Month: June 2025

Making Stitches 2025 CAL : Bonus Birthday Bunting Square

~ Making Stitches ~ 1 Comment
Making Stitches 2025 CAL Bonus Birthday Bunting Square

Hello, hello, what do we have here? It’s a Bonus Birthday Bunting Square! Seeing as I am celebrating 10 years of my blog (formerly Postcard From Gibraltar and now Making Stitches) I thought the occasion deserved a special crochet square. As a matter of fact a few weeks back, someone asked me whether I might make more than just 12 squares this year for the Making Stitches CAL. As it had been at the back of my mind, I thought ‘why not?’ and here we are with an extra square….

The Making Stitches 2025 CAL is my way of celebrating 10 years spending my time in this little corner of the internet, it feels fitting to have a birthday square to mark that. As with all the squares in the CAL (crochet along), this is a very free and easy, join in if you fancy it (at any time) kind of CAL. I can’t keep up with weekly CALs these days with the juggle of work and family life, but I can manage to make time for a bit of crochet each month.

The whole point of this CAL is for it to be a stash buster. To date I have just used Stylecraft Special DK which I had in my stash, however, there is one yarn in this pattern which I have failed to identify – the beige of the cake! It’s a synthetic DK so it works with the other yarn in the pattern and I have offered an alternative from the Stylecraft Special DK palette should you wish to replicate what I have done.

As with all of the Making Stitches 2025 CAL squares, this is very free and easy, it’s up to you which squares you make and what colours you choose to use. For anyone wondering about how 13 squares will work out in a blanket, never fear, I have plans for one other bonus square later in the year, which will at least give you an even number should you choose to use them all.

Without further ado, here’s the pattern for this special party square!

To make this square, I used Stylecraft Special DK  in (A) Beige (unidentified colour) could use Camel (1420), (B) White (1001), (C) Pale Rose (1080), (D) Silver (1203), (E) Sage (1725), (F) Saffron (1081) & (G) Spice (1711).
You will also need a 4mm crochet hook, scissors, a stitch marker, and a yarn needle.

Abbreviations (in UK terms): blo = work in back loop only, ch = chain, dc = double crochet, dtr = double treble, fptrtr = front post triple treble, fyo = final yarn over, htr = half treble, mc = magic circle / magic ring, rep = repeat, RS = right side(s), slst = slip stitch, st = stitch, tr = treble, yo = yarn over hook.

In case you haven’t come across a FPTrTr before, you begin the st with yo 3 times = 4 loops on your hook. You will work around a st in a round/row below the round/row you are working. Once you have inserted the hook where it needs to be, through the front of the work, around the back of the st and back through the front of the work again, yo and draw the loop back through from around the st (you will now have 5 loops on your hook). Complete the triple treble at this point in the usual way – yo and pull through 2 loops 4 times.

Tension: Tension isn’t important for this project as long as you maintain the same tension throughout the project so all your squares are the same size. Once blocked this square will measure approximately 20cm x 20cm. The stitch count of the final round of each finished square will be 120 plus corner chain spaces.

Cake Base

Using Yarn A, make a MC. 

Round 1 Ch2 (not counted as a st throughout), 12 tr into MC. Slst into top of ch2 to close the round. Pull the central yarn tail tight to close MC. (12tr)

Round 2 Ch2, 2tr into every st around. Slst into the top of the Ch2 (24tr)

Round 3 Then, fold the circle in half RS facing outwards, work along the outside edge of the half circle and through both sides to join them together. Ch1, (2dc, 1dc) rep around.(18dc)

Round 4 Turn your work and work back along the stitches made in Round 3. Working in the blo, ch1, slst into first st, 1dc in next 2 sts, 1htr in next 2 sts, tr+ch1+1tr in next st, 2htr in next st, 1dc in next 4 sts, 2htr in next st, 1tr+1ch+1tr into next st, 1htr in next 2 sts, 1dc into next 2 sts, slst. Fasten off and break yarn.

End of Round 2
End of Round 3
Beginning Round 4
Cake base complete

Cake Icing

Using Yarn B, make a MC.

Round 1 Ch2 (not counted as a st throughout), 12 tr into MC. Slst into top of ch2 to close the round. Pull the central yarn tail tight to close MC. (12tr)

Round 2 Ch2, 2tr into every st around. Slst into the top of ch2. (24tr)

Round 3 Then, fold the circle in half RS facing outwards, work along the outside edge of the half circle and through both sides to join them together. Ch1, (2dc, 1dc) rep around. (18dc)

This time, turn the half circle 180 degrees so you can work along the flat bottom edge, make a 6tr shell into the edge of Round 2, 6tr shell into the centre of the MC, 6tr shell into the edge of  Round 2 on the other side of the centre. Slst into the 1st st of Round 3. Fasten off and break your yarn. 

1st icing shell
2nd icing shell
Cake base & icing complete

The Square

The Square

Using Yarn C, make a MC.

Round 1 Ch2 (not counted as a st throughout), 12 tr into MC. Slst into top of ch2 to close the round. Pull the central yarn tail tight to close MC. (12tr)

Round 2 Ch2, 2tr into every st around. Slst into the top of the ch2. (24tr)

Round 3 Ch1, (2dc into 1st st, 1dc into next st) rep around. Slst into the top of the ch1. (36 dc).

