Making Winter - A tale of three blankets

As no doubt you already know, Silverpebble and Thrifty Household have come up with the wonderful idea of sharing what we like about winter to banish any signs of gloom in the months of short days and long nights.  For me, winter is all about cosiness.  And cosiness requires blankets.

I have lots of catching up to do with all the posts I have in my head.  For ages, I've been wanting to show you this loveliness.

My Mum found this blanket in a charity shop and gave it to me just before Christmas.  Isn't it just beautiful?  It's in pristine condition and made of cotton, so we bunged it into the washing machine to get rid of the old lady whiff and it came out fresh and spotless. It makes me smile every time I go into that room.  And it's got a lovely weightiness to it that you need sometimes in a blanket.

You may remember that I wrote about coveting a blanket from The White Company here.  Well, they had a sale awhile back, just at the point when the House by the Sea was at its most chaotic.  Now, I had no business at all buying a blanket at that point when we were still at the stage of choosing taps, but sometimes a thing calls to you and you just have to answer the call.  This is the opposite of the white blanket; all gossamer lightness but deliciously warm for all that.  It's on our bed at the moment and keeps our feet toasty when the temperature drops in the small hours.

And then there is my blanket.  It's really not there yet.  In fact it's still a fairly random collection of squares.  But if I squint my eyes and ignore all the threads forget about how many hundreds more grannies I need to do to get it to the size I want, then I can almost see that it will be a blanket some day.

I'm trying to be good and do a granny a day, encouraged by the lovely Annie and Laura of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows.  And I've been pretty good so far and reckon on about 5 a week.  But we'll see.  

I'm also trying not to be too daunted by how big the bed is compared to each little square!  Maybe it'll be done by next winter.

C.x

Meandering

I don't know about you, but I store up random odds and ends to tell you as I go through my day, and then something happens and I never get to post about them.  But going through my pictures today, there are a few things that I just knew you'd like, even if they come across as a bit random.

1. My sister asked me to buy an iPad which we delivered the last time we were home a few weeks back.  We spent a little time fiddling with it and generally revealing that we are not part of the tech generation (or whatever letter that is - we had generation X some time ago now...)  While we were distracted with something else, my niece got hold of it and drew a self portrait:

Isn't she lovely?  She is eight.  (If she could send along a picture of her brother, I would love to show you that too.)

I gave my sister this:

2.  We had a lovely day out in Brighton.  After pootling around furniture shops all morning, we had lunch at a cafe with this in the window:

Bonkers.  Lovely, but bonkers.

3.   I read here that vertical gardens are very much the thing at the moment.  But have you seen the one in Trafalgar Square?

Apparently, it's inspired by A Wheatfield With Cypresses by Van Gogh.  How lovely is that?

4. If you are ever near the National Portrait Gallery, then make your way to the fifth floor.  The bar offers such a beautiful view over London, even on a grim grey day.

5. Isn't the ship in a bottle on the Plinth just lovely?

6. I never did tell you that awhile back, Mr. P and I went to hear Edna O'Brien read from Saints and Sinners, her new collection of short stories.  Of course, I went for the stories, which are beautiful.  It didn't hurt that she was being interviewed by Gabriel Byrne.

Dodgy photo taken with my iPhone - sorry

We will draw a dignified veil over my failed attempts not to drool...

So, there you are.  Random things that I felt you needed to know.

C.x

Packages (1)

I absolutely love receiving a parcel through the post.  Sometimes I like to be surprised, but if I know one is coming my way, I fizz with the thrill of anticipation.  Recently, I won Andrea's fab giveaway of a lovely crochet hook roll that she'd made herself.  Such a pretty roll with lovely colour choices and fabric.  So I knew I was in for a treat when a couple of days ago I opened our post box and there was a squishy brown envelope inside.  And inside was a lovely neat package tied up with string (all the best packages are, you know...).  And inside that, was this beauty...

But what I wasn't expecting, what I'm completely blown away by, were all the lovely treats inside.  LOOK!

Fab fab fab selection of lovely coloured hooks of every size.  AND the cutest little scissors.  And pink measuring tape.  I had been feeling like a fraud winning this because I am so new to crochet and only have two hooks.  But now - now I am a crochet queen.

Andrea, thank you thank you thank you.  I am feeling completely spoilt on this cold but sunny Friday morning.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.  (Last sewing class tomorrow - can't wait...)

C.x