Month: August 2026

Summer Craft Challenge 2026 : Weeks 4 & 5

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Hello there, I’ve gone double bubble with this post seeing as I was on holiday for a good chuck of the last two weeks and away from my laptop. Since we last spoke, we have been to Paris and to the Lake District. I feel very lucky to have been able to spend time with my boys away from the usual routine and in such beautiful places – more on that in a different post I’m sure though – now down to the crafty side of my life… and what I’ve been up to on my travels. Here’s Weeks 4 & 5 of my Summer Craft Challenge 2026!

It already feels like a long, long time ago, but after the partial eclipse on Wednesday evening 2 weeks ago, I sat down for a bit a more crochet on this scarf/shawl I’m working on.

A little post A-level results embroidery on Thursday evening. After a few days of growing tension in the house and the emotion of everything that day, it was nice to be able to unwind with my needle! (Good news was received in our house thank goodness, but I spare a thought for those who didn’t get the news they were hoping for).

On Friday, I managed a little bit of doctor’s waiting room sock knitting. Back on Wednesday evening, post eclipse, we sat in the garden chatting until late, ruminating on what lay ahead in terms of exam results and what might happen next. While I was out there, unbeknownst to me, I was bitten on both ankles by something nasty which resulted in my feet and ankles swelling up way beyond what was decent to share with you. It turned out I had an infection in both bites. Knowing I was heading off on holiday just 48 hours later, I thankfully acquired a doctor’s appointment and secured some antibiotics to counteract the nasty reaction.

With the medicine kicking in and my ankles and feet slowly returning to their ‘normal’ shape, I sat down for a bit more sock knitting on Saturday.

Ooh, the most exciting type of crochet here on Sunday – plane crochet! Three of us flew to Paris and met Eldest there who had come from London via the tunnel. Such a lovely start to our few days in France.

Monday was a lovely hot, sunny day and perfect for some sightseeing. This photo was taken late afternoon, while sitting on a bench having a break in a park a short walk from the Eiffel Tower.

A spot of regal crochet was on the cards on Tuesday – I took my crochet hook and yarn on a train trip out to the Palace of Versailles! What a beautiful place it was. We didn’t manage to get into the Palace – tickets to get in are booked until the end of the year (or something like that) we didn’t fancy the humungous ‘without prebooked tickets’ queue so visited the majestic gardens and hired bikes to ride around the wider estate – what a stunning place!

Summer Craft Challenge 2026: Week 5

Summer Craft Challenge 2026 Week 5

Onto Week 5 here on Wednesday last week – although I had completely rather a lot of the blue section of this scarf, I just wasn’t happy with it, so frogged back lots of rows to where I thought I was happy and started again… This was in my hotel bedroom after a lovely morning at the brilliant Natural History Museum in Paris.

Homeward bound means more plane crochet! Still not happy with the blue section, I sat at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and ripped all the blue back to the start and started again. I think I’m happy with it this time!

New day, new location – this sock knitting happened at one of my oldest friend’s kitchen table in the Lake District! We had a very quick turnaround, landed back at home from our French trip at dinner time, did 3 loads of washing, ironing, repacking and was on the road by mid afternoon on Friday up to the Lakes.

Al fresco crochet this time, post breakfast while waiting for a certain teenager to get out of bed so we could go out for a walk!

Back at home and ready to face the real world with a bit of Sunday night embroidery. The car was unpacked, washing done, cases back in the loft and packed lunches made ready for work on Monday – why does the fun have to come to an end so quickly?

At least there’s a bank holiday coming soon, so no Monday morning alarm next week…

A bit more evening embroidery on Monday evening in front of the TV… slowly making progress filling the pattern on this lovely kit from Hello Hooray Blog.

And my last post for this week, a bit of evening crochet after work and the sad news that Dolly Parton had died. What an amazing lady she was – I think we should all be a bit more Dolly.

