Wonderful Win

It used to be I never won anything, not a thing no matter how many competitions or giveaways I entered it was always someone else who was the lucky one.

Lately though this seems to have changed as I have been so lucky to win so many lovely things.

Last month I received an email from Jane Crowfoot letting me know that I had won the above competition which I had entered at the end of last year in Simply Crochet magazine.

I had forgotton all about entering but I was absolutely thrilled to win such a brilliant prize, worth £195!!!

Just as my daughter was leaving the house one morning last week she shouted in “Mum I have just signed for a parcel for you from the postman”. It was quite a heavy box and I couldn’t think what it was I had ordered, nothing came to mind. My daughter delayed her departure as she was just as nosy curious to see what it was too.

When the box was opened this wonderful array of yarn was revealed. Thirty one balls of Rowan Cotton Glacé, a yarn I love, in colours which could have been picked for me personally!

There is something so wonderful about this much colourful yarn all in the one place. Breathtaking actually!

As it is a crochet-along I’m not sure exactly what it is I’m making yet. I do know that it is a Persian and Islamic inspired design hence the wonderful yarn colours. I receive my first set of patterns by email next week and then once a month until July, so looking forward to that.

I also know that it involves beading as these three packets of gorgeous Debbie Abraham Beads arrived with the delicious yarn.

So haven’t I been a lucky girl!! I just hope I can do the project justice and most importantly keep up with it.

My home is upside down at the moment as we are about to get a new kitchen fitted! I am so looking forward to my new kitchen, just not the upheaval that will go with it. Everything that lives in the kitchen is now distributed throughout the rest of the house. It’s a nightmare and from tomorrow onwards for a week or more I’m going to have ‘men’ in my home, don’t you just hate it when you have ‘men’ in your home!!!

I think I may just retire to my bedroom with my crochet!

Happy Tuesday, we have sun again!

 

Christmas Tree Festival

This beautiful country church is the church where my husband and I were married in 1981, it’s the one where my parents were married way back in 1944 and it’s the one where my daughter and her fiance will be married next year in 2013! There have been many family weddings, christenings (including my children, myself and my mother) and sadly funeral services held here over the years. It’s a special place for all my family.

It is a very beautiful old building but last weekend it became (if possible) even more so when it hosted a Christmas Tree Festival.

There were over 70 trees within it’s walls decorated by local businesses, individuals, organisations and local schools, each being given a brief and then left to their own imaginations how they would interpret it.

It was absolutely amazing with people queuing over the four days to get in to see it, many people returning for a second time to take it all in.

I thought I would share some of it with you, just so you can see some of the many trees, if I were show them all it would be a very long post.

Rainbow Tree

Perfume Tree

The following trees were all decorated by local children from primary schools, playgroups etc.

Animal Tree & Bethlehem Tree

Butterfly Tree & Nativity Tree

Star Tree & Ewe Tree

Now some of the more unusual trees……

Upside Down Tree & Knitted Tree

Spreading the Word Tree & Cushion Tree

So just a little taster of the Christmas Tree Festival, there were so many more beautiful and clever trees.

Now this tree, the Gabriel Tree was a little bit special to me as I contributed a decoration to it!

This is my little angel!

She’s singing!

This was the last tree you passed on the way out, actually there were three of them and everyone was asked to write a little note and tie it on the tree before they left.

It was an extremely successful event and thanks to the very generous donations made a lot of money was raised for the upkeep of this lovely building.

With the exception of the Gabriel Tree and my angel photos all the photos in this post belong to my hubbie, his all singing, all dancing camera is much more suited to these occasions than my little point and shoot!

Before I leave you just a reminder that my giveaway is still on until midnight tomorrow (Thurs 6/12/12), you can leave a comment here to enter.

Happy Wednesday everyone, the Christmas decorations are coming out tonight!

 

Blue & Grey

Blue and grey have been pretty much the colours of the week. One minute the sky was blue then very quickly it turned a deep grey, the heavens open and it poured!!

It’s not just been the ‘bright blue before the storm’ colour of blue either, we have had the dark navy blue of an angry thundery sky too.

It’s no secret how much I love a bright blue sky and sunshine but I also love a thunderstorm! There’s something quite exciting about an electrical storm but when it’s over I like the bright blue sky to come back again. It’s the rain that begins in the morning and stays all day I don’t like.

I think my crochet flowers this week have been influenced by the skies as they all have been blue and grey, the blue being of the thundery kind!

Well here we are at the beginning of another weekend and almost at the end of another month!! Where does it all go to???
It’s been lovely to have you visit this week, have a wonderful blue sky weekend.

 

Rainbow

I’m linking this post with the ‘Making Winter’ series organised by Silverpebble and Thriftyhousehold. This is the last of four months of posts to help ease the pain of winter and make it something to celebrate.

