This weekend is our first proper weekend back at Cranage Hall, and i have this huge knot! In my stomach, we’ve managed a weekend and a crochet day since we left Cranage hall on 21st March 2020, and we’ve not been back since.
I don’t know why I’m so bloody nervous! This weekend was supposed to be our April 2020 weekend, I’ve literally lost count the number of times it was rearranged, and the guests attending this weekend have all waited such a long time, 14 months, they’ve all been fabulous.
The last time we left Cranage, the hotel was empty, just us and a very small wedding on the Saturday, we felt so sorry for the bride.
And it had been such an emotional day for everyone, I think we were all petrified of what was going to happen, and even though we’d been told 3 weeks it kind of felt like the end of the world! Dramatic I know!
lynda, paul and I packed everything up and said our goodbyes to the staff thinking the lockdown would only be for 3 weeks, that’s what Boris said (how wrong we’re we?!) we stood in outside our cars, as we’d made plans for the Monday, I can’t even remember what they were, Lynda and just stood there (we pretend we’re not friends) and I said “so erm Monday? See you then?” Lynda said “best not really, it’s lock down, it’ll be shut” I think that’s when it hit me that I wouldn’t see her for months! We both drove off and I literally cried all the way home, I didn’t realise Lynda did too, we didn’t see each other until 31st July.
So I’ve got this mixture of emotions going on, everything has been planned since last year, albeit we’ve changed a lot of the designs, it’s the first one back, people have waited so long, and I just want it to go well, safely!
We have the run of the old part of Cranage Hall upstairs, we’re normally placed in 1 room and then we have our coffee and refreshments on the landing, but this time we’re going to spread across a couple of rooms, so we can allow for social distancing, we’ve got loads of space!! Loads of space to fill with crochet and 80’s decorations! Which is so exciting and we’ve got some fabulous projects too, and the lovely lynn Rowe as our guest designer on the Saturday, so it’s exciting! But I’m nervous! I’m sure it’ll all be fine.
It’s the postponed April one that always worried us, and it just feels like getting to this one, we’re moving forward and actually getting there! No more sleepless nights! AND we might have some space at home too! The yarn and everything was all ordered and delivered prior to lockdown so space will be good!
Hiya! Can I consider my third blog post a roll? No I didn’t think so, but I’m getting there.
So! We’ve been busy the last 2 months designing a crochet along for Women’s weekly magazine, through The Knitting Network using their new Emu Yarn, we were very honoured to be given the opportunity to use this yarn before anyone else and actually design something with it.
However, a little bit about Emu! It’s not new! The bird is back! I remember my granny muchy using emu when I was little, it’s a brand that’s actually 80 years old, and The Knitting Network have brought it back to life in over 50 colours, and I have to say, I like it, I like it a lot, and I know we shouldn’t base things on price, but, it’s soft, it’s for great stitch definition, it doesn’t feel cheap either, but it’s only £1.59 ball! I’m sold!
So Lynda and I designed a crochet along which is available now for sale The Knitting Network the pattern actually comes printed with the kit itself, but will also be released in Women’s weekly magazine on 23rd June, we love the colours!
The idea behind it was that we were slowly coming out of UK lockdown, we wanted something to represent pastel rainbow colours, there is a white panel running down the centre which has white fluffy clouds and raindrops from French knots (too cute!) and either side of those clouds are different coloured panels, each panel has a different textured stitch and it’s then top and tailed with beautiful fluffy pom poms
We really enjoyed creating this and feel that it will suit crocheters of abilities.
With the emu yarn I’ve also been making mandala madness! I started one of these about 5 years ago, and then put it down for 3 years, during those 3 years not only did my tension change massively but, I had also learned how important counting is whilst crocheting (I know I’m laughing too 🙈) so when I came to pick it up again, it went into the bin I’m afraid!
Anyway! The Knitting network kindly sent me some colours to try and they’re just perfect for me!’they chose so well!
So I decided on Mandala madness, and I love it!
This is a free pattern available on Crystals and crochet it’s beautiful and so well written.
We’re also getting ready for the june crochet weekend! And just crochet day, but I can show you more of that once they’re done.
