Come back, summer!!!

I took this photo from our bedroom window, about 3 weeks ago, on a VERY stormy evening. 

Since that night, we’ve had glorious, summery weather.  It’s been hot, the skies have been blue, and there’s been a nice, gentle breeze.  We’ve spent a few lovely evenings and long-weekends (thank you, Germany, for all your bank holiday days) sitting out on our terrace, gardening, eating alfresco, digging out our summery clothes.....

Well, that was until today!  It rained, and the temperature has dropped by about 10 degrees.  Yuk!!!

So, in attempt to make the sun come back out to play, I thought I’d show you some sunglasses cases I’ve been making. 

These are all for an ‘Open House’ event I’m planning, with some other crafty ladies, for the beginning of July.  More on that to follow in another post.....

Before I say "cheerio", I just wanted to say THANK YOU for leaving such lovely comments on my last post.  You made me smile, made my day, and boosted my crocheting-confidence all in one go!!!  

Until next time.....

Carly

x

Grannies Galore

Last month, I excitedly did a ‘show and tell’ of my first ever crocheted granny square.  Well, like with most new crafty activities I try, I'm now well-and-truly addicted!!!

And, as with all my other crafty activities, one of my favourite parts of the process is putting together the colours.  How many different combos could I conjure up from 7 colours of yarn, using 4 for each square?  Well, I could work in out precisely.  But I think it’s adequate to just say LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS! Yippeeeeee!!!

So far, I’ve made 13.  Here are some of my favourites:

I still haven’t decided 100% on what I’m going to do with all my grannies.  In my head, I'm picturing a big, colourful blanket.  But I’m going to need a fair few more if I stick to that plan.  I think I’ll just keep on making them until I get bored, and see how far I get.....

By the way, can anyone explain (or point me towards a good video that can explain) what I should do with the ends after I cut them and pull them through?  I’m just wrapping them around and around, but I think there must be a neater, ‘proper’ way of doing it.  I’d be really grateful for any tips!

Right now, I’m also working on another crochet project.  It’s very exciting indeed, as it’s my first try at crocheting something other than grannies!  I’m joining in with Sarah’s wonderful crochet-a-long over at Annaboo’s House.  If you enjoy crocheting, or if you’re a beginner (like me), and fancy trying something fun, you should definitely join in!  By playing along, you can make either a cat, a monkey or a doll.  Can you guess which one I’m working on???

Off to grab my hook and do another granny square.....

Hope you're all enjoying lovely, warm days and beautiful, blue skies wherever you are!  

Carly

x

Patchwork Cushions

I’ve been LOVING all the patchwork things I’ve been seeing on people’s blogs lately, and wanting to do a bit myself.  I’ve only tried it once before, making a baby blanket for a friend last year (you can see my post about it here).  As there are no babies on the horizon at the moment, I thought I’d try making some cushions.

What fun!!! 

As you can imagine, I spent HOURS picking out and matching up fabrics.  That’s ALWAYS my favourite part of ANY project!!!  Most of the squares were taken from two Moda charm packs I’d bought a few months ago, but some were stolen from other areas of my stash.  After that, I spent HOURS more testing to find the best possible arrangement of the 9 squares for each cushion front.  Such important tasks, you see, can’t be rushed (especially when they’re sooooo much fun, and you’ve got lots of crafty-podcast-listening to catch up on).

Sewing the squares together was fun too.  The process of sewing the pieces together and ironing them nicely, then sewing on some more, then ironing the seams again.....  was really quite relaxing.  If anyone has any tips for keeping the pieces exactly square and straight (when some are stretchier/wonkier than others), I’d love to hear them.  This was the only frustrating bit!

Then, to finish off the cushions, I just used some matching fabric to make a simple envelope-style back, and put little IKEA-bought cushion pads inside.  Ta-daaaaaa.....

Now, when can we go back to IKEA to buy some more cushion pads???  I can see this patchwork-cushion-making turning into my latest sewing addiction!

What’s your latest crafty obsession???

Until next time.....

Carly

x             

Something Lovely to Share.....

Hello, my lovely blogging friends! 

Thank you for stopping by for a visit!!!

I've never shared a video on my blog before, but I think this one's something REALLY wonderful and special.  I'm not a soppy person at all, but this video gave me goosebumps!  Imagine getting on the train in the morning, grudgingly making your way to work, and then experiencing this.....

  [by CPHPHIL]

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!  ♥ 

Happy weekend to you all.....

Carly

x

Little Purses

Thank you for all your comments about our Night of the Museums adventure!  Have you all booked up your flights to Düsseldorf for next year’s event???  I heard from a friend this week that some of the zoos around here do similar night-time events.  I’m sold!!!  I’ll be looking them up as soon as I’ve finished writing this post....

On to crafting.....  Last week, I was mostly making little purses.  I love making them!  They’re pretty quick, pretty easy, and just plain old pretty!

Here are a few of my favourites:

I just can’t seem to shake off my obsession with spotty fabrics!!!  Have you noticed???

Are you more diverse in the prints you use?  Or, like me, do you have a particular favourite?  Do you like spots too, or stripes, checks, florals, plains.....?

I’m looking forward to HEAPS of crafting this week.  We have Thursday and Friday off school – yippeeeeeee!!!!!

Hope you have a good (and crafty) week.....

