The Turtle Moves

May Madness

This palatial abode is a light-weight bivvy-bag and  tarp. See how it is cunningly erected using a stick and a couple of walking poles. This is what My Dear Husband intends to sleep in along the West Highland Way next week. He gave it a bit of a try-out in the Blackwood of Rannoch yesterday, and didn't freeze to death - he has just returned home safely - but my dears, the weather is Frightful! This may be May, but there's cold rain everywhere and snow on the hills. Still, a Man's gotta do what a Man's gotta do.

Personally, I'm staying in and trying to create the illusion of late spring/ early summer by making flowers - crocheted ones. I got this book - 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet - last year, but was a little intimidated by the complexity of some of the instructions. However, having followed the lovely Lucy's clear pictorial instructions for making her crochet rose, I took the plunge. I am particularly pleased with the dark and light blue Scabious (top left of the group) as it involved making one lot of petals into the front loops of the centre circle and then the darker petals into the back loops. Now I'm sure all you experienced crocheters are dab hands at such shenanigins, but it's only slowly that I'm getting more confident in doing slightly more advanced techniques. So I'm pleased. The next question is what to do with all the flowers!

Pretty Lucy Flower

Hello there!

This week is a little strange, because my gorgeous grand-daughter is off on a school trip. Yes! The first ever Week Away From Home. Doing Outdoor Pursuits. She's only 11 - and a bit - okay, nearly 12 (how did that happen?). Her Mum, my wonderful daughter, is of course completely in a state of

shock/denial about it all and I haven't dared to speak to her this week in case the whole teetering edifice of "It's fine, really" topples to the ground. We are such wimps, the pair of us. ANYWAY - she's coming home tomorrow and will no doubt be full of fabulous tales of derring-do. To welcome her back I have made a pretty flower wall-hanging for her bedroom. Thank you Lucy of attic24 for the pattern.

I have to tell you that Rowan handknitting cotton comes in the loveliest subtle shades and is excellent for this kind of project. You can get it on-line from Art Of Yarn  -who also do lots of other yarns too. Did you know there's now a yarn made from sugar cane? Wow. First hemp, then bamboo, now sugar. Are we going to have small furry animals chowing down on our cardigans? Yay. Here panda, panda, panda.

Stars in the house

Hello everyone,

I've been crocheting stars in every spare moment over the last month (the Craft Fair on the evening of our town's  Christmas Lights switch-on is upon us this week).

I've been crocheting stars while travelling to and from Cheshire and Wales (mentioned a couple of blogs ago). The drive from Llandudno to Westmoreland Services is an 8 - star journey. (My Dear Husband was driving on that leg of the trip, and then I took over, so no stars between the Lake District and Fife.) I've crocheted on trains and buses, in the living-room and in the kitchen. I've got lots of stars now!

I do hope the Fair goes well. I think I have the absolute Acme of sales gimmicks this year - my lovely grandchildren are going to man my table for me. I will be free to run around making sure everything else is okay, and two gorgeous moppets are going to sell all of my Christmas crochet and needlefelt. How can this possibly fail?

Oh, I've been needlefelting Santas and snowmen and punk angels as well.

Chaps like this all sold well last year, so I must stab wool assiduously all day tomorrow and Build Up Stock.  Maybe.

Or maybe I'll go out into the garden if the sun is shining like it did today. We have to grab all the daylight we can up here in the Dark North you know. Otherwise we retire to the back of the cave and hunker down until Spring.

 

 

A flange in the hoop.

Ever since seeing this pretty Japanese Flower crochet design on the lovely Lucy's blog, Attic 24, I have been working up the courage to try making it. I say courage because the only pattern I could find was in French, and I wasn't sure if my schoolgirl francais would be up to the task! However there was also a diagram with the pattern, so that helped a lot - certainly as much as Google's translation services. "Une bride dans l'arceau", for example, was translated as "a flange in the hoop"! Hmmmm. A glance at the stitch diagram revealed it to be a double crochet (US terminology) - much more do-able! The French for a chain stitch is "une maille en l'air" which I think sounds beautifully romantic, don't you? Anyway, I made 20 of these lovely flowers and joined them into a scarf. I was going to do lots more and make a bedspread, but I think my gorgeous grand-daughter has actually grown out of her "pink" phase, so wouldn't want it. I'll ask her, though, because I can always make more and add them on.

The pattern translated is (using US terminology):

 Chain 6, slip-stitch to close

1st round: Ch 4 (counts as 1dc + 1ch) then make 1dc + 1ch 11 times into the ring and join with sl st into third ch at the beginning of the round

2nd round: Ch 5 (counts as 1dc + 2ch) then 1dc+2ch all the way round into the 1ch spaces in the previous round, sl st into third ch at the beginning of the round

3rd round: Ch3 + 3 dc in the first 2ch space of previous round, then 4 dc in each 2ch space all the way round, sl st into third ch at the beginning of the round

4th round: sl st between 1st and 2nd dc of the 4 dc group, 5ch, sl st between 3rd and 4th dc of the 4 dc group (the first petal loop) sl st between thid 4 dc group and the next then sl st between 1st and 2nd dc of next 4 dc group, 5 ch, sl st between 3rd and 4th dc and so on round the circle, making 12 petal loops, sl st into 1st loop to close

5th round: ch3 + 7 dc into first loop (makes the first petal) then sl st between the groups of 4 dc (of 3rd row) and make 8dc into next loop and so on round the circle, ending with a sl st between the first and last group of 4 dc

Fasten off.

There are detailed instructions in French for joining the flowers as you go, but I didn't attempt to translate this and just slipstitched my flowers together afterwards. Je suis chicken!