That’s all from me I think! I’m back out on the road tomorrow with work! Slightly nervous, I don’t know why, but I think 15 months working from home you kind of get a bit stuck in your ways, so back to it tomorrow!
Well! That Saturday knocked me for six! It’s been such a long time, and I guess we’re a little out of practice to be fair.
But what a great day we had!! On Friday evening, I met with Lynda and Paul, both of our cars rammed with crocheted blankets, amigurumis, and gift bag supplies. We really could not do the crochet sanctuary without Paul, the guy is an absolute legend!
He unloads everything onto trollers from both cars (I fo help a little) and takes it up to the sanctuary room, luckily at the cottons spa hotel there is a lift, but we’ll be back at Cranage hall soon, and there isn’t one there, so we’ll be carrying everything up 2 flights of stairs, I’m thinking of the steps though ha!!
Because of covid restrictions we need to make sure there’s some distance between seats so there’s a lot of table and chair shifting to do then covering all of the tables with cloths, arranging blankets over chairs and generally decorating the room, I think we’d finished by about 20:00 and home for 20:30, very little sleep that night, just pure excitement to be in a room full of fabulous people!
I picked lynda up at 08:00 the next morning, after grabbing a McDonald’s breakfast, and we arrived at cottons for 08:30 to pack gift bags, we’ve finally had our own gift bags printed!
The crochet sanctuary gift bags
Gift bags included 450ml teapot, photo album, euclan sample, teapot stitch marker from @mrsgmakes, a scheepjes after party folder to store after party patterns, and an after party pattern, so they we’re pretty full!
Our room is pretty huge with a veranda too, it was quite warm so it was nice to have all the doors open
I’ve got to be completely honest, I hate the chairs, I hate the way we have to set the room up, it just screams our care home to me, and that’s not what we aim for, but during these times it has to be done, once we’re back at Cranage we can get our chairs back and we’re looking at buying some small tables as we’ve realised these are useful for drinks and things, but i suppose people aren’t really there for the room, it’s about the crochet and the people.
There was 22 of us including myself and lynda, and our theme for the day was cherry blossoms, our projects were cherry blossom tea cosy, cherry blossom egg cosy and napkin ring
Photo courtesy of Carol Davies! Because it’s much better than mine!
People seemed to really like their projects and!!! Actually finished them too!! Check these pics out
I’ve never know chriss to finish something so quickly! Well done chriss!Sam first ever finished item at a crochet sanctuary!!
Not bad going!! After the tea cosys we had lunch, lunch was fabulous! I had the beef Ragu and then chocolate choux buns 😋
Heaven on a plate
After lunch we moved onto the napkin rings and egg cosies, nice simple crochet patterns but using embroidery to decorate, how cute are these?!
We also had the pleasure of meeting Lindsay from making stitches podcast, and we’re really excited! Because she brought along her microphone and recorded the introduction to the crochet sanctuary and probably a bit of the icebreaker too, then later on that day Lindsay took a few guests and asked them some questions, we didn’t get to hear any of that so I’m slightly nervous! And at the end of the day we had 5 mins with Lindsay where we were asked a few questions, so! I think there will be a rather interesting podcast on it’s way! How exciting!
On everyone had left by 18:00 we then had the mission of packing up the room again, the only good thing is, we have a little less to take home, my crates are back in my crochet shed which has all been cleaned and they’re now waiting for the next one on 25th june, now i cannot wait for this! A whole weekend, back home, where we belong, at Cranage Hall.
If anyone is interested in attending one of our sanctuary days (we’ve sold out of weekends) we do have some days left for 2022 have a nosey The Crochet Sanctuary it would be fabulous to meet you!
Well! Hiya! I’ve been a bit shocking at this haven’t I? Yep, I know, this last year I think for everyone has just been pretty hellish, I just don’t think I had it in me to do anything other than an Instagram post. I’m sure lots of other people felt the same way.
We seem to be coming out of the other side now and I’m feeling positive, I’m not normally not positive but I think covid and lockdowns did some strange things! Enough of that! I thought I’d start afresh here, so.
