What a weekend!

I honestly thought I’d be exhausted today after the weekend, but @lyndascraftroom and I managed to actually relax!! The weekend couldn’t really have gone any better. We also had the most gorgeous guests, including a lady who had travelled all the way from Germany!

We started the Friday evening with a quick ice breaker, then we made our own name badges, purely because we’re so awful at remembering names

I’m lying, I didn’t make mine, lynda made man thankfully! We then handed out everybody’s Sophie’s stool! We were so excited for this

Check that out! A pyramid of Sophie’s stools!! Everyone knew they were getting these, well almost everyone, one lady asked if they had to give it back at the end! Her face when we said no was a picture.

The best bit though was handing out the gift bags, and hearing people gasp with surprise

Yes!! Each weekend person actually got Sophie’s universe book too! We kept this a surprise, but it was lovely to hear, it really was.

After dinner on the Friday evening we started with stools, couple of glasses of bubbly and straight into chill out mode. On Saturday morning we had a few patterns for people to work on using Borge three bears yarn and some lovely Knitcraft Home cotton they had the following patterns:

• Eco face scrubbies
• Love heart wash cloth
• Star pin cushion
• Life ring pin cushion

So there was a good choice. After lunch we had a photographer arrive, Lynda and I never get a chance to take many, we’ve had one picture so far, the rest are being worked on, but I have to tell you about this, it was hilarious

So we threw the blankets in the air, but perhaps we should of moved away from the tree! Yes!! I’m sure there were some photos taken of us trying to get some of the blankets back down!

Anyway, the next bit, the most exciting bit! Amanda Bloom from little box of crochet created The Crochet Sanctuary’s own bespoke little box of crochet!!!!!!!!! Who’s ever of thought a year ago I’d be typing this?????

I learnt to Tunisian crochet!!! Check out my purse

I’m so pleased, and more so pleased that my daughter abby actually learnt to Tunisian crochet too! Amanda also had a little shop, where we were able to buy not so big and little boxes and candles too.

The rest of the time we really spent relaxing crocheting and eating basically!

A few more pics for you

There will be lots of professional ones of people actually crocheting very soon!!

Anyway happy hooking xx

April update

Eeeek!! Today’s the day!! I’m so excited, we have our second Crochet Sanctuary starting this evening and I’m so organised ive got time to blog.

I actually finished my Helen Shrimpton star of wonder last week, it did become a labour of love towards the end as it got heavier and heavier, at the same time our lovely British weather was getting a bit warmer! Anyway, I’m not 100% on the colours but I wanted something to match our logo colours and I think I did good!

That’s our Abby underneath! She’s 14, so you can see what I’ve been saying about the size. So this will be coming with us this evening.

I’ve also started Helen Shrimptons new cosmic CAL, the first part was released this Tuesday, id chosen my own colourway but didn’t quite do a good job, my main colours were too close together so chose something completely different, and colours I wouldn’t normally go for. I wanted something bright, but summery, a little tropical, so I chose Stylecraft shrimp as my main colour, aspen, saffron, white and then teal as a contrast colour, however the first part of the pattern has really called for my main colours yet and my contrast colour seems to have been included a little more than I would of liked, but hopefully ax the weeks pass by the shrimp will become more visible

I’m pleased with it, although the edges are curling slightly at the moment but I’m sure with more weight added it’ll be fine.

I absolutely love helens patterns, I’ve really learnt such a lot from her.

Water Garden CAL is coming on beautifully! As most of you know, there’s an awful lot that goes into designing, but it’s never a thankless task ever, because ever now and again you get such a buzz! Gillian Mitchell, said she kept looking at the CAL pictures and really wanted to be able to do it, but she’d only ever done a granny square, I’m a huge believer that if you can crochet a granny square and read a pattern you can crochet ANYTHING! So zgilluan uses some yarn from her stash, used the YouTube tutorials and the pattern and she did this!!!

One of each block to date!! How fab!!! Just goes to show I’m so right ha!!!!

I’ve got to admit I never look at anything and think it is beyond me, well that’s until I read the pattern anyway.

Anyway, we have a professional photographer coming into cranage Hall tomorrow, to take some pictures of @lyndascraftroom and I, which will be fun…..not!! Neither of us feel confident in front of the camera, but we’ll just have to go with it, he will also be taking some pictures of whats going on too as the last time Lynda and I were so busy we didn’t take many and ended up pinching everyone else’s.

We have also vowed to thoroughly enjoy this Sanctuary, our first one was quite stressful for us even though everyone else seemed to enjoy it, which is certainly the main thing. So this time we know what to expect, cranage know what we expect of them and we are hoping it’ll be fab, and we have a few surprises up our sleeves for our weekend guests that we think are just fabulous. Anyway, best go and finish off getting everything together!!

I’ll leave you with a few water garden pics, until next time.

Happy Hooking!!! Xx

Bit of blog neglect

It’s been soooo busy!! I’ve not even had a chance to sit and read through the blogs I follow, but I will! Plus I’m ever so excited to read @coastalcrochet blog, I believe there’s a fab video of her singing! Very talented! Anyway the Knitcraft Cal went live last week, and it’s been so successful! With some fabulous pics!!

Sometimes I look at peoples work and think ‘we designed that, that came out of my mind!’ It’s so heart warming!!

Knitcraft took some amazing professional pics of the water garden, they really did!

I’ve also been desperately trying to finish my star of wonder in The Crochet Sanctuary colours, I’ve literally 10 more rounds to go, it’s looking great! Not my favourite colours but still it’ll look good draped over one of the sofas

Anyway! That’s all I’ve been doing, apart from managing the Facebook page alongside @lyndascraftroom, Tanya from what I created next, sarah Miller my old school friend who now lives in Oregon, and Petra Simonini (Lyndas sister) without these it would be a full time job! I do love it though.

So week 2 was released today, it’s going so quickly.

It’s literally 14 days, that’s two weeks until the next crochet Sanctuary!! And I’ve a spare room full of boxes, literally full!! I’m so excited, I think lynda and I will thoroughly enjoy this one, we know what to expect now and we know exactly what we’re doing (not that we didn’t before!) but there were things that we didn’t do at the last Sanctuary that we know we should of done, it’s all a learning process. But we literally cannot wait!!

So we started planning June months ago. The weather should hopefully be lovely, so maybe a little outdoor crochet by the lily pond? Use of the outdoor kitchen and bbq would be amazing, so fingers crossed! We also have The Wool Nest as our guest designer. Lynne Rowe from the wool nest is going to be working us through mindfulness in crochet, and she did mention about some mandalas! My favourite items to crochet!

So, there’s not been much else really, In between my star of wonder I’ve been designing smaller items for the crochet sanctuary workshops, concentrating on the cal, and the sanctuary, and my job!! Mustn’t forget my job!

Anyway chicks, happy hooking xx