A little stitching, a little knitting and meeting a favourite author

One of my aims this year was to keep up with blogging once a week, I was aiming for the same day each week, I'm afraid I'm failing at that already, but I have been stitching, crocheting and knitting more so I suppose that's ok.

I found this little Christmas freebie on FB and liked the simplicity of it,

Just a little bit more stitching to do so i'm hoping to get this made up before the end of the month.

I've also been working on a February design for my mantle but as we are so close to February i will save that for another post.

My little pink blanket just needs the other side boarder knitted up.

Actually, i'm not too keen on this moss stitch boarder, I wish I had done something other than moss stitch, it looks a bit loose compared to the rest of the blanket to me, perhaps it will be better when it's washed?

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Reading...

This weekend was our first reading group meeting of the year.  I was really looking forward to it because we had an author visit.  The author was Angela Marsons, she lives locally and writes crime novels set in the Black Country.  Rachel the librarian who runs our reading group recommended her some time ago and it was a month or so before i remembered and went in search of her books and, of course her name kept cropping up at each meeting, soon between us we had got everyone else in the group interested!

It has taken over 20 years for Angela to get her work noticed, time after time her work was rejected as being 'ok,' but not quite good enough.  She had more or less given up when Bookouture contacted her and said they wanted to publish her books, she was then signed up for a 4 book deal, (that is now turned into an 8 book deal).

  She has also recently secured a print deal for the first 3 books, so they will be hitting the shops latter in the year, but she is still staying with Bookouture as well.

Her books are here on Amazon, if you are interested, and where you can read a bit more about her too.

She also has two other books which are stand alone books, nothing to do with the Kim Stone novels, these are also on Amazon, I haven't read them, but they are on my reading list for this year. 

She is such a lovely person, unassuming and totally blown away with the success and attention she is getting now and from hearing her speak on Saturday she will remain loyal to Bookouture and her feet will stay firmly on the ground, her words were, her family will always come first, in particular her partner, for whom she is also the main carerer.   But now she is living her dream of being able to write full time.

Her sales for Silent Scream have already hit over one million and it has been released in Italy and due to be released in Germany too!

Don't you just love it when something like this happens to a nice person?

And....It's one in the eye for all those who rejected her writing for all these years...Like Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman...Big mistake.  Big.  Huge.

Have a great week all!

-X-

Sorting it out and using it up

Over Christmas I had a clear-out of my craft collection, at one time I could contain all that I had in a few boxes, now it seems that I need a whole room!  

But, the room I use for all my crafty bit's and bobs now also has to double up as a (sometimes) bedroom for when Oliver sleeps over.  Since he has gone into a 'big boy bed' and to save me lugging backwards and forwards between his house and ours more luggage than I take on a weeks holiday, it was decided that when Jenny is on a late shift, i.e. 2pm until 10pm Oliver would sleep over at ours and she would collect him or meet me at work to collect him the next morning, We have done a couple of sleep-overs now and it's worked out quite well, hence the wanting to clear out a few things so that it feels more like his room.

I have listed (and sold) quite a bit on ebay, either things that I don't think I would ever have got round to using or things that I have bought and have just been sitting there collecting dust.  

My plan is to get everything down to this one cupboard, charts and patterns will stay in the folder and box they are already in.

(The bottom half of the cupboard hold my threads and fabric)

I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have collected rather a lot of yarn, (see those draws at the side of the cupboard, they are full of yarn too!), so i'm on a mission to turn some of it into something useful.  This little blanket used up a few balls of my chunky yarn and I'm quite happy with the colours too :-)
I'm also quite impressed with myself how quickly I did this, less than a week!!
Good going for me, lol

Seeing as I'm on a roll I sorted some shades of pink out yesterday and cast on another blanket.

This one is using Sylecraft Special DK

That's all the craftiness I've had time for this week.

I'll leave you with a couple of photos of my Amaryllis.

I have 2 of them this year, this is a new one I planted up a while ago, it was already starting to flop over so I've had to use one of my orchid supports

And this one is last years bulb planted up in a vase with some moss, I saw something similar when I was out and about just after Christmas and thought it was a bit different, I collected the moss while i was on a walk a couple of weeks ago so this one has some catching up to do.

Until next time
-X-

A New Year crochet finish from last year

It's still wet and windy here, not much sign of an actual Winter, you know, one with frosty mornings and a need for a winter coat and cosy scarf, and the need to scrape the car in the morning (ok, well i don't miss that bit, lol) 

But, I do wish we could have a change from this horrible dreary rain!!

We are thankfully far from any flooding areas, I do feel for the people affected, it must be terrible, because lets face it it's not just water, it's all the dirt, and debris it brings with it.....awful.

I do have a cosy finish to show though.  

I started this Autumn blanket back in March, (I think) last year, better late than never!

I didn't know it at the time but the colours complement our newly decorated sitting room perfectly.

Close up of the 'V stitch'

So easy but so effective 

I started the boarder a couple of times and pulled it out again, finally I did one round of (UK) trebles followed by one round of 3 (UK) doubles, 1 chain, 3 doubles in one space, skipped 2 spaces and repeated.

I love how it came out, even Mark commented that it looked good, (this from the man who even after all this time calls it knitting, whether I'm crocheting, stitching or knitting, lol

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I know it's supposed to be a children's book but.....

Just before Christmas I saw the new Illustrated Harry Potter book and thought how lovely it was, I debated then if I should buy it but at £30 I thought it was a bit expensive and sadly put it back, but when I saw it on Amazon the other day at £15 it jumped straight into my basket!

It is truly wonderful

I'm just blown away by it.

I had thought that Oliver would love this, the pictures will really make the story come alive, but it will have to be kept well away from jammy fingers until he is older I think, Nanna might read it to him but he will only be allowed to look at under supervision, lol

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It's back to work tomorrow for me, I've had a nice long (ish) break, and enjoyed it but bizarrely i'm quite looking forward to doing something other than cleaning and tidying ;-)

-X-