Hello! How are you? Ok I hope! We’re so fricking excited it’s untrue, tonight is the Eve, Eve, Eve of our first crochet sanctuary day which is on Saturday!!! These projects have been planned for literally 17 months, and finally it’s happening!
Since covid we’ve kept ourselves pretty busy, we had pandemonium crochet along at the start of the first lock down, which went down a storm! And it really kept us going.
We appeared on the first podcast for Making stitches, I think I blogged about that already. We enjoyed talking about ourselves a lot! 😂😂😂 and decided to start our own!!! It’s the most unprofessional crochet related podcast you’d ever listen to here’s the link if you’re bored! The Crochet Sanctuary Podcast it’s available on 7 different platforms and we try to record once a fortnight, we really enjoy it and yet again surprised at how many listeners we’ve had!
We then got starting on our Christmas Crochet along, oh Lordy! That was AMAZING!!!! We had packs available through The knitting Network which was good, they were brilliant, the pattern is still available in our Facebook group All things Crochet Sanctuary here’s a few pics!
Isn’t it beautiful?! Yes I’ll blow our trumpet!
We’ve been kept busy by twice weekly zoom calls arranged by our friend sharon, which have been an absolute godsend and literally kept me sane!
We then started on designing another crochet along, which hasn’t been announced or released yet, but it’s on its way! More on that to come. And inbetween all of that, arranging and rearranging crochet sanctuaries, it’s been a bit of a nightmare, and all of our guests have Ben absolutely phenomenal, so patient with us, so empathetic, understanding and just outright bloody good eggs!
So Saturday! We’re back!!!!!!!! WE ARE BACK! I can’t tell you the sleepless nights we’ve had over it, the tears! The constant worry, on top of every other worry covid brings, teenagers turning into young adults, trying to hold a job down when a lot of companies seemed to be going south, home working, GETTING FATTER 😂 (I am positive honest!) so yes, Saturday! We’ve got 22 beautiful guests that we cannot wait to see! Some beautiful projects can AMAZING goody bags, I’m so excited I could pee (tmi)
Then june!!! june should have been April 2020, but you know what? I’ll save that for another blog.
But for now, I think I’m back, and hello!
I’ve literally got 14 mins until zoom, so I’d best go.
Hello! Hope you’re all doing ok. Last week I posted about a cal that had started, ‘while we waited’ designed by the crochet project, and how I was gutted that the wrap I had been looking forward to was made out of squares. I hung on, and I was sooooo wrong!!! Clue 2 came out and I knew I had to make it, I thought all of it was going to be squares, but it’s not!
Now that’s more like it!
I love the yarn! Dyed by vicki Brown, and I’m really excited to see what’s coming next.
I’m almost up to date with the fruit Garden cal too, I’m really enjoying it, it’s already been tagged for my sister as she’s been waiting patiently for 4 years for a blanket, so this week I’ve finished the blocks, joined them and now I’m just working on the the border, there’s more blocks to go around the outside yet, and then more borders, but it’s beautiful, the yarn is heaven to work with too, it’s stylecraft cotton bamboo
This week also sees the end of The Pandemonium cal, I can’t believe we’ve almost finished, I also can’t believe that lynda and I designed it together without seeing each other during lockdown, we’re both really proud of it!
And tomorrow is the start of the Knitcraft granny square cal, there are 25 squares designed by 25 designers, it’s a free pattern available Here it was very popular last year, so worth a nosey! Myself and lynda have designed a square for this and our square comes out on 13th July……
Anyway, I’d you’ve gotten this far, and read my last post you might have realised I most definitely have got my crojo back!!!! And I’m so excited as I already have my next project lined up I’m going to start outstanding crochet Corfu bag I am soooooo excited!!! I have my yarn on order and I’ve gone for this colour way
Metal grey and topaz
Have a look at the link because it’s bloody gorgeous!!! Patterns already just waiting on my delivery
Anyway that’s about it from me……waiting patiently to find out when we can start the crochet sanctuary again, and becoming more frustrated by the day! But the less said about that the better, anyway, off to work on my fruit garden cal!
