Five On Friday - crochet mania!

Hello, Five On Friday time again hosted by Amy at Love Made My Home. 


Well my post this week is going to be dominated by crochet, I have been crocheting up a storm just lately. I am pleased to say that I have now completed fourteen blankets for SIBOL (Sunshine International Blankets of Love) and I will be taking these to the residential care home this afternoon.

My fourteen SIBOL blankets (2016)

They have now been packaged and given names - yes, SIBOL blankets have to have a name. I struggled with this bit but thankfully some of my Facebook friends came up with some suggestions to help me. They also all have a crochet butterfly attached (the SIBOL logo).


I will show you the last three blankets which have all been completed in the last couple of weeks.


I spent nearly all of Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday working on number 14 with breaks only for eating meals to get this completed on time. I have to say I am really pleased with how it has ended up, it was probably the most time-consuming of them all - I do like to make life difficult for myself. I have called this one Jan's Garden.

Pattern: Painted Roses by Sandra at Cherry Heart

This is blanket number 13, a straight forward ripple pattern for this one which I can crochet whilst watching TV or listening to music/podcasts or even reading on my Kindle. I have named this one Rippling Brook.

Pattern: Neat Ripple by Lucy from Attic24

Number 12 has been called Fields of Gold, I came up with this name as I was listening to Alexander Armstrong singing Fields of Gold whilst I was working on the blanket and the colours just seemed to fit.

Pattern: Cosy Stripe by Lucy from Attic 24

So what else have I been crocheting lately? 


One of my friends has been without heating as her boiler has given up the ghost so I made her these and hopefully they gave her a bit of comfort.

No pattern for these but inspired by Heather from The Patchwork Heart

I am taking a bit of a break from crocheting blankets to do a few projects that have been calling to me but I know I will be itching to get back to blankets before too long. 


Please visit Amy's link up where there are lots more Five On Friday posts to discover.

                   

Love Made My Home

Five On Friday - a random five!

It is great to be back with Five On Friday, thank you Amy for organising this yet again. My blogging has been on a back burner for a little while so it is good to be back in blogland.


1.  One of the main reasons for my absence from blogland has been the fact that I am working to a deadline to get my Sunshine blankets completed. As my regular readers will know I set myself a target of producing twelve blankets to be donated to a local residential care home to give to the residents for Christmas. I completed twelve blankets but then on speaking to the home I decided to try and get a couple more done (well thirteen would be unlucky wouldn't it)! I now have thirteen completed and am well under way with number fourteen - I am really down to the wire with this one. I have planned to get them all photographed and packaged on Monday next week ready to take to the home on Friday afternoon. Hopefully I will manage to get this one done in time. Here is a photo of it in its current state.

I will hopefully be back soon with a crochet related post - I have lots to show you.

2. I treated myself to a slow cooker a few weeks ago and I am loving it. During this cold spell we have been having I have enjoyed warm tasty meals and it is ideal for Slimming World recipes - my current favourite is Campfire Stew, so yummy and tasty. The main ingredient is a gammon joint which you shred up once cooked and mix in with the sauce, the meat just falls apart once cooked, I will be making this lots more.

3.  When I was on holiday at the end of October I treated myself to a new Christmas decoration which I love. I haven't decorated yet but just got this out to show you. The dome just sits on a base and is battery operated. However you can sit the base on a saucer and use a night light if you prefer. I am looking forward to getting the tree and the rest of my decorations out but I anticipate I will have a couple of weeks of nagging to do yet before the men folk will get my tree out of the loft! They definitely don't get excited about the onset of the Christmas season.

4.  Having read Amy's blog today about having an untidy desk I suffer from the same syndrome. However over the past couple of weeks I have made an effort to become more organised. I am lucky that a friend gave me this stationery carousel for all my numerous pens etc. Thank you Janice - I love it!

5.  Carrying on with the organised theme I saw one of these in my friend's house and just had to get one. It is an Ikea Raskog cart (trolley according to my DS2)! It is brilliant, so much room in the trays and already my crafting corner has become a lot more organised. I still have a bit of sorting to do but this is such a handy gadget. I love the little magnetic tins that are easy to attach to the sides of the cart. 

Please visit Amy's link up page to find links to other five posts. 

Five On Friday - Exmoor Adventure

It is time to join Amy from Love Made My Home to bring you another Five On Friday.

We have been lucky enough to get away for half term week and visit one of our favourite places - beautiful Exmoor. We are staying at The Garden Lodge at The Langbury at Blue Anchor. You might remember we sometimes stay at The Langbury B and B, this time we are self-catering in the Lodge although my son who also loves this part of the world and decided to accompany us has chosen to stay in the B and B so that he can enjoy Nigel's wonderful breakfasts!

