Sarah Youde

Reasons to be Cheerful - Parts One, Two and Three!

Hello!

I am feeling very happy today for a number of reasons.  Firstly, because I have just finished drinking a lovely cup of hot chocolate and have relaxed on the sofa for the evening with my crochet basket at my feet, ready for when I have finished this blog post and also because I have finally finished my crochet Happy Flower.

I saw Lucy's flower on the Attic 24 blog and literally stalked the blog until the pattern was available.  I was actually crocheting it in parts as Lucy was uploading the pattern (she uploaded it in three parts).  I love it.  Although I crocheted it immediately and then stiffened it by painting the back with PVA glue as Lucy recommended it then sat in my craft room waiting to be strung together for a good few days, but now it is done and it is just soooo, well, HAPPY.

It looks so pretty hanging in my craft room.  I have plans to make some crochet bunting for my room too so that is going to add to the cosiness.  I also now have the comfy armchair and a fluffy rug in there so it is looking a little less 'officy' and a little bit more like a real retreat for me.  I keep telling Mark that it is MY craft room but he kind of likes it in there too.

This is the corner that used to have a tall worktop / unit  but that has now been removed to make room for cosiness!

Tomorrow Mr Youde and I are going away for the night without the kids!  So that is another reason to be cheerful (part 3).

We are not venturing too far but we will be spending the night in a lovely hotel in Exeter and we have booked into Michael Caine's aBode restaurant to sample a bit of fine dining.  We have stayed at the hotel (Royal Clarence) before and I think we ate in the restaurant too but that was before I (we) knew anything about Michael Caines and his culinary brilliance so we definitely didn't savour the experience.  Although, I think I ate my weight in his gorgeous créme brülée.

image source: google.com

 I can't wait!  It is going to be great to get away and spend some time together.

 

#Smashing

When I was in America I went to Michael's because it had to be done.  I am sure you know, but in case you don't, Michael's is a MASSIVE craft store.  I was so overwhelmed by the amount of 'stuff' in there that the only thing I really brought back was a nice stash of the Smashbook products.

I bought it so that I could do a Smashbook about our Florida trip, I thought it would be a fabulous way to document the trip and enable me to include all the tickets and other paraphernalia that I brought back with me.  I went to a crop recently and it was the Smash products that I took with me along with some Florida photographs.  Unfortunately I managed to forget to take all my collected tickets etc with me but I did manage to make a little start on the book and it was such great fun.  I can't wait to have another go at it.

Firstly I used some Smash Tabs to divide my book into sections relevant to our trip so that, although this is a Smash book, there will be some sort of order to the pages.  I love how they look, especially the candy stripe tab.

I thought an obvious place to start would be the first page so I used this photograph of the fabulous Minnie and Mickey Mouse topiary at The Magic Kingdom as a starting point and just 'smashed' some tape and other stuff in there.  I was a little annoyed at having forgotten my ephemera of the trip but I can add that later on.

The only other page I did at the crop was this one which is the first page of the Hollywood Studios section of the book. 

I really enjoyed playing and I am itching to get back in my craft room and add some more pages to the book, this time with all my collected bits and pieces too (and paint, sprays and other products that I didn't have with me at the crop)!

Little Things

Little things are really aggravating me today.

The noise of Ben deliberately squeaking his chair and banging the keyboard on the computer is infuriating me, the noise of the girls DSi's is annoying and Ben interfering with their games when he wants to but not helping when they request his help is making me stroppy.

I think I am getting cabin fever as it is half term and we have gone nothing. Being stuck in with the kids (much as I love them) is beginning to drive me insane. Our bedroom is upside down and full toys from the girls room because their Grandad is working hard on their room to eliminate damp and build a new wardrobe. The house isn't as tidy as I like it. It never is, but half term and building work are making it worse.

I tried to make the gorgeous free gift from issue 11 of Mollie Makes but that was never going to happen as long as I am jumping from my chair every 2 minutes to sort something out so that has gone back in the bag.

I spent last night on the sofa under a blanket with a headache and feel that there is another one coming on soon!

Tomorrow we shall go out but roll on Monday. On Monday I shall craft, the housework can wait until Tuesday!

Half term happenings

That should probably read half term madness!

We started half term with a lovely movie day with the kids. We bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on DVD in 3D and I used this recipe to make the kids some butterbeer in the cups they brought home from Universal Studios and we all settled down to watch the film. I have to say the butterbeer tasted really good and quite like the one at Universal.

Half term is always a bit manic but this half term we are getting wardrobes built in the girls bedroom and the outside wall is being battened to combat the damp problem that you tend to get in houses which are 100 years old!

I have had a very busy day today boxing up all of the toys and paraphernalia in the girls room and as if that wasn't enough to do when the kids are off school and under your feet I have also cleaned the oven, made pea and pancetta soup and just been generally domesticated!