Ready to join the cake & icing to the backing square
Starting the join
Cake base joined halfway round Round 4
Beginning to join the icing
Round 4 complete

Round 4 Take your cake base and work your stitches through the blo of Round Round 4 of the cake base when working sts into Round 4 of the square to join the two together. Ch2, (2tr in first st, 1tr in next 2 sts) rep until you have worked every bl in the cake base. Then pick up the cake icing and working into the blo of Round 3 of the cake icing, join it to the square in the remain sts of Round 4 also working (2tr into the 1st st, 1tr into next 2 sts) rep until end of round. Slst into the top of the ch2. (48tr)

Round 5 Ch1, (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 3 sts) rep around, Slst into top of ch1. (60dc)

End of Round 5
Start of Round 6
Round 6 complete
Round 7 complete
Round 8 complete
Round 10 complete

Round 6 Ch1, (1dc in next 3 sts, 1htr in next 2 sts, 1tr in next 2 sts, 1dtr ch2 1dtr in the next st, 1tr in next 2 sts, 1htr in next 2 sts, 1dc in next 3 sts) rep around, slst into top of 1ch. Fasten off and break yarn. (16 sts on each side = 64 sts)

Round 7 Join Yarn D into any st. Work 1dc into every st around and 1dc ch2 1dc into every corner space. Slst to top of 1ch. Fasten off and break yarn. (72dc)

Round 8 Join Yarn C into any st. Ch2, 1htr into every st around. Work 1htr 2ch 1htr into every ch space. Slst into top of ch2. (80htr)

Round 9 Rep Round 8. (88htr)

Round 10 Rep Round 8. Fasten off and break yarn. (96htr)

First FPTrTr in Round 11
First bunting flag complete
First side of bunting complete
Bunting continued…
Round 11 complete (apologies for all the ends!)

Round 11 In this round you will be adding birthday bunting using clusters of 5x fptrtr stitches worked around sts in Round 8. Join Yarn C 2 sts before a corner space. Ch1 (does not count as a st) 1dc into the last 2 sts before the corner, 1dc 2ch 1dc into the corner space, *1dc into next 3 sts changing to Yarn E in the fyo of the last dc, work 5 fptrtr into the 3rd st of Round 8 (change back to Yarn C in fyo of 5th fptrtr), miss the next 5 sts of Round 10, 1dc into next 2 sts changing to Yarn F in the fyo of the last 1dc,  work another 5x fptrtr cluster around 10th st of Round 8 (changing back to Yarn C in the fyo of the 5th fptrtr), miss next 5 sts of Round 10, 1dc into next 2 sts changing to Yarn G in the fyo of 2nd dc, worth a 5 x fptrtr cluster around the 17th st of Round (changing back to Yarn C in the fyo of the last fptrtr), miss next 5 sts of Round 10,* 1dc into next 2 sts, 1dc 2ch 1dc into the corner space and repeat from * to * around the square and slst into the top of the first dc to close the round. Fasten off and break yarn.  (104 sts)

Round 12 complete


Round 12 Join Yarn D in any st, work 1dc into every st around (ie the dcs and the tops of the 5x fptrtr clusters too), also work 1dc 2ch 1dc into the corner spaces. At the end of the Round, slst into the top of the ch1, fasten off and break yarn. (112dc)

Round 13 Join Yarn C into any st, ch2, 1htr into every st around. 1htr 2ch 1htr into every corner space. Slst into the top of the ch2 to close the Round. Fasten off and break yarn. (120htr).

Using corresponding coloured yarn, sew the edges of the cake base and cake icing to the square.

Round 13 complete

Candle & Flame

To make your candle:

With Yarn E, ch5, 1dc into 2nd ch from hook and every ch across. Fasten off and break yarn leaving a tail to sew the candle to the square. (4dc)

To make your candle flame:

With Yarn F, make a MC. Work 3dc into the MC, ch2, slst into 1st ch to form a picot, 3dc into the MC. Pull the MC tight. Fasten off and break yarn leaving a tail to sew the candle onto the square.

Sew the candle into place on top of the cake and, once that’s secure, sew the flame into place on top of the candle. You can then decorate the cake icing with some French knots to represent hundreds and thousands/sprinkles on top of the cake. 

The Bonus Birthday Bunting Square

If you make a Bonus Birthday Bunting Square of your own, I’d love to see it! If you share it on social media, please either tag me or use the hashtag #MakingStitches2025CAL

Enjoy!

Lindsay x

From Postcard from Gibraltar to Making Stitches – a decade of sharing my corner of the internet with you!

~ Making Stitches ~ 3 Comments
A few memories of the past 10 years

Today marks a very special day for my blog – it is 10 years old!!

Back in June of 2015, I would never have imagined that I would still be blogging a decade on. It kind of blows my mind that my blogging adventure has lasted so long. I had no idea what an impact it would have on my life, the people I would meet and the doors it would open for me. It has brought me friends – both online and in person, it has given me skills that brought me paid work, I have gone from being simply a hobby crafter to a published crochet designer and podcast award finalist and it’s been a whole lot of fun. 

