Sunshine Blankets and an Amaryllis

The weather hasn't really been very suitable for getting out and about over the last few days being wet, windy and muddy, so I have made the most of being stuck indoors by completing one of my Sunshine Blankets of Love and blocking out the squares on another plus a bit of forward planning for some future blankets. 


As you might remember I have challenged myself to complete twelve of these blankets to donate to a local residential care home at the end of the year. Since then I have agreed to make another blanket which will be entered into a raffle to raise money for Ronald McDonald House in Southampton which provides free 'home away from home' accommodation for families with children in hospital and relies entirely on charitable donations (currently an old school friend's son and daughter in law are staying there while their new baby is in hospital awaiting a heart operation).  I have also agreed to make some squares for Jill at Emerald Cottage for her Autism Project. I definitely will have enough to keep me occupied this year and not sure I have time to go to work and keep up with walking as well but I will give it a good go.


So here we are with the blanket I completed today.

Completing the edging

All Sunshine blankets have a name so I am calling this one 'Rose Garden'

A butterfly is the logo for the Sunshine blankets and each blanket has one attached to the corner

Close up of the butterfly I made for this blanket

Excuse the grotty carpet, I have problems finding a space to photograph the blankets properly

A closer look at some of the squares

This was actually the second Sunshine blanket that I crocheted but the squares of the first one really needed blocking and I must say they have a greatly improved appearance once they have been blocked. The blocking process is almost finished and hopefully on my next day off work at the end of the week I can begin the process of assembling and edging this one.

I am highly delighted with my new blocking board from @blockingboardsbydaisyboo that I showed you in an earlier post, it certainly has made the process of blocking so much easier and I know it will get lots of use this year.


I have also crocheted a few sample squares that I intend to use on future Sunshine blankets - now which one am I going to start first? I have so many ideas for these blankets and the charity blankets are a good way of trying them all out.

Finally, some non-crochet related photos, my amaryllis plant is stunning at the moment and it still has another three buds to emerge so I thought I would show it to you. I purchased one of these for my Mum for her 90th birthday and hers has been stunning as well so they were a really good buy.

I couldn't resist picking up these tulips from the supermarket the other day. Tulips are amongst my favourite flowers and these have really brightened up our sitting room. I do need to look for another jug though as the red of the strawberries doesn't really go with the pale pink of the tulips and my other vases were too large.

I now have two very long days at work (with evening meetings) so am looking forward to my days off on Thursday and Friday when hopefully the weather will be better so we can get out for a walk in the countryside but if not my crochet will stop me from getting bored!

My new toy has arrived

My long awaited blocking board arrived today from Paul from Blocking Boards by Daisy Boo and I love it. As you can see from the photos below I have put it to use already and I am loving the difference it makes to the squares. As it stretches them out it really makes the pattern of the square show up so well.


I was so excited to get into the package that I didn't stop to take a photo of the beautiful way the board was packaged which was very remiss of me. You can see in the photo below the lovely little handmade with love tag that was threaded onto the string that surrounded the tissue paper. Don't you find that things like that make so much difference to the product? 

I purchased the tin with the owls on today to keep the rods in so that I don't lose or break them. 


Paul from Daisyboo Creations will be starting a waiting list very shortly for these boards so if you are interested make sure you get your name down as they sell out very quickly, the last batch sold within 40 seconds of going live. They are handmade from solid birch wood and take about three weeks to make but take it from me it was well worth the wait for mine to arrive as it is definitely a quality product that will be very well used.