Charlotte was a great help today, crawling under the double bunk bed in her room to retrieve all the toys and rubbish that Amy throws under there on a daily basis. She loved going onto the top bunks and chucking all her teddies into the box on the floor. Amy just wanted to do everything that I didn't need her to do and ended up just pretending to be a photographer.

I am sat here now at 7pm and I am fit to drop. I think I will watch some TV (currently re-watching all of Ashes to Ashes) and indulge in a bit of Rainbow and Hearts blanket making!

Ta-Dah! Flowers in the Snow Blanket

It's finished!  Really, it is all done and it is so pretty!

I have spent the week manically crocheting the squares together every time I have a spare five minutes and finally got around to starting the border on Monday.  I was so happy.

I didn't do the blanket 16 squares by 12 squares as I thought I was going to but instead made the blanket 13 x 13 squares which is the perfect size to have on the sofa or craft room chair to keep me nice and toasty! 

It also means I have plenty of 'already crocheted' circles to make a matching cushion.

I have got this great little book called Around the Corner Crochet Borders which has about 100 different crochet border patterns with instructions for going around the corner on blankets (and whatever else you need to turn a corner on).  It's truly brilliant.  I chose border #62 for my blanket and it matches perfectly, I love it!

See how wonderful that border is.  Oooh love-r-ly :)

I want to send a big thank you to Solveig from Norway who made this pattern available to us all for FREE.

I was so happy that I had sewn all the coloured ends in as I finished each circle.  There were lots of them (three colour changes) so I did sew them in as I went.  I was glad because when I finished the blanket it still took me ALL evening to sew in just the white ends that were there from crocheting the squares together!

I think I need to go and make a nice coffee and snuggle underneath it now.

Flowers in the Snow - ready to go!

I have been busy crocheting the circles for my Flowers in the Snow blanket and I am thrilled that all 192 circles are now complete and ready to be added to the blanket.

I am sooooo excited...

This blanket is going to be so pretty and the Amy Butler/Rowan Belle Organic DK cotton looks and feels amazing :)

I have laid all the circles onto the floor to arrange the placement of them on the blanket which will ensure I don't end up will any unwelcome pools of colour. The blanket is going to be 12 squares by 16 squares, the perfect size for my craft room chair.

Then I picked all the circles up in order making a little pile for each row of the blanket.

And finally, the piles have been numbered to represent the rows of the blanket they will be crocheted onto. 

It's so exciting!  I can start tonight :)

So it seems like I am not doing anything!

That could be about right because I certainly haven't been doing much papercrafting lately and is not due to lack of interest. I have so many things I want to do, mainly involving the Smash products that I bought in America and all the memorabilia and photographs from our trip. I also have a magazine commission or two to get started on and I am excited about those, however, since we returned from our holiday there has been a lot going on and to be honest things that have been a lot more important that have needed to be dealt with.

I have however been plodding along with my Flowers in the Snow blanket and have now completed 37 squares and a further 90 circles ready to be joined onto the blanket so I am getting there with that. I can't wait to finish that one as it is going to be for my craft room and will be adorning the new (but second hand) wing backed upholstered chair I have recently acquired to bring a bit of coziness to my bolt hole!

Next week is the week. I can't wait to go and spend some time in my room. I really can't wait to get the chair in place, my blanket finished, a nice rug and some crocheted bunting completed to festoon the window. Oh, and a new crocheted cushion for my chair. One day, one day :)

I have also been enjoying my Dolce Gusto coffee machine, it's great! 

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

Well we are back from our fabulous holiday in Florida.  It truely was magical and I would go again tomorrow if it didn't cost so much and I wasn't so exhausted from all the running around!

I have loads to sort out as you can imagine we bought lots of 'stuff' and, of course, the kids had Christmas out there so it seems like every room in the house needs a good spring clean at the moment. 

Here is a quick snapshot of our Christmas!

Oh, I so wish I was still there!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well, I haven't got back to posting as I hoped and now it will have to be in the new year because I am busy packing and sorting stuff for Christmas!  Tomorrow we leave home Disney bound so I may post some nice pictures from Florida but I am not promising anything.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a great new year :)

The Knitted Character

I may have been absent from my blog and mostly from my home whilst keeping Mum company for the last few weeks but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing any kind of craft.  In fact, going over to keep Mum company allows me much more time to do a bit of knitting and crochet than if I stayed at home and cracked on with the housework!

I have knitted a jumper which just needs a few finishing touches, continued with my Flowers in the Snow blanket, made more little rabbits, crocheted four crochet hook cases (to be listed on Etsy when I get round to it) and also crocheted the knitted character from Harry Hill's TV Burp.

More to come on the projects later but I just couldn't wait to share my knitted character, it is just so cute.  I followed a pattern from HERE.  The pattern was very easy :)

I think I need to make a couple more because I just can't give one to Ben, Charlotte or Amy without them all having one!

More updates to follow but right now I need to search the web for the perfect buttons to sew on my now finished Owls jumper (which took me only four days to knit!).