I am taking the liberty of using today to have a look back at the past ten years, for some of you who’ve been in my little corner of the internet for a long time, much of this won’t be ‘news’ but I think it’s worth revisiting (if only to remind me of how much fun I’ve had along the way). Back in the early days, I thought this blog would be a kind of diary, to record our life as a family and it has very much been that for me. Back at the beginning I wrote the blog anonymously, I was living in a very small community at the time and I didn’t want to stick my head above the parapet and ‘show off’ I preferred to be an observer. Since those days I’ve got a bit less self-conscious about my blogging (maybe it’s an age thing and I worry a teeny bit less about what people think of me!).

For those of you who have only found me in the past few years, you may not be aware that this blog first started life when my family lived in Gibraltar. I had long been a fan of crafting blogs and I had, for quite a while, fancied having a go at blogging myself. Whilst I have been a crafter all my life, I would never have thought of myself as accomplished enough back then to share too much about what I was making, but living in the Med, I had lots of photos of blue skies, the sea and pretty flora to share instead. 

Looking north from the Med Steps in the Upper Rock Nature Reserve

After much indecision over whether anyone would actually want to read anything I had to say about my little corner of the world, I decided to have a go anyway and Postcard from Gibraltar was born. The annual Gibraltar Convent Garden open day was the perfect content for me to share in the very early days, lots of beautiful flowers and well-kept borders as well as being able to share a little bit about what it was like living on the Rock. 

The Governor of Gibraltar’s back garden at the Convent

So many people visit Gibraltar fleetingly, on a cruise ship stop-off or on a day trip from the Costa del Sol, but the longer we lived in Gibraltar, in spite of its size, I discovered there was so much to learn about it. When we first arrived there as a family through a work relocation, I knew precious little about it. Myself and ‘Mr Postcard’ had visited just twice in the preceding months to find somewhere to live and to get the eldest ‘Little Postcard’ into school (there were just 2 ‘Little Postcards’ in those days!).

The early days

My old Postcard from Gibraltar profile picture which I painted at watercolour class

When we first arrived in Gibraltar, I was a stay-at-home Mum full time, I had one young son in primary school and a toddler. I threw myself into life in Gib, in a bid to make friends and settle into the community and found that, unlike when we had moved towns in the UK, very quickly I made friends in Gibraltar. I think this was mainly down to the fact that within the ex-pat community, your friends very quickly become your family. Everyone of us was a long way from our actual family and when someone needed help, we would all rally round to support each other. That said though, the Gibraltarians I met outside the school gates were just as welcoming and we found ourself attending our first Gibraltar kids birthday party within a couple of weeks of arriving there.

Celebrating Gibraltar National Day

By throwing myself into the Gibraltar community I learned so much about the place and its people. It is famously a melting pot of cultures and traditions, populated by Genoese fishermen, Moroccan traders, families who straddle the land border between Gibraltar and Spain and lots of other nationalities too. There is a large south Asian population, lots of Jewish families of different denominations and from around the world, an Anglican Cathedral as well as a Catholic one (there was also a Church of Scotland when we lived there – although that has sadly now closed) and there are two mosques as well. Even the local dialect, Llanito (pronounced Yaneetoh), borrows words from Spanish, English, Genoese, Maltese, Moroccan and other languages!

There was so much I could write about, from the cultural calendar we had fast found ourselves absorbed into, to the fascinating architecture of the colonial buildings of the historic Upper Town and town centre, to the flora and fauna of the Rock. I decided that even if what I was doing in my day to day life was a bit boring at least people might be interested in what it was like living in Gibraltar! 

Connecting with other bloggers

In those early days of blogging, the advice was to read plenty of other blogs and get involved in the blogging community. During those days I came across another blogger who lived by the sea and had a penchant for crochet. Her name is Eleonora and you may know her! Little did I know at the time that Eleonora had just started her blog, Coastal Crochet, a couple of weeks before I launched mine, or that one day we would finally meet in person (more on that later)!

The first few rows of my Sandy Bay Seaside Stash Buster Blanket

It is safe to say that Eleonora’s blogging journey has been rather more stratospheric than mine, but despite her hitting the big time, we have stayed connected through the years. I can clearly remember the day she launched her first crochet along – the Seaside Stashbuster blanket. I loved crocheting along with many, many other crocheters around the world throughout the weeks as the patterns were released. For some reason, when I first began the blanket, I decided I would reflect Gibraltar in the colours I used. Our favourite beach on the Rock was Sandy Bay, so I thought it would be good to try to create a blanket inspired by that little corner of Gibraltar. It was such fun to make and amazingly some of the stitches Eleonora chose just worked perfectly with the stage of the pattern I wanted to reflect at that time! It was as if she knew what I needed to happen! You can read all about my Sandy Bay Blanket here. 

The finished blanket at Sandy Bay

I was thrilled the following year, when Eleonora sent us off on another crochet-along journey with her Changing Tides Blanket. It was asking to be made into another Gibraltar beach – so the Catalan Bay Blanket was born!

My Catalan Bay Changing Tides Blanket

Eventually we actually met in real life, the first time was at Yarndale in 2022, more recently we caught up at Yarndale last September.

