Catching Up...

Hi everyone,

First of all can I say thank you so, so much to everyone who left me such wonderful kind words following the death of our gorgeous Cleo.  All were amazingly heartfealt and I appreciated each and every one of them.  Thank you, thank you, thank you xx

It's been quite a while hasn't it; sorry about that, but real life took over my crafting time for a little while.  That's not to say that I haven't grasped some crafting time here and there, but I've dabbled with this and that and finished nothing!

I wondered what a granny bobble spiral square would be like, so I started this -

I think it looks promising, don't you?  When bobbling I also liked the thought of doing a smaller granny bobble multiple squares blanket, so this followed -

I also played around with a comparison between a granny bobble square, a plain granny square and a granny triangle... -

I might look into some bobble/plain combining in the future...

Another day saw me playing with my gorgeous cotton/cotton mix stash to produce this -

You will also spy my current dvd obsession behind... I love Dr House...  Not as much as yarn obviously, but he's nearly up there.

As well as going where my imagination and hook has taken me I have also started 2 other projects that are not my designs.  The first came from working with my cotton yarns and spying this on ravelry.  It's a very nice design and I've come to a stop as I'm unsure what to do about the handles...  This is my progress so far -

It doesn't really show here but it's huge!  The other project I just couldn't resist; I saw a picture of a vintage pattern months ago and loved it; I can usually work a pattern out for myself, but this one didn't seem that straightforward to me and I gave it up as I never hoped to get a copy of the vintage pattern.  The picture cropped up on pinterest again recently and with not much hope that it linked to a pattern I followed the link to find this... ohhhhhh  I can't describe my delight in finding this.  I bought the pattern immediately and this is my progress -

I am not disappointed; this one will definitely get finished!  The etsy shop that provided the pattern was lovely and the owner couldn't have been more helpful providing loads of extra information on the pattern and crochet in general; I highly recommend it and will certainly buy for them again.

So, that's about it craft wise...  I have been steadily working on my boys blanket; it's brown all the way now as I work the last round of the hexagons and then join them together, so you can imagine that I need some other, more colourful relief between these sessions!!  This is my latest progress picture -

We've been enjoying some wonderful weather here since I blogged last; my last late hyacinth made the most of the sunshine -

I've nearly been up here in Scotland for 6 months now, and I remember threatening you with some pictures of the lochs I live next to way back just after I moved.  With the glorious weather we have been having I have had no excuse not to get those photos taken in the sunshine so I leave you with these pictures now...

Happy crafting everyone.

Karen
xx

Cleo...

Sadly Cleo our cat died today; she was 18 years old.  She joined our family when my two girls were still small, and she was only about 5 weeks old...  too young to leave her mother really, but we were told that she was an unwanted farm kitten that was going to be 'disposed of'... how could they?  She was so tiny and scared, but she gradually learned to trust us and love us.

I think that she lacked any human social contact in her first few weeks of life and that left her very wary of strangers; she also hated to be picked up and would only tolerate so much of being petted before batting your hand away, but at the same time she enjoyed being around our immediate family and liked our company and a warm lap to snuggle into.  She actually got much more affectionate during the last year of her life which was nice for all of us.

She was a healthy cat, who never suffered through any illnesses or injuries.  Her social phobias meant that trips to the vet were truly an ordeal for her; her last regular visit to the vet was about 6 years ago when I took her for her annual booster, but she was shaking so badly, and was so scared that she was actually panting.  I made the decision then not to take her annually to the vet any more, she was 12 years old, had always been healthy and I didn't want to put her through it again.  Thankfully I've never had to regret that decision and apart from going deaf about 3 years ago, she's kept the flu and other diseases at bay.  The last couple of years had seen her gradually slowing down, and getting thinner, but she did ok until suddenly she deteriorated very quickly and seemed very weak and was stuggling to walk on her back legs and so an appointment was made to take her to the vets.  She died about an hour before she was due to go...  to be honest I am so glad that her last moments were at home and not in her cat box or the vet's surgery which she always found so distressing.

Anyway, the reason I am posting is that I just wanted to recognise, and celebrate really, her life on my blog; as I said she had a long, happy and healthy life and she loved and was loved very much, so all in all she was a very lucky cat!  She was part of our family for 18 years and we will all miss her.  God bless you Cleo xxx

xx