 

If you're a Granny and you're happy get your hook.

Helloooo!

I've been happily hooking another granny-square throw. This time in my favourite colours - blue and green. That old adage, "blue and green should never be seen" just didn't get it right at all. Look around at the countryside on a sunny day and just see all those blue-and-green happy, happy, happy mixtures. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, anyway.

Don't you think that looks lovely and fresh? I was originally going to put little bright flowers in the middle of the squares, but I like it just the way it is. Maybe if I do one in shades of green, without any blues it will look more like a meadow and will benefit from titchy wee blossoms scattered hither and yon.

That could be the next project, or alternatively I could try the Japanese flower shawl pattern that the lovely Lucy  featured in her blog a while back - it is simply FEAR that causes me to hesitate - I see these slightly more complicated instructions and panic. I will try it out soon, honest. It can't be so difficult, can it?I'll keep you posted.

 

An island retreat.

We've been on holiday to a wonderful island with quiet beaches, beautiful countryside, wildlife all around and no television at all. Some remote and exotic corner of the world? No - Mull. In the West of Scotland. Just before the dreaded midges really got underway. Late May/early June is the time for the Western Isles - take it from one who knows. This picture was taken on Iona which we visited one day, but otherwise we stayed in and around our lovely cottage in our own little bay at Carsaig on the Ross of Mull. Husband, daughter, son-in-law and gorgeous grandchildren. We played about on the beach making damns and "sculptures" with the pebbles. We went for lovely walks. We admired the Highland Cows, Red Deer, Geese, Goats and House Martins (the birds, not the pop group) who all shared our immediate environs and were completely unconcerned at our presence. We played games of Bananagrams in the evenings and I taught my wonderful grand-daughter to crochet. Utter peace and perfection.

BlanketyBlank

Hello there!

I've been busily crocheting a blanket - or afghan, as our American friends would say - or throw, as the designer peeps would have it. Any road up, I've been happily hooking for weeks now and it's all thanks to the lovely Lucy at Attic 24. Reading her fabulous, colourful, life-affirming blog has reminded me how splendid doing big crochet stuff is. I do little hooky snowflakes at Christmas time, sure, but the first ever thing I made all on my own after leaving home was a crochet blanket. For my first-born son. I really loved doing that, and all the other baby things I made at that time. And I haven't done any significant crochet since then. So! The old rocking chair needs re-covering, and I haven't found any good fabric yet. I'd like to tie it in with the vintage Bauhaus inspired material I made into a picture some time ago. I thought I'd recreate it in crochet. How ambitious. When faced with the reality of crude colours in acrylic yarn (all you can afford when doing a large-sized project) it soon becomes clear that what you need to aim for is a similar effect to the original, not a slavish reconstruction of the waves, squares and diamonds in the vintage fabric - and certainly not the wonderful subtle but bright colours it has. No doubt if I spent lots of money I could have found the gorgeous burnt orange and dark turquoise of the 1970's fabric, but I'm pleased with the cheerful sort-of-copycat blanket I've created to chuck over my old rocking chair. And I didn't have to nag any Upholsterers either. I hope you like it - I certainly do.

Falkland in sunshine

This corner of Fife is blessed with many gorgeous little villages. There are the fishing villages of the East Neuk, the fabulous old university town of St Andrews, the market town of Cupar and to crown it all the lovely village of Falkland with its beautiful little palace - a favourite of Mary Queen of Scots, and it's easy to see why.

Anyway, today there was a book and craft fair in Falkland village hall. So while the sun shone down on Onesiphorus Tyndall Bruce (I bet you don't know of a better name than that one!) we beavered away at our craft stalls.

  Yes indeed, that is hard work going on - not idle chatter at all, honest!

Craft people are all so nice and friendly, it's always a pleasure to spend a day in their company, and when the weather's good and the visitors come through the doors, the pleasure is doubled.

It's also quite pleasing to see the results of one's labours all spread out in colourful array.

I must try to make those heads look less pouty and scary though! Shiny make-up and sequins on their cheeks maybe? At the moment they look far too discontented.

Anyway, a good time was had by all, including my lovely husband, who came along to help me set up shop, and then went off and climbed the hill above Falkland. He returned all glowing and well-exercised to help me pack up again. What a trouper.

Lights! Action!

  The Craft Fair we've been organising finally happened yesterday evening. It was a success! All the stall-holders turned up on time and there were loads of people coming through the venue for the whole three hours that we were open.

 Outside in the streets the Christmas Lights got switched on successfully with no blow-outs. The DJ did his stuff and the kiddies' rides people didn't fight with the Glow-sticks sellers. Upstairs in the venue, the various school-kids sang their carols and danced their dances without falling off the stage. A total result.

Even better, I sold every single one of my daft needle-felt Christmas angels, santas, snowmen and penguins along with a good few crochet snowflakes. All those hours of various types of preparation were well worth it.

We might even do it all again next year.

Crochet Snowflakes

There are many many free patterns out there on the internet for knitting and crocheting all sorts of things, but by far the most reliable that I have found, for clear accurate instructions, are those on the Lion Brand website. They have many patterns for snowflakes, stars and angels to make as Christmas tree decorations. The snowflake pattern I chose suggested you use white wool , but I reckoned they would be more interesting in a sparkly yarn so I used Twilley's Goldfingering. The picture shows a few of them pinned out on a cork board to dry after having been soaked in a stiffening solution made of a 50/50 mix of PVA glue and water.

I made white, silver, gold, red, green, blue and pink ones and there are more Goldfingering colours to choose if that's not sufficient.

The pattern is easy to follow and works up in less than an hour per snowflake, so pick up your hook and go!