Blooming Marvellous!

Hello lovelies! How are you all doing? 

I'm very well, thanks for asking :-) 

I'm feeling rather sparky this morning. I'm enjoying the fact that the snow has melted from the windows and the sun is blaring into the apartment. 

It looks as if I'm not the only one that is enjoying spot of sun. A few of my floral friends have popped by to say 'hello'.

The Narcissus bulbs that have been sat on my shelf were longing for a little light. 

They seem to have had a sudden growth spurt over the past few days. This morning they finally opened to bathe in the sunshine! 

It may sound a little silly but I was extremely excited to see the appearance of these little yellow flowers. They were just sat on my kitchen shelf acting as if they had been there all along.

Nothing nicer than having little splashes of colour about the home. 

The newely flowered Narcissus complimented the tulips and roses that were already spread around the apartment. 

Now I know you've seen countless photos of flowers, but I couldnt resist taking some pictures. It's also nice to have a little project of focussing on a specific topic (in this case, my flowers) and play around with all of the features on my camera. 

I do love taking photographs! I guess without realising it, photography has turned into a little hobby of mine. I suppose it comes hand in hand with the blogging, but the photography and sharing of the things I see around me is definitely the favourite part of my blog.

OOOOH isn't that a pretty colour!

BRIGHT AND FRESH....BRIGHT AND FRESH!!!

Flowers are beautiful in shape and structure, but its the colours that get me! 

If you're ever stuck on a crafty project and are not sure which colours to use, what goes with what? Have a little search on the web for different flowers. 

Take a look at all of the amazing colour combinations and transpose those colours to your project! It's a sure way of successful colour sequenceing. 

As they say.....Nature makes no mistakes! :-) 

OOOOH LOOK!!! My Orchid also has some little buds! I was positive that I'd killed it! 

You're surely going to be seeing some more snaps of this little orchid once it flowers :-)

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Striped Tunisian Cushion

Over the past few weeks I've been having one hell of a swell time playing around with different crafty techniques. I've started to knit, tried my hand at some needle felting and now I find myself exploring some of the other routes that crochet has to offer. 

I've been wanted to experiment with Tunisian crochet for a little while now. When I saw some large afghan hooks for sale in the local yarn store, I just had to buy one and play around with this different method of crochet. 

I loved the look of the Afghan hook, long and slender with a perfect little heart on top. 

I'm sure many of you have already dabbled in other forms of crochet but this was a totally new concept for me. I only discovered a few weeks ago that this technique even existed and that you could buy different hooks or cabled hooks in order to help with this technique. How sheltered am I?!

I did a spot of research on the net and found out how this form of crochet works. Rather than working all of the stitches individually like "regular" crochet, you work ALL of the stitches onto the hook and then work all of them off. (I hope that makes sense?) 

I had a play around with it and learned to do the simple "afghan stitch". It created a very neat looking stitch that was thick and looked similar to something knitted. 

I thought I'd persevere with this stitch and decided to use up the Stylecraft DK I had left over from my last granny square blanket.
I created a neat looking striped swatch that made my heart feel fluttery!
It was interesting to see the different characteristics the stitch had. Not only did it create a very thick material, but the material also curled in on itself. I did a google search and apparently the curling of the material is totally normal. It's due to the way the stitches pull and can be correcting by blocking the at the end. PHEEEW!

Before long I had glorious piece of bright and bold material that had a random mix of Summery colours.  OOOOH I do love stripes!

I sewed in all of the ends.

Then admired the very neat perfectly formed colour changes that this stitch allowed me to create.

Here is the wrong side to the swatch. It looks very much like It's been knitted, doesn't it?

I was so very happy with how my swatch turned out that I decided to keep crocheting and turn it into something. A little striped cushion sounded like the perfect option. 

I decided to keep changing colour randomly utill my swatch was big enough to wrap around a cushion. 

I bought a lovely bright zip 

and sewed it to either end of my rectangular swatch of material.

I then sewed the sides together making a beautifully bright cushion cover ready to be stuffed.

I placed a pillow inside and TA DAH! Something bright and happy that makes me feel jolly and rather content just looking at it!

Stripes make me feel a certain way! I'm not sure how they make me feel?.. Just different to dots or solid blocks of colour. I like the feeling!

It matches perfectly with my granny square blanket

and seems rather at home with the other cushions!

It's a very happy cushion!

I really enjoyed playing around with my first Tunisian project. It's definitely a technique I'm going to continue to explore. How could I not when it creates such delightful result!

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Spring?....not just yet!

