I seem to be unable to type a title to the blog today so I hope it will save anyway.

I finished off the 2 baby crochet jackets in time for Emily's (my youngest step great grand daughter's christening) on Sunday. These jackets were my own design loosely based on a jacket I had seen in a Candi Jensen book. She had used chenille with a fabric border and purchased frog fasteners. I like the style but not the use of chenille for a baby and I am not much of a sewer so the fabric border was not to my liking.

I just used double knit and crocheted a stitch I had used in a previous garment. It is 1 relief treble around a treble post and then one normal treble. The next row is double crochet all across. Followed by a row similar to the first but alternating the relief treble and the treble again followed by a row of double crochet. The 4 rows form the pattern and it makes quite a chunky fabric so I used a 5mm hook with the double knit so the jackets would not be too stiff to wear. I used one of my previously finished baby jackets for size and just crocheted these jackets to the same measurements. Unfortunately as per usual I didn't write anything down so if I get asked to make any more jackets then I will have to wing it once again. I made one for each baby but the photo is of the smaller one.

The frog type fastenings were my own design. I made a centre ring and then put 3 petal shapes into the ring and then put a chain loop where the 4th petal would have been. I then went around the chain loop with double crochet. I made another the same for the other side and crocheted a ball in double crochet stuffed with a minute amount of wadding to form the button.

I have now sort of mastered my digital camera that my son bought for me last Christmas so maybe in the future my photos on here will be crisper on the details but as I haven't yet mastered the flash it may be a while!

Today the rain seems to be holding off for a little while so I may be able to get into the garden and sort out my veggie plants in the grow houses. They have been sadly neglected of late what with the rain and all of the buidling projects in the house. I still have to put the storage stuff back into the loft. I purchased some storage boxes and bags so my stash of buttons, ribbons and yarn will be nice and dry as well as clean when it goes back into the loft space.

I had a little drama on Saturday evening. I had just got into the shower when my smoke detector started screaming at me. I checked (dripping wet from my shower) but there was no fire. I had to ring the fire station as they had fitted the detectors with the warning "do not touch them yourself no matter what" It got quite exciting after that as they sent a fire engine ( they had to in case they got called to a fire whilst at my house) and I had the pleasure of 2 extremely handsome firemen who removed the faulty detector and replaced it with a new one. They said that dust had gone into the detector. It must have happened when I had the loft re-lagged and boarded but didn't trigger the detector until a few days later. My neighbours were all concerned as it was 11.15pm and they thought I had a house fire!