Eleonora & I at Yarndale 2024

When we met up last year, we started talking about something special to mark our joint 10th blog anniversaries. You can find a sneak peak of that project in a little while….

Another blogger I had the privilege to meet is the person, is Lucy from Attic 24. Had it not been for me reading Lucy’s inspirational posts about her crochet, craft and beautiful home town of Skipton in North Yorkshire all those years ago, when I started my crochet adventure, I don’t think I would have started this blogging adventure myself. After several years of reading and absorbing posts all about Yarndale, I managed to get a ticket for the festival, a ticket for a plane journey back to the UK and a train ticket from Manchester to Skipton to visit Yarndale myself in 2016. It was the year they’d asked for people to crochet and knit little Yarndale sheep. I made Llanita, the Yarndale Sheep and she was posted off for the Yarndale appeal. I also took her twin sister with me and gave her to Lucy when I met her – it was a true fangirl moment!

Lucy with Llanita at Yarndale 2016

Sunday Sevens

Just 4 months into my blogging adventure I read about a blog series called Sunday Sevens, which involved writing a post about your week just gone and featuring seven photos from the past seven days. The idea was conceived by Natalie from the Threads & Bobbins blog and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to share a snapshot of my life in Gibraltar without writing a long blog post about some rather mundane day-to-day things. On 11th October 2015, I published my first Sundays Sevens. Very quickly, the Little Postcards would comment, when I stopped to take a photo of a nice sunset or a pretty flower or some other thing, “is that for Sunday Sevens?” Very often the answer would be “Yes!” On 26th July 2020, I published the 230th and final Sunday Sevens. That marked the point at which we moved back to the UK from Gibraltar and seemed like the right time to wrap the series up.

That didn’t mean my round ups would stop. At the start of August 2020 I started my Sunday Postcards, which later morphed into my monthly ‘Postcard from…’ updates.

A stroll around Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a very photogenic place – especially in the sunshine. I would often be stopped in my tracks as I wandered the streets of the town centre pushing a buggy on the way back home from the school run or wandering to the shops and appreciate just how lucky I was to be able to call it home for a while.

I would be taking my phone out all the time to snap pictures as I went on my wanders and decided that I would share those wanders with you. My ‘A Stroll Around Gibraltar’ series was the result. The most popular of which (still to this day) featured a stroll up the Med Steps.

 

A Postcard From…

Whenever we were away from the Rock, I would often document our travels with a little ‘Postcard from…’ post. We were very lucky that at that time we were able to travel quite a bit, both back home to the UK to visit family and friends and to a few parts of mainland Europe too. The ‘A Postcard From…’ series was one I really enjoyed writing, and is one which I really must keep going with whenever I can. In fact I have a few ‘postcards’ in my pending drafts folder from years ago, which if I get the time to work on, I will finish and add to this collection.

Summer Craft Challenges

Each summer, since 2016 (excluding 2020 & 2023), I have set myself a Summer Craft Challenge. I found, in the early days when my blog first launched and I was a full time stay-at-home Mum with 3 young boys and a 10-week-long school summer holiday, I would easily find myself rushing around doing family things all the time and my crafting took a back seat, and my sanity along with it. By carving out just 5 or 10 minutes of craft everyday throughout the long summer break, and documenting it on my blog, it worked wonders for my mood.

I’m looking forward to starting my Summer Craft Challenge 2025 when my boys break up for summer this year too! If you fancy joining in, it would be lovely to have your company! Just tag any social media posts #SummerCraftChallenge2025 and if you want to see any of the previous years just search for #SummerCraftChallenge on Instagram and some should pop up for you to see.

Big Changes

Life doesn’t always work out quite the way we’d planned. In 2020, our family of 5 became a family of 4 and I brought my 3 boys back to live in England. In the 7 months running up to our impending big move, there was a lot of adjusting to do. Not only that, we were ‘enjoying’ a lot more time indoors during the early days of the Covid pandemic. In the preceding 18 months, I had launched a podcast in Gibraltar as a way of sharing more about the stories I had learned during my time living there and sharing chats I’d had with some of the fascinating people I’d met over the previous decade. 

It was called ‘Gibraltar Stories’ and I was particularly proud of it – especially a series about the Frontier Closure (the land border between Gibraltar and Spain was closed by General Franco between 1969 and 1985), it was a very difficult time for the people living on both sides of the border and I felt privileged that so many people trusted me with their stories of the time. If you are interested in listening, you can still find Gibraltar Stories on podcast apps and the podcast website can be found here as well as on Apple Podcasts and Spotify too.

Unfortunately, with an impending move back to the UK, that podcast wasn’t sustainable but I had really enjoyed making it, so wanted to find an alternative podcast subject I could start work on during lockdown and take back with me to the UK. Something I’ve always loved is craft and creativity, and after almost 5 years of blogging about it, I’d made quite a few connections with other crafty people who said they would be interested in joining me as guests (Bingo!). One of the (few) benefits of that time was learning how to record audio off video calls, it was no longer necessary to be in-person to record interviews and meant I could chat to people anywhere in the world for this new podcast endeavour. 

