Farmer Bo

Summertime is always time for me to get my garden into shape and get my crops a good start. Have been growing my own for a wee whiley now, but I wouldn't say I'm super experienced, in fact each year my harvest seems to shrink!! complacency perhaps? This year will be my 6th year of growing your own and I had hoped for a bumper harvest ...

This year I have high hopes for a mega pumpkin patch and kids in the hood can come and pick their own. Have also trying my hand at legumes - thats peas and beans to non-gardening folks as well as my usual successes of courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers and chillies. But sadly this is not the year for grow your own, normally by this time fruits are appearing and the harvesting begins but hardly anything is growing or what little buds are forming are getting eaten by birds and snails - boo hoo.

So what little was left of the mangetouts has only produced a handful of fruits :( but better than nothing!!

Harvest from the weekend - my first courgette and cucumber!! Bit late in the season though.

Blanket Obsession - Part 3

In a bid for the world's cosiest baby I started my 3rd blanket!! This time I made a few samples before starting, normally I wouldn't do this as I thought it would be a waste of time. BUT since I kept getting annoyed with myself and not liking my colour choices halfway through but had committed already so had to finish so this time I bit the bullet and made a ton of colourway samples.

A couple of contenders came out on top - loving the white/teal/aqua/ combo and the white/grey/pink/mint combo.

This blanket was a small part of the stitch sampler blanket, which I blogged about previously here. But below is a quickie pattern on what I did for this one:

DC = Double Crochet
CH = Chain
ST = Stitch
HDC = Half Double Crochet

Chain 121

Row 1 - skip 1st ch, dc in each ch.
Row 2 - Ch 1, skip 1st ch, *dc in next st, ch 1, miss 1 st* Repeat from * till end of row
Row 3 - Ch2 (counts as 1st HDC), HDC in same st, *2 HDC in ch1 space* Repeat from * to end.
Row 4 - Ch1, DC in between HDC cluster from row below (see pic above) Repeat from * to end

Repeat rows 3 & 4 until you reach length required. For the border I just did DC in white all the way around for about 5/6 rows.

And here is the completed blankie - love this one and I think I'll do a few more with different colour combos.

Blanket Obssession - Part 2

Once I was home from honeymoon I was itching to do some multi-coloured blankets, knitting with one colour can be a bit boring you know, so even though blanket no.1 hadn't been finished its a nice easy one to do on the move. So that one gets taken all round the town while my next creation is a sit at home and concentrate number.

I've been a little bit taken with some crochet-a-long blankets and stitch samplers blankets on Pinterest. So internet once again gets trawled and I find this pattern on ravelry by Janine Holmes for Let's Get Crafting magazine.

Next - colours!! I love this part, my mind goes into overdrive fantasizing about the finished product (what a nerd!!) So I settled on these pastelly brights (is there such a thing?) with white as a base. In hindsight I think these colours are a bit too bright for me but they still work great together and still look fab. I think I'd like to do another one with same colours but a shade or two paler. I used a combination of Stylecraft and random double knit yarns from my stash.

This one worked out alot lot quicker than the popcorn blanket and colours looked fantastic together. Am quite pleased!!

Not the best pattern, there is a bit of phaff and wordiness regarding the start and finish of each row which resulted in a bit of wonkyness at the ends. Which did demotivate me a little - I ended up just getting the jist of what the row should be and using my own knowledge to straighten the sides up. But the border seems to have straightened it up a bit more.

Blanket Obsession - part 1

Most ladies when expecting might feel a sudden nesting urge to clean and declutter, it appears my nesting seems to consist of crochet and knitted blanket mania!!

I started this one while on honeymoon at the start of the year, I needed a nice easy no brainer knitting pattern. Believe it or not it's hard juggling a pattern with multiple balls of wool at 30,000ft!! I also wanted one that wasn't boring either and had a bit of texture - fussy or what! It took me a while to find the perfect pattern, but I came across this one with a cute popcorn stitch.

I had a ton of this silvery metallic Patons yarn bought for the bargainous price of £10 for 10 balls from hobbycraft many moons ago, now I finally have a big project that might use up all 10 balls. It has a lovely a neutral metallic silver colour - perfect. I am ready to go!!

Here's me knitting on the go in Disneyland - waiting waiting waiting for hubby while he's on some rides. It was a bit pants to have to sit out most all the rides but I didn't really mind so long as there was sun and knitting!

It's maybe taken 4 months but it's finished!!

Hello Again

Hang on while I just dust the cobwebs off this blog - OMG, it has been a super long time. In that year and a bit loads and loads have happened!! We got married for one - yay!! and now we have a baby on the way - yay!!!

So you must be thinking crazy woman you'll be busier than ever but I feel I am ready to start blogging again and I'm hopeful that maternity leave will grant me oodles of time to indulge in nesting activities. Aye right sniggers the other mums, wait till the reality hits and the baby won't stop crying. But I am optimistic, I will do my best to make sure that I still have a life even if I am in a sleep deprived bubble for 6 months.

Classes have once again started for the year and they are going well, we now do them in the crafty cabin, which I don't think has been shared on the blog but if you follow me on instagram @boboliddell you will find loads more updates on our crafty adventures. But plenty and plenty of time to fill you in on what's been happening but for now heres some pics from the past year of what I've been making.

Crafty Makes

Christmas Makes

Wedding Makes