Its finally finished....or maybe not

I know that I promised some lovely summery South African holiday photo's....but we took so many while we were away, that we had to download them on to Flower Daddies laptop.  So, I need to get my dirty mitts on to his laptop to repossess my photo's.  All of that will hopefully happen this weekend!

In the meanwhile, I am super pleased that I managed to finish my flowery blanket last night.

* drum roll please *

Ta-dahhhhhhh!

Dinky, but pretty - no?  It is perfectly lap and leg sized.

/

Did I say that I was pleased with the result?  It has been almost 2 years in the making.  

It would have been nice to have had more flowery squares.  There are already 52 of them in there.  {Yup, just counted them.  I thought that there were at least 70?!}  They were pretty time consuming and I was getting desperate to see some amazing progression.  And, it would have been nice for the beige joining colour to have been a paler shade of cream - but Sirdar Calico DK doesn't come in a paler shade of cream, so I had to make do.

This is the first blanket that I have ever crocheted.  Should the rippled edges bother me?  I honestly have no idea.  It is what it is and I rather love it!

***

Actually...I have a confession....

See, this is the back side...........it really isn't finished.  Not by a looooong way!

There are so . many . loose . threads to weave in, I kind of lost the will to live.  So, I shelved the weaving and jumped to the edging.  You can actually see in the photo of the whole back that I have made a good dent in the weaving process.  But, there are still so many to do.

Anyhow, that is a job for another gazillion nights.

My ripple blanket is really no different than the last time I mentioned it.  I should really tackle that one head on, as soon it will be summer again (in like another 4 or 5 months....sigh....) and I really won't want to be anywhere near it.  Now is the time!

Marching Elephants

Just before we went away a lovely lady requested an elephant design from me.  I already had an elephant design....so, together we came up with a variety of colour options, 2 elephant sizes and a few different layouts, then I uploaded them to Spoonflower for her to purchase.

Here are a few of the colourways....







There are quite a few colourways.....if you have a few minutes to kill, you can see them all here.

I'd love to hear what you think of the designs as well as the colourways.

Blazing Heat to Freezing Cold

Hello...hello!  Happy New Year - yes, yes, I know, 22 days late.  Better late than never....

Well, it was mad rush getting ready to leave our house for 5 weeks.  Remembering to pack the necessities, as well as Christmas presents and doing our best to leave the kitchen sink in the kitchen at home.  That was 7 weeks ago already!  We have been back for a little over a week now.

After a wonderful 5 week visit home, we left Cape Town on a gorgeously warm Thursday evening, arriving in London early on a relatively warm Friday morning, only to be plunged into below freezing temperatures on the weekend.  A few days later the chilly weather produced some snow for us.

Cold + wet + low grey skies = ick!

Freezing + cold + snow = YiPEE!

 

Walking to work on Monday morning was lovely.  I grinned for the whole 20min walk, even a grumpy old man moaning about the snow couldn't take my snow-happy-grin off my face.  I took these photo's around 8am, before the snow had been trampled to sludgy brown moosh.  The top picture is of Russell Square.  There are lots of paths in that park - this was the only path visible, the others were still completely covered in lovely fluffy, crunchy, fresh snow.

This one is Bloomsbury Square.  See the snowman?

...and the snow cat?

I love that some smarty pants used a bin for his hat!  He was a happy sight, bringing smiles to a lot of people...there were still some grumpy pants that couldn't crack a grin....

I won't share with you what that lovely snow man looked like by the end of the day.  Some kids obviously had a wonderful time slicing him into bits.  The cat too.

Our garden is still covered in white.  I am surprised to see white every time I look out the window... weird.

I am having a hard time keeping up with 2013, but I hope to share a few sunshiney pictures of our holiday soon.  Also, after travelling such a long distance with the girls, I have a few hints/tips/insights about travelling with young children to share.  All in good time...

In the meanwhile, how is your 2013 treating you?