Hello there! I hope you’re doing well. My word, March was a super month in my world, filled with fun, sunshine and lots to interesting chats with super people. The main highlight of the month was the TexStyle Festival in Manchester city centre. It was the first of its kind and I spent the whole weekend at it – it was amazing!
So, here’s a little round up of the past month in my neck of the woods…
Sunny days
I don’t want to sound like a weather bore, but in amongst the usual damp and grey March days, we enjoyed several beautiful sunny and warm days this month. Fortunately for me, some of them happened on days when I wasn’t working so I was able to enjoy some time out pottering in my garden.
It was lovely to be able to give the back lawn it’s first cut of the year – it was getting very long and tufty in places, and it stayed looking pretty smart for a couple of hours until it returned to being used as a penalty shoot out area again! One day I will have a pristine lawn, but only when my resident footballers have flown the nest, so I’m not wishing my life away.
A Literary Evening Out
In early March I went along to our local bookshop along with a very good friend of mine to hear local author, Helen Gaskell, speak about her first novel. Released at the height of Bridgerton Series 4 fever, her book The Regency Switch involves time travel from the present day, back to the Regency era.
Helen gave a really fascinating talk and we really enjoyed our evening out (on a school night too!).
Thank you Helen for a brilliant evening!
TexStyle Festival 2026
It’s official I was in!It was lovely seeing my friend Christine aka Winwick Mum at TexStyleSome of the work done by Yarn Addicts of Manchester
Oh my, where to begin with TexStyle Festival? What a wonderful weekend of fun, creativity and community!
I was thrilled to be asked to compere the Textile Talks stage at the festival, so I was lucky enough to spend the full two days at Manchester Central, enjoying all that it had to offer. The weekend’s speakers were textile artists, Sophia Gardiner, Stephen West from WestKnits, Amelia Rogers from Amelia Stitches, Gareth from Manchester Wool & Yarn, Debbie Munro from The Lace Knittery & Jane Smith from Japanese Embroidery UK.
Sophia Gardiner at her standStephen West in actionStephen West ready to go on stage
It was a brilliant weekend and I feel really privileged to have been a small part of it all. I took my podcast microphone with me (naturally) and shared an episode all about the weekend.
With Gareth from Manchester Wool & YarnJane Smith from Japanese Embroidery UKAmelia from Amelia Stitches in action
The whole TexStyle experience was a whirlwind, which I still can’t stop thinking about, I had so many lovely conversations with people and look forward to seeing lots of them again in the not too distant future. I’m really grateful to be a part of this super duper community.
Victoria Salmon from Another Knitted ThingAlena Ruth from Manchester Tufting WorkshopsWith the super Debbie Munro who gave 2 talks
My only full length photo of my new cardigan taken in the loos at TexStyle!The back of my Orla Square cardigan
Last month in my Postcard from February, I mentioned that I was working on something using the Orla Squares I had made during my summer craft challenge. The aim was to get a new cardigan made using the squares and I just about managed to get it finished in time for the second day of the TexStyle Festival.
I’m really chuffed with how the cardigan ended up and received some nice compliments about it when I had it on at TexStyle, which is always nice!
Once my cardigan was finished and I had time to hit my WIP pile with determination to tick another WIP off the list, I settled on this Small Bobble Cowl. I started it in January and then it was cast aside for cardigan making. The pattern is by Zeens and Roger and is called the ‘Small Bobble Cowl’, you can find a link to the crochet pattern bundle for cowls designed by Rosina here. I loved making this and used yarn from Kitey aka https://www.yarnwhisperer.co.uk I love the vibrancy of the colours against the cream background yarn. I just hoping when I wear it, I don’t look too much like a children’s TV presenter!
My final make for March was this ‘mini-me’ for my Zumba instructor, Guillaume who left us at the end of the month to concentrate on his other, candle making business.
I can’t tell you how much my Tuesday evenings dancing have meant to me over the past 4 years I’ve been going. They have been the highlight of my week and such a laugh.
If you want to support his business, I can highly recommend his candles, wax melts, diffusers and candle-making classes. All of which leave your nose in raptures of lovely smells! You can find all of Gui’s products at https://malumiere.co.uk
The mini-me is not anatomically correct by the way! I used my fail safe of adapting a pattern from the Carla Mitrani book Crochet Iconic Women.
On Making Stitches Podcast this month…
I kicked off a brand new series of Making Stitches Podcast this month with a chat I had with Katy Mitchell aka Kate’s Crochet Creations.
Katy is a passionate advocate for the Granny Square and has designed hundreds of different ones. She published her first book last year ‘The Granny Square Book’ which is filled with over 100 different designs for you to make your own unique Granny Square projects with.
I have said so much about this festival already in the post, but in case you missed it before, my second episode of the month came out last week and features the brilliant TexStyle Festival. You can listen to it along with all the previous Making Stitches Podcast episodes in all the main podcast places like Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc as well as on my Making Stitches Podcast website.
And that’s it for this month, I hope March was kind to you and that April goes well too. We have the Easter long weekend just around the corner and with it plenty of time to enjoy time with family and my yarn too! Thank you for stopping by to read my latest update.
Hello there! I hope 2026 is treating you kindly so far. It’s been a pretty good month for us, no dramas, no insurmountable problems and despite people calling January the longest month of the year – I think it’s sped by pretty quickly. I wasn’t really ready for it to come to an end, but it has and here I am with my first monthly postcard of the year.