Now as you know I left winter behind a while back as the Green Rabbit calendar has been in pre-spring season for two months now and come Thursday 1st March we will, according to the Green Rabbit calendar, be in spring ( I don’t go by equinoxes)!

However as I have taken part in this project all along, I thought it only correct to join in with the final one and to finally put winter to bed and what better way to do it than with a rainbow!

Rainbows always appear when the sun comes out after the rain and I hope my little rainbow signals the end of cold, wet, grey days and the start of clear, bright, sunshiny days!

I chose yarn in the seven colours of the rainbow.

Made seven little buttons in the same seven colours.

And crocheted seven corsages with seven petals each.

Lets hope this is the start of seven long months of happy bright days!!!

Check here for others taking part in ‘Making Winter’ and here for some lovely images.

Happy Tuesday everyone, spring’s coming!!!

 

Grey

Everything is a bit grey around here today but in a good way! Even the sky is grey but as it is still so very mild I really don’t mind, so long as the blue sky doesn’t stay away for too long!

The yarns are grey!

The fabrics are grey!

And the knitting is grey!

Now as we know black and white make grey, so it really is a wonder that this lot don’t turn grey they’re so mixed up……….

RJ at the back, Jessie on the right, Charlie in the middle and Polly at the front!

Just to prove it’s not all grey around here today I do have a pretty little potted gerbera on my table to add a little bit of colour.

Well the weekend is almost upon us again, where time goes to is a mystery to me. This weekend I’ll be able to shop for the first time in a Cath Kidston shop without going to the mainland or shopping on-line as she is opening her first shop in N.I. today in Belfast.
The new shop is just across the street from Avoca, almost next door to Paperchase, down the street a little from Whitestuff and around the corner from Accessorize (can you tell my favourite shops here), so happy days!!
If you’re free on Saturday afternoon you’re very welcome to come shopping with me!!

Happy weekend!

 

January Colour

We have had yet another beautiful day here today, this pre-spring season is shaping up to be very lovely indeed.
When the sun is shining in through the windows, it really makes you notice the prettiness all around you, the clear bright light brings out the natural beauty in everything including my gorgeous orchid. I thought I share some more of my January colour with you.

How about these yummy Percy Pig sweets or should I say Veggie Pigs, as Marks & Spencer now make Percy Pigs which are suitable for vegetarians, made without gelantine. What I don’t understand is why don’t they make all their Percy Pigs without gelantine, I mean who wants real pig in their sweets anyway. No one really wants all the leftover bits of pigs boiled up and put into their sweets, surely!! Sorry if you find this a bit disgusting but I do see it as one of my missions in life to convert everyone to vegetarianism.

You’re probably wondering what on earth these are, well they’re cat toys, homemade cat toys to be precise. I made them to give the kittens a bit of fun and stimulation and I’m happy to say they have been well received. We had bought them something similar before and after examining them I thought I could make my own as they all eventually disappear into the garden. It is very entertaining watching them play with them!

I couldn’t do a colour post without a bit of yarn and this lot was a little bargain at only £1.50 a ball, I know I didn’t really need it but what’s that got to with anything. It’s a cotton/linen mix and will be lovely for some spring/summer corsages.

The yarn wasn’t my only impulse buy, I just had to have these pretty beads for no reason other than the fact that I love green!!

Finally my last little bit of January colour is my current knitting project which is a cushion. I have to do something fun in between my spring cleaning which is still on-going – slowly. I can’t say I’m loving it but I’m getting through it, I even have enlisted other family members to the cause. I can’t say they’re willing helpers but why should I have all the fun! Anyway they say ‘many hands make light work’, don’t they!!

Thanks as always for ‘dropping in’, hope you all have a lovely week with a bit of sunshine and some colour too.

 

Grape or Plum ?

Not sure if this wonderful autumnal colour is grape or plum but what I am sure of is that it is really lovely. I’ve found myself drawn to it this week with my knitting and crochet. It goes so well with mustard yellow, pale green and grey.

I noticed last weekend lovely shops like White Stuff and Avoca had so many clothes in these colours (so many that I wanted) !!! There are lots of home furnishings in these shades this season as well.

All this inspired me to create an Etsy Treasury which I entitled “Grape or Plum ?”

