Cosy

The thing I love about crochet is how tactile it is, you just need to stroke every project you do. So when one of my Leeds Paper Dolls friends posted this I had a bad case of NEED TO DO IT! And do you know what? I did! Just look at the cosy cuddly strokability of this one:

 And it sits lovely in my craft room with the applique cushions I did not so long ago:

It's definately all about the crochet here at the moment, next project was another ripple, this time for my cousin's brand new baby Harry. There was also a bit of wool left so Harry has a matching caterpillar!

And did we stop there? No! I then had a bit of a crochet for my friend Rebecca for her birthday. Rebecca's not only one of those people who really appreciates the fact you've spent time making something for her, but also one of those friends who's just so lovely she deserves me spending time making her something! Here's a rather lush brooch for winter for her:

 There is another crochet project already on the go for those chilly nights sat infront of the telly. However, I may have to abandon my usual sofa crochet position for a seat in my craft room. For, after 3 years, my craft room is now winter-proofed, hurray! Bless Rob, he's a dab hand at DIY but he also was in the front of the queue when they handed out the procrastination gene and so jobs do tend to take a while to get done round here! However, he'd taken the last week of the school holidays off work and instead of going off in a windy soggy tent, we decided to spend the week getting the house sorted. So, garage has been cleared, we now actually have a tv signal for the first time since we moved in 9 years ago, the fridge has light for the first time in 2 years, and he spent a good day and a half making sure my craft room was all ready for winter crafting (ie, so I shut myself in there for the next few months so he can watch Top Gear!).

First of all I have light:

 I have storage hung (OK, not winter proofing but I made that months ago and needed to stop just moving it from surface to surface and get it up on a wall!)

The big problem in there is heat, I've been using an old electric heater which was OK but I daren't leave it on low to stop the room freezing over, and the dial on the electricity meter did tend to go a bit bonkers when it was switched on! So I invested in a nice oil-free oil heater (no, I'm not sure how that works either) which should be more economical, heat the room better and has a defrost function so the room won't ever get too cold.

The other problem I found last year was how much cold radiated from the door windows, so we also invested in a nice vertical blind for the door so hopefully it'll be a bit more toasty in there now:

So we're all nice and cosy over here at the Garlics, which will no doubt lead to a late Indian summer (you know, when we're all back at work!) but hopefully the Garlics craft production line will be able to provide a full winter service this year!

Love It, Love It, Love It!

Yay! The granny stripe blanket is finished. I have absolutely loved doing this:

 And loved all the detail in the border:

I think Em likes it:

And it certainly did the job last night:

I feel more granny stripe projects coming on! Meanwhile, go over to Lucy's Attic and look at some of her other beautiful projects, the woman's a crocheting genius!

For The Love Of Stripes!

I am so loving the crochet at the moment, my poor scrapbooking desk has been gathering dust since Christmas! I'm just in a woolly mood these days and have had to put all things paper on a back burner and it's all because of this.

Just love doing this. It had such humble beginnings:

 And after a week or 2 it was starting to take shape:

 And this weekend it had grown into this:

And I still have a third to go. It's so therapeutic though, makes for a very chilled Lou! I'm hoping to finish it for Em's birthday so watch this space for the big reveal!

January Joys

I used to hate January. Such a depressing month: Christmas is over, the weather's freezing and we're all starving ourselves to lose those mince pie bellies! But these days I quite like January. I think I have ever since Em was born; with her birthday being in February we always started planning parties and presents in January and it made the beginning of the year that bit more exciting.

One thing I look forward to about January is books. As you know I love reading and normally get a good haul for Christmas. I was already reading this book at Christmas:

 and so that turned into my New Year read too. What an amazing book, I would defiantely recommend it, so beautifully written. I raced through it a) because it was so good, and b) because I had this pile of beauties to get started on, my Xmas books!

 Aren't they pretty?!

I love this too, a new bookmark that my friend Shaughn at work made me. Only been there a couple of months and already she's making me presents, got to love that!

 Winter Ghosts was first (I do struggle with Kate Mosse but actually made it through this one!). I'm now on One Day which my SIL bought me which I'm really enjoying. It follows the story on the same date every year which I think is a great idea.

And of course dear reader, there has to be a crafty project on the go! I've been dying to do this for a while, since some ladies in my crop group made some beautiful ones, but it's quite a big project and so I needed a use for what I made. So then Miss Emily decided she wanted her bedroom decorated purple - oooh oooh oooh, excuse excuse excuse! So, I ordered the wool and have got completely addicted to the fabulous granny stripe blanket. Here it is so far:

 Mmmmm, lush!

