Remembrance and learnings...

Thank you for all your kind words last week.
It has been quite a heavily emotional week. We have had a positive step forward with the finances, and the house clearing did finally come to an end, although that was a heavy emotional pull for hubby to say goodbye to the family home. Final plans came together and Friday was the day of the funeral, and thankfully the rain held off. The day went smoothly and it was a good turn-out. We certainly felt very drained after such a long day, with the journey, the poignant service, and socialising with family at the wake.

We had booked the weekend off, and this was set aside purely to shut ourselves away from the world, to rest and spend some much needed time together.

There was no decision to be made for the colour of my mood square this week, it had to be purple. This was Tisha's favourite colour and the main shade at the funeral.

A bit of sparkle mixed with the plain. This shows the mix of mood and personality.

This is how the first four weeks of my mood blanket are looking. Just hoping now that the colours can start to get a little lighter and brighter as the weeks progress.

My mini crochet squares are still travelling round with me, and the pile is growing...

Back at home the joining process has started. I was unsure what I was doing, and it's been a bit trial and error. I tried to combine the edging and joining together but i didn't like the ridge showing on the front and i felt the crossover joins were a bit hit and miss and were turning out too lumpy.

So I unravelled, and this time i'm doing all the horizontal edging first, before joining.

I''m still learning as I go, but hopefully I can manage okay when I come to do the verticals. Only time will tell.

January blues & a crochet mood blanket

I haven't managed to be around blogland for quite a while as its been quite a traumatic month. Working in retail in December is usually pretty hectic anyway, but on top of that my mother-in-law was taken to hospital, and this time she didn't make it, and we lost her in the early hours of Christmas eve. Christmas passed in a blur and then husband travelled to her home to start the mammoth task of sorting her belongings and it took over 2 weeks of being away from the comfort of home. It has been a massive task, and through anger, frustration, tears, exhaustion and seemingly being up against the odds we are getting there.  We did stop for a brief glass of wine at new year but January so far has been a bit bleak, but hopefully we will break through it soon.

I have managed a little crochet this month, to help me relax.
Firstly, on instagram the lovely @frofunky arranged at the start of the year a crochet-a-long mood blanket project. I think it has taken off to be much bigger than she ever expected. Now I have never made a blanket before, purely because as its such a large project I couldn't see how I would fit it in to my busy schedule, and I have a tendancy to get bored very quickly, so I couldn't see me making endless repeats. I have seen other projects before which have tempted me, but I knew that i'd never manage it. This project was different as it offered two options, either to crochet a square a day for the year or a square a week. Now a square a week, that made me take notice, surely even I could manage that, and get to have a completed blanket at the end of it. Also what makes this one different is there's no planning, no deciding on a colour pallet, just choose a colour or pattern to define your mood.
For my first square I chose blue, and a basic granny square pattern.

It had been a hard week and was not really in a happy state. I had in the back of my mind, yes I guess I did actually try to plan this, I would stick to the same pattern, choose a different colour each week and join with white. But after looking at all the lovely pictures of peoples mood squares daily, it hit me that as someone who loves colour and texture, did I really want to have such a basic blanket.
My second square was an experiment.

I had wanted to try popcorn stitch for awhile, so after watching some youtube videos I gave it a try, and I carried on working a square around it.

I'm very pleased with how this turned out. So the next technique that I need to learn is joining the squares as I go. I gave it a go, but I had the ridge showing on the front, which i'm not too sure that i like.

As its my first blanket I want to have an end product that i'm happy with. So its back to the drawing board and some more research, and I think I will unpick it and try another way.
I'm very excited to do this project in many aspects. Firstly its going to be a learning curve, trying different techniques, plus its a test of endurance to keep a project going for so long. Also as i'm inheriting my mother-in-laws yarn stash,

this enables me to start using some of the quantities up, but what is so lovely is not only will this be a mood blanket but this will also be a memory blanket....

Another project i'm also doing is made up of mini granny squares.

A nice small, quick and compact project that i've been able to do on the train or at lunchtimes at work.

I found some balls of multi-coloured yarn that I couldn't wait to use to see how they worked up.

These little squares have been flying off my hook, and i'm trying to be good and get the ends sewn in as I go,
plus once I find a technique i'm happy with I will get on with joining them together. This I will be turning into a cushion.
Next week I will update on my my mini cushion squares and show my next mood colour square...

Party time and cosy cowl...

Last Sunday I didn't get the chance to write my blog post, because I was being a dirty stop out. I actually got to go to a Christmas party!!
Hubby's work had a big fancy do. So I had a quick dash home from work, and a quick superman change into my gladrags before catching the coach.

