Into 2016 - late!

Dear lovely readers, it has been a Long Time. I have no real excuses other than a month in New Zealand, and this time I didn't take my lap-top to keep in touch. Then,  on our return a heap of things to attend to, like…. broken washing machine, a burst radiator (NOT while we were away thankfully!) arranging for the removal of our Rayburn cooker and installation of new cooker… overhaul of kitchen in the process …. oh and a wonderful heavy head cold which attacked me for 2 weeks solid - but thankfully did NOT reach my chest!


So having made my excuses, I'll proceed with the post! It is going to be pretty photo-heavy, I'm afraid.

Jim at Orewa Beach, not the sunniest of days to be honest, but quite warm enough! The header photo shows Kit with the boys on a much hotter, sunnier day, jumping waves.

Beccie with her Very First Car, bought by herself. Kit and Krissie saw the reg plate two years ago and bought it in advance of the day! Poor Bex was heartbroken as she saw it disappear from ebay! And astonished that someone else has the same misspelling of her name!

Me on my throne at Mataka Pottery. Yes, I would like one for the garden! No I'm not likely to get one!

Me at Casblanca, a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant we fell in love with. And that is a glass of water!

Isablelle's House on the Hill in Wellington. Isabelle is a Burwell Bash friend of mine who threatened me with all kinds of wrath if I went to New Zealand again and didn't visit her! Jim and I took the slow train (11hours) from Auckland to Welly - wonderful trip - and had three fabulous days with her.

Jim and I - a Bridge too Far, in Zealandia, a native bird /mammals sanctuary just outside Wellington. This was a huge undertaking, an effort to preserve the integrity of native species. If you google Zealandia you will find the whole wonderful story.

I think Isabelle was searching for the Rarey Bird… but she didn't find it! Some great walks here.

Isabelle and I and our friend… taken outside the Roxy Cinema , which was bought and restored to its 1930's beauty by Peter Jackson himself. We had a lovely dinner there that evening.

The absolutely gorgeousl home of Lindsey, a Facebook friend I'd never met, who invited us to stay a couple of days with her. She lives in a beautiful valley just outside Auckland, and "lifted" that lovely bungalow from 'up-island' more than 20 years ago. I could live here!

                               Photo of the bungalow in its valley setting. How delightful is this?

View from Lindsey's deck. Over that fence we watched her neighbour train a new sheepdog - from her buggy! Up and down she went. Up and down raced the dog. Up and down shuffled the sheep!

Frankie and Benny, Kit's beagles. NOT trainable to herd sheep! I've never known a breed of dogs so led by their stomachs as these two!

So many of the better photos and the family photos are on Jim's camera so this is your lot (sighs of relief all round!) I wish I could show you the expression on Dylan's face as I produced the trumpet we had bought for him (yes, through customs, they didn't ask Jim to play…)it came with us thanks to Emily, lovely granddaughter of my friend Pat, who has upgraded her instrument and sold it on to us. I wish also I could show you a photo of the two Emirates cabin crew girls I gave a mini- crochet-class to on the way out there! I wish also we had taken one of the four of us as we enjoyed our last dinner at Casablanca on the Friday before we left. Never mind. Those times are in my head and my heart. We had an amazing time, thanks to Kit and Krissie, Isabelle and Lindsey. We didn't manage to get to see the South Island this time as we had hoped…. one day! However we did see a lot more of the North Island and revisited a few places we had particularly enjoyed on previous visits.

I hope you enjoyed the photos, and thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post; I promise to be back quite soon with more tales from Textile Treasury…. although they may not be very textile related!

Colour My Life

 Isn't this wonderful? It's a dinky little DAB radio in a leather duck-egg blue case. Bought by my son   Mike and his lovely partner Vicki for Christmas ESPECIALLY to fit into the summer house. It just looks so PERFECT in there.

     Looks equally good on the shelf or on my little pale green side table. Just THE PERFECT gift!