It’s just disappeared this week, nothing’s exciting me whatsoever!
However, that hasn’t meant we’ve not had some yarny fun, on Saturday last week lynda plopped over time my garden, socially distanced of course, and we dyed yarn!!!! We had so much fun, to keep it socially distanced we took it in turn. I can’t show you what lynda dyed as it’s a gift for a friend, but look what I did!
I’m sooo pleased!! Abby also dyed some too
And Paul dyed some too!
It was so much fun and we rather impressed ourselves.
I also had my new book arrive, crocheted 3D letters, I had this big ambition to crochet each guest at the crochet sanctuary their initial for the seat, I did an A for abby and the idea went straight out the window!!!!
Hard work!!!
I’ve really struggled to get stuck into anything, and was looking forward to Wednesday when The Crochet Project ‘while we waited Mystery crochet among was due to start, but I suppose we all have our own individual styles and I was a bit disappointed with the first ‘clue’ I think I like crochet that isn’t obviously crocheted? For example I hate granny squares (I know, I’m sorry) but I just don’t like traditional looking crochet, I don’t like anything that’s too gappy, and the first clue is
I don’t know if it’s because it’s hand dyed yarn, but I’m frightened to cut it, until the next part is out, because of its gappy all the way through I’m not 100% sure I’ll stick with it, but I should, maybe I’ll like it at the end, it’s just that the yarn is so beautiful I think I want to make sure I’ll like the finished item, however sharon came up with a good point today and that is that this item is supposed to remind us and represent the awful time we’re all going through at the moment, and she is right! Maybe I’ll carry on……..
Anyway, back to missing crojo, lynda said that quite often ill crochet an amigurumi and my crojo comes back, so I did
I crocheted the swan out oit of amigurumi treasures book, I’m pleased with her, but I feel like I still need something to get my teeth into!
I’m keeping up with the fruit garden, which I’ve done quite a bit on today, and actually that’s got me looking forward to Tuesday when the 5th part is out, but I’m thinking because it’s only released every 2 weeks I’m taking my time with it.
Anyway! How exciting I this?! Blacksheep Wools is open!!!!!! Yeahs!!!! I went to a yarn shop! They’ve done such a good job at making everybody feel safe at going into the store, I also had a £50 voucher that had been burning a hole in my pocket for 12 weeks so I bought some Rico creative wool for a cardigan I’m going to make, and I bought crocheted succulents by Emma Varnam and replaced my 2.5mm crochet hook, it felt normal!
Anyway! Pandemonium cal is slowly coming to an end…..I’ll be so sad, but, it’s really filled the void of no crochet sanctuary weekends and lockdown, it really has, plus we’ve still got the border to go.
There has also been some talk today of Boris reducing social distancing from 2m to 1m, this would release sooooo much anxiety for us, our crochet sanctuary weekends have all been postponed due covid, and reducing the distancing just gets us another step closer to being able to start again! So fingers crossed! The day we get the go ahead to start again the day I’ll get a full nights sleep!
Anyway no other crochet news from me…..I hope you’re all keeping well and staying safe!
Hi!!! How are you? I’m not doing to bad at keeping up with this lately, 🙌🙌 to me!
Well not much to tell you really, it’s been a funny week, I’ve lost my crojo a bit, flitting from one project to another and getting nowhere.
However, Lynda and I have almost finished Pandemonium, just as the lockdown is starting tot lift, all of my rows are complete, and I’m just working on the border, but it’s hot, it’s so heavy! And awkward too but, once colder weather kicks in it’ll be a godsend.
I had some happy post last Saturday! How I didn’t know this lovely lady existed I don’t know, Siobhan crafts is a local indie yarn dyer that lives in Warrington, she started dyeing during the school holidays whilst she was at college and from what I know she hasn’t stopped, she has the most fabulous colourways! Anyway I bought this
How lovely is it?! I’ve no clue what I’m going to do with it, but I will say this won’t be the last I buy from Siobhan, beautiful yarn and super speedy delivery!