Here’s a little snapshot of what I have been up to so far this year…
A cold start to the month
Our first snowy dusting of the year
I know some places around the UK and further afield have experienced some very cold and snowy weather of late. As usual, in my part of the world – which is renowned for its dampness – we have had a rather cold snap but not so much of the white stuff. I always get excited when I see a flurry of snowflakes coming down, it immediately transports me back to being a child again. Unfortunately for the children (and some of the grown ups) in my part of Manchester, there certainly wasn’t enough for snowmen this month!
We did experience some very cold weather in the first week of the year though, unfortunately for us, it coincided with our central heating boiler going on the blink. Youngest had a football match on the first Sunday of the month, in minus 6 weather. It was bitterly cold, but thanks to the fact it was being played on a very smart, state-of-the-art artificial pitch, it was the only game that week in their league which wasn’t called off.
Despite wearing thermal leggings and top under my usual clothes, with two pairs of socks, double coat and hat, I wimped out and ran back to the car to get the heaters on at half time, this picture shows the payers heading back onto the pitch after the shortest half time I’ve ever experienced. Clearly everyone wanted to get it over and done with and get back to warm houses! I had enough time to walk to the car, turn on the ignition and then it was time to go back out into the cold again!
We ended up going home to a cold house as our boiler had stopped working. Thankfully, some of the football parents had spare electric heaters which they leant to us until we could get it fixed (a faulty sensor apparently). It was a stark reminder that without central heating it can be very cold, and for those who struggle to pay for heating, it must be very bleak indeed.
100 episodes of Making Stitches Podcast
I can hardly believe I’m writing this, but at the start of January, I released episode number 100 of Making Stitches Podcast. It was a bit different this time, as my friend Christine Perry aka Winwick Mum offered to interview me! It was lovely having a chat with Christine, we talked about how I got into my crafty passions as well as my broadcasting experiences and my previous podcast, Gibraltar Stories.
It was a bit out of my comfort zone at first, I normally like to be the one asking the questions! But Christine was very gentle with me and was an excellent podcast host! If you haven’t listened yet, you can find it in all the usual podcast places (by searching for Making Stitches Podcast) – you can also find it here, on the Making Stitches Podcast website.
Also this month, my podcast host (Buzzsprout) sent me a lovely recap of the year. It was filled with stats about 2025 for Making Stitches and I was floored to hear that last year, it was listened to in 156 countries & territories around the world!! That’s just a little bit bonkers isn’t it??
Another birthday!
I celebrated my birthday this month, and was spoiled by Eldest who sent these beautiful flowers to me through the post. They were super. I felt very appreciated.
Our approach to Manchester CathedralReady for the show to beginDuring the amazing show!
Also for my birthday, my lovely parents took me to see an amazing show at Manchester Cathedral called Luminisence. It was incredible. We arrived knowing very little about what to expect and found some chairs at the back. Slowly the cathedral began to fill with people and then the music started. It was a stunning performance of so many great tunes by a gospel choir with the stunning backdrop of Manchester Cathedral illuminated by a light show. Lights and moving pictures were projected onto the walls and ceiling while the music played along with a narration by the actor, Christopher Eccleston talking about the history of the city and the cathedral itself. If you get the chance to go, I highly recommend it – it was stunning.
January makes
One of my lovely colleagues at work celebrated a big birthday recently. I felt it warranted a mini-me to be made so knocked this little lady up. I used Carla Mitrani’s Crochet Iconic Women book as the basis for the pattern. I love this book and have made so many gifts for special people using the patterns in it.
This gorgeous book was a birthday present to myself. The Crochet Stitch Companion by Anna Nikipirowicz. I want to try to get to grips with mosaic crochet this year, and thought this was a good place to start.
When it arrived through the post, it came wrapped up with this cute crocheted flower and a tea bag! Never before have I received such a beautifully presented book through the post.
Also this month, I managed to get around to getting these hearts off to the North West & North Wales Paediatric Transport Service. The service has an appeal for yarny hearts (knitted or crocheted will do). They ask for 3 matching hearts, one for the patient (a child) and one for each parent, so if they have to be separated from each other during the journey they are on, or at their destination, they will all have a matching heart to keep hold of.
And I’ve been knitting! I got a voucher at Christmas for my favourite yarn shop, Black Sheep Wools, so popped along and spent it on a pattern, some yarn and new needles. I have set myself a tight deadline of mid March for two new cardigans, one knitted (see picture) and another one which is crocheted. Do you think I’ll manage to hit the deadline? Only time will tell.
Miles for Meals
The view from the top of Rivington PikeMy frosty birthday morning runMy final walk on 31st Jan taking me to my target
I didn’t really start the year with any resolutions, but I did set myself the target of walking or running 104km this month. At my work (FareShare Greater Manchester) we are trying to raise £25,000 to replace one of our delivery vans which have a habit of breaking down. We use those vans to get food out to the charities and community groups which we support with surplus food. I pledged to walk or run the distance of one of those delivery routes – the one from our base in Openshaw to Atherton and Wigan which is around 65 miles long or 104 km.
I set out on my Miles for Meals mission in the first few days of the year. We traveled to Rivington which is just a stone’s throw from the Atherton and Wigan delivery route and climbed to the top of Rivington Pike. It was a cold and sunny day and we could see as far as Manchester city centre, the mountains of North Wales, Liverpool docks, Blackpool tower and the mountains of the southern Lake District from the top of the hill. It was stunning.