Just as in the early days of Postcard from Gibraltar, I doubted whether anyone would be interested in hearing what I had to say, but rather than making me and my crafting the focus of each episode, I decided to speak to another crafter about their creative life and journey. At the time I couldn’t find any other podcasts which did that for crafting. There were plenty of podcasts featuring crafters talking about what they were making but none that I could see who exclusively spoke to other crafters. I spotted a gap in the market and Making Stitches Podcast was born. 

I have to admit that Making Stitches really helped me in those days. They were grim for many reasons and it gave me something to focus on that was fun rather the other stuff (moving countries, finding somewhere to live in England, finding schools etc from overseas, recovering from a rather nasty dose of early days Covid etc.).

The joy I still get from making it continues. It’s been a ride. From putting my first episode out just over 5 years ago and wondering whether anyone would ever listen to it, to becoming a finalist in the first ever Independent Podcast Awards in 2023, to hitting 100,000 worldwide downloads in the last few months, it’s been great. Thank you to everyone who’s listened, everyone who’s spoken to me for the podcast and all the support!

From Postcard from Gibraltar to Making Stitches

In 2022, two years after moving back to England to live, I decided it was time for a name change. I hadn’t been sending my blog postcards from Gibraltar for 2 years by then so decided to bring the blog under the same umbrella as the podcast. Nothing really changed other than the name. I still write monthly posts looking back at what’s been happening in my life and what I have been working on.

Crochet

Collection of items used for the International Yarnbomb Day 2016 display in the Alameda Gardens, Gibraltar

Another thing which has changed has been my confidence in developing my own crochet patterns. My first (and for many years, my only one) was Mr Bumble, a bumblebee which I created for a yarn bomb I put up in the Gibraltar Botanical Gardens in 2016 -I can’t find the pattern now, but here he is along with the other bits I put up. I was so worried about getting something wrong, it took until 2021 until I tried again! Hope the Snowdrop was the first of my Up the Garden Path characters (you can see two others below). Later came some magazine commissions including some for Inside Crochet Magazine!

Prunella Pumpkin & Oakley the Acorn Tree Sprite
Oakley the Acorn Tree Sprite & Agatha the Fly Agaric Mushroom

Most recently I have been sharing my first ever crochet along: The Making Stitches 2025 CAL which, unlike most others CALS which release patterns on a weekly basis, comes out on a monthly basis instead (I simply couldn’t keep up with a weekly one these days – never mind design one!).

Each square has a design which is related to the month it’s released in. I have really enjoyed doing this so much and the thrill of seeing what someone else has made while using your pattern is real! 

Making Stitches 2025 CAL Squares

With this in mind, I would like to share a new pattern with you today to mark this tenth birthday of my Postcard from Gibraltar/Making Stitches blog – the Bonus Birthday Bunting Square! The pattern for this is here!

The Making Stitches 2025 CAL Bonus Birthday Bunting Square!

Talking of crochet patterns, I mentioned earlier about my collaboration with Eleonora from Coastal Crochet… Watch this space for more details on that in the coming weeks!

And that, my friends, brings me to the end of this round-up of a decade of blogging for me. Thank you for joining me for the ride, it’s been fun hasn’t it? Who knows where we will all be ten years from now? We’ll not think about that for the time being.

Thank you for being there, for reading these rambling posts and for keeping me company for the past 10 years!

Until next time, as I say at the end of my podcast episodes, take care of yourself and enjoy your crafting!

Lindsay x

A Postcard from May 2025

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Hello, and welcome to this Postcard from May! I’m starting off with this brilliant sign of spring turning into summer, the first swift I spotted this year.

Back when this blog first began, and my family was living in Gibraltar, we used to spot scores of swifts screaming around the tightly packed streets of the Upper Town in March! This was as they were on their way up north from Africa to spend the summer in the skies above northern Europe. Every time I hear one, I think of those early spring skies in Gib!

So, to May, well, it was a month of lots of podcasting (more on that later!), quite a bit of crochet and the small matter of a running race…

Sporting highlights

Beautiful Manchester Central Library on 10K day

Back on 18th May, a huge chunk of Manchester pulled their running shoes on and took part in the Great Manchester run. The city centre was buzzing and the weather was lovely (almost a little too lovely for the runners – but I’m not really complaining about that!). The atmosphere was utterly amazing and I was so glad I’d signed up to take part again this year.

For those who have followed my blog for a while, you will know I’m not a natural runner, I wasn’t built for speed, but last year, as a personal challenge to prove that hitting the big 5-0 didn’t mean I was ready for the scrap heap, I undertook a lot of training and ran the Great Manchester Run 10k. It was only ever meant to be one-time-only affair, just so I could say “10K you say? Oh yes, I’ve run one of those!” However, on the finish line, those plans were scuppered…. I can honestly say that that last kilometre was a killer and I was vowing to myself, “Just keep going, don’t stop – you’ll never have to do it again!”

But… when I caught up with Son number 2, who was 16 at the time, he said “I’m really proud of you Mum, when you run it next year, I’ll do it with you!”. Not one to thwart the enthusiasm of the young, I kind of had to say yes and sign up again. Fast forward 12 months and there I was, standing back on the starting line, with hundreds of people separating me from Son number 2 as he had pushed forward to be with the fast folk so he could clock a good time!!