I’ve finished a couple of designs for the crochet sanctuary, we’re itching to get these going again, we had to postpone April weekend, May crochet day and right now, myself and lynda would be getting ready to go and meet our guests for breakfast, I so want to be there, but we do have new dates, and we just need to wait for Boris so we can announce them. What I can say is we will be making the postponed ones that extra special! To be fair they will be anyway, I think just seeing everyone again will make it special. But lynda and I will be ‘cooking’ something special up today!!! Socially distanced of course!
One thing about this lockdown is that even though we’ve not been able to see each other we really have taken advantage of zoom, every Wednesday night our lovely friend sharon hosts a zoom call for the ‘hookers on tour’ it’s so nice as we have a laugh, crochet, and just catch up, it really breaks up a week. Then every Saturday Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer (my yarn dealer 😂) hosts a 40 minute catch up from 14:00, then at 15:00 we have another zoom with the hookers on tour until 17:00!!! We’ve even had a spa night!!! And an 80’s theme, it’s been invaluable and I’m not sure I’d have Gotten through lockdown as sane as I have without them!
In fact last Tuesday was the first time I saw lynda! In my garden 2 metres apart, we hadn’t seen each other since 21st March, even though we speak everyday it’s not quite the same. But today we have some fun in the garden planned!!
I’ve also started a new Jenny’s Mandala from Little box of crochet it was one of my favourite lbc projects, I do love a mandala, but this one was special, it was released just as jenny has passed away from a brain tumour, for those that don’t know, Amanda Bloom and Jenny founded little box of crochet, I have the finished original version framed in my craft room, but I wanted to make one in other colours, so I’ve made a start and I’m loving it! I do have plans to turn it into something useable but it’s one of those projects I’ll keep picking up and putting down, you can buy the pattern in the book pictured below from their website and it’s full of some other favourites too.
I’m also waiting on a book delivery from Amazon, it’s a crocheted letters book, ideally lynda and I would like to make all of our guests a cushion for their chair using their first initial, how cute would that be?! Or a display of cushions spelling out THE CROCHET SANCTUARY, a big task though right?!
How cool are these?!
Anyway, I’m still working on Janie Crows fruit garden, I’ve not taken any pics recently but I will do.
I think that’s about it for now, I’d best get sorted for lynda popping over and getting the garden set up for today’s yarny antics!!!
Hello! How are you? So far we’ve spent the majority of 2020 in lockdown, bizarre, who’d have thought it?
And for me it’s pretty much been about a pandemonium, Lynda and I decided on the morning of 21st of March, 2 days prior to UK lockdown that we wanted to run a stash busting crochet along, we were both feeling quite anxious about the whole COVID-19 issue, and with shops closing, and everything shutting down, we decided to run the cal, with virtually zero planning and zero designing! Our thoughts were that if we released a small amount of rows twice a week, it wouldn’t be too overwhelming for people to keep up with, along with their other projects and coping with lockdown. And it would give us time each week to plan, design and test before releasing.
It’s been an absolute blessing for us to keep busy, and feel like we’re making a teeny difference.
We’ve now got 6,825 members, and people taking part all over the world, it’s amazing! We’re all now starting to see the lockdown lifting and we’re also coming towards the end of the cal, we released part 20 of 28 on Wednesday, so only another 4 weeks to go, and there are some stunning blankets!
Aren’t they fabulous?! The colours are just beautiful, I am literally stash busting mine, and I will admit, I’ve put very little thought process into my colourway. So far we have loved it, but I am starting to feel a little sad that it’ll be over very soon! It isn’t too late to join if you fancy, and the patterns won’t be going anywhere, if you’d like to take part head over to our Facebook page All Things Crochet Sancruary
Whilst working on Pandemonium, we’ve also been designing for the up and coming Crochet sanctuary days and weekends, obviously 3 of these have been postponed until our venue re-opens but we are positive that this will hopefully be in July! Fingers crossed!
I’ve recently finished this beautiful cushion by Esme Crick from Red sparrow Crochet, I loved every minute of it, it’s called canal houses and it reminded me of our trip to Amsterdam last year, the design is bought from scheepjes and comes as an after party booklet and can be found on ravelry
I also finished some socks! The pattern came from Vicky Browns sock club with some beautiful yarn, but I already had a skein of Woolly mama yarns in hi ho silver that I wanted to use, so used that instead, they’re fab, and snuggly!