Thanks to the wonders of Instagram, it’s not just me taking part in the Summer Craft Challenge this year. It’s open for anyone to join in with too. All you need to do is have a moment (or longer if you can manage) of creativity in your day. Take a photo of what you are working on and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2026 and we can all see what you are doing. Thanks to @alisonswoolnwalks, @crochet_at_holme, & @jothiquestscraft for joining in during the past two weeks!

Thanks for stopping by for a read, and thank you to everyone who’s joining in with the Summer Craft Challenge this year too! It’s fun being creative together.

Until next week (the final week), take care of yourself!

Lindsay x

A Postcard from July 2026

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Southwold Beach Huts

Blimey just looking back at my photos reminds me of just how busy July was in my world. I had 3 trips – not my normal kind of month at all! We made our annual trip to Norfolk and Suffolk to visit family, I headed off down South to Carry on Crafting AND our family went to London at the end of the month to celebrate the graduation of Eldest from university.

Trip to East Anglia

Sunset on the River Yare, Norfolk

At the start of the month, we made our annual pilgrimage down to Norfolk and Suffolk to visit family. We were blessed with lovely weather and were able to get out and about to enjoy it.

We had a lovely evening walk along the side of the River Yare in Gorleston (the opposite side of the river from Great Yarmouth). We stopped for an evening drink outside the Pier Hotel – which for film fans was the location for the ending of the Danny Boyle film Yesterday. 

Image shows view from Southwold pier

We also made our regular visit to Southwold. We have so many happy family holiday memories of this place – when we lived in Gibraltar, we would often stay in Southwold and use it as our base for a week while we visited family nearby. It’s such a lovely spot, although it does get busy on a sunny summer’s day, but if you are lucky enough to stay there overnight, you find that once the crowds of day trippers leave around teatime, you feel like you have the place to yourself.

There are so many Instagramable corners and alleyways, the little fishermen’s cottages are so well looked after and painted lovely colours, there is often an abundance of hollyhocks growing in the tiny front gardens adding to the pastel-coloured palette of the place. I do so love it there!

You can’t go to Southwold and not get a portion of chips to sit on a bench and eat – we did that – I also managed a bit of seaside crochet too for old time’s sake.

Seaside chips
Seaside crochet

Carry on Crafting

Well, what can I say about Carry on Crafting – it was epic!

I don’t really know what I expected, but it was brilliant in every way – Justine managed to arrange beautifully dry, sunny weather for us and even arranged for England to win in their World Cup match while we were there! (Sadly it didn’t last).

Carry on Crafting 2026
With Eleonora from Coastal Crochet

It was a truly lovely weekend. I arrived on Friday and met up with my glamping buddy for the weekend, Nicky from A Heart Shaped Cherry. Nicky was there as a stall holder and she had a space in her bell-tent for one more (me!). It was a long old trip down there by train from Manchester to London, across London with heavy bags and camping chair on the Underground, then an overland train to Haywards Heath and a bus to the show ground – but my word it was worth it!

On the Friday I helped Nicky pitch her gazebo and get ready for the visitors coming the following morning. We had some dinner, a nighttime herbal tea and then collapsed onto our camp beds!

Nicky on her Heart Shaped Cherry stall
With Kitey aka The Yarn Whisperer

Morning brought with it more sunshine and lots of opportunities to wander, potter, chat to people, meet new friends, see old friends and generally have fun. I joined a wired crochet workship with Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer. It was such a treat to get to meet him IRL after being a customer for quite a few years AND speaking to him for the Making Stitches Podcast back in 2022**. The workshop was very addictive – we were creating feathers or petals by crocheting around wire using Kitey’s hand dyed yarn specially created for the weekend – called Carry on Crafting 2026. 

It was so lovely to chat with Kerry Lord from Toft in person too after speaking to her for the podcast a few years back. I was able to see quite a bit of Eleonora from Coastal Crochet too on her own home turf! We have met in person a couple of times before up north at Yarndale, but this was the first time at her local festival.

Lovely to meet Carol from @nanaseamakes
Thank you Justine!

