Five on Friday

Hello dear friends and readers 😀

Another Friday has rolled around and boy am I glad. A busy and very stressful week for me as you'll see when you read on. Today I am joining in with Five on Friday, hosted by Amy over at Love Made My Home . Here are 5 snippets of my week....

1. Major drama on Monday morning - I was out walking Pixie .... here she is on our walk ....

... and about 5 minutes later she bolted off, terrified by a (very nice, normal) lady, and managed to yank the lead out of my hand. She was then missing for the next 24 hours. It was horrendous. I couldn't find her at all, and after about an hour of searching I was in a real panic. I reported her missing to the vet, the dog warden, the pet shop, and posted on every facebook group you can imagine. My lovely friend made some posters and fliers with this picture of her, also taken that same morning .....

The help and support from the local community was amazing. I myself was looking in hedges and bushes until 10pm, in the day random people were letting me in their gardens and helping me look, loads of local dog walkers (most of whom I didn't know) came down to help, lots of friends, with their kids and husbands helped, and a dear friend brought me cups of tea. I searched and searched all around the local area for about 10 hours - my pedometer told me I'd walked 19km. Reluctantly I gave up at 10pm, it had been pouring for about 5 hours, I was drenched and couldn't see anything anyway. We left out a crate with blankets and water in case she tried to find her way back. As I was leaving another stranger approached me and said he was looking for her as he'd just seen one of the hundred or so leaflets I'd delivered. But I was so exhausted I had to go home. Of course our own children were dreadfully upset and none of us got much sleep.

Hubby got up about 5.30am and went to check the crate, but no sign of her. By 9am we'd got the children to school, hubby has gone off to work, and I'd just printed out a load more leaflets, and was getting ready to go up to where we lost her, with a disposable BBQ to cook some burgers (donated by another friend as I am veggie!) to see if the smell would lure her out, we were convinced she was hiding somewhere, terrified. I knew I'd look like a complete nutcase having a barbeque in the rain at 9am on a random pathway, but was going to give it a go anyway. Before I left the house my phone rang. It was a local dog walker - saying "I've got your dog" !!!!!  OH MY DAYS!! I have never been more relieved in my whole life. I raced out of the door to go and find them - and a few minutes later there she was !! We had a lovely, cuddly, licky reunion. Me and Pixie that is, not me and the man. Though I did give him a hug). And I'm trying to find out where he lives so I can buy him a bottle of whiskey or something.

She had been caught, tangled with her lead, deep in some bushes in a nearby field. The man's dog had found her and barked so madly that the man had gone to see what was wrong, and saw Pixie all caught up in the bushes. We think she had been out all night and had got herself so tangled she couldn't move. The man freed her and she soon perked up. She is absolutely fine now after her ordeal, although it might take me a bit longer. So stressful! Here she is having a snooze later that day....

So all's well that ends well!!

2. We've managed a few more walks this week and I've had the lead superglued to my hand. Everything is looking very autumnal - after all it was the equinox yesterday.

Lots of lovely berries around....

I love the colours in autumn, especially early autumn when the light is good.

3. More nature shots. This was the sky on our walk this morning, such a glorious blue sky, the sunshine is so good for the soul .....

 4. I've decided I really need to make more things from magazine patterns. As you all know I'm a magazine addict, and I do always have a tinge of guilt when I buy one. (Not enough of a twinge to not buy them though). So I spotted this little butterfly kit lying around, and found the magazine it came with - Simply Crochet issue 46.

About an hour later and I had 2 little butterflies, one fridge magnet, and one brooch ...

Aren't they cute ?

I'm thinking that making these would be a great way to use up yarn odds and ends. Little Miss has already requested some to decorate her bags. Oh and here is one of me wearing the brooch though the light and focus is terrible, sorry!

5. Finally here is a little sneak peek of Jack's baby blanket which I will be sharing in my next post.

That's it for now, hope you all have a fab weekend,

Til next time,

Jillxxxx

Love Made My Home

Five on Friday

For Five on Friday today I thought I'd share with you some crocheted items that I made before I started blogging. It's only been around 18 months but some of these projects feel like years ago. Off we go then on a (fairly recent) nostalgia trip ....

Children's hats ....

Minecraft creeper, Hello Kitty, and a Minion. Pretty much sums up my Little Peeps - a die-hard gamer likely to explode any second, a pretty cutie-pie and a mischievous small thing. They don't wear these any more, they are either too small or no longer considered cool, but I will keep them for sentimental value, I think :) I used lots of Pinterest ideas for inspiration, but just made them up as I went along. After all I had life size models trying them on every 10 minutes.

✿

Teddy blankets ....

These little blankets were my first attempt at granny squares, and also my first foray into blocking. I made them both on holidays in Northern Ireland, and the crocheting was done largely on the beach.
Yes, there are beaches in Northern Ireland, and yes it's sometimes even warm enough to sit on them. With the safety net of a beach tent though, you never know where the next rain cloud is coming from.
The blue blanket is being modeled by Ted - Little Tomboy's teddy. I've blogged about Ted before, he's quite a character. Our 4th child I think. Yesterday I played Snakes and Ladders with Little Tomboy. Ted played too. (I won, in case you're wondering. I wasn't too popular). Today, Little Tomboy informed me that I had to leave her curtains closed all day, as Ted was having a lie-in. Flopsy, Little Miss' rabbit-teddy, is snuggled under the pink blanket. Flopsy is as equally loved, but a bit more shy, and a lot less demanding.