We've also had an exciting delivery here at Chez Gillard, a super comfy new bed! I loved my other bed, we got it when I was pregnant with Em and so have had many snuggles with tiny bubbas in that bed. But, it was getting too small now that a certain special little man likes to creep in at 5am and I was sick of hanging off the side! And let's face it, he ain't going to get any smaller! We were also in need of a new mattress as the current one wasn't much good for my dodgy back and Rob's dodgy insides. So, we went the whole hog and got a new bigger bed:

Only trouble is, we can't get out of the blooming thing on a morning, it's just too comfy! I swear that mattress moulds itself into that dodgy spine of mine!

And of course, we had to have a bit of homemade on there, so out comes the sewing machine to whip up some matching bolsters:

Right, better fly, I've had half an hour off from granny-stripe-blanketing and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!

Crafty Catch Up

Do you know, we've not had a crafty catch up for a while. Shall we have one? Just a quick one?

So was going to this in date order but I just can't get my head round Blogger's new picture uploader and tend to find myself fighting with pictures trying to move them, so I'm just going to leave them as they were uploaded!

First of all (well wasn't but for the purposes of this post let's just pretend! ;)) I went to my first crop in months last weekend. Only managed 3 layouts but that's 3 more than I would have got done on Saturday if I'd have been at home! First there's a couple of Halloween ones:

 And then one of Emily being enrolled in Brownies. Need to add something to this I think but it was for a challenge and I was making sure I got all the challenge elements in:

 I've been weedling a mean crochet hook a lot lately. I've made a runner for our bed using the wave stitch which I love:

And then a little baby blanket for Rob's boss's new baby:

And there's also been a couple of Fimo fairies. First of all one for Evie's birthday:

And then one for Elise's birthday who coincided with a huge funghi crop in the garden (why is it when we plant stuff it never comes up and yet these things can grow of their own free will?!):

Right back to the craft room, I have a whole pile of C******** things to get on with!

Tactile

I was having a discussion the other day about normal scrapbooking versus digital scrapbooking. I've never tried digital and I don't think I ever would. My main reason is it's not tactile. A lot of us agreed that the reason we love crafting is that it is so tactile, there's all those textures which you just can't capture on screen.

It's been a very tactile week here. On Monday we took Xander on a little nature walk. He's changed his hours at school so he only goes Weds, Thur, Fri so he's at home all day Monday and Tuesday. As we get into Autumn it gets harder to come up with things to do so we took advantage of the dry weather and headed out into the woods. We collected leaves, acorns, conker shells and sticks so we could make patterns. When we got home we got out the paint and had loads of fun printing with all the things we had found:

I've also finally mastered the art of crocheting after many months of trying and I love it! Again, it is just so tactile, even more so than knitting. I finished this scarf this week out of this gorgeous wool:

I love the pattern, you just want to stroke it!

I also went on to crochet a big chunky scarf for Em. She loves this as it's so thick and the crochet stitches give it a lovely 'bumpy' feel:

So next time you hear us crafters talk about 'stroking' stash you can see why. I think we spend more time cooing about how lovely the stash is than actually using it!

Snuggly Stuff For Snuggly Girls

So, my cousin Marie had barely announced she was pregnant and I was on t'internet scouring for baby patterns. I found one on Ravelry.com, bought some lovely soft baby wool and got knitting this blanket for little Ruby:

I tell you, babies are a knitter's dream! I had some wool left so I ran up a bunny (pattern courtesy of the other Marie!) that has now been named Ruby Rabbit!

So yesterday we went over to meet our latest addition and give her pressies. Look how snuggly she is with her blanket:

Strangely for a newborn, she did actually spend most of our visit awake:

And of course Auntie Lou got lots of cuddles with her fave bubba:

And the kids absolutely adore their new cousin:

Love that picture!

They're all doing so well. Matt and Marie were always going to be good parents but they've just slipped into parenthood so easily, it was a lovely thing to see their happy little family.

So Ruby likes Auntie Lou's woolly stuff so Auntie Lou is scouring that t'internet again!

Louise Gillard BA (Bunny of Art!)

Taken me a little while to get this knitting project done, but I love it now it's done. Back in May when I graduated, there happened to be an Alan Dart pattern in one of the knitting magazines for graduating bunnies. Alan comes up with great toy patterns (remember the tea set?) and I just loved this.