Since then, my walks and runs haven’t been quite as picturesque and were often after dark, but I did manage a morning run on my birthday which was frosty and sunny and then yesterday, on my final day, I woke up with another 10km still to cover, so I set off on a solo walk from our home to a lovely riverside coffee shop beside the River Mersey and back again – a round trip of 10.5km which took about 2 hours to complete. I can safely say I have completed my mission and should you like to contribute to my fundraising efforts, you can find my Just Giving page here.
Thank you!
And that brings me to a close. Thank you for joining me on this jaunt back through the last 31 days! I’m hoping to maintain this throughout the year with a monthly postcard – something I failed to do last year, but we’ll see how it goes.
I hope that February is kind to you and I look forward to seeing what it has in store for us!
Ten years ago this summer, this little blog of mine turned 10 years old. Way back when I first started blogging about my life (which at that time was mainly spent in Gibraltar) under the name of ‘Postcard from Gibraltar’ and as I shared a few of my own crafty makes, the idea that anyone would actually find my posts and read them was a bit mid boggling. I also never imagined I would one day be brave enough to begin designing my own crochet patterns.
Way back in those early days, the main advice I came across for newbie bloggers was to read other people’s blogs and interact with the blogging community. When I did that, I discovered a blog which really appealed to me. It was called Coastal Crochet, and, like mine featured posts about family life (by the sea) and crochet makes. Over time, Coastal Crochet’s creator Eleonora and I would regularly correspond with each other through comments on each other’s posts and through social media.
The first rows of my Seaside Stashbusting Blanket in January 2018My completed Seaside Stashbusting Blanket at Sandy Bay, Gibraltar which had inspired my colour choices in October 2018
Fast forward a few years and, after a relocation back to the UK in 2020, a couple of years later, I met Eleonora in real life for the first time at Yarndale, it was so lovely to actually chat in person after so many years of ‘chatting’ online. Two years later, at Yarndale 2024, we met again and decided we would do something together to mark a decade of both of our blogs. This is it… the ‘Let’s Celebrate Wreath’.
Our first meeting at Yarndale 2022Meeting again at Yarndale 2024
We thought it would be nice to mark our joint celebration with a project which would help others celebrate too.
In our house, we have ‘birthday bunting’ which we bring out every time a birthday is celebrated in the household. Without fail, the bunting goes up in the front window on the morning of the birthday and it remains there along with the birthday cards which have been received for a week. I used our family’s birthday bunting in this photo for my Making Stitches 2025 CAL Bonus Birthday square.
When we chatted our idea through, Eleonora and I thought, perhaps this Let’s Celebrate Wreath could become something like our birthday bunting and be put up whenever a birthday is celebrated – it certainly will be in our house!
As this is a true collaboration between Eleonora and myself, it’s been designed in partnership drawing from things we are both known for; the gingham effect of the Tunisian crochet comes from one of Eleonora’s blanket designs, the ‘Picnic on the Beach blanket’, the tiny string of bunting has also featured in a similar way on one of Eleonora’s previous designs for a Life Ring Wreath.
From my side of things, I have designed a number of amigurumi dolls and other things which I have shared both on this blog and in my Etsy pattern shop so I have created the pattern for the balloons and the birthday cake following the amigurmi technique of crocheting in the round.
Pattern to make the ‘Let’s Celebrate’ balloons Part of the Let’s Celebrate Wreath
By Eleonora Tully & Lindsay Weston
Materials
We used 4-ply yarn, ‘Scheepjes Catona’, as detailed below, but any 4-ply or DK weight yarns, especially cottons, can be used to achieve similar results.
Scheepjes Catona (100% cotton, 50g / 125m), Royal Orange (189), Lemon (280), Emerald Green (515), Powder Blue (384)
2.5mm (US C/2) hook
A small amount of soft toy filling
A stitch marker is useful to mark the first stitch of each round
Tension
Tension is not critical for this project.
Measurements
The finished balloons are approximately 75mm long and 45mm wide.
Pattern notes
The balloons are worked in the round using the amigurumi technique of crochet. It is useful to mark the first stitch of every round with a stitch marker and move it as each round is completed. Once they are all finished, they can be sewn onto the wreath base (the pattern for which can be found at coastalcrochet.com). Please use the photos as a guide for where to position and sew the decorations onto the wreath base.
Abbreviations in UK terms:
ch: chain
dc: double crochet
dc2tog: double crochet 2 stitches together
mc: Magic Circle/Magic Ring
mm: millimetres
rep: repeat
st(s): stitch(es)
To work:
Using a 2.5mm hook and yarn make a MC
Round 1 Work 6dc into the MC. Pull ring tight. (6dc)
Round 2 2dc in every st around. (12dc)
Round 3 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next st) rep around. (18dc)
Round 4 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (20dc)
Round 5 (1dc in next st, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (22dc)
Round 6 (1dc in next 2 sts, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (24dc)
Round 7 (1dc into next 3 sts, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (26dc)
Rounds 8 & 9 1dc in every st around. (26dc)
Round 10 (1dc in next 4 sts, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (28dc)
Rounds 11 & 12 1dc in every st around. (28dc)
Round 13 (1dc in next 4 sts, dc2tog, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (26dc)
Round 14 1dc in every st around. (26dc)
Round 15 (1dc in next 3 sts, dc2tog, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep. (24dc)
Round 16 (1dc in next 4 sts, dc2tog) rep around. (20dc)
Round 17 (1dc in next 3 sts, dc2tog) rep around. (16dc)
Round 18 (1dc in next 2 sts, dc2tog) rep around. (12dc)
At this point, stuff the balloon. Don’t stuff it too firmly though as you want it to be oval rather than round when viewed from the top, so it lies nicely against the wreath when it’s attached.
