Last of the Crochet Flowers (for now)

I have finished making the flowers for the Islington Mill Festival. Hopefully Rachael will take photos of the decorations when they are all in place next week. I love these daisies. I think they are so bright and cheerful and remind me of Spring.

These flowers are crocheted in a length and then rolled up. They do look somewhat like cabbages but I am sure they will look OK on the posts.

I am quite fond of these brightly coloured little flowers. They will bring a bit of Spring colour to the posts.

I decided to make something other than flowers so now I have an odd looking caterpillar, a strange pink butterfly and a very evil looking sheep that looks rather like a gremlin.

These are some of the flowers made by other members of the Kings Arms Knit Club. We should have quite a lot of flowers to attach to posts next weekend. The ladies were sewing buttons in the centre of some of the flowers and we put safety pins on the back of the flowers so that they could be picked from the posts and worn as brooches.

These 2 photos are taken of the lamp post outside of the Kings Arms Salford where we hold our Knit Club. It was a practise run at how the flowers will look on the posts next weekend. Roger has made absolutely loads of the green stems with a bobbin that makes i cords. I used to have bobbins when I was younger made from old wooden cotton reels with little tacks. I must have produced miles of this cord. I was always going to make something like a shopping bag with the cords but never got around to stitching them together.

This is another of my 'lodger' cats. This little lady, whose name I have forgotten, came in for a few cat biscuits and a sleep as her owners were at work. After she left my usual 'lodger' came in from next door for a sleep and he stayed in whilst I was at the Knit Club and was sitting on the window sill waiting for me to return. People have asked me why I don't get another cat or a smaller dog but I am happy with my daily feline visitors, plus Poppy, the little dog from next door who comes through the hedge to say Hello and of course sporadic visits from my doggy favourite ,Buster, my fur grandson.

Today I am going to try to return to the last of my niece's knitting but the housework really needs doing. It has been left whilst I have been flower making as that was to a deadline as even if I make any more flowers then I won't see anyone to give them to before the weekend. Rachael has another flower project at Just So festival so any other flowers that I make can go to that.

I was going to try machine knitting this week but not until I have finished off the chunky cardigan for my niece. She has waited long enough.

Happy Easter

I hope that you are having a good Easter Sunday. I used to try to go to church on Easter Sunday but I have to admit that I haven't been in quite a while. The church bells aren't ringing yet so it must be a later service today. From my patio doors I have the view of one of the oldest churches locally and I usually get serenaded by the church bells for services, weddings and even a tolling bell for a funeral. Sometimes in the past we have had some very discordant chimes but the set of bell ringers they have now seem to have got it right apart from the odd wrong note. When they got it note perfect my son used to say "They are playing a recording again today Mum." He insisted that they had a tannoy hidden somewhere in the belfry that they switched on some days.

No Easter Eggs at this end as I do try not to eat too much chocolate and I don't buy them for my Great Grand Daughters as they don't eat that much chocolate either. I used to discourage people from buying my son Easter Eggs when he was small as he wasn't a lover of chocolate and they used to hang around the house for weeks until eventually I ate them which didn't do my figure any good!

The flowers are some that I have crocheted for the Islington Mill festival in Salford next weekend.

This is a closer look at 3 of the flowers. I find a lot of the patterns on Ravelry but I can't tell you which ones they are as I tend to crochet one and then remember the pattern so I don't often print them out. This year it is intended to put pins or brooch backs on the flowers with a label on the posts saying 'Pick Me' Last year they were sewn onto pieces of crochet but this year they are being pinned to green i cords that represent stems. We would rather people took them and pinned them to their clothes for the festival than they get vandalised later or worse still left on the posts to get dirty from the rain and traffic dirt. I have been told that one is left on a traffic pole from last year and it is so black that it is now almost welded to the post. Roger says that he will cut it down whilst he is dressing the posts this year.

These two flowers came out rather large and remind me of waterlilies or cabbages as one of the ladies said yesterday. I ran out of wool for the end of one so I hope that no-one notices the deliberate mistake.

This little bunny is a Marshmallow bunny from a free pattern on Ravelry. I am going to try to make a couple more of these as I think he is very cute.

The bird is from another free Ravelry pattern and is supposed to be a cat toy filled with catnip. The owl is called Hoot Owl and is another free pattern. My finishing leaves a lot to be desired which is why I don't do amigurumi as a rule. They always finish up with cross eyes and lop sided features. The owl has a crooked beak and the bird has somewhat of a strange beak. The details are what let me down every time.

Today the sun is trying to shine but it is colder than yesterday. Hopefully it won't mar the Easter plans that people have. My plans today are to crochet more birds, beasties and flowers as we are having a 'sew the brooch backs on day' on Tuesday evening at the Kings Arms as the pub is closed tomorrow, our usual meeting eve, for Easter Monday and we need to get organised before the final pin on the stems day next Saturday. I don't mind crocheting flowers and things. It makes a welcome break from all the knitting that I have done lately and so I hope to make quite a few more before Tuesday evening. I have a few more ideas in my head for things other than just flowers.

Cardigan almost finished

I have finished the knitting of my sister in law's Christmas cardigan. No photos yet as I am awaiting some blocking boards/play mats that I have ordered online from the Early Learning Centre. They had some pink flowered play mats on Sale for £10 for 4 (plus postage of £5) which was the cheapest online that I have seen anywhere. The comments suggest that in play the daisies wear off so who knows - my sweaters and shawls might have daisies transferred onto them whilst blocking. Interesting? I have ordered 2 packs of them anyway so I will have enough to block a large shawl. It's probably the reason they have been reduced by £5 a pack.

The Jaeger Roma yarn must have a really good yardage as I have so many balls left after finishing the cardigan that I have decided to make a tank top for my sister in law as well. I started it whilst watching Charley Boorman on TV last night (Cor! - Yeah for Charley Boorman especially on his bike - who can forget the Long Way Down with Ewan McGregor) She can either wear them together as a twin set even though the pattern is different. She can wear it as a summer top (ha ha what summer) or put a blouse underneath and wear it as a tank top. Both the cardigan and the top are in Knit Today Issue 23.

I am itching to start some crochet and I know that I will cave in and start some eventually. I have resisted so far, apart from a pair of crochet slippers, but am getting withdrawal symptoms.

I am going to try to get to the Kings Arms tonight on the Metro. I will have to be armed with my A_Z otherwise I will get lost on my way from the station to the pub and don't want to walk any more than I have to. I have been looking at ArtYarns blog and Rachael's Blog (links on RHS of my blog) to see the photos of the Kings Arms chandelier and the stitching up of all of the OXFAM squares which look very impressive. There are also photos of the street furniture and tree crochet and knit which was on display at the Islington festival in Salford. Just click on the photos or click on the links in the blog to view them.