Welcome to my blog

Hello and thanks for visiting :)

Welcome to my blog :) Hope you enjoy reading - this is the first post :)  I'm Jill, I'm originally from N.Ireland and I now live in Berkshire in the south of England.  I'm happily married to my lovely hubby, and stay-at-home Mum to 3 amazing little people - Little Man is nearly 11, Little Miss is 9, and Little Tomboy is 6 1/2. That's me and them below :)

I worked outside the home on and off until about 9 months ago. My wonderful funny caring Little Man is on the autistic spectrum and this brings extra challenges. I found I needed my energies to manage the children and our home, and I gave up paid employment to become a full-time Mum. I'll be honest, its taken a while to get used to being on my own, at home, and in control of my time (apart from the incessant school runs obviously ....). I'm not very good at being alone, or doing housework, so I've found other ways to fill my time.

One of these time-filling pastimes is going to be blogging. I've started blogs in the past but not had the time, energy, inclination or whatever to stick at it. I do hope this time is different because I do find I have a lot to say :)

I've always loved doing craft things - making cards, knitting, cross-stitch .....  and last year I discovered Crochet. Aaaaaah crochet, how wonderfully relaxing, therapeutic, inspiring, colourful and enjoyable you are :)

Just look at that gorgeous colour, makes me feel all warm and happy :) Its a cushion cover by the way, though I haven't actually put a cushion in it yet - another job on my to-do list.

 

I started crocheting about a year ago. I asked for (and got this book by Jan Eaton for Christmas 2012. We'd been in the USA for holidays and I had spent a lovely afternoon in one of their bookshops. 

Americans do bookshops extraordinarily well. They are MASSIVE and seem to sell LOADS of EVERYTHING. The craft section was amazing, so many lovely books full of gorgeous colours and projects. Our baggage allowance didn't allow for many purchases so I had to make do with making a Christmas list.

Anyway back to the crochet. I started with a plastic hook and some wool that I got with a magazine. I was terrible! And the plastic hook broke! I gave up, for a while anyway. Every so often I returned to it, but didn't really properly get it until I took some bits and pieces on holidays (back home to N.Ireland). I found a great wool shop, bought some lovely James Brett Passion wool and a really nice KnitPro hook - and that was it - I was hooked! Apart from the colour and general loveliness of working with wool, I love how crochet things grow so quickly, very useful as I'm a bit (okay very) impatient.

Since then I've made quite a few bits and pieces, lots of hats, gloves and scarves for the children and myself, some baby blankets for friends, cushion covers, vase cosies and other random things.  Including a guitar strap for Little Tomboy for her teddy. Told you they were random!

I have several current WIP's, lots of tiddly bits and bobs but also 2 things which are gifts. Firstly a blanket for my friends' new baby boy - lots of lovely squishy disks as the centres from the motifs which will be joined soon - here's the pile at the moment - lots of ends to deal with ...

This is the "dot in a square cot blanket" pattern from the book Granny Square Crochet by Catherine Hirst.

......and the other one is a cushion cover for my Mum for Mother's Day (sorry Mum its going to be late). The cushion is this shell-stitch pattern from an old issue of Let's Get Crafting: Knitting and Crochet magazine.

I am Totally Addicted to books and magazines, especially crochet magazines, that is most definitely a major weakness. Thank goodness there aren't any more on the market (and there are already several), I have to buy them all, can't throw any away, and my shelves are full to bursting. I'm sure I will devote several future posts to magazines but for now here's what I bought today ....

.... sigh ....look at that throw's Gorgeous Colours .....
 ........ and look at this little flower corsage ... No2 will love a couple of those ....

... and how cute are these little plant labels ....

There are so many other beautiful things to make, no idea where I will find time for them all :)


Thankyou for visiting, hope you enjoyed reading. Please feel free to leave a comment (so I know I'm not just wittering on to myself lol    :) And please visit again soon :)




edited to add : I've been thinking and thinking about an original way to refer to my children in my blogs, but I just can't come up with anything that I haven't already seen used - so I'm going for Little Man, Little Miss and Little Tomboy, a la Lucy at Attic24 - hope you don't mind Lucy!