And finally!!! Another CAL or MAL to look forward too!! The crochet project and Vicky browns designs are launching a new MAL on 17th June, 12 days to go! And it’s called ‘while we waited’ uses 3 skeins of hand dyed yarn, I chose ‘yoga in the living room’ I’m so excited for this, I’ve never taken part in a cal using hand dyed yarn, I’ve gone for the wrap option
Stunning colours!
That’s about it really, not many finished wips none that I can share yet anyway!
Two posts in a week ha! I quite enjoyed blogging yesterday. I don’t know about you, but my bank account is taking a serious hammering! There are so many yarn dyers, stitch markers, patterns, CALs, books, I cannot get enough, it’s got to stop really.
I started to work from home all week, about 4 weeks prior to lockdown, I work in Business Continuity and had started to take about 30 40 calls a day due to the pandemic. My office is in a converted garage, which doubles up as my craft room and where my husband used to play his PS4, but he’s moved it into the lounge now. It’s a nice big room but the view is the side of my neighbours house, and it gets so cold in there, about 2 weeks ago I had literally gotten sick of the same 4 walls, so my husband suggested moving me into the dining room (which is smaller) and turning my ‘den’ as I call it back into a dining room, which would make much more sense. My new ‘den’ has a view of the garden, it’s warmer too, but it means we have a nice big dining room (once we’ve gotten rid of the sofa).
Of course this meant packing up everything 🙈 I was once proud of my yarn stash but now, I am actually ashamed!!! It’s just ridiculous, I actually had to decide yarn I know I’ll never use but just keeping for the sake of, yarn I don’t want to part with, yarn I’m saving for a special occasion…..the list goes on, however! By the end of it I had 2 large bin bags full to the brim of yarn to offload, quick post on Facebook market place and it was gone within the hour!
My new craft room! With a lot less yarn!
It was bloody back breaking! So the yarn ban didn’t last long, what you can’t see is underneath the desk towards the bottom, I had 2 square shelves to fill so I treated myself, I did treat @lyndascraftroom too, just to cheer her up and let her know I’m missing her (don’t tell her though, I wouldn’t want her to think I actually like her 😂)
How cute are these sirdar Happy’s?!
Then of course Furls had the new quarantine kits out, did you see those?! For £22 you got 4 crochet patterns, a 100g ball of merino yarn and a streamline hook! Well I ended up with 3 of those the hook is amazing, I didn’t like the oddessey hooks they were too heavy for me but the new streamlines are stunning, albeit, I’m slightly frightened to use them as one snapped, but! Furls were extremely quick to replace it, fantastic customer service
One of the worst things about having crochet friends is that when they buy nice things you have to get them too, Sharon and Mrs G has bought some fabulous bags fromThimble and thread make these bags (mine is a ruck sack) are handmade and designed specifically for knitters and crocheters, lots of little compartments for skeins, hooks etc but also a little compartment to place your pins without the end of the pin sticking into your work, very clever!
My pic doesn’t really do it justice to be fair! Can’t believe I’ve not been able to use it yet
Also a new indie yarn dyer The Yarn whisperer started his business, and I wasn’t going to buy anymore yarn, but, he released a Mini Egg colour way, when I saw a picture of Lyndas I ended up buying one 🙈 just glad my husband is oblivious to all the deliveries! And then whilst browsing I saw that he also had a 500g skein of koi pond, beautiful oranges and greys, but I couldn’t justify spending so much on 1 500g skein. I asked him if he would consider 100g skeins, and he agreed……..ohhhhh they are beautiful!!! He brought out a whole colour way of koi pond so I ended up with the mini egg version and then 2 of the koi ponds, aren’t they stunning?!
So I then placed myself back on a yarn ban. You see the thing with these naughty indie yarn dyers, when they know they’ve got you hooked they keep dyeing new colour ways! I know, I think I have a problem, but I couldn’t resist this
Beautiful
Anyway, If you have a serious yarn addiction and you need hooking up with a new dealer then head over to The Yarn whisperer!
