The lost pumpkin trail

With today being Halloween we went along to a local National Trust property to join in with the list pumpkin trail. 

It was soooooo lovely being out in the fresh Autumn hair, stomping through squelchy mud and crisp crackling leaves under our feet. The trees are on the change and the colours are simply stunning, its times like this that I realise how blessed I am to be living in such a beautiful part of the country. 

As we chased along looking for the clues that would lead us to the lost pumpkin my pockets became stuffed full of Autumn goodies collected by my little man.

Amongst the woodland treasure, bright red and yellow berries, crunchy brown leaves, leaves changing colour, spiky burs, pine cones, seed pods and lush dark green ivy all contrasting together in a really amazing way. We planned to bring them home and get busy with some sticky glue to make a fabulous seasonal collage.  

Seeing it all jumbled together tipped out on the kitchen table reminded me that I had some really super hand dyed chunky alpaca wool that my mum had given me a while back and I had added to my stash while I waited for some inspiration to strike. 

And bam, it hit me, a warm wooly hat with earflaps for dog walking on the chilly autumnal strolls across the fields with Jasper! 

Watch this space!..........................

After the storm

 Well St Jude really didn't come to much here in sleepy Somerset, after listening to the news I was really expecting a bad one as they said the South-West was going to be the worst hit and from the crashes and bangs going on in the night I was expecting to wake up to chaos, thankfully however there wasn't too much damage, a few trees down and chaos on the rail network but other than that we faired pretty well, sadly 4 people lost their lives elsewhere and my heart goes out to their families :0(

I was planning a snugly sofa day with the clan, but the sun was out and the wind quite low so I packed little H and Jasper Dog into the car and headed off to Burnham on Sea to get some wool, have a run on the beach and most importantly to buy supplies for our Halloween Tea with friends. 

Sleepy little Somerset with the protection of the Mendip Hills can be quite deceiving and once on the coast OMG was it blowing a hoolie, H thought it was hilarious that Jaspers ears and mouth were flapping in the wind but me being an overprotective Mummy wouldn't let them down on the beach and made them stick to the promenade. I'm not a massive fan of Burnham beach, if I'm honest it terrifies me as if you inadvertently go out to far you come across sinking sand and mud and the currents that flow through there are so strong you could easily be swept away, its right on the muddy old Bristol Channel that has the highest tide range in Britain, so with that in mind we stuck to the om-prom-prom and had a good run around. 

On our way back to the car we saw the most beautiful rainbow with its box of gold planted firmly in the sea. H was so excited, he just loves rainbows and I just love how he truly believes one day he'll find the gold at the end of the rainbow, and his excitement grew as one rainbow became two, two pots of gold to find :0)

I made him his very own rainbow blanket last year and he loves to snuggle under it and watch his favourite programmes on TV. 

There's a storm a-brewing

I've sniffed and snuffled my way through the last few days with a banging headache and an ever runny nose and spent most the week snuggled on the sofa with my little man as we both felt poorly :0(

Today we all decided to go for a good long walk and blow out some cobwebs before the forecasted storm hits, and it was under a very ominous looking dark sky we stomped.

We've battened down the hatches and are awaiting the arrival of a storm named Jude! As you can see from the pictures she doesn't look to far away. She's forecast to hiatus between midnight and 9am. We've covered the rabbit hutch up to keep Petal Bunny warm and safe and the pussy cat girl's cat flap will be locked for the night. I'm not sure how Jasper puppy will react to it as it will be his first ever storm! (Could be a good excuse to take him up to bed with me tonight!)

Hopefully we'll all make it through safe and sound and there won't be any damage in the morning.

Foul weather

Oh it's foul here today, it has nothing but rain and blow a hoolie all day, but has also given me the perfect excuse (after tidying up after the weekend, my hooligans make such a mess!) to snuggle up on the sofa with Jasper and start making a cosy for my coffee pot that I bought on Saturday.  I have it all designed in my head, I now just need to translate this to the project, so there is wool, felt, ribbon, buttons, beads and bows all over the floor as I root through it looking for what I see in my minds eye.

Last Thursday the weather was glorious, so different from today and I visited a friend in the little town on from us to play at the stepping stones. For some reason I thought putting my little H in a pair of Gruffalo wellington's and a pair of waterproof dungarees would keep him dry, what planet was I on?!  Within 2 minutes he was splashing around up to his knees in water and soaked to the skin. But boy did he have fun, as did all the other children who were there. A couple of the boys were very proud when they caught 2 fish and it was so lovely to hear the whoops of delight as they dashed around and hop skipped across the stepping stones and raced from one side of the bridge waiting to see who's stick would be first after they'd tossed them pooh sticks style off the top.  They all had so much fun and we certainly enjoyed soaking up the rays whilst we watched them.