Round 19 dc2tog around. (6dc)
Round 20 1dc into every st around. (6dc)
Round 21 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next st) rep around. (9dc).
Fasten off with a slst and break yarn. Sew in the end.
Make 4 balloons for the wreath, one in each colour.
Round 3 completeRound 9 completeAbout to begin Round 19
Pattern to make the ‘Let’s Celebrate’ birthday cake
Materials
We used 4-ply yarn, ‘Scheepjes Catona’, as detailed below, but any 4-ply or DK weight yarns, especially cottons, can be used to achieve similar results.
Scheepjes Catona (100% cotton, 50g / 125m), Snow White (106), Hot Red (115), Lemon (280), Powder Blue (384), Camel (502)
2.5mm (US C/2) hook
A small amount of soft toy filling
A stitch marker is useful to mark the first stitch of each round
Pattern notes
The cake is worked in the round using the amigurumi technique of crochet. It is useful to mark the first stitch of every round with a stitch marker and move it as each round is completed. You will need to make all the components of the cake (the top, the base, the candle and the flame before joining the cake top to the cake base).
Once it’s complete, it can be sewn onto the wreath base (the pattern for which can be found at coastalcrochet.com). Please use the photos as a guide for where to position and sew the decorations onto the wreath base.
Abbreviations in UK terms:
BBL: This is a 4tr bobble stitch [yo, insert hook in st, yo, pull up loop, yo, draw through 2 loops on hook] 4 times (you will then have 5 loops on your hook) yo and draw through all the loops on the hook]
blo: blo
ch: chain
dc: double crochet
dc2tog: double crochet 2 stitches together
flo: front loop only
fyo: final yarn over
mc: Magic Circle/Magic Ring
mm: millimetres
rep: repeat
st(s): stitch(es)
yo: yarn over
To make the cake base:
Using 2.5mm hook and Camel yarn, make a MC
Round 1 Work 6dc into the MC. Pull ring tight. (6dc)
Round 2 2dc in every st around. (12dc)
Round 3 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next st) rep around. (18dc)
Round 4 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 2 sts) rep around. (24dc)
Round 5 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 3 sts) rep around. (30dc)
Round 6 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 4 sts) rep around. (36dc)
Round 7 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 5 sts) rep around. (42dc)
Round 8 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 6 sts) rep around. (48dc)
Round 9 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 7 sts) rep around. (54dc)
Round 10 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep around. (60dc)
Round 11 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 9 sts) rep around. (66dc)
Round 12 Working in blo, 1dc in every st around. (66dc)
(From now on the st count for the rounds will remain at 66dc.)
Round 13 1dc in every st around.
Rounds 14 & 15 Rep Round 13 but change to Hot Red in fyo of Round 15
End of Round 11Round 16 in progressCreating the first bobble of cream in Round 17Bobble 1 complete in Round 17Round 17 in progress
Round 16 Working in blo, 1dc in every st around, changing to Snow White in fyo of Round 16.
Round 17 Working in the blo, (1BBL in 1st st, 1ch, miss the next st) rep around (on this occasion slst into the top of the 1st BBL). Change to Camel in fyo of Round 17. (33BBL)
Finishing Round 17Beginning Round 18Round 23 in progressCake base completed at end of Round 27
Round 18 1dc into the top of every BBL & into every 1ch space between the BBLs. (66dc)
Rounds 19 – 24 Rep Rounds 13 to 18.
Rounds 25 – 27 1dc in every st around. Fasten off and break yarn.
To make the cake top:
Making Bobbles in Round 4ARound 4A completed
Using Snow White yarn make a MC
Round 1 Work 6dc into the MC. Pull ring tight. (6dc)
Round 2 2dc in every st around. (12dc)
Round 3 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next st) rep around. (18dc)
Round 4A Working in the flo, (BBL in first st, slst into next st) rep around. (9 BBL)
Working into the blo for Round 4BRound 4B completed
Round 4B Working in the blo, (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 2 sts) rep around. (24dc)
Round 5 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 3 sts) rep around. (30dc)
Round 6 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 4 sts) rep around. (36dc)
Round 7 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 5 sts) rep around. (42dc)
Rounds 8 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 6 sts) rep around. (48dc)
Round 9 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 7 sts) rep around. (54dc)
Round 10 (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 8 sts) rep around. (60dc)
Round 11A Working in the flo, (BBL in first st, slst into next st) rep around. Fasten off and break yarn. (30 BBL)
Round 11B Join Camel yarn and working into the blo, (2dc in 1st st, 1dc in next 9 sts) rep around. (66dc)
Do not break yarn as you will be using it to crochet the top to the base once the candle has been added to the centre of the cake top.
Candle & flameCandle & flame joined and candle stuffedCandle ready to be added to the cake top
To make the candle:
Using Powder Blue yarn, make a MC
Round 1 Work 6dc into the MC. Pull ring tight. (6dc)
Round 2 Working in the blo, (2dc in next st, 1dc in next 2 sts) rep. (8dc)
Rounds 3 – 12 1dc into every st around. Fasten off and break yarn leaving a tail to sew it to the cake top.
To make the candle flame:
Using Lemon yarn, make a MC
Round 1 Work 3dc and 1tr into the MC, then 2ch & slst into the 1st ch to form a picot, work 1tr and 3dc into the MC. Pull the ring tight. Fasten off and break yarn leaving a tail to sew the flame to the top of the candle. (6dc, 2tr & 1 picot).