This was me at around the 5K mark – photo credit, my lovely friend V who cheered us on

I can honestly say that this time around it wasn’t as bad as last year, I knew that the last kilometre would be hard, but I was prepared for it, and I did it just a minute slower than last year (had I realised, I may have speeded up!) but, that said, I didn’t feel as bad as last time – I won’t go so far to say it was easier, but I guess I must have been a bit fitter. As my Mum said, (who saw me between 6K and 7K) “You didn’t look as dead as you did when you passed us last year dear”. So I’ll take that as a compliment – thanks Mum!

Proof I did it! Me and my medal

I decided to raise funds this year for FareShare Greater Manchester, the charity I work for. If you would like to support my amazing sporting achievement (haha) my Just Giving page is still open for business. Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me so far – as I write this, the total stands at just over £600 which is brilliant. You can find the link to my page here if you want to check it out.

Also last month, I went to watch our family’s team, Manchester United for a very significant occasion, which happened to be the last match of the season. It was my lovely Dad’s last match as a season ticket holder. He decided that this year, at the age of 82, he was finding the winter matches too cold to sit in the stands for so long and the amount of standing during the matches to see over the people in front was too much for his octogenarian legs. Dad has held his season ticket in the same stand since the season I was born (1973-4). He decided that as he was going to be a Dad and that meant he was getting old, he should treat himself to a seat and move out of the Stretford End which was a standing only area at the time.

So for as long as me and my brother have been alive, Dad has sat in that stand with the same match-going buddies around him. It felt too significant to let it pass without a bit of a fuss. So, I booked tickets for me and Son number 3 to go (the only United appreciator of my offspring) and be in the stadium at the same time, I got Dad’s name put up onto the scoreboard and a little bit about him in the match day programme too.

My view of the Old Trafford pitch at the top of the tallest stand, Dad was in the stand on the left – I even managed to spot him at one point!

It was so lovely to be back at Old Trafford, as once upon a time I was a frequent visitor – my first ever job at the age of 16 was there and I worked there throughout my A-Levels and in university holidays too. In fact it was Manchester United which set me on the career path into radio which eventually led to me creating the Making Stitches Podcast!

I’m so glad we managed to join Dad on this special day – even if we were sitting miles away from him. Oh, and they won too which was a relief!

Making Stitches 2025 CAL

May Blossom square

The May square for the Making Stitches 2025 CAL was a blossomy one. I really debated whether to feature cherry blossom in the April square but changed my mind, opting for April showers for the driest month since records began in the UK (I may be slightly exaggerating there). However, thankfully for me, there was still plenty of blossom around and about when April turned into May, so I still had the chance to jump on the blossom band wagon – what a thrill!

I was really pleased with how turned out, and it would appear that lots of you liked it too as there were some beauties which popped up in my Instagram feed through out the month – you can see some of them below.

Some of the May Blossom Squares

If you missed out on the May Blossom square when it came out, you can still find it on my blog here.

In other crochet news….

Since early this year, I have been beavering away on a cardigan project. I made myself one of these cardigans a good few years ago. It’s a Fran Morgan pattern from Simply Crochet magazine called ‘A Good Vintage’ – you can still buy the pattern online.

My Mum has long admired my cardy, so I decided to make one for her birthday – only problem is, that was in March not May! On the big day, I gave her the body and one sleeve wrapped up and had to ask for it back to finish it. Well, here it is out in the sunshine on my blocking mat.

I’m pleased to report, she thought it was worth the wait!

And, there’s more crochet too…

A special crochet project ❤️

I’m sure an awful lot of you will be aware of a significant blog anniversary which happened earlier in June – the 10th anniversary of Coastal Crochet, by the lovely Eleonora Tully. I have been reading Eleonora’s blog since the early days, as I discovered her as I began my own blogging journey in June 2015 too. Obviously Eleonora’s and my blog trajectory hasn’t quite been the same, but it’s an anniversary worth celebrating none the less! So, last year, when we met up at Yarndale, we discussed the possibility of collaborating on something to mark our joint blog birthdays. The photo above is evidence of that design in progress.

We are hoping to share the finished design next month, and can’t wait to share it with the world!

Podcast News

The first Making Stitches Podcast episode in May was another 10th anniversary celebration (there must have been something in the water in the late spring/early summer of 2015 surely?). This time it was being celebrated by my fabulous sock-knitting friend Christine Perry from Winwick Mum.

During that decade of encouraging the world to knit socks, there have been literally tens of thousands of socks knitted – that’s some achievement. You can find out more about the episode and listen to it here.

Next came a chat I had with Rachael Mills, a crochet teacher and designer and dressmaker from Lancashire. It was Rachael who was responsible for crocheting the giant doily which adorned a Ford Escort car and which was part of the installation which won the 2024 Turner Prize.

I loved hearing about how she took a phone call from the artist, Jasleen Kaur and wasn’t put off about the size of the project – just saying “Yes, I’m up for that!”. What a life lesson that is, you never know where opportunities might lead….

Find the full episode show notes here.