Hope you enjoy looking at it and checking out all the lovely shops as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Pretty striped viol… HandmadebyMia $32.00	Grape plum canvas p… lilybethandmad… $3.00	Vintage Glass Earri… AshleySpatula $18.50	Bunny Little Pori dancinginthera… $15.00
Sweet home appliquÃ… SewSweetViolet $35.00	Merino Sock – Grape… anothercraftyg… $20.00	vintage buttons gra… cooee $4.40	Bedroom Set – Cushi… ACrookedSixpen… $76.00
Pretty in purple – … janesgemsandje… $24.99	Rose Garden Scarfle… gsakowskidesig… $43.00	Ayala Levinger Art … AyalaLevinger $26.00	Grape Soda Bottleca… A3Sisters $3.00
Purple Handmade Lam… Lutrick $8.00	Purple Flower Hair … Nomsa $15.00	Plum Pearl Ring Swa… bluembrownlee $17.00	Serene Kitty in Gra… FuzzyMug $13.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

I’m off to another Debbie Abrahams knitting workshop this weekend, we’re making “Festive Fingerless Mitts”. Imagine me getting festive at this time of year!!!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, keep warm and thanks for dropping in to visit me this week!

 

Autumn Colour

Over the past few weeks I have been taking some photographs of the autumn colours appearing in the countryside and in my garden, when the weather has been behaving itself that is!

Looking through them it seems that it hasn’t been all rain, must have just seemed that way or else I took most of my photos over a period of two days, which may have been the case.

There is no doubt about the beautiful colours that autumn sends our way.

The trees, leaves, berries and shrubs are such pretty shades of the season.

Beauty to be found in the simplest of things.

Rusty orange, red, brown, green, mustard, yellow, purple, taupe. Most of my favoutite colours (with the exception of duck egg blue that is) are autumn shades, perhaps I really am an earthy autumn girl, mmmm not sure about that, earthy yes but I do like my summer sunshine!

Celebrate Colour is all about being inspired by the colours of the autumn season and using them in all manner of crafts. It is the brilliant idea of Emma Lamb, Wild Olive and luvinthemommyhood. They want everyone to share their autumn inspired crafts and there are lots of lovely prizes to be won too. Click on the photo for lots more information.

And inspired I have been, I’ve spent this week crocheting little bits and pieces in autumnal colours which will eventually become corsages, with the exception of the toadstool which might look a little odd!

I have enjoyed working with these colours and matching them up with pretty beads and buttons.

Just have to attach flowers to leaves etc and make a few corsages, I have to say though I do quite like them all displayed like this, so much so that I don’t want to touch them!!

Hope you’re being inspired by the season too!

It’s actually not raining here today although a little sunshine wouldn’t go amiss.

Thanks as always for visiting, enjoy the rest of the week and I hope the weekend ahead is a good one for you all!

 

Summer Crochet

Well it does feel like a summer day here today, thankfully, so this is definitely summer crochet!
I’ve decided to make myself a new little crochet throw, one I can use in the garden, you know the type, draped over a chair looking like a photoshoot from Country Homes & Interiors magazine!! The reality is it will probably rain non-stop just as I finish it!

I’m using this book, ‘Crocheted Throws & Wraps’ by Melody Griffiths.

And I’m using this pattern.

As it’s for my own personal use I can use colours to suit myself, so there’ll be no reds or pinks used. It’s going to be blues and green and browns, my favourites.

I was just thinking about colours and how we all have our own personal choices, how some colours appeal to some people yet others dislike them. As I have mentioned I personally really do not like red and pinks, yet I know many of my bloggy friends love them! I do use red and pink in my knitting but always for others. I love greens and blues including all the lovely colours between the two especially duck egg blue and teal! I also love shades of brown and cream but I know some people absolutely detest brown.

I was just wondering, out of interest, what are your favourite colours and which ones do you not like at all?

Happy Wednesday everyone!

 

Les Marchés

Today I’m going to take you on a tour of the markets we visited while we were on holiday in the south of France. The French markets are truely special with the most amazing display of goods. I can share the sights with you, I just wish I could share the sounds and the smells.

This first photo is a little stall at the Rose Festival in Grasse, it is where we sampled the rose flavoured macaroons which were extremely sweet!

This market is the Marché Provençal in Antibes. So much lovely food on display here, also some not so nice stuff as well but as this is vegetarian blog there won’t be any photos of those undesirables !!! It’s the array of colours that I love, they are gorgeous!

It would be so easy to get your five a day in France as it’s all so tempting.

Not just fruit and veg though, there are herbs and spices and even some beautiful soaps.

Antibes had lots of pretty textiles for sale as well.

There are also lots of antique and collectible stalls in Antibes, selling all sorts.

How creepy do these little dolls look !!!!

The following photos are of the Flower Market held every Saturday morning in Nice. This market has the most brilliant display of flowers, fruit and vegetables. The smell of all this produce is wonderful and there is a particulary strong scent of lavender, which I wish I could share with you!

Well that’s the end of my little tour of the French markets, I hope you enjoyed it!
I’ll be back soon with the final instalment of my holiday photos, I do hope you’ll join me.