To assemble the cake:
First of all, sew the flame onto the top of the candle and attach it firmly, weave in the ends of the Lemon yarn. Then stuff the candle firmly with toy filling. This is a bit fiddly but if you have a long thin implement to help force the stuffing in that is helpful (a chopstick is great for this purpose!).
Once the candle is stuffed firmly, sew it securely to the centre of the cake top. Once it is securely in place, it’s time to attach the cake top to the cake base. This can be done by sewing it together, but I prefer to crochet it on working through both the edge of the cake top and top the last round of the cake base, as it’s really neat.
Candle stuffed and attached to cake topCrocheting the cake top onto the cake base (wrong sides together)Finishing the join
Take the cake base and the cake top wrong sides together and put the hook through the first st of Round 11B on the cake top and then one of the sts of the final round on the cake base and work 1dc into it. Then proceed to make 1dc into every st around working through both the cake top and the cake base. Once you are two thirds of the way round, this is a good time to stop and fill the cake with toy filling. You don’t want to over stuff it as that will result in a rounded bottom to your cake, but you need enough stuffing for it to hold its shape. You can always add a bit more just before you close the hole, so if you are usure, carry on crocheting the top onto the base and stop when you still have a few stitches to go and you can still decide to add a bit more filling.
When you are happy with the shape and size of the cake and you have completed the join, fasten off and break your yarn, weaving in the end. Your cake is now complete and ready to be sewn onto your ‘Let’s Celebrate Wreath’!
Once you have completed your cake, balloons and bunting, pin them onto your wreath base. When you are happy with the position of the different elements, sew them firmly in place.
We really hope you enjoy making it and that it brings many years of enjoyment to your home!
The latest episode of the Making Stitches Podcast features a chat between myself and Eleonora about this project and how we have become friends over the past 10 years thanks to our blogs. You can find a link to the episode show notes here.
Isn’t this photo Eleonora has taken beside the sea of our Let’s Celebrate wreath stunning?
If you make a Let’s Celebrate wreath and share it on social media, please tag myself @making_stitches_blog and Eleonora @coastalcrochet in your posts so we can both see yours!
Thank you so much for your interest in our crochet collaboration, I really hope you enjoy making a Let’s Celebrate wreath that you and your loved ones can enjoy for many years to come!
Blimey – that was a quick week. Week one if my Summer Craft Challenge 2025 is done!
I have to say I have been thrilled to be joined by so many other crafters so far this time – some are joining everyday, others just now and then. There is absolutely no pressure to post something everyday, but if you feel inspired to do something creative after reading this, please join in! Here’s a little look back at my creative week number 1!
I had enough time today to actually make a full trio of matching hearts for the appeal – the staff on the ambulances need three matching hearts for each family, so this is my first full set done!
Day 3 : Monday 21st July
Now this was fun, a new make for a very special collaboration I am working on with Eleonora from Coastal Crochet. I won’t say any more for now, but I am very much looking forward to sharing it with you very soon…
Day 4 : Tuesday 22nd July
Super busy day for me both at work and at home in the evening meant there was very little time for crochet, but I did plan ahead and take my hook into work with me and managed a quick five minutes during my lunch break!
Day 5 : Wednesday 23rd July
Another frantically busy day meant not much time for fun things after work, cutting the lawn, food shopping, washing, ironing and packing to go on holiday, but it was all worth it because….
Day 6 : Thursday 24th July
….after a very long drive and ride on a ferry, we arrived at our home for the next week, in Scotland! Hurrah! Check that view out for a backdrop to my sock knitting!
Day 7 : Friday 25th July
I’ve been saving up this embroidery project to bring with me on holiday. I bought it a few months back from Hello Hooray Blog with the intention of bringing it away on holiday with me. It’s perfect, it’s small, portable and has everything I need inside and I LOVE the colours! I can’t put it down… just one more diamond….
Not only did I manage to do some embroidery on Friday, I also managed a bit of crochet on the side of the shinty pitch while my boys had a kick around!
Thank you to everyone who has joined in with the Summer Craft Challenge 2025 so far – I have loved seeing your creations appearing online. Here are just a few of the brilliant snapshots of creativity which have been shared under the #SummerCraftChallenge2025 hashtag this week!
Thank you all for being good sports and joining in! Have a lovely weekend!
Hello there! In our household, school finished for the year yesterday (for one of my boys) and so that means, today is the first day of my Summer Craft Challenge for 2025!
In case you haven’t come across one of my Summer Craft Challenges before, it first started way back on 9th July 2016. At the time, I was living in Gibraltar with my family. I was a full-time stay-at-home Mum, I had 3 young men in my life (aged 12, 8 and 4 at that time) and I was staring down the barrel of a 10-week-long school summer break.
Having lived in Gibraltar for 7 years by then, I was well used to the chaos of the long summer break. I would often find myself at home, parenting alone for long stretches due to my former husband’s work schedule and frequent trips away. It was hard work.
Being creative is amazingly important to me for supporting my mood. If I go for too long without making something – I get grumpy!
So, back in 2016 I challenged myself to do something crafty every day of that 10-week-long holiday (even if it was only for 5 minutes), take a photo of myself doing it and post it to Instagram to keep me accountable and it worked! Not only did I feel better but I had a nice crafty photo diary of my summer!
(This was my first ever Summer Craft Challenge Photo – taken on 9th July 2016 in our back patio as we enjoyed a start of the summer holiday barbecue).
My Summer Craft Challenge wasn’t just for days when we were at home, my projects came away with us on family holidays including in 2016 when we visited the Norfolk Broads!