✿

Granny Square Cowl

I made this just over a year ago, late in the winter of 2013. It was my first flirtation with James C Brett Marble Chunky. I have a love-hate relationship with this yarn. I adore how it looks, and feels, but I find working with it quite irritating. That being said I have since bought it again so I guess it can't be that bad. When I made this cowl, I just wanted to make Something, but wasn't sure exactly what. I tried a few different things and wasn't happy with any of them. In the end it was more a sort of "sod it I'll just make granny squares and do something with them" type of project. And so the cowl was created. I hated it. It just wasn't right. Too stiff, too curly, and I didn't like the colour-changing-granny effect. However it was the warmest scarf-like thing I had last winter and I wore it constantly. Now it has softened up beautifully, become a wardrobe staple and of course I've grown to love it.

✿

First Fingerless Mitts

Oh, these mitts are a dilemma. I made them really just to use up some Aran wool that my friend gave me when her mother-in-law cleared out her loft. And I mean Aran as in that creamy stuff my Mum made me too-tight jumpers with and then forced me to wear them - shudder). The pattern was from Simply Crochet, I think, and I also embellished them with a heart. I was really happy with them when finished, and they are fabulously warm. BUT I hate the colour. Sigh. It's exactly the colour of a plaster cast. I broke my wrist a few years ago and had a cast for 7 weeks (nightmare - couldn't drive, write, lift laundry, type properly, cook, dry my hair, putting on my bra was a contortionist act) and when I wear these mitts I look like I've broken both wrists. I keep waiting for someone to ask me what I've done. Oh and they get super grubby super quick. But they're soooooooo cosy to wear.

✿

Chunky Poncho

This was another trial with James C Brett and his marble chunky. James, James, James. Could you not have made it a bit less fuzzy and splitty ? Well it's not really splitty, it's just I find it so hard to distinguish the stitch outline to know where to put the hook. The poncho was made from this Drops pattern. (If you've never visited the Drops pattern website before, go and have a browse, there are loads of free patterns, I highly recommend it). I'm not the right shape to carry a poncho off that well in public in front of other actual people, but it's a winner for wearing in front of the telly :) I love the colours here, gorgeous earthy tones, and it is gloriously snuggly and warm. James, perhaps your marble chunky isn't so bad after all.

I'm joining in with Five on Friday, thankyou to Amy for organising :) You can visit the other bloggers taking part by clicking the links below.

Amy from Love Made My Home

CJ from Above The River

Nicole from My Garden Diaries

Beth from The Whimsical Dowager

Alison from Life At Sylvan House

Five on Friday

For about 20 years the same baubles decorated my Christmas tree. I'd bought a super-cheap pack from Woolworths when I was a student and couldn't really justify any fancier ones. Once I started work I was too busy having a social life to worry about improving the bauble-quality. Fast-forward a decade and a bit, Little People came along, and even having a Christmas tree up at all was a risky business, never mind any decent decorations. There was an incident one year where one of the Little Peeps un-decorated the tree, and took every single thing off it and put in in a heap on the floor. Amazingly the tree itself has never come a cropper (yet). Anyway, as well as the Woolies' baubles, the tree has become fuller and fuller with little masterpieces from nursery, pre-school and primary school. These are of huge sentimental value to me, and evoke so many memories, but I couldn't possibly only pick five to show you.

However, over the last couple of years I've acquired, either by making, being given or simply purchasing, some new ones :)  Oooooh! The extravagance! Hurrah! So without further ado, here are my Five Favourite (non children-y) Christmas Decorations .....

1. A few years ago my Aunt gave me, for Christmas, a really lovely set of metal decorations. They're gorgeous to look at but tricky to hang on the tree as they're a bit too heavy, and the branches just bend so the decorations slide off. This snowman stands up very well on his own, doesn't he look smart :)

2.  On the mantelpiece stands my little miniature gingerbread house snow globe. I think this is actually Little Miss', and was given to her by Grandma, but I've commandeered it for our decorations box, I really adore it, it's so tiny and cute, just over an inch wide, but so detailed.

3. My Mum gave me this reindeer, no idea why really as it wasn't part of a Christmas gift or anything, and I think he's meant to go on the tree, but I rather like him standing up, again he's on the mantelpiece. I love his sparkly antlers :)

4. I bought this little wooden tree-shaped hanging decoration last year. Just a supermarket purchase, but I love all the little bells in it, nothing like a good jingley-bell for Christmas.

5. And I've saved the best til last. I bought this little wooden Christmas tree in Moscow about 10 years ago. We'd gone with Little Man when he was only 9 months old, to stay with friends who moved there for a couple of years. In between visiting St. Basil's, Red Square, The Kremlin and Gorky Park, our friends took us shopping, and of course everywhere were Matryoshka dolls to buy as souvenirs, and amongst them I spotted this little Christmas tree. It was February (therefore slightly strange - I thought - for it to have been on display at the market) so I had to wait for ages before I could display it :)

It's quite cute on its own but look ....... just like it's Russian doll counterpart .... it's got little nesting snowman and Santa figures! So sweet!

Our tree is always up early, and I refuse to take it down until twelfth night. I often think that it seems such a shame to have the decorations up for such a short period of time,  but perhaps that's what makes them so special :)

I'm joining in with Five on Friday, thankyou to Amy for organising :) You can visit the other bloggers taking part by clicking the links below.

Amy from Love Made My Home

CJ from Above The River

Nicole from My Garden Diaries

Beth from The Whimsical Dowager

Alison from Life At Sylvan House