Suze H

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Monday 31 December 2012

Happy New Year!

I hadn't realised I'd been away from my blog for so long!

Another year has been and gone and I'm quite looking forward to seeing in 2013.  2012 has been a tough year for me and HP and for some of our friends, so let's hope the next year is a better one.

Are you making New Year's resolutions?  I'm trying to set myself small goals each month that I should hopefully be able to achieve and then also some longer term goals to continue through the year.  One of my resolutions is to keep my blog more up-to-date and to hopefully make it a bit more interesting.  I read other people's blogs and am always so impressed and I always think mine is so dull by comparison.

I had so many exciting things that I meant to post about but never did - my fab birthday party in November (and thanks again to all my lovely friends for the gorgeous gifts and to HP for putting in so much effort to make it a great night), a lovely holiday with HP and my folks in Cornwall. 

On the plus side I have still been doing some crafting!  I made some Christmas decorations for family and friends:



















I've still been baking......



.....and can't wait to try out my brownie maker that HP got me for Christmas!

I've been playing around with the new camera HP got me for my birthday and we've had some beautiful skies early morning, so perfect photo opportunities there....


My Christmas holiday knitting project has been a jumper in King Cole Galaxy Chunky (Jupiter).  It's a self-striping yarn with sequins.  I've only got the front to knit now and I can't wait to finish it, so hopefully some pics will follow very soon.

Wishing you all a very happy new year!


Tuesday 23 October 2012

A crafting weekend

As I've been feeling a bit down recently, I decided that I would be kind to myself last weekend, completely ignore any housework and concentrate purely on doing some crafts.  This mostly involved sitting in front of the TV watching Agatha Christie re-runs on ITV3, but at least that enabled me to get a lot of knitting done.  I think I've mentioned before that I am not the world's fastest knitter by any stretch, so it always takes me an age to finish anything.

I've been working on my King Cole cardigan - if I carry on like this I should have it finished in time for next winter!
I'm making this cardy.....

...but in this colour yarn
I've finished the back and am now working on the sides.  As you can see, it is going to be that very annoying yarn that loves to twist!




Self-striping yarn is awesome!

I love these colours



I also decided to start work on a 'Quick and Easy' project - well, that's what the October issue of 'Simply Knitting' called it.  I haven't done much lace work before, so I'm finding this a bit fiddly, but I'm going to love it when it's finished:
The pattern

As you can see, I haven't got very far with mine yet!




Last week, I went to The Beaderie (http://www.thebeaderie.co.uk/) after work to take a Leather and Bead Wrap Bracelet class.  It was totally fantastic and although it was a bit tricky starting it off, once you get going, it's great fun.  It took me just over 2 hours to make my first 3-wrap bracelet.  I loved it so much that I made another one on Saturday.  Here I am wearing both of my bracelets together (I was really pleased with how the photo came out):
The clear, blue and black bracelet was my second attempt and the gold, blue and purple as my first attempt.  Perfect for birthday and Christmas presents, me thinks!


They don't look very exciting until you put them on!
As we are not too far away from Christmas, I decided to crack on with some suitable gifts for decorations, so started on these wire snowflakes/ stars.


They look really pretty once they're hung up.

Sadly, before I knew it, the weekend was coming to an end and I had to pack away all my bits and bobs until the next time.  Wonder how long I can keep putting off housework.......

Monday 22 October 2012

My Crafty Dad!

Hello peeps,

I know I've been away for ages.  I've been rather busy settling into the new job and taking a lovely 2-week holiday in Cornwall and Devon (which I will post about soon).

This post, however, is dedicated to my Dad.  Long have I been in awe of his arts and crafts talents (see the Christmas post of the table centre piece), so I decided to show you all some of his amazing origami work.  Dad has always been a great artist, but since retiring about 6 years ago, he has not only taught himself how to play the piano, but has also mastered the art of creating some beautiful origami pieces.  I think most of the pics speak for themselves:

Little worm

Flower

Flower

Family of ducks

Swans on a pond


Pegasus


Parrots
Parrots - close up

Flower
Flower - side view




Hanging floral decoration



Dinosaur
Alien



Round of applause for my talented Dad!