The marquee looked amazing with the ceiling decked with twinkly lights...
There was a house band playing, and tables all layed out for dinner.

We had a four course meal, whilst being entertained by dancers and acrobats.

Later there was much dancing to the DJ and bumper cars too...

On the crafting front its been very slow going as all my time gets swallowed up with work, as working in retail i don't get to enjoy the season.
So sadly I still haven't finished my mini stocking garland, but i'm determined I will finish before the big day.

But I have got a ta dah.....

I did manage to finish my Cowl which is All for ME

I love the multi colours, so its a lovely flash colour to cosy up into on any chilly mornings...

Christmas build up...

The Christmas momentum has already started at work, with Saturday being really busy, and we've not even hit December yet!
I have to admit Christmas is my least favourite time of year, which I know makes me sound very baa humbug, but its only because of having worked in retail for so long. I miss out on so many of the fun things, i'd love to bake goodies, and decorate the flat festively and take the time to make personal gifts. But unfortunately the season to me means major stress, very long hours and being so tired... And now stores are forced to open on boxing day too, i'm not in a fit state to enjoy the day...
This week I got the opportunity for a trip to London for a merchandising meeting.

This included a trip around the top stores to look at their windows and in-store displays, how they had tackled Christmas and to see if there were any trends.
This was a very enjoyable trip and a great insight. We started in Harrods,

and their luxurious rooms and ostentatious goods, which included a quarter of a million pound table.

Their windows were spectacular, with a locomotive steam engine in the first window, and all following ones were set up like the carriages for travelling away for the season.

Their Xmas store was a little disappointing, as in it didn't have the same luxurious feel. It was bright  and festive though.

After a stop off at the V&A museum store we just had to check out Selfridges especially the infamous window displays.

They had big over-sized objects, surrounded by miniatures, which was very effective.

Inside, their displays were very bright and fresh and clean looking.

Then it was off round Bond Street to the top end stores.

A common thread used by large departments and small individual stores was the use of technology  and using projected images, which were very effective.

Lastly we went to Fortnum & Masons. I don't think i've been there before and I was impressed and enthralled.

It felt very homely all through, and festive in a sophisticated way.

And when I entered the Christmas store it made, even me, feel the magic of the season. I oohed and aaahed my way round. It made you feel quite emotional.

The details, the colour co-ordination, the soft music, the beautiful wrapping.

All areas of the store looked inviting, they even managed to make vegetable displays look beautiful.

All in all, a very enjoyable work day....

Back at home, in between the working hours, I've continued with the mini stockings. Just a couple more I think, before then adding the little hooks and transferring them into a garland.

Also, I have started another project. This, for a change, is just for me...

I had purchased this yarn back at the Knitting and Stitch show, I couldn't resist the beautiful multi-colours.

Now that the days are getting chilly, and I certainly feel the icy winds when standing around at bus stops, I felt a cowl was definitely required.

Nothing fancy was needed, as I didn't want to detract from the colour.

So I just used double crochet and chain stitches.

I'm loving how this is looking already, so I can't wait to finish...

Birthday outting

This week i've had two trips out.
Firstly, on Monday, my Mum came to visit. We haven't seen each other for awhile, so it was great to catch up. After some lunch, we drove to nearby Staines, where we spent a couple of hours around the shops trying to look for present ideas.
This weekend, we had the novelty of a whole weekend off work. It was my birthday on Saturday so we took the train to Kingston for a day out.

The Christmas lights were up, and we started working our way round the shops.

We found a little traditional little market. Some cute little stalls.

We also found there was a Craft Fair too. With beautiful stalls of handmade goods. And I did manage to pick up a chrissie pressie...

We saw a fantastic duo called 'Idrum', who made drumming fun and exciting to watch.

We stopped for some lunch, before tackling the big Bentalls shopping centre.

It was pretty busy, but it was enjoyable to do something that we don't normally get the chance to.

The hours soon flew by as we were engrossed with all the lovely goodies in the stores. We stayed right till the stores closed, and then spotted a nice little Italian restaurant just as we came out the last store.

A lovely dinner, followed by a scrummy pudding!

After the train journey home, I still had my cards and presents to open.

I was very lucky and was thoroughly spoilt with lots of lovely goodies...

We just finished the night off with a nightcap...

Only a little crafting has happened in my busy week, but I did manage to get 3 little mini stockings completed. I've stuck to traditional red and white, in slight variations of stripe, this i intend to hang as a garland, after i've completed a few more little socks...