Can we just have a moment of appreciation for Justine and her amazing team of volunteers who bring the festival to life. It’s no mean feat. It’s a huge undertaking. You are talking about campers, toilet/shower facilities, food, traders, craft and vintage vendors, craft workshops, publicity, electricity, football and movie screenings and that’s probably not even half of the things that need to be looked after to put on an event of this kind.

Thank you Justine for the most amazing weekend. I loved every minute of it. I’m just sorry I had to leave on Sunday morning in order to get back in time for Sunday dinner time and getting everything ready for school and work again for the following week. 

Footnote: Thank you also to my brilliant little brother and his lovely wife who were ‘present’ in the house while I was away and for the amazing job they did dismantling my back garden decking!

If you would like to get a flavour of what happened at Carry on Crafting this year, you can listen to the latest episode of Making Stitches Podcast – I took my microphone with me and recorded my favourite episode of this year so far. You can listen to it on all good podcast apps and on YouTube too, or here.

Graduation Trip to London

Celebratory mini me for Eldest


We hit a milestone in our family towards the end of July when Eldest graduated from University. I can’t put into words how proud I am of him for what he has achieved. He’s a clever lad but he worked so very hard to get the grades he got.

We had a family trip en masse down to London to celebrate with him. Only two of us were able to be with him when he got his degree conferred on him, but the rest of the gang were able to watch on a livestream while it happened. We then all got together to spend the rest of the day with each other, and he got the chance to give Grandma and Grandad a tour of the campus.

Such a brilliant day. Here’s to the future for all the fabulous young people who have been celebrating their graduations this summer – the future is bright for us all.

Podcast News

As well as sharing the episode on Carry on Crafting in July, I also shared a fun episode with a film maker who explored the journey of yarn from sheep to finished products.

I published a chat I had with a film maker called Paul Wyatt, who made a film called Sheep, Actually exploring the story of wool. Paul visits city farms in London to see where sheep live with the capital city, he also speaks to crafts people (including Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer) who use wool in their crafts from yarn dying in Kitey’s case, weaving, knitting and other crafts and the project to collect the fleeces from all of London’s city farms, wash and process it and turn it into wool. It’s a lovely film, and one you can apply to screen at your own local venue. You can listen to Sheep, Actually here.

Summer Craft Challenge

My 10th annual Summer Craft Challenge is well underway and it’s brought me a lot of pleasure already. You know what it’s like when you get stuck in a rut with things? I was seriously getting worried about losing my crojo in the recent weeks and months. I had to consciously decide to pick up my hook and wasn’t always too happy with the results.

Despite that, the prospect of doing something creative every day during my sons’ school summer holidays as has become a tradition for me, filled me with such joy thinking about what interesting places I would be able to take my projects with me to, and encouraging me to dig to the bottom of my wip pile and get busy finishing some things off at last.

As in previous years, I have been joined by a merry band of creative folk who have joined in and shared photos of what they’re working on as part of their own Summer Craft Challenge. So far we have had knitting, crochet, cross stitch embroidery, weaving and flower arranging  photos shared, I wonder what else we’ll see before the summer is out?

If you fancy joining in too, please do – just take a photo of what you are working on in your moment(s) of creativing and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2026

And that just about brings this Postcard from July to a close. Thank you for stopping by and for reading my ramblings! It’s been lovely to have your company.

Until next time, take care!

Lindsay x

Summer Craft Challenge 2026 : Week 3

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Hello there, a bit late with this weekly round up this week. It’s been a very busy time in our house with A-level results and a University place secured (hurrah!) so this fell down the to-do list somewhat. Anyway, I’m here now, so here’s what I got up to in Week 3 of my Summer Craft Challenge 2026!

I made some curly whirly stamens for my wired crochet flower on Wednesday, it’s almost finished and ready for the grand reveal. This project was started in a workshop with Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer when I was at Carry on Crafting Festival in July.

My first finished item of my Summer Craft Challenge this year – the wired flower from Carry on Crafting. The yarn was dyed specially for the festival by Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer and is called ‘Carry on Crafting 2026’.

It was such a fun project to work on and a dangerous new crochet rabbit hole for me to disappear down! Thank you Kitey!