Always having a project with me wherever I was during the summer holidays meant that sometimes I just found myself in the perfect situation to take a photo of what I was working on including when I took my Little Box of Crochet project (designed by Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet) away with me to finish on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk in 2018.
It has come on planes with me – along with my mascot for the summer of 2017 – Europa the Unicorn, who accompanied the family to England, France, Italy & Portugal that year – much to the embarrassment of my boys! (I made Europa on the first day of my Summer Craft Challenge 2017 using a kit from Simply Crochet Magazine).
I continued working on that shawl while escaping the heat of the midday sun in Carcasonne in Southern France in 2017.
My crochet also joined me on the beach in Portugal! (2017)
Not all of my summer making has been in such exotic locations though, I’ve done sock knitting between rain showers at the top of a hill in the West of Scotland! (2022)
Oh the glamour of knitting on a wet and windy Scottish hillside… I enjoyed it so much the last time, I did it again last year!
I love my Summer Craft Challenge, even though life is so different now to how it was when I first started, we are now a family of 4, my boys are 21, 17 & 13 and I work now too, so my time is a lot more limited than it once was. However, doing this reminds me of lovely summer memories of days gone by and it still helps keep me on an even keel with the juggle of work, family and everything else.
The best thing about the Summer Craft Challenge though is when others join in. Each year, the number of people joining in has grown and grown and that’s so lovely. If you want to join, please do – you don’t need to commit to doing it every day (sometimes I can’t manage it these days) but you are very welcome to dip in and out at any time. If you share a photo of your current project online, please use the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2025 so everyone can see what you’ve been up to! Please do give it a go – the more the merrier!
I’ll be sharing my photos daily on Instagram and writing a weekly blog post looking back at what I’ve been up to as well. I can’t wait to see what you get up to yourself though!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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!
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!
It’s 25th October, so that means it’s 2 months to go to Christmas! Apologies for using the C-word so soon but there is a very good reason for it….
Earlier this year, I started a new job. It was working for FareShare Greater Manchester an organisation which rescues tonnes of good-to-eat food from going to waste and then redistributes it to over 200 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester who are feeding those who need it most. It’s a truly amazing place filled with amazing people. You may have heard about it back in the pandemic when Manchester United footballer, Marcus Rashford came along to help the operation here with his Mum.
Last year, FareShare Greater Manchester rescued almost 2,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food from going to waste with the help of more than 21,000 volunteer hours given by our amazing team of volunteer supporters. That food went to more than 300 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester, into parts of Derbyshire and Cheshire too and was the equivalent of 4.6 million meals which would have gone to landfill or some other form of waste management.
At a time when an increasing number of people are facing the difficult choice of whether to spend money on heating their homes or feeding themselves and their families, this work is needed more than ever.
I was so inspired by the things I see and hear about at work each day, that I wanted to do something special myself to help support that vital work, so I picked up my hook and yarn. I decided I had to make something food related and started thinking about Christmas food in particular. First I crocheted a sprout and perfected a design for it, then some pigs in blankets and before I knew it I had a whole crocheted Christmas dinner.
I then thought about what would be the classic Christmas decoration, and settled on a wreath. A wreath cover was made, the Christmas dinner was added and hey presto, the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath was born.
The next dilemma was how would I be able to make money for FareShare Greater Manchester with this wreath? It would take too long for me to make wreaths to sell, but I could sell the pattern and send the money raised from that to support the FareShare operation. So that is what I have done.
Supported very kindly by Jane Czaja, who has tech edited the pattern, and with the full support of FareShare Greater Manchester, I have launched the new pattern on sale in my Etsy shop today.
I would be so very grateful if you would help me spread the word about the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath on your social media channels and tell all your crocheting friends about it. I would, of course absolutely love it too if you would buy a copy of the pattern and make a wreath(s) yourself!
Thank you so much for your time and for your support in this, I look forward to seeing how much we can raise for FareShare Greater Manchester together!
Hello there! True to form, here’s my look back at May coming to you in the middle of June! One day I may be organised enough to get one of these to you at the start of the month…
Goodbye Diamond
Diamond
Unfortunately, last month, we said goodbye to our lovely little fluff ball, Diamond. Diamond was our house bunny, he came to live with us in Gibraltar, where it was too hot for him to live outside and there was danger from the local residents too (Barbary macaques).
He was the third of our bunnies, first of all there was Bunny Postcard aka Russelina (caramel & white fluff ball), then came Snowflake (who we rescued after seeing her being abandoned in the Alameda Gardens in Gibraltar).
Russelina (left & bottom) and Snowflake (top right)
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us when we rescued Snowflake, she had a virus which infected Russelina, which ultimately led to the demise of both bunnies.
Diamond came into our lives shortly afterwards and he stayed with us until last month, he even traveled by road from Gibraltar to Manchester with a special pet courier when we moved house!
We’ll miss our fluff ball.
Amigurumay
It was the annual Amigurumay celebration over on Instagram last month run by Ilaria Caliri. It was a fun excuse to take a look back in the Making Stitches/Postcard from Gibraltar archives for suitable photos to include. It was nice to see this pair again – Rocksy & Gib, my Gibraltar apes.
A new garden project
At the start of the month I set to work on a project I’ve been wanting to do since we first moved into our home. The front garden is totally filled with pebbles and is effectively a car park. Since we arrived I had planted the privet hedge you can see, but I wanted more greenery.
Monty Don inspired me in an episode of Gardeners World when he mentioned about steel edging for lawns. I thought, that’ll do for my new flower bed. I found some online and ordered it. With a lot of help from my lovely Dad, we made a flower bed….
