Bloggy chums

Happy Monday dear friends and readers!

And how happy and cheerful are these beautiful bright flowers - just a supermarket bunch - purchased mainly because I loved the colours but also as there is a decorative (if slightly out of focus) strawberry in there. Well, why not I suppose, ekeing out the last remnants of summer :) 

Today I am counting myself very lucky as one of my "readers" now most definitely falls into the "friends" category, not that she wasn't a friend before, but today we managed to meet up In Real Life :) The gorgeous Amy from lovemademyhome (http://lovemademyhome.blogspot.co.uk) and I spent a very very lovely couple of hours this morning drinking coffee and chatting about craft pursuits and life in general. Oh the joy of talking to a fellow crafty soul who understands the need to buy yarn on a frequent basis. Amy, you are a woman after my own heart, and I hope we have lots of coffee yet to drink together :)

We both wore crochet brooches so we'd recognise each other and because, well, that's how we crocheters like to rock. Amazingly I didn't possess a crochet brooch (I know!! Shocker!!) so I whipped up a little flower last night, its a combo of the Twirl Center Rose from Suzann Thompson's "Crochet Garden" (divine book, highly recommend) and the leaf from the originally titled "Brooch" pattern in Nicki Trench's "Cute and Easy Crochet With Flowers (again divine, again highly recommend).

Yes I know there are probably similar patterns all over Ravelry, Pinterest and the rest of the internet, but I have to justify having the books somehow! I do like crocheting flowers, never mind cute and easy, I like the fact they are quick and easy.

The backdrop (that's stretching a bit really, it's just what was next to me on the sofa) to the book photo above is my current manic crochet project. As you probably know I'm a last-minute kinda gal, I work best to a deadline. (Actually I work best after a deadline.)

Anyway, my current manic project is a blanket for my neighbour's baby. I've known since about May that the baby was due in August and that it was a girl, but of course the blanket isn't quite finished and the baby is now 10 days old. She is scrumptious by the way, I went round to meet her on the weekend, and she is mostly laying on Mum's tummy still feeding 24/7 so I don't suppose there's any urgency for the blanket.

My colour choices were inspired by this image:

It's the title bar from a blog and irritatingly I can't remember which blog, but whichever blog it is - thankyou thankyou - I love the colour combo and I unashamedly totally copied it, and I hope you don't mind!

As you can see it's a ripple, my first ripple, and I'm loving it :) I'm using the "Wave Stitch Chair Runner" wave/ripple pattern from the Mollie Makes Crochet book (whoop - getting lots of value out of the crochet books at the minute).

Why have I not rippled before (or waved come to that)?? It's super easy and gives such a lovely textured effect. I see a huge big massive ripple blanket in my not too distant future for ourselves at home :) Can't wait to choose colours for that!

Bye for now,

Jillxxxx