Finally yesterday I finished my very own graduating bunny:

Dressed in the same colours from when I graduated so we match!

I love her! At this rate if I start on another one I might just have it done by the time Em graduates!

Apprentice

It's been a stay-at-home weekend round here, mainly because we had so much to do. As many of you know, we had a boiler explode on us last week, so all week we've had the plumbers in which meant this weekend we had to clear up the mess!

First and main job was to sort out the bathroom floor, which was completely ruined with all the muck, soldering, rusty water tank water etc. So, we decided on a nice laminate one (easy to mop up after a nearly 4-year-old with poor aim!). Saturday Rob had the unenviable task of lifting the old tiles which apparently must have been superglued down by the previous owners (we tend to come across that a lot round here, along with dodgy paint colours!). Sunday Rob laid the knew floor. Big job laying a new floor so he hired himself an apprentice:

This apprentice even brought his own tools for the job:

"Now what you do is you line it up like so":

"And then you give it a good whack like this":

(LOL, love how he's even practicing the builders bum!).

Now the floor is laid and looks lovely. Only trouble is it makes the rest of the old bathroom look tatty now!

While the boys were doing boy stuff, me and Em did a bit of crafting. I'd promised to make a few of her friends some Fimo fairies, so got those done:

And then found myself with a little apprentice of my own when Em asked me to teach her how to do them. This is her first attempt, a fairy for mummy:

Bless! I think she did really well and this fairy now lives in my craft room!

On other crafty news, I've been preparing for winter (can you blame me with the weather we're having lately?!). After knitting Emily's now nationally famous hat I decided to do Xander one too...then got a bit carried away with a scarf...and then some mittens (OK, so he asked for gloves but that's far too many fingers to keep count of, so mittens he got!):

I think it may be a sure sign he likes them as I've struggled to get them off him today:

So there we go, our little apprentices. Just wondering what jobs we can find for them next. Child labour? Well, times are hard at the moment, the economy needs to recover some how! ;)

Destined For Greatness

Now, I know everyone thinks their kids are wonderful and will do amazing things in their lives. I'm certainly no different there! There's just something about Emily where I know she ain't going to do anything, shall we say quiet. Can you really see her as a librarian (which is ironic as that is one of my prospective career choices!). One thing about my girl, she does go all out and I know that whatever she ends up doing, we'll all have to know about it!

This week, there has been lots of Emilyness going on around here. First of all, she's become famous nationally (well, sort of, if you're impressed by wooly stuff!). If you get down to your local newsagents, look out for this:

I was going to say buy it, but at £4.99 it's a bit of a stretch for knitters, never mind anyone else, I'll save you the fiver right here. Last month, I bought this as it had free wool and a free pattern for a hat. I'd pay a fiver for a hat so was more than willing to hand over Rob's hard earned cash! So, you may remember this post. So chuffed was I with said hat that I emailed the magazine with a picture...which they only blooming well went and printed in this month's mag!

I've never been published before! 6.50am yesterday morning I was out hunting down a copy so when Em got up she could see her beaming face in print!

Now, Em being Em obviously didn't let this bit of fame go to her head....NOT! Beware coming round our house in the next few weeks for fear of suffocation by knitting mag glued to your nose!

In other Emily related news, we've sadly had to say goodbye to Dolly:

Don't worry, Dolly's fine and tucked up in her stable, it's just Em got too big for her and so we had to move on. This morning, she got her first go on her big horse Jet:

Unfortunately I couldn't go as a certain young man was in a silly mood, and silly moods around grumpy horses first thing on a morning ain't a good combination. I was so disappointed but Rob took the camera and got some great shots. Apparently Jet is lovely and so I'm looking forward to meeting her next week.

Next pic, go on, what theme tune's going through your head?!

(Apologies to any non-UK blog readers as you won't have a clue what I'm on about, but I bet everyone born before 1980 in the UK's got it!).

She is amazing on a horse. So much so that we've started considering where she could go with it. I'm not talking Olympics or anything, but there may be some dressage in her future as a little part-time thing. She just has that natural stance with a horse and can control them so well; you only need to look at her posture to see she's a natural.

She couldn't do it full-time anywhay, it would interfere with her career as a wooly hat model! :P

Are you impressed? No, not with Emily, with the fact that it's half way through the school holidays and I can still say nice things about my children! ;).