On Friday, my lunchtime was spent parked on a dusty road being wobbled by the big HGVs and tipper trucks thundering past while I did my Mum taxi thing and waited for a teenager to be finished doing what he was doing. At least the sun was shining as I sat there knitting my sock!

Saturday morning alterations were on the cards for Day 18 of the challenge. I bought a top in the supermarket a couple of months ago and I really loved it, but it was just a bit too big round the arm holes. So, rather than take it back (they didn’t have any smaller sizes) I decided I’d just take it in on the sides. All well and good, but it sat in my bedroom all this time waiting for it’s alteration moment – seeing as we were forecast some more hot sunny weather, it seemed appropriate to fire up my old sewing machine and get on with it – mission accomplished!

Time for a bit more crochet on Sunday, all while listening to a great podcast episode featuring Kitey from the Yarn Whisperer chatting on the Make Joy Podcast – I highly recommend a listen.

Time to mix things up a bit and introduce a new colour in this crochet pattern….

And finally, to bring this week to a close, I decided on a little evening embroidery. I managed a few more colourful sections on this embroidery kit from Hello Hooray Blog.

And, thanks to the wonders of Instagram, it’s not just me taking part in the Summer Craft Challenge this year. It’s open for anyone to join in with too. All you need to do is have a moment (or many) of creativity in your day. Take a photo of what you are working on and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2026 and we can all see what you are doing. Thanks to @alisonswoolnwalks, @crochet_at_holme, & @jothiquestscraft for joining in this week!

Summer Craft Challenge 2026 : Week 2

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Two weeks done already, blimey, this summer is running away with itself! How’s your week been? Good I hope!

Here’s what I’ve got up to in my creative endeavours this week (another 7/7 week!).

It took a few hours in the afternoon to get to grips with yesterday’s failed heel flap. I got into all sorts of trouble – in part due to tension and in part due the yarn being a bit splitty and having a bit of fluff to it which felted together into a right old mess.

I’m pleased to say I managed to frog it back to the start of the flap and started again. This time I took my time, paid more attention and tried to keep my tension a bit looser and it worked! Hurrah!

There you go – it’s not the most beautiful heel flap known to man, but it’s a darn sight better than it was looking 48 hours ago! The gusset shaping has begun!

On Friday I felt it was time to try something new, so I got a few of my crochet books out and started playing with textured stitches. This was a cross between moss/linen stitch and crossed treble stitch. I really liked the way it looked.

I think it’s safe to say I fell well and truly into a rabbit hole of texture this weekend. After yesterday’s experiment I decided to have a go at creating a new pattern…

I didn’t quite have the stitch count right on yesterday’s experiment, so I cracked open a new ball of yarn and tried again. This time, I think I’ve cracked it. I didn’t want to unravel yesterday’s work just yet as I didn’t want to lose what I was aiming for. Now that I have this cracked. I can unravel and rewind the ball from yesterday and stick with this one.

Back onto the sock. Had a bit of a stressy evening and didn’t want anything which required too much counting. As I had finished the shaping of the gusset and am just going round and round in circles with no counting whatsoever, this seemed like the perfect antidote – a little al fresco evening sock knitting!

Thanks to Christine from Winwick Mum for the brilliant pattern!

And finally to bring the second week to a close, I dipped into my WIP pile and dug out this very recent WIP – the project I started when I attended a workshop run by Kitey from The Yarn Whisperer when I visited Carry on Crafting Festival a few weeks back.

It was for wired crochet petals and feathers. It’s a bit fiddly to begin with but looks really effective when it’s finished. I am determined to get this finished soon. It’s a lovely palette cleanser of a project. Thanks Kitey!

And of course it’s not just me taking part in the Summer Craft Challenge this year. It’s open for anyone to join in with too. All you need to do is have a moment (or many) of creativity in your day. Take a photo of what you are working on and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2026 and we can all see what you are doing. Thanks to @alisonswoolnwalks, @crochet_at_holme, @jothiquestscraft & @woodedgecrafts for joining in this week!