Rollercoaster of a week...

So I'll start this week by showing last weeks mood square, as I didn't manage to get it completed in time...

I've not managed to achieve much in the way of crafting this week, as i've been away on a works conference, on the plus side the location for this was at Alton Towers!!
We travelled up to Rugby and stayed overnight and finished off the trip in the morning. The day was long and arduous, but was rounded off with a three course dinner, an awards ceremony and a band.

We did get half a day round the park, so there were 6 of us hard-core riders who were determined to fit in as much as we could!

I'm not the bravest of people, but I was determined to make the most of this opportunity. I knew I couldn't handle Oblivion, and I wimped out at Air, which I seriously regret, but I did do Rita, Thirteen, Nemisis and actually went on the Smiler twice!!

I had some 'happy mail' to come back to, my lovely yarn delivery...

Pretty berry colours..

For this weeks mood square, I took the centre of the square from the Simply Crochet granny square Marjorie.  As the week was extremely tiring and predominantly stressful, my colours went quite dark, but as there was a big bit of fun involved, I've added a zing of pink. 

Hearts and Flowers...

I continued to play and made a colour chart from my berry pictures. The problem with this is it encouraged me to put in a yarn order! Like I need more yarn! But my decent yarns are all pastel shades, which was fine throughout spring/summer, but I wanted some deeper hues for the upcoming months.

I started, on another background colour for the next flower cushion (yes I'm well aware I've not completed the last one :-/ ) This is a multi-toned yarn by King Cole, and has some berry tones about it with hints of purple, blue and red.

I came across a lovely flower pattern on once upon a pink moon blog, and it's not taken me long to make a couple of  these.

They work up nice and big, which is what I wanted, to be nice and bold in contrast to the smaller summery ones.

I made the flowers in stylecraft dk yarn, which although is acrylic is lovely and squishy! I did add a couple of extra layers to the flowers to add some more depth and colour highlights.

Once I've attached these to the front and added some stems I will then decide whether it needs a couple of simple bold leaves, or maybe add some smaller flowers.
Although I do have to admit I think the only reason that I'm considering some smaller flowers, is because of this image that I've seen on Facebook, and I really want to have a go, and trying to find somewhere I can incorporate these as an excuse to make some!!

(not my picture, image taken from The Whoot on facebook)

I did have a long train journey during the week, for work,

which enabled me to make some more of my portable squares

Me and hubby celebrated our 4th Wedding anniversary this week, well I say the term 'celebrated' rather loosely, as with his lack of mobility we aren't really venturing out much. 

We have started little walks each day, so we ventured to our local village, and stopped for coffee and cake, just to have a rest of course!

It was such a pleasure to be out of the four walls, and sit outside in the fresh air, feeling the warmth of the sun

The following day we treated ourselves to a take-out

This weeks mood square....

Ummm not quite accomplished that this week YET, i'll get right on to it...

Watch this space.........

All things bright and beautiful...

This week was a race to get the beanie completed to give to my friend in time, before she ventured overseas. I intended to re-do the edge strip as I knew it had come up too tight, but before re-doing it, I wanted her to try it on to make sure she was happy with the main body of it. She was, but as I was undoing the edge, she requested whether it was possible to add more rows to make it more slouchy. This I did, and I'm very happy with the results, and thankfully so was she. I would definitely be happy to make another, more specifically i'd love to do a rainbow one, it has been a great pattern to follow.

I've also made a start with sewing together my portable squares, 

I have enough squares for the front of the bag, so I need to get cracking on the back.

I have made some progress with the 'summer flowers' cushion, and have added some foliage.

 I'm not too sure about the darker green, it may be too dark against the rest of the lighter colours?

Despite continuing with my summer cushion, there are obvious signs around us that Autumn is well and truely setting in. I can't bare the thought of Winter approaching, but I do love the ever-changing colours that happen in this season. Sadly I've not got any of the pretty trees around me, just leaves that are going straight from green to brown. What I have taken great delight in is the beautiful bright berries, such scrumptious tones.

One package that I had been searching for online, was to be able to come up with my own colour palettes. There is a sight, probably one of many, called design seeds, they have beautiful images, and they've pulled out the main colours. Sadly though, they only they only use their own images so it wasn't what I was looking for. I read plenty of blogs via bloglovin, and I was reading a passage from Moogly, on how she uses PicMonkey to plan layouts with her granny squares. She then went on to mention another post by Stitch 11, who used the same sight to produce colour palettes from her own visuals. I couldn't believe it, just what I was looking for and it was right under my nose, an editorial sight that I use every single week to edit my pictures, or produce picture collages and I was able to do so much more without realising. I followed Corina's tutorial and I'm very happy with the outcome. I can see I will have plenty of fun with this in the future.

It's been a bit of a tough week this week. I managed to break my phone, so was without it for a few days, and I know its ridiculous to be so attached to an electronic gadget, but I really did feel cut off from the world. I stay in touch with people via text, email and Instagram, plus I take a huge amount of photos wherever I go.

 On a positive note, hubby had a trip to the doctors to have his stitches cleaned and checked, all is good and he is healing well after his operation, we just need to start to build up the strength in his muscles again. so whilst many of you may take your dogs, or other pets out for walkies, I'll be taking hubby out instead, though he draws the line at getting a collar and lead, I can't see why!!?

My mood square colours have darkened a bit this week, I'm feeling a bit stressed, run down and I feel constantly tired that I struggle to keep going. I took the pattern from the simply crochet Granny app, this one is Granny Iris.

Guilt free crafting...

I've not got much to show on the craft front this week...

I did sew the flowers on to my second 'summer flowers' cushion, now they are awaiting some foliage to be added. I better get cracking else it'll be winter before I finish it!

Working in retail means I work weekends, and this does clash with crafting as the majority of fairs and meet ups are on a Saturday, so I tend to miss out. However, this week I had found out about a new local crafty meet up, and I made a big effort to be able to go. I have followed the homemakery on instagram for awhile, but as its a visual aid its not always possible to know where people are situated in the world. So it was a very happy surprise for me to find that when Kate announced the dates that it was just down the road from me. It felt like total luxury, to go out and just craft! When crafting at home, guilt tends to creep in, as you can see all the jobs you feel you should be doing!
It was a nice small group, to feel comfortable in,

Kate the host was lovely and bubbly, and after the tea and cookies came out we all settled back to natter and focus on our projects. There was 3 of us crocheting, a lady knitting some handwarmers, whilst two sewers working on quilts. I do hope I get the chance to make a return visit.

What I took with me to work on, has been my 'portable' project for some months.

It goes to work, to be done at lunchtimes, its been on holiday to do in the evenings and also its great to whip out on the train. Nothing taxing, just basic little squares, in drops yarn. At first I didnt know what I would make with these squares, but since I found a plain Calico bag at Hobbycraft, i've decided this is what I will attempt to turn these in to. As I have sewing phobia I wouldn't be able to line a bag neatly, so i'm hoping this will be a solution...

For this weeks mood square i did a slight variation on a basic square, for some of the stitches i stretched them down to the row below. I stuck with summery colours as i'm not ready to face Autumn yet, also hubby has been improving and healing well, and I took an extra day off to take time out to relax....

I can't believe that we've slipped into yet another month

Here is a look back at August