  My Cosy Stripe Blanket (Lucy from Attic 24 pattern) I omitted a couple of her colours and changed   the order here and there. Not too fond of the spice (orange) but accept it is part of the autumn colour scheme she chose. Actually, we think it feels quite Christmassy.

   Below, some crochet shapes I've been experimenting with. The first circles are crocheted in Noro   Secret Garden - I love the variegated nature of this silk/wool yarn.

 
Granny Squares. I get a bit fed up fastening off and restarting but I do enjoy the way the colours blend.This is of course good old Stylecraft Special DK. Cheap as chips and lovely colours.

Now then, this was an attempt at free-form crochet, which turned into a kind of wavy circle… I may carry on, do a little decreasing to mitigate the frilliness, and see if it becomes a shawl…. the yarn is Lisa Harding's Amitola which is a 4-ply wool/silk mix. It looks wonderful in the ball, but I hated the way it crocheted in rows, the colours do not meld together very well in lines. However, I do like the way it works in an ever increasing circle.

Here you can see a basket of yarn and the beginnings of ANOTHER blanket - the Granny Stripe no 2. I started out looking at Lucy's Harmony Squares colour scheme, but then decided to do my own version. Same shades as the granny squares above. My Granny Stripe Mk1, made about 5 years ago, will move into the caravan.

     Below, some felty colourfulness in the sewing room. Also known as The Black Hole of Calcutta!

     My collection of pro markers, for all that "grown-up colouring-in" we are so fond of these days!

       And to finish up, a couple of photos of some brightly coloured pottery in my kitchen. Love it!

I hope these colours have brightened up your day - they certainly keep me feeling happy. This will be my last blog-post this year, and maybe into 2016 - but I shall definitely be back! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy healthy and fortune-filled New Year, and I will be back very soon.

Winter Colour

Hi folks! Are you, like me, in need of a bit of cheering up? I know "t'is the season" and all that, but I have been attacked by a nasty little virus recently which, quite apart from laying me low and giving me some pain and grief, has put paid to three days - THREE WHOLE DAYS - of lovely events over this weekend gone. Add one or two other little worries to the mix and you have a not-very-festive frame of mind here in Chez Gill, I'm afraid.

SO, I thought, let's have some colour. Without too many words (I'm sure you won't mind that!) and quite a few pictures, here we go - enjoy the show!

COLOUR - in the garden.

                                     Brave little blossoms, keepin' on keepin' on!

                                               My garden mosaics hangin' on in there.

COLOUR- in the summer house

    On the left we have the almost-finished-painting shelving unit Jim built and I wall-papered and painted. I hope you like the paper - discount store, cheap as chips but JUST what I was looking for!

On the right - the almost finished armoire. When it has its door with chicken-wire and pleated fabric finish, it will look perfectly lush. See what I mean about that paper? Picks out so many shades in the other furnishings and paint.

COLOUR- all over the place!

                                All my blankets - apart from the two in the summer house.

This is my Lucy Bag Mk 2 - the first one grew SOOooooo huge it now holds a gazillion balls of wool.

Lucy Bag, and the Noro wool bag I made a few months ago. Just didn't have sufficient for the strap, unfortunately.

                                       Can't get enough of these shots of deliciousness!

                                                                       …….. can you tell?

Well, that's your lot, hope it has brightened up a chilly day for you. I find clusters of colour like this actually DO make me feel warmer and happier. Visual endorphins, maybe. I hope you find something to give you a burst of cheer today. Until next time!

Quitting Sugar Post and Crochet!

HI Everyone, well, a sad morning for us here in the UK as our undemocratically mis-elected government have chosen to bomb Syria. A more misguided and cynically greed-driven action I cannot contemplate. Not in our name, Mr Cameron, not in our name.

However. This is not a political blog, but my feelings (as you know) sometimes spill over. Back to what we are usually about. This is my Catch Up post on our progress with getting sugar out of our bodies and out of our lives. Which does not mean we shall never ever eat a piece of cake or chocolate again, I'm not anti-pleasure!

