she has for me.  Although I'm not even sure that will work - I might just ignore the colour laws and do what I like anyway! 

Laughter

There really is nothing better than laughing with a friend so much, you end up with tears running down your face.  Especially when the topic being discussed is completely ridiculous.  I am very lucky to have my friend Bev - someone I can laugh with and talk sh*t for hours.  As we've said before, there are never any awkward silences when we meet up, the issue we have is being able to draw breath quickly enough!

Last night, we had a lovely evening in our regular haunt, the Belgian Monk in Norwich City.  The Monk is famous for its fruit beers - we favour raspberry, but cherry when the raspberry has run out - and also for their mussels, which they serve about thirty different ways.  Not for us the mussels though .... we are so predictable that it's kroketten and meatballs every time!  

Just the best tonic ..... but don't ask me to tell you what we discussed, it makes even less sense now than it did last night! 

Bank Holiday

It's been an absolutely beautiful bank holiday weekend - the sort of weekend where you fling open all the doors and windows and welcome the warmth into the house.  With the sun streaming through my bedroom window so early, I've been hanging washing out by seven thirty each morning.  It's been fab. 

Yesterday, Amanda and I went to Sheringham to visit Rat and Pam and to see their new house - it's a lovely house about five minutes from both the beach and the high street, with stunning tiled art deco fireplaces, very tall ceilings and the most enormous hall.  The perfect place to put the Christmas tree in December if you ask me.  They didn't ..... but I gave my opinion anyway!  

We had lunch in the garden and, because Amanda was driving, I had a couple of glasses of wine.  Why does wine taste nicer when you're sitting outdoors?  We had mains - pasta bake with salad - and then had a walk up to the cliff and along the front and up the high street - which was heaving - before heading back for pudding - trifle.  How civilised, to split your meal with an amble in the middle! 

I do like Sheringham - it has a lovely atmosphere and Rat and Pam are settling in very well.  They are much less isolated than where they lived before and are really enjoying having their friends around them, being able to walk to the shops, and not have to worry about taxis for nights out.  I'm almost tempted to move there myself, except I love my walk to work too much to go through all the upheaval.  The crowds yesterday would probably get a bit annoying - I remember when I lived in Hastings that I was always glad when the holiday makers went home at the end of the summer and we got our town back.

Today, Amanda and I took Sid and Finn to Mum and Dad's via Bacton woods, so they could have a good run around first.  It was very hot though so they were very glad of the - disgustingly dirty - pond so they could have a paddle.

A lovely, lovely weekend and only three weeks until our next bank holiday, when, hopefully, fingers crossed, in fact EVERYTHING crossed, I will be camping! 

Tonic

Today has been a real tonic.  I had taken the day off - dentist appointment first thing wasn't the best start to a day, but I had planned to take Finn up to Holkham for a good run and a proper swim.  However, the weather was too good not to work in the garden, so our trip to Holkham was forsaken for a more local walk on the marshes and a good couple of hours spent cutting and pruning and weeding and filling up the brown wheelie bin.  I'm thinking of sending a letter to the Council actually - a fortnightly collection is not enough for me, I could easily fill the bin on a weekly basis.  I suppose the alternative would be to take it all to the tip but I'm far too lazy for that.

And, after all the hard work, I spent a lovely afternoon drinking tea, having lunch and knitting in the garden.  I even had to get the parasol out as it was too bright.  I think the sun may have made me a bit giddy!

Amanda came over in the afternoon with food for our Knitters with Attitude meeting and to use my washing machine for a couple of felting projects - her washing machine is a new eco model which only washes to 30 degrees - not hot enough for felting - whereas my dinosaur machine washes at 90!  While the washing machine was whirring away, we stuffed the pouffe that I have been working on - for a first attempt it's not too bad, but it definitely needs some fine tuning.  Either a smaller cover, or a slightly more butch duvet!  It rather sinks when you sit on it, although it's very comfy.  The difficulty comes when trying to get up again - I think I need to work out a more dignified method to rising!

We were a select little group again for our Knitting Ninnies evening - just six of us this time, although hopeful that our group will grow soon.  The evening was spent eating, laughing hysterically and a wee bit of knitting to justify our existence!

So, in no particular order, Amanda was in charge of mains tonight - jacket potatoes and chili - yum.  And spent the evening crocheting flowers in all colours of the rainbow. 

Mo made puddings - toblerone meringue and a lemon and ginger biscuit tart, which were lush.  This led to some quite raucous conversations about ginger nuts and nut crushing.  Shannon and I were in the kitchen dishing it all up and we could hear an awful lot of screeching and hysteria from the other room.  Mo is still making her beautiful greeny coloured scarf, although there was a lot of sighing going on and trying to truncate the pattern down into a cowl, instead of a scarf.  I think we need to keep Mo away from looking at patterns until she's finished this project - the pattern books are too distracting.

Michele brought at least two projects with her - a bed runner and a beautiful top which she has started - the bed runner is in a wave pattern and in beautiful purpley shades.  Michele has started to buy various bits of wool to add to the stash - this is how it starts I'm afraid - and Mr Rae has already been muttering about her dangerous friends encouraging her.  We had quite a discussion about making a jumper on circular needles - Michele has a rather .... interesting ..... technique of tucking the needle under her arm to knit.  Amanda then demonstrated a way of knitting this way with circular needles - rather like wearing a hoola hoop - and it was at this point that I thought we might have to get a paramedic out again for Mo!   Goodness me, they're all bonkers!  

Shirley also brought two projects - a pair of beautiful socks made in a gorgeous Regia yarn in lovely candy stripes.  And the purple boucle top from last time - this is a magical garment, because the stitch count is never the same on any two rows!  Not an awful lot of progress was made with this project - primarily because I had undone about eight rows to undo a slight issue earlier on, which needed to be redone to get back to where we had started.  At one point during the evening, Amanda went and relieved Shirley of her knitting as she was adamant that there would be SOME progress made before Shirley went home!  

Shannon was busy sewing up more flowers as I had failed spectacularly to provide hexipuffs in the correct colours that she had demanded.  We did have a slight laugh at her expense about her efforts to stay fit and healthy earlier in the week - while doing an abs class at the gym, it was only after fifteen minutes that she realised she was in an entirely different class altogether and was doing Zumba!   Bless her!  (Shannon has had the day off today and has been very busy with the hexipuff seat pads - photos below.)

As for me, I did bugger all, except dish up dinner and sit and revel in our lovely group.  I think I might have cast on twenty stitches for a hexipuff and completed two rows, but that was about it, as far as knitting was concerned.  So, once again a fabulous evening - full of laughter and chat and food and creativity.  What else is there? x