Walking around the city and seeing all of the lovely bright Spring themed shop window displays assured me that Winter was over and Spring was just around the corner. :-)
Looks like I spoke a little too soon........Imagine my confusion when I woke up this morning unable to see out of my windows due to a fresh downpour of thick icy cold snow!!!
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I wasn't actually that disappointed with the arrival of fresh snow, more like super excited! I couldn't resist letting my inner child takeover and so I quickly got dressed and went outside to explore the winter wonderland.

The reason I was so excited was that I'd never actually seen this much snow. I've heard people talk about "six inches of snow" but I'd only really experiences a few centimetres of snow. This however was insane, probably 8 inches of powdery light snow and it was still falling!
I probably wouldn't have been this excited if I had things to do or places to be. Today however, I had no plans for my day off and decided to let myself enjoy the snow rather than be irritated by its sudden appearance.

The neighbourhood was unrecognisable! Bicycles and mopeds covered in a thick white quilt.

 Cars were well and truly frozen.

It's crazy to think that just last week we were having days where the sun was shining and no coat was needed when stepping out of the house.

Today was a different story and I was thankful for my three layers of clothing as I made my way down the road.
I was heading to the local park, to see what kind of state it was in.
It was a magical world of ice and snow.

It was nice watching people walk dogs and play with children in the snow.
I bumped into a group of cheeky monkeys that thought it was funny to throw snowballs at me! I'm not sure if they were shocked that I threw snowballs back at them or just surprised at what a bad throw I am! Either way the look on their faces was priceless!

It was a really lovely afternoon. Getting some fresh air and enjoying the bright energy that the white snow filled me with.
I was chilled to the bone when I got home and so the thought of spending an evening at home in my warm apartment was rather appealing. I turned the heaters up high, lit some candles

and made myself a nice and hot fresh mint tea to thaw myself out (I'm trying to cut down on coffee! eeeeek!)

Looks like I'm set for a rather cosy evening :-)

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Busy Bee

Hello Lovelies! How are you all? A little catch up with each other has been long overdue! I'm here now with a cup of tea at hand and ready for a good natter.
Whats been going on? Well....recently I've been taking the form of a bee, a BUSY BEE.

I've had lots going on over the past few weeks and it seems that things aren't about to slow down anytime soon.
I've been given a new position at work. I guess you could say, a promotion.
As most of you know my actual job is not as a full time crocheter, but as a singer/dancer. I'm currently in the Disney musical, Tarzan. It's based on the animated movie.
I've been working on this show for a few years now and LOVE it! It's physically very demanding, but also a very rewarding job. It's definitely a show that I'm very proud of.

The show not only has lots of dancing, but also a lot of aerial/ flying stunts.  It's the aerial department where I find my new position at work. As of next month I'm going to be the "Aerial Captain" on the show. So it means I'm not only in charge of teaching new cast members how to fly, but I'll also be maintaining the standard of flying in the show.
I'm so excited and happy to be given the opportunity and challenge that this position brings and I can not wait to get stuck into rehearsals with the new cast members!

With the new position coming up, I've found myself having to be VERY organised. I've been spending a lot of time sat at my laptop, making sure I know exactly what I'll be doing in the up and coming weeks.

I've got into a little habit of always having a cup of coffee next to me when I'm working on the computer. Sometimes I'm even taking my laptop to the local cafe to enjoy the amazing coffee, along with a scrummy macaroon.

This habit has got to stop though!! I'm not only eating too many macaroons but getting a little frantic from a constant caffeine high. EEEEEK!  

I've also been away from my blog for a little while as I seem to have fallen into a little trap. 

The more my blog has progressed as a "crafting blog" the more I have felt that I HAVE to keep delivering new ideas and projects with every post. Sometimes I don't have a new project and sometimes I have no new ideas to share. Therefore, I very stupidly I haven't been posting as much. That makes me sad, as I love writing blog posts.

It was whilst chatting with the lovely Rachel on Ravelry that I realised I had fallen into a cycle of feeling like I have to keep delivering. 

Rachel said to me that she had heard of people that "constantly make projects just so they have something to blog about". It hit me like a ton of bricks! This is what I had started to do and it was really taking the fun out of my blog. In fact it was making my blog feel like a burden and a constant pressure. So... as of now, I'm going back to basics. Blogging all the time and not only when I have a finished project. 

Of course the projects will keep coming! Here's a little something I'm working on at the moment and loving!

This little creation is my first attempt at Tunisian crochet. It creates a very different look to "regular" crochet. I'm rather enjoying this striped mass of colour!

I feel good that I've got all that of my chest. Suddenly have a lot of things I want to talk to you all about and am excited to be sharing more than just my finished crochet projects, but also a glimpse into my life. SUCH FUN!! (yes....I'm obsessed with the TV show Miranda!!)

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