We are in the middle of our EIGHTH WEEK! And it is going well. We're eating lots of salads and veggies, and pretty normal meals with lovely fat included, the occasional slice of good bread, pasta or rice in small amounts and infrequently, and NO processed foods. Unless you count good quality sausages, and tinned tomatoes, sugar-free passata etc.

Jim's blood glucose is down and his blood pressure is down from 160/90 to 120/80. Mine is 138/78 which I hope will also make an improvement from that 138 (which neither the GP nor I am very worried about. ) Jim's lost just over half a stone and I have lost just short (less than a pound) of ONE STONE in seven weeks. More to the point I feel I am doing myself a whole lot of good getting the sugar out of my system, moving further and further away from that Metabolic Syndrome I have been dicing with for years. My liver is thanking me profusely for enabling it to get rid of its visceral fat. My appestat is back and working so well I can actually tell to the last mouthful how much is too much on my plate, and frequently leave a little. Unheard of before. And the effect on my grehlin-producing gland in my stomach, which used to tell me I was hungry all the time has been wonderful - we are just not hungry between meals. Curiously, my GO has asked me to come in to the surgery as she want to reduce my thyroid medication, due to the blood test results. I have no idea whether there is a connection with the sugar free thing - but I have been on the same dosage for about 10 years and have a thyroxine level blood test done every year. Coincidence that the level needs adjusting right now? I don't know, but I shall be investigating! Sugar has an insidious effect on so many of our hormones, until you cut it out you just don't realise.

Some people have asked for some links to videos, so here they are. Find them on you tube.

"Auckland 2014 : Low CArb New Zealand Seminar" 8 videos, including one by Sarah Wilson, who wrote the I Quit Sugar books.  Also include and English GP and an Aussie Dietician and practitioners in the diabetic area.

Dr Robert Lustig , a paediatric neuro-endocrinologist who is on a long term campaign "Sugar: the Bitter Truth"  "Fat Chance"  "Processed Food : An experiment that failed"

David Gillespie "Sweet Poison"

Dr Gary Taubes  "Why we get fat"

Damon Gameau "THAT Sugar Film" and "THAT Sugar Book"

Happy watching!

And just so that I can include a bit of bright hooky scrumptiousness, here are some photos of the crochet I've been doing this week. Yes, I've almost finished my SECOND Ripple Blanket, in a colour scheme not a million miles away from the first one, but it IS different. I'm darning in the dangly bits and finishing the edges on Saturday when I shall be working in Jane-Anne's beautiful studio over the other side of the county.

And here I've made a start on the NEXT project (there has to be one!) which is another one of Lucy's of Attic24 fame. It is her Cosy Stripe Blanket, which has alternate colours worked in just two patterns. First is 2 rows of plain treble, then follows two rows of clusters of three trebles, which is all easy peasy and NO COUNTING! Here it is after just two rows, I've done about eight now. The inspiration for Lucy's colour scheme was a collection of Autumn leaves, flowers and fruits. A really warm and rich combination.

So there it is, I hope this has been food for thought and a feast for the eyes!

Hooking in the Summer House

I don't know about you, but we have been very lucky weather-wise here in West Norfolk, recently. We went to Norwich yesterday to book our flights for Christmas in New Zealand, and had the best of the day in sunshine there, windy and rainy by the time we got home. Then again today it has been brilliant sunshine ALL day. Chilly, yes, but to be fair it hasn't been unpleasant. Jim's been working in the garden all day, and by lunchtime I decided the sun was too good to waste so I took myself down to the summer house to crochet. No heating yet, as we still have the electrics to be connected up, but was lovely and sunny and pretty comfortable with a warm cardigan and thick socks to keep me warm!

It really was peaceful, the clock ticking away in a slow, sleepy fashion, me hooking away happily, safe from marauding cold-callers on the phone, and, later, Jim joined me for a mug of coffee. We love our new sunny space! Do you want to see a few more photos of what we've done? Of course you do!