And finally, one week ahead of schedule, I published this episode featuring Nat Walton, the curator of the Woven in Kirklees textiles festival – the reason for the early episode – it went out on the eve of the start of the festival, World Stitch Day on 1st June.

This biennial festival draws on the whole community of this West Yorkshire district and covers all sorts of crafts and creativity. It was fascinating to hear the story of the festival and all the things visitors to this year’s events can enjoy.

Find out more here.

Simply Crochet, simply exciting!

So, this is exciting. A little while back I was approached by Simply Crochet Magazine to ask whether I would like to be featured for my blogging and crochet work. I have been the subject of an article about my podcast, but never about my crochet before. I have to say, after reading the magazine for many years (I even had it delivered to me when I lived in Gibraltar and we moved back home to the UK in 2020), it really made me feel like I’d ‘arrived’ a bit.

What an honour to be featured in this brilliant magazine. You can find the article in issue 162, if you want to have a read. Thank you so much Simply Crochet, and thank you to Marianne Rawlins (@mazcrochets on Instagram) for interviewing me and writing such a lovely interview.

And that just about brings this latest postcard to a close, but I can’t go without acknowledging the awful news our online crafty community received yesterday about Amanda Bloom. I never met her, but I did have the opportunity to speak to Amanda on a couple of occasions for Making Stitches Podcast, and we had spoken recently about me going to visit her at her latest creative endeavour, her ‘Craft Room’ at Bentham in North Yorkshire.

I hope Amanda has found peace at last and that she has been reunited with her beautiful daughter, Jenny.

Take care of yourselves everyone,

Lindsay x

Jenny’s Mandala, from Amanda Bloom’s Little Box of Crochet

Making Stitches 2025 CAL : Part Six

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Summer Solstice Square

Hello! Welcome to June! Summer is officially here in my part of the world (although the weather may not always feel like it at times). When I think of June I always think of the midpoint in the year, the solstice – so what better symbol to have in the centre of the Making Stitches 2025 CAL June square than the sun?

image shows a selection of part made granny squares laid out on a table in the sunlight

As with my travails in April, coming up with this design (which in principle I had in my head from January) in practice wasn’t quite as simple as I thought it would be. I played with rising or setting suns, stained glass window effects and textured centres for the sunshine. It took a lot of jiggery pokery but eventually, I got there and was happy with this attempt. I do hope you approve. I had so much love for last month’s May Blossom square, that it feels like quite a hard act to follow!

As I have mentioned in the patterns for the other 2025 CAL squares, the whole point of this CAL is to be a stash buster project to help you get rid of some of your odds and ends of yarn left over from previous projects. I am certainly using it for that purpose!

I have made my squares using my own stash of Stylecraft Special DK yarns and I have included the names and numbers of the shades I’ve used in case you want to replicate what I have done exactly, but you can use any yarn you like. The only thing you need to do is make sure it’s all the same weight, ie all DK or all Aran or whatever yarn you choose, and if you are making the whole project along with me, make sure all your squares are made using the same weight and the same size of crochet hook to make sure they all measure the same size so they can be joined together easily at the end.

Each square is made to a similar basic pattern and should have 120 stitches in the final round to make joining easier at the end.

☀️So without further ado, it’s time to take you through the steps to make the Making Stitches 2025 CAL June Summer Solstice Square….☀️

2025 Making Stitches CAL Part Six : June – Summer Solstice

To make this square, I used Stylecraft Special DK  in (A) Citron (1263), (B) Denim (1302), (C) Cloud Blue (1019).

You will also need a 4mm crochet hook, scissors, a stitch marker, and a yarn needle.

Abbreviations (in UK terms): blo = work in back loop only, ch = chain, dc = double crochet, dtr = double treble, FPTrTr = Front Post Triple Treble, fyo = final yarn over, htr = half treble, mc = magic circle / magic ring, rep = repeat, slst = slip stitch, st = stitch, tr = treble, yo = yarn over hook.

In case you haven’t come across a FPTrTr before, you begin the st with yo 3 times = 4 loops on your hook. You will work around a st in a round/row below the round/row you are working. Once you have inserted the hook where it needs to be, through the front of the work, around the back of the st and back through the front of the work again, yo and draw the loop back through from around the st (you will now have 5 loops on your hook). Complete the triple treble at in the usual way – yo and pull through 2 loops 4 times.

Tension: Tension isn’t important for this project as long as you maintain the same tension throughout the project so all your squares are the same size. Once blocked this square will measure approximately 20cm x 20cm. The stitch count of the final round of each finished square will be 120 plus corner chain spaces.

Please note, this pattern is written in UK Crochet terms.

Central Sun motif

Using Yarn A, make a MC.