Then, once it was filled with peat free compost, came the fun part – filling it with plants!
Ta-dah! The photo below was actually taken one week into June (so I’m cheating here in May’s postcard) but here it is now. I’m thrilled with it, it’s got a white theme. There’s a magnolia, hydrangea, astilbe & jasmine along with white Japanese Anemones, geranium Alba & a couple of white bedding plants. I hope to add more white flowering plants in time, but for now that’s it and I’m really happy with it!
Take That!!
Well I didn’t expect to be telling you about this, but I got the chance to see Take That in concert in May too! It was a last minute thing- some of the Mums from Youngest’s football team were going, but one was ill and asked if I’d like to go in her place (this was 24 hours before the show!). I didn’t need asking twice – they were amazing.
I’d seen them once before, many moons ago when they came to the Gibraltar Music Festival and did a half hour set, but this was something else! A fantastic night of dancing and memories!
On my hook
Mini Dan
I have been working on some top secret crochet commissions lately which I can’t share sadly, but I also made this little chap. This is mini Dan. Big Dan was in my year at school and he turned 50 last month. He plays bass guitar in a fab band which does covers of songs from our youth and this is the kind of outfit he wears when he performs. (I believe Dan’s daughters loved mini Dan!).
Dan had a fab birthday party, the band played and folk got up to sing – it was a brilliant and sober night for me as I had a big run the next day – see 👇 below:
The Great Manchester 10K Run
On 26th May, it was the day of reckoning. After months of training I put my trainers on and headed into Manchester for the Great Manchester Run 10K. It was an amazing experince – so many hundreds and hundreds of runners set off in staggered stages.
This was my vantage point in the ‘pink’ stage. The atmosphere was terrific. There was a light rain to start which was fine, but as we set off, the rain stopped and the sun came out and it got really quite hot.
The heat made the run a lot harder than I expected, but I did what I set out to achieve, which was to run without stopping at all. I did it in 1 hour 11 minutes. I have no idea if that’s a good time or not but I’ll take it as a win!
I have a medal to prove I did it! Not sure I’ll run that far again but I can now say I’ve done a 10K at the age of 50!
Thank you to everyone who sponsored me, together we raised £440 for the Jo Cox Foundation which I’m really chuffed with – thank you x
Making Stitches Podcast is back for a new series!
I was thrilled to be able to bring Making Stitches Podcast back for its eight series last month – I kicked off the new series with an episode delving into the podcast’s archives from the past 4 years it has been going. The topic was being creative for mental health and featured excerpts from chats I’d had with Lisa & Lynda-Rose from the Crochet Santuary, Emma Jones from the Vintage Sewing Box, textile artist Matthew Downham, former BBC Europe correspondent and now maker extraordinaire Mary Jane Baxter, Peace Campaigner and knitter, Figen Murray and Clinical Psychologist, Dr Mia Hobbs. You can listen through the player below or by searching for Making Stitches on your favourite podcast app.
Hello there, blimey we’re on day 10 of April already, I genuinely don’t know where the time has gone! Well I kind of do, I’ve just started a new job, so that has filled my time somewhat and my brain too for that matter, but for now, here’s a little look back at March in my world!
Belinda Bunny
Last month I launched another new pattern in my shop, in time for Easter, Belinda Bunny made an appearance. Inspired by our very own little Diamond bunny (as you can see) bunnies aren’t just for Easter….
White bunnies were clearly the flavour of the month in March as when I spent a wonderful day at the Crochet Sanctuary last month, this bunny wreath was one of the projects we made! The wreath is sitting on an, as yet, still unfinished cowl.
I had a really lovely day just sitting, chatting and crocheting – I feel like I’d been away on a holiday rather than just a few hours!
Holiday
Speaking of holidays… I got on a plane last month for a fabulous break in Spain.
Along with 4 lovely friends from my University days, we had a joint celebration of our 50th birthdays (no, that can’t be right surely?!). The sister of one of my friends has a house in Spain which she offered for us to use for our 4-night-long getaway. It was amazing!
Sadly the weather wasn’t great, but we didn’t go for the sun, we went to spend some time with each other. What with family commitments and work, it had been nearly 30 years since we’d spent that long together. Apart from being in bed no later than 1am and having a beautiful clean tidy house with lots of nutrious food – it was just like being back in our student flat!
Isn’t it wonderful when you have friends who know you so well that you can just pick up from where you left off no matter how long ago it was the last time you saw each other? I feel truly blessed to have them in my corner.
I wanted to give them all something to mark this momentous occasion, but couldn’t think what was suitable to buy – after drawing a blank I opted for making them each a little ‘Keele girl’ (we met at Keele University). I surreptitiously asked them all what colour swimming costume they were bringing with them and made them a coordinating mini costume. I based the pattern on the Crochet Iconic Women book by Carla Mitrani (I thought that was rather appropriate seeing as I think they’re all pretty iconic in my book).
We had lots of fun taking the mini crocheted girls out and about with us…
To the beachTo the poolOut for tapasEven a night on the tiles!
We had a right giggle – it was an amazing break.
Out & About
Bridgewater Canal at Lymm
Easter school holidays meant the need to get out and about in fresh air to get the young men in my life off devices and, for one, away from GCSE revision for a while and we had a few nice walks. This one was along the Bridgewater Canal towpath in Lymm. The weather in Cheshire was better than in Spain to be fair!!