This is my view of where Jim sits, there is the coffee table I painted earlier this year, the pale blue oak chest Jim found in Ely Antiques, and the cheap mirror I found at The Range and painted chalk green. Just peeping into shot is the settle we found in a junk shop in Wymondham; I had intended painting it, but we like it the way it is. Two cosy quilts complete the picture.

Oh, and the little side table I painted mauve, was a tenner from another junk shop in Wymondham!

The settle before I put the quilts on it. The rug is an old, rather flood-damaged Laura Ashley which I can't bear to part with!

It has all come together beautifully, and we are extremely pleased with it. I'd been busy making crocheted throws for our chairs, way before the room was built.

They are made with Rico Cotton Blend and were lovely to work up. Jim's is, naturally, the more restrained blue and green one. I think they look rather good draped casually over the side of our chairs!

Once I'd finished the throws I was lost until I decided to have a go at Lucy's (Attic 24) Ripple Blanket. I have always loved this pattern but never believed I could manage the pattern (My crochet is very basic!) But her instructions are SO GOOD and very simple to follow, with photos every step of the way. So I took the plunge, and when we were up in Hexham the other month I found a lovely wool shop and she had the Ripple draped over a chair in the shop, with the yarns required in a basket beneath. Serendipitous, I'd say, wouldn't you? So I got stuck in, and once I had learned each stitch and how to do the increase / decrease, I was away.

And here it is! There are some colours which I'm not too happy with, so didn't repeat them, but on the whole I love it.

What do you think? And would you believe, I  have begun another using slightly different colours! You can just see a tiny bit of it in the header photo on my little side table.

So, it's been all go here, with one thing and another. Some majorly sad events at both world and domestic level, and we have all been deeply shocked and dismayed. I hope none of you have been personally affected. Suffice to say that I hope you join me in staying calm and refusing to be drawn into  victimisation. Unity is what they hate and fear, let's stand together in refusing to play their wicked game.

Finishing off- as one should - with the weather. We are expecting Wintery Weather soon in the UK. How seasonal! As long as the airports don't close down until we are safely airborne! Take care and catch up with you next time.

An Eventful Month

I'm in a really strange position of having cleared a lot of "stuff" out of my life (not necessarily for ever) in order to calm things down a little, and yet still feeling I'm on a roller coaster, because the weeks are flying by and I'm barely keeping up with what's going on. Sadly I'm not making much headway on the music front, just can't find my way back into it, and we've been so so few gigs lately I've forgotten what's happening where! Also, I had to cancel two craft fair events due to stuff happening at home. So that's two things I really enjoy doing which seem to be very much on the back burner at the moment.

I did finish this latest appliquéd blanket cushion cover, I love the colour scheme, the wool felt appliqué really "pops" against the deep blue blanket. The header photo shows a cushion cover and a throw I crocheted to go over the back of my chair in the summer house going up in the garden. Speaking of which, here's a photo of the concrete base, waiting for the guys to build the rest of it. I can't wait to start putting in the things we've discovered on our tour of the junk shops, though some of them still have to be cleaned up and painted. I'll be sure to show you the results.

 On the baking front, I've been experimenting with sourdough again, and, armed with a starter gifted to me by a friend, I've made a couple over the past two weeks. They were quite tasty, though I didn't get the rise I'd hoped for. Since then I think I've managed to kill off the starter, unfortunately.

Back to the garden, we've still got a few flowers hanging around, though they are mostly struggling to show their heads above the sea of fallen leaves. And in the plastic bins are some parsley and chard, rescued from my Square Foot Garden which has had to be re-sited because of the sumner house.

In the space of half a dozen weeks, we have celebrated my birthday, Jim's birthday, and our 45th Wedding Anniversary. We're still amazed to be able to say that, it's a bit of a record these days, but we know how lucky we are to still have each other, because very sadly a good friend of ours recently died unexpectedly at home. It's taking a while for it to sink in to be honest; for a short guy Dave had a very big personality. Coming suddenly like that it certainly makes you pause and count your blessings. I hope you all have lots of wonderful things to find yourselves blessed with!