I may or may not be waiting on my Sock club yarn , the new PicaPau 2 book…….and Pandemic yarn which doesn’t count really as that was ordered before lockdown…..two cushions for canal houses pattern (I’ll post about that another time) is this really normal?! I don’t normally buy like this, I really don’t, but I suppose it’s not being spent on road trips to yarn shops, days out, restaurants etc.
I’m sure I’ve missed stuff, but you know what! These are unprecedented times! I’ve never ever struggled with my mental health, but crikey, you’ve only got to look at me the wrong way at the minute and I’m in tears, and my little bits of happy post are cheering me up a treat…!
I do hope you’re ok, and not struggling, I hope you’re keeping healthy, and if there’s any time you can justify buying something for your hobby it’s now
Oooh!!! Just before I go, I also got a gift!!!! Look!
How beautiful are these?! These were a gift from @lyndascraftroom (we aren’t even friends!) from @Mrsgmakes aren’t they beautiful!
Oh!!! Sorry this is me catching up on months of not blogging…..Lynda and I got asked to take part in a podcast!!!! Our first ever podcast! I didn’t think we would enjoy talking about ourselves so much 😂 if you like a good podcast there’s a new one called making stitches who is also @apostcardfromgibralter anyway I love a good podcast, have a listen and get your hook on! Making stitches podcast
Didn’t I just?! I kind of lost any motivation for blogging, I think partly because I was paying £90 a year to WordPress for …………pretty much nothing! And decided not continue, anyway, I thought I’d touch base!
In fact, i haven’t blogged since September!! Crikey. So much has happened! We’ve had a number of fabulous crochet sanctuary weekends and days, @lyndascraftroom and I had the Christmas Bauble CAL, which surprisingly went down a treat, I think I didn’t think it would as it was such hard work trying to come up with 24 different bauble designs in 3 different colour ways, but I reckon we smashed it!
We had our last crochet sanctuary weekend in February, we were supposed to have April but obviously due to COVID-19 we have had to postpone, we had to postpone April, May crochet day and to be safe, and manage expectations June as well, however we have dates in place for all of them, we’re just conscious of posting about them incase they’ve got to be changed again.
Anyway! I’m going to skip Christmas and February and fast forward to Monday 23rd March 2020 UK Lockdown
@lyndascraftroom and I had already discussed running a crochet along, a stash buster, something to reflect the god awful times everyone was going through, we decided to launch it on Sunday 29th March and it is called Pandemonium, purely because life right now is pandemonium, but also the idea was is to gather around 1400g of dk stash, pull out any colour and go with the pattern, it’s gone soooooo well so far! The cal is lasting for 14 weeks, releasing 14 rows a week, 7 on a Sunday 7 on a Wednesday, we’re loving it! And we have so many people from all over the world taking part!
An example so far! I can’t show you mine because I’m a few weeks ahead now
The way we are working it is that lynda and I are discussing what stitches we want in the blanket, I am crocheting it and making the stitches fit, I send lynda a rough pattern, lynda is Crochet’s it, tests it, she then sends the pattern to our amazing admin ladies who then check the pattern and test it, and then we release 7 rows each time, we’ve never worked this way before, I’m loving the fact I can race ahead ha! Anyway it’s being held on Facebook, we are half way through but it’s never too late to join! All things crochet sanctuary follow the link, read the announcements which is where you’ll find the patterns and files here’s a few more!
Because I’m quite far ahead it’s meant I can work on a few items I’ve wanted to do for myself! Which feels so liberating!!
I’ve crocheted quite a bit actually but I’ll save some for another post, hopefully you won’t have to wait until 2021 for the next one!!!
I’ve also been spending way too much money on yarn during lockdown, I guess you have too, but it’s so comforting right now isn’t it?! I think I’ll save that for another blog too! Anyway I’ll not bore you to death much longer.
I hope you are all staying safe and well, and I hope you’re keeping your hook on!
The Wee House Of Crochet 