Round 1 Ch2 (not counted as a st), 12 tr into MC. Slst into top of ch2 to close the round. Pull the central yarn tail tight to close MC. Fasten off and cut yarn. (12tr)

End of Round 1
Beginning of Round 2
End of Round 2

Round 2 In this round, you will be working into the space between the stitches of the previous round. Join A into one of the spaces, ch3 (counts as a tr) and work another tr into this space, then work 2tr into every space around. Slst into the top of the ch3 to close the round. Fasten off and cut yarn. (24tr)

Round 3A In this round, you will be working into the space between the pairs of tr sts of the previous round to create the suns rays. Join A into one of the space between the pairs of tr sts from round 2. Ch4 (counts as a dtr) and work a dtr into the same space, (ch3, work 2dtr into next space between pairs of tr sts) rep around, ch3 and slst into top of the ch4 to close the round. Fasten off and cut yarn. (12 pairs of dtr & 12 x 3chs)

Beginning of Round 3A
First sun rays of Round 3A
End of Round 3A

Round 3B Using Yarn B, join yarn into blo of an unworked st between the pairs of suns rays on round 2. Ch3 (counts as a tr) and work 3 more tr into that st, work 4tr into blo of the other unworked sts between the suns rays, slst into top of ch3 to close round. (12 x 4tr clusters)

Work Round 3B into the blo of unworked stitches of Round 2
First 3ch of Round 3B counts as a tr
First 4 tr cluster of Round 3B
End of Round 3B front view
Enfd of Round 3B back view

Round 4 In this round, you will be crocheting 4dc over the top of the 3chs of round 3A between the pairs of suns rays to hide them within your work while working into the top of the 4tr clusters of 3B. You will also work 1dc over the top of the link between the pair of dtr suns rays and working that dc into the space between the 4tr clusters.

Ch1 (does not count as a st), 1dc around the 3ch and into every tr of the tr cluster and 1dc between the dtr of round 3A into the space between the 4tr cluster. At the end of the round, slst into the top of the 1st dc to close round. [Sorry for the garbled explanation – I can’t think of a better way to phrase it! Please refer to the photos below] (60 dc)

Beginning of Round 4
Preparing to work 1dc into gap between 2 sun rays
Work this dc into the space between the 4tr clusters
End of Round 4

Round 5 Ch1 (does not count as a st) (1dc in next 3 sts, 1htr  into next 2 sts, 1tr into next 2 sts, dtr + 2ch = dtr into next st,  1tr into next 2 sts, 1htr into next 2 sts, 1dc into next 3 sts) repeat around. Slst into top of 1st dc to close round. Fasten off and cut yarn. You now have a square. (64 sts)

Border

Round 6 Join C into any st, work 1dc into every st around and 1dc + 2ch + 1dc into every corner space. Slst into top of 1st dc to close round. Fasten off and cut yarn. (72 dc)

Round 7 Join B into any st. Ch2 (counts as htr), working blo work 1htr into every st around and 1htr + 2ch + 1htr into every corner space. Slst into top of ch2 to close round. (80 htr)

Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Ropund 9

Round 8 Ch2 (counts as htr), work 1htr into every st around, 1htr + 2ch + 1htr into every corner space. Slst into top of ch2 to close round. (88 htr).

Round 9 Rep Round 8. Fasten off and cut the yarn. (90 htr)

Round 10 In this round you will be adding extra sun rays to the border. Join A, 2 sts before a corner space. Ch1 (does not count as a st) 1dc into the last 2 sts before the corner, 1dc 2ch 1dc into the corner space, 1dc into next 4 sts, 1FPTrTr around the 3rd st of Round 7, miss the next st of Round 9, 1dc into next 3 sts, 1FPTrTr around the base of the 1st FPTrTr, miss the next st of Round 9, 1dc into next 2 sts, 1FPTrTr around 10th st of Round 7, miss next st of Round 9, 1dc into next 3 sts, FPTrTr around the base of the 3rd FPTrTr, miss the next st of Round 9, 1dc into next 2 sts, 1FPTrTr around 17th st of Round 7, miss next st of Round 9, 1dc into next 3 sts, 1FPTrTr around base of 5th fptrtr, miss next st of Round 9, 1dc into rest of sts along the side, 1dc 2ch 1dc into the corner space. Repeat this process around the square and slst into the top of the first dc to close the round. Fasten off and cut the yarn.  (80dc & 24 FPTrTr)

Start of Round 10
Work a FPTrTr into the 3rd st of Round 7
First FPTrTr complete
Ready to work the 2nd FPTrTr
Work 2nd FPTrTr around the base of the first one
First V-shape complete
3rd FPTrTr
4th FPTrTr
Illustrating how you miss the st behind the FPTrTr when making the dcs
First edge of Round 10 complete
End of Round 10
End of Round 11
End of Round 12

Round 11 Join B into any st, 2ch (counts as a st), 1htr into every st around, 1htr 2ch 1htr into each corners space, rep around and slst into top of 2ch to close round. Fasten off and cut the yarn. (112 htr)

Round 12 Join C into any st, 1dc (does not count as a st), 1dc into every st around, 1dc 2ch 1dc into every corner space. (120 dc) 

And that’s your Summer Solstice Square complete!

🌸A selection of May Blossom Squares 🌸

Thank you to everyone who has joined in so far and shared their makes on social media with the hashtag #MakingStitches2025CAL, it’s been great witnessing so many beautiful May Blossom Squares blooming online! I’m very much looking foward to seeing lots of sunny solstice squares brightening up Instagram in the coming weeks!

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

If you make a June Summer Solstice Square and you share it online, please either tag me in your post or use the hashtag #MakingStitches2025CAL so I can see what you have done!


☀️Happy sunshining!☀️
Lindsay x