The river was quite low and all the stepping stones but one were accessible, however the missing one just added to their enjoyment of leaping across.

You can see how beautiful the weather was, there was hardly a cloud in the sky as the happily threw their sticks and leaves off the bridge. It's a shame I didn't manage to capture it but the next house on has a giant key sticking out of the wall, it's really quirky, next time I'm that way I'll stop and take a picture.

I absolutely love this picture of my little H and Jasper puppy, he's so deep in though and the colour of the ivy leaves next to him are simply stunning

First Hat Sale

Wow, I'm so so happy, I've just sold my very first hat in my friends shop and apparently there's been a lot of interest in them. It was the little raspberry hat and I'm so so so so so chuffed!

I also got an order today for 3 different hats and 2 zigzag cushions. I LOVE CROCHET!

Snowflakes

Whilst sat watching the kids playing yesterday afternoon my friend showed me a pattern for crochet snowflakes, saying how beautiful they would look strung across her shop at Christmas and guess which fool could not resist offering to make them!!!!

The pattern is from Prima's Christmas Crafts Magazine and is really simple but effective, they don't take long to make and hardly use any yarn at all.  The pattern called for a 4 ply cotton but in my usual starting a new project mood I was desperate to try them out. I didn't have any 4 ply in a suitable colour despite owning soooooo much wool, luckily a fellow crocheter had some pretty 1 ply cotton in the exact colours I needed, so I bent her arm for it and dashed home to try it out.  I discovered they made up best using 3 strands and at a complete guess I would think this makes 3 ply?!!!!!! Anyway what ever ply it made,  it came up beautifully and made the snowflakes so pretty and delicate.

They'll definitely need blocking (boo!) and I'm going to try spraying them with starch to stiffen them up and then sprinkling them with some fairy dust to make them shimmer. I'll then join them all
together on some delicate rope and I think they'll be really special :0)

Wooly winter warmers

My best friend has a little shop in the next little town on from me and I'm really lucky as she stocks my creations for me so I thought with the arrival of the cooler months I'd make some little hats. It took me a while to figure out how to make one and my first attempt, this little strawberry hat, came out so much smaller than expected:

I think it's only suitable for a small baby but I was pleased with how it came out and it taught me several things about sizing. It's really hard to judge it as I'm starting at the top and working my way down to the brim so until you're about halfway down the hat it's hard to see how big it's going to be. I did however find a very helpful website that gave me the size of hats for each age group by measuring across the diameter of the hat

Here's the rest of them, I think my favourite has to be the conker hat with its pompom conkers.I've just bought myself some pompom makers and was waiting for a reason to use them and here it was and if I do say so myself, I am very proud of the little conker hat   :0)

I'm amassing so many little makes that I think I'm going to have to put some of my creations in my etsy and ebay shops too as I just love crocheting so much. Some things though, I'm very attached to such as my Lucy Granny Blanket and I could never part with that, however if I don't start shifting some more of my makes I think we'll all drown in crochet!

Last gasps of summer............

Apologies for the break in posts, I'm blogging from an iPad and for some reason (maybe someone can enlighten me?) once I get to the bottom of the visible page it won't let me scroll down to see the rest of the text.

Anyways, as I was saying, the cobwebs were simply stunning, and as we continued on the sun rose higher in the sky burning off the mist to reveal a beautiful day, a few flowers clinging to the last few days of warmth whilst other plants had accepted the arrival of autumn and were bearing fruits a plenty. I've always been a country bumpkin, raised in a tiny village deep in the Mendip Hills and now living in a larger village/very small market town on the Blackmore Vale and judging by the sheer amount of fruit on everything we're in for a harsh winter here.

This little poppy was refusing to accept that summer is over and was standing proud in the mist, the only one in the old corn field

I simply adore Autumn, I'm not a fan of being baked alive and find the temperature of autumn far more comfortable and the colours of fruits galore everywhere are simply stunning

 T

Last gasps of summer

The weather really is on the turn here in deepest darkest Somerset, when I opened the curtains I was met with a blanket of fog so thick I could barely see the houses at the end of the row. Jasper none-the-less was still just a desperate for his morning run so I tucked my jeans in my socks and wedged my feet in my trusty old walking boots (always such a trendy look!!!!!!!!) and headed out with him.  It turned out to be one of the most beautiful walks I've been on and as the fog was slowing burnt off by the sun to reveal a flawless blue sky I noticed a few plants ignoring the falling leaves and drop in temperature and standing proud against Autumn's advance.

The fog had made everything very wet and the cobwebs seemed magical coated in silver droplets, I tried to take some photos but trying to catch the light so they stood out was really difficult but I think I sort of managed it.