Carly

x

Night of the Museums

First of all, I just wanted to apologise for being a bit rubbish at keeping up with all your wonderful blog posts lately.  SORRY!!!  We are having some really annoying computer problems.  The screen of our laptop has gone black, and the only way we can use it now is by hauling it upstairs and plugging it in to our ancient PC monitor.  Then, as the laptop is so far away from our little internet-box-thingy, connection is really weak and keeps disappearing altogether.  Grrrr! 

Hopefully, we'll be able to get it fixed soon, so that I can get back to freely roaming the blogosphere whenever – and from wherever – I want!  Fingers crossed!!!

For today’s post, I thought I’d tell you what we got up to last Saturday night.  It wasn’t really CRAFTY.....  But it was ARTY (in parts) – and LOTS OF FUN!!!

We went to the Düsseldorf Night of the Museums.

Once a year, 40 of the city’s museums and galleries are opened up for the night.  What an amazing concept!  It’s exciting enough being able to go into a museum in the middle of the night.  BUT there are also loads of extra events going on inside the venues.  Lots of them have live music or DJs, most have bars and food for sale, some have workshops or lectures.....

We went to the Film Museum first.  I love going there, because they have lots of beautiful shadow puppets (which I think are amazing), and lots of those old-fashioned optical illusion things to play with.  On the Night of the Museums, the sale of beer makes it even more fun!  Normally, there’s a brilliant big band on, playing movie theme tunes.  Unfortunately, they weren’t there this year – just a girl singing jazz-type stuff with her eyes closed.  Not so much fun!

After that, we popped to the Karneval Haus.  I find the carnival season over here quite odd all round, and this museum lived up to my expectations. There were rooms and rooms of cheesy photos of carnival kings and queens from years gone by, rooms with photos of carnival floats, a room (my favourite) with vegetable-themed costumes (a suit covered in plastic asparagus, for example, and another covered in radishes).  Another room had several thousand carnival medals hanging from the ceiling.  Only German Karneval would prompt that level of randomness!!!  Oh, and more random still (but lots of fun) was that there was a band in the garden, playing Status Quo tunes!!!

Next, we went to the K20 gallery (my favourite museum in Düsseldorf).  I love their Picasso and Klee collections!  And they have the most amazing (though probably the most expensive) museum shop EVER!!!  I made a secret list of things I wanted, then checked out their prices on Amazon the next day – shhhhhh!!!  The curators/security guards were having kittens, watching thousands of slightly tipsy folk wandering around at 1 o’clock in the morning!  There was a fun activity that all the visitors could join in with – making 3D clouds to add to an existing exhibit.  I was keen to get stuck in with the scissors and glue, but we were in a bit of a rush to get one more museum in before the end of the night.....

Our last stop was the Aquazoo.  What could be more fun than visiting an aquarium in the early hours of the morning?!?  There was a rock & roll band on there, and one of the penguins was dancing along (well, that’s what it looked like to me).  My favourite animals were the dancing penguin (of course), the seahorses, the octopus, and the jellyfish that looked like tiny disco lights.  Unfortunately, we got there too late to join in with the sea-creature-origami workshop.  Maybe next year.....   

I’m afraid to say that our photos turned out.... well, like the night-out photos that you want to delete straight away.  So, I’m afraid I'm having to be a bit boring here and show you some snaps of our guide book.  ;-)

Thank you for stopping by!

Carly

x 

My Friend the Postman

This week, I have a new best friend – the postman!  We check our mailbox excitedly every evening when we get back from work.  And we’re usually both disappointed.  But, over the last week, my pal has delivered me 3 exciting packages!!!

Inside package number 1 was Issue 13 of ‘Mollie Makes’. 

Look..... free buttons!!!  How cute are they?!  And how pretty is the colour?!  There’s lots of cuteness and prettiness inside the magazine too.  There are so, so, so many things that I need to add to my ‘dream shopping list’.  And there’s a lovely, colourful crocheted cushion tutorial.  I think I might give it a try, to enhance my new-found granny square skills.

Package number 2 contained Issue 11 of ‘Mollie’.  Don’t ask!  It took 3 months (and countless trying-to-stay-calm-and-not-write-any-naughty-words emails) for them to send me my first subscription issue.  And I haven’t received any of the magazines in the right order.....  It was really annoying!  But now I’ve got all the issues I’m due, and they’ve promised me a few ‘extra’ magazines after my subscription officially ends.  So, I’m happy now!

Issue 11 came with a cute kit for making a little Russian doll key ring.  And look at the little mice on the front cover.  Look at that teeny-tiny little knitted cardie!!!  I’d LOVE to make myself and little well-dressed mousie.  But I think it would all be way too fiddly for me.  Maybe one day???  This issue has inspired me to try out some embroidery.  There are instructions for making an embroidered cuckoo clock, and I’d LOVE it for my crafting room!

Package Number 3 was the most exciting one of all!  It contained a giveaway prize from the lovely and VERY generous Jules at The Awkward Niche.  THANK YOU JULES!!!  Look at all the goodies I won.....

         

A cute hedgehog embroidery kit (more prompting for me to get my embroidery on):

A sweet little blue heart:

A kitty key ring (look what he ate for dinner):

And the super-cute ‘Super Cute’ book:

Thanks, postie!!!  What will you bring for me this week, I wonder.....

And thanks again, Jules!!!  Hugs to you and all my lovely blogging friends,

Carly

x