Oh Mother Dear...

... Sorry I forgot to post your Mothers' Day card on time.  Ooops.  Well, just in case you have a gander at my blog before tomorrow morning, you saw it here first!  Actually, I had a rather good excuse for posting it on Friday morning, namely, that the glue hadn't dried.  Daughter uselessness justified!

Well, it's a lazy Sunday here in now sunny (previously extremely wet) Brum and I am still a-musing over who to nominate for my Stylish Blogger Awards.  Watch this space because I'll probably do it on Monday or Tuesday now, while I'm in the library "writing" a paper.  In the meantime I hope you find my pentagonal granny squares as fantabulously satisfying as I do.  I'm off to town tomorrow to grab some big wool and a fat crochet thread to make a centre circle to attach them all to; it will most probably end up as a cushion.   I have another 8000 words due for the beginning of May but hey, you know, they can wait...

There she goes again

It seems that as soon as I master one granny square pattern, I discover another and start a whole new project.  Well, maybe not project but certainly procrastination activity.  I can't remember the name of the wool but it's cotton and crochets like a dream; it has a fresh, heavy, solid weight and intensity of colour to it that wool rarely provides, and I shall be returning to the shop to buy more as soon as my essay deadline has been met.

The pattern is called 'snowflake' and was thought up by the fantabulous textile designer, Rose Sharp.  It was featured in my favourite crafty magazine, Cloth, which wonderfully manages to be completely hip and non-fuddyduddy.  

Procrastination is my middle name...

My granny-squaring habit is getting a little out of hand as the end of term deadlines hurtle ever closer.  I had my last Masters class yesterday and after wandering around the neighbouring botanical gardens for a while, gathering my thoughts, I returned home, made tea and biscuits and spent the rest of the day watching films.  I crocheted over 20 squares in the space of 133 minutes - the precise running time of Eat Love Pray, which was a very good film actually.  I probably could have made more but whenever James Franco is on screen my ability to multitask takes a rather dramatic nose dive.  Understandably.

I've also been working hard on my playsuit, and have spent most of the week pinning a mile of hemline.  Rayon is an easy fabric to sew, but I'm having to blanket-stitch all the raw edges because it frays like mad.  What joy.

Grannies, Packages and Pancakes

For the life of me I don't know why I get up so early in the mornings, but when there are scotch pancakes with golden syrup on the menu it doesn't seem quite so hard to emerge from hibernation.

I spent most of Sunday teaching myself how to crochet granny squares, having finally found the most fantabulous and instructive how-to series over at meetmeatmikes.  If there's one thing that's tricky to get the hang of with crochet it's making good square corners; this tutorial will transform you into a corner queen in no time at all.

 I've also been putting a package together for my dear friend Toni, who teaches English at a university in China.  We spent a whole year living there together in 2008-09, working at a school in Guangdong.  When we returned to England and she went straight off to university to do an MA,  I flitted about for a year not knowing quite what I wanted or who I was.  When Toni went back to China  I started uni again doing the same Masters in English teaching.  Now I'm getting ready to up-and-off again to East Asian waters as soon I have finished my MA, and I am sure our paths will cross again.  Watch out China!

I crocheted the string, used the tissue paper my Doctor Martins came in to wrap two cotton dresses for her, and as she is so obsessed with rabbits I gave her one of my favourite Belle & Boo postcards that I got from Paperchase a while ago.   My vintage copy of I Capture the Castle, one of my favourite books in the whole wide world, adds the finishing touch of whimsy.