Sunday 2 September 2012

A New Era

I've been at my new job for 2 weeks now and I'm loving it.  The work is interesting, the office environment is pleasant and dynamic.  I'm so relieved to know for sure that I've made the best move for me - getting away from a few unprofessional people and moving to wonderful job with great people and with more money.

However, I did have a wonderful send off from some wonderful friends and colleagues and was astounded and very touched by the number of gifts and cards I received.

I got some vouchers for John Lewis and Amazon; a beautiful watch (thank you, Paula, for choosing it - wonderful choice!)


 a filofax (I've always wanted one)

a mug (very apt, considering I'm always baking cupcakes)
 


some manicure and pedicure goodies
some buttons for my crafting, in a sweet little jar
and from my fabulous boss, a beautiful cake stand.  I've always wanted one of these but have not been able to justify the cost of buying one myself.  But GG got me a beautiful hand-crafted and designer one and I love it (I really don't think the pictures do it justice!)






And here are all the presents piled up before I unpacked them all:
I'm such a lucky girl to have so many lovely people around me who think so highly of me - thank you all so much!!!!

Sadly, I haven't been so lucky on the crafting front!  The blue lace top I was working on wasn't working out, so I had to pull it back - the sizing just seemed to be all wrong.  I'm probably not going to work on that one again for a while as I've lost the enthusiasm for that particular project.

I've also been making some jam - the consistency of my blueberry one is a bit too runny, but I think the strawberry and blackcurrant one has turned out much better.  It's always annoying when these things don't turn out the way you hoped.  If anyone has a good tried and tested recipe for blueberry jam, I'd love to hear it as I've never found a really good one that has worked for me.

I've been pretty quiet on the jewellery making front recently, so have booked myself into a leather and bead wrap bracelet making class in October.  I've been wanting to do this class for a while but it gets booked up so quickly, but I managed to get place in time.  I did make a very quick and simple necklace yesterday
I saw a lady on the bus the other day wearing a simple but effectively lovely silver pearl-like necklace so decided to make one for myself.

Hope your crafting is going better than mine!  Let's hope I have more crafting success to post about next time!












Tuesday 7 August 2012

Weird weather

I just don't know where I am with all this weird weather.  I spend ages looking from my wardrobe to the window trying to decide the best thing to wear - will it rain, will the sun stay out, will it get warmer?  I've given up relying on the Met Office or the weather man (who boldly stated on Saturday lunchtime, "Well, it's a rather pleasant day out there...."  Me and HP turned to the window in baffled bemusement as we watched the rain tip it down!  I got it wrong yesterday and was too hot and today I'm sitting here with the fan heater on *sigh*.

Still, this rain has done wonders for HP's garden and we had some of his lovely homegrown produce last night for dinner.




I've always been dreadful at gardening, so I'm most impressed with HP's green fingers.  We've owned our own house for over a year, so this is the first time he's been able to properly grow his own produce.  I've also discovered he has a talent for DIY, which is always a bonus for a wife!

I've been throwing myself in to my knitting quite a bit too.  I've only been knitting for a couple of years and a lot of what I've learned has been self-taught (thank you YouTube!), so I'm not the fastest knitter in the world and it takes me months to finish a project.  So, I'm now starting to see the drawback of having a crafting blog; I just can't show many projects very often!

I'm working on a simple lace top right now.   It's a simple 4-row pattern.  Initially I managed to make some mistakes and had to restart a few times before I got it right.  That doesn't bother me too much as I enjoy the process, although it's always nice to finish a garment too!


The pattern is from July's issue of Knit Today.  I have to say it's my favourite knitting magazine as I always find so much in there that I want to make.  I'm going to have to knit much faster to achieve them all though!


I've only got 7 days left in my job too - yay!  Now, if the sun would just come out......