I have to say that the weather hasn't been the best, several days have been decidedly murky so photographing the scenery has been something of a challenge so please excuse the quality of the pictures.

One of the reasons I love Exmoor is its diverse scenery, from the beaches to the bleak and barren moor tops and everything in between. Hopefully the photos will give you a flavour of this.

1. The beach: We have enjoyed our walks along the beach despite the sometimes very cloudy and murky conditions. You can see from the last few photos that we did eventually get a clearer day.

 
 

2. Walk to Dunster Beach and The Hawn: The next beach along to the west of Blue Anchor is Dunster although the actual village of Dunster is about a mile inland. Dunster Beach is very uncommercialised although it does contain a little kiosk from which we were able to obtain a hot chocolate which went down very well. It also houses some holiday chalets which remind me very much of the 1950's. Behind the holiday chalets is The Hawn, this stretch of water is now land locked but used to be navigable. It is a good place to go birdwatching and I was pleased to get really close to a heron which you can see in one of the photos below.

3. Exmoor Safari: We booked to go on an Exmoor Safari way back in March and have been looking forward to this as it is something we haven't done before. We were picked up from Dunster carpark by Andrew in his Landrover Discovery for a 4 hour trip all over Exmoor. Unfortunately it was again a murky day especially on the top of the moor where visibility was very poor. We were hoping to get a good view of the red deer but apart from a distant herd we were out of luck. I did take a photo (see below) just for the record and hopefully you can just make out the stag with his hinds through the murk! However Andrew gave us a brilliant tour and was extremely informative about the area so although we didn't see all of the wildlife we had hoped for it was still a great day. One of the highlights for me was the off-road sections which were very exciting (if a bit of a roller-coaster ride). One of the off-road sections took us deep into Lorna Doone country looking down into the Doone Valley, we then drove past Oare Church where Lorna married John Ridd. All of this has given me the urge to read Lorna Doone again, the last time I read it was when I was a teenager (many years ago)!

The deer are in this photo somewhere!

 

 

 

4. Horner Woods: Yesterday was a better day with the hint of sun every now and again. On the safari we were told about the ancient woodland now owned by the National Trust so DH and myself decided to go for a walk in the woods. Horner Woods are beautiful, especially at this time of the year. Starting off in the village of Horner we gradually made our way up through the woods with the river tumbling down over boulders at our side.

 

 

 

 

5. Steam Trains: Blue Anchor is one of the stations on the preserved West Somerset Steam Railway and as you know my DH and son are mad steam train fans so photographing trains is always on the agenda for them. I surprised myself by taking a couple of photos too! I don't go out specifically to take train photos but these were taken as we were walking along the beach - I do quite like to see trains in the landscape setting.

 

 

 

 

I hope you haven't been too bored with all these photos, I can never decide what to leave out!

 

Have a great weekend and please go and visit Amy where you can link up to more Five On Friday posts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A random selection

Time for Five On Friday again, as usual I am linking with Amy from Love Made My Home to bring you this post. Even though I thought I hadn't done a lot this week I was determined to get here and post after failing miserably last week to a) find time and b) get inspiration on what to post.


So what have I been up to in the last week:-


1.  Card Party: On Saturday I helped my friend Janice from Crafty Castle blog with a card party that she was holding at another friend's house. We had a wonderful bacon sandwich breakfast and then had a fun time packaging and pricing up all the cards and other bits and pieces before heading to the party which I am happy to say was a great success.

2.  My Birthday: Sunday was my birthday and I was thoroughly spoilt by my family and friends. The highlight of the day was being taken out for lunch by my DH and eldest son, we chose a location (The Hatchet at Lower Chute) that was recommended by a friend and we will definitely be visiting again. I was also taken out for another lunch by my youngest son on Monday as he was busy playing football on the Sunday - not sure how I managed to maintain at Slimming World this week!

3.  Cot Blanket: I was asked by a work colleague to make her a cot blanket for her baby son who is due in December. She chose the colours but left the design up to me - here it is finished and packaged up ready to gift. I am pleased to say she was delighted with it.

4. Next on my hook: I have just started work on my next charity blanket for the Sunshine International Blankets of Love. This is number 11 of 12 that I aim to complete and give to the residents in a local residential care home at Christmas. I am making this using the Harlequin stitch which I haven't used before but am quite pleased with how it is working out.

5.  Autumn colours: I couldn't think what to use for my 5th entry this week but suddenly thought about the beautiful trees on the corner of our close so quickly walked up the road this morning to snap them. I love this time of the year and these trees are always a delight.

Well that is it for this week, I hope you all have a great weekend and for those of you that have children or work in schools have a wonderful half term holiday.


Please do go and pay Amy a visit where you will find link ups to more Five On Friday posts.