Lymm Cross
Podcast News
The latest series of Making Stitches podcast has come to an end with a lovely chat I had with Heather of KCACOUK (Keep Calm & Crochet on UK). We met in person at last year’s March Crochet Sanctuary and talked about recording an interview- it took almost a year to achieve it!
Heather Gibbs
You can listen to the podcast here if you missed it:
Hopefully the next series of Making Stitches won’t be too long in the making!
Keep on Running!
I have mentioned in my monthly postcards before that I’ve been doing a bit of running lately, and that I was thinking of signing myself up for a 10K. As I was approaching the age of 50, I decided that if I was ever going to achieve a 10K, it was probably a good idea not to out it off for too much longer. I gave myself a talking to as I remembered having the same one way conversation as I hit 40, but didn’t achieve that goal.
It’s now official, I am signed up to run the 10K race on the day of the Great Manchester Run on 26th May. I’ve been training since before Christmas and once I managed to run 7K last week, I thought it was safe to go public and tell people.
I’m not sure I’ll be repeating the feat, so thought I’d better make it a worthwhile venture and have opted to raise funds for the Jo Cox Foundation. Last year, I did some work for them and I wanted to thank them for putting their faith in me, as well as helping them going forward with the amazing work they do to help build community relationships, supporting civility in public life and generally continuing the work started by Jo Cox.
For those of you who don’t know who Jo was, she was a wife, mother, MP (Member of Parliament) and humanitarian who was murdered while she was working in her constituency of Batley & Spen in West Yorkshire in 2016. Had Jo still been alive, like my friends and I, she would be celebrating her 50th birthday this year, so this seemed very appropriate.
A view across our local golf course while on a sunny run!
Also in March, I managed to get a job! I’m thrilled and started the new position this week. It does mean I have a bit less time for podcasting etc, but I can pay the bills which always helps!!
And that is just about it for this month, sorry it was a few days late! It was a long one too, so if you made it to the end, thank you!
Until next time, take care, and thanks for stopping by!
Hello there! It’s the 1st of March – the first day of meteorological spring – how lovely! The days are slowly getting longer and that always puts a spring in my step. I hope this finds you well and that the past month has been kind to you. Here’s a little look back at what happened in my world in February.
A lovely gift to start the month
I started (and ended) the month as a ‘lady of leisure’ in other words I don’t have a job as such at the moment (other than freelance bits and bobs). I have to admit that at times I have found it a struggle. It’s not for the want of applying for jobs, I have spent a lot of time over the past couple of months filling in application forms, writing cover letters etc, but as yet, they haven’t borne fruit. I’m not sure whether it’s the state of the job market at the minute, the fact I’m not as young as I used to be or what, but as I write, I’m still looking.
On a positive note though, I did get a lovely parcel through the post, the yarn bowl pictured above was a gift from my former colleagues at my last place of work – they knew me well clearly! It has seen two projects completed using it (both of which are commissions I can’t share sadly) and is now home to my current make, which hopefully I will be able to share with you pretty soon.
My former colleagues were a really lovely bunch and I miss them but I can think of them whenever I’m using this yarn bowl.
I also had a go at making a stripy rainbow heart using my free pattern here. This was fun to make and I have one hanging in the room I do most of my crochet – it makes me smile especially on grey wet days!
A half term trip to London
Tower Bridge
The school half term holidays fell last month and we made a trip down to London to visit Eldest. He’s studying there at University and it was the perfect opportunity for Son Number 2 to see what University accommodation is like as it won’t be terribly long before he’s thinking about such things – eek!
It was a really lovely day – and super to be able to give Eldest a squeeze too. We ended the day looking around the area where he’ll be moving to for the next academic year – how are we talking about such things already? Time is galloping on!
Sunset in Islington
A sunny walk
Just 2 weeks after visiting him in London, Eldest had a reading week and made the trip up north to visit me and his brothers. We were very lucky to have some bright winter sunshine briefly so we dashed out for a walk before the next lot of rain came!
We had a lovely walk along part of the Trans Pennine Trail at Lymm in Cheshire. It was pretty busy as lots of other folk were making the most of the nice weather. After walking the trail for a while, we doubled back and went into Lymm itself. There’s a chippy there which does really rather fantastic chips which taste delicious with a slosh of vinegar, a sprinkling of salt and eaten out in the fresh air!
The Bridgewater Canal at Lymm
Sock darning
While Eldest was visiting, I darned a pair of his favourite socks for him. I mentioned it to my Mum and said I’d struggled to get the right colour of yarn and that his burgundy socks now had bright red toes! A day or so later, I received a package filled with sock yarn (some of which is specifically for darning) and my great grandma’s darning mushroom! Never again will I have to struggle and keep jabbing my fingers with the needle – and as long as future socks are grey or blue I should be sorted!
If only that mushroom to could speak and tell about all the socks which had been darned with its help. I shall treasure it, and am thrilled to be custodian of this family heirloom now.
In the long run
I started running (off and on) a few years ago. I did the Couch to 5K which is a miracle considering I was always vying for last place in school cross country races. I wasn’t built for speed! Once I’d got over the initial breathlessness and built up a bit of stamina, I was rather pleased with my progress and from time to time I start running again for a while.
I spotted these snow drops (above) when I was on a run early in February around the time I was considering upping my game a bit. You may be aware I celebrated a milestone birthday last month, and I wondered whether this was the year I should attempt a ‘real’ run. Now by real, I don’t mean a marathon or anything daft like that, more like a 10K.
I’ve thought about trying one, probably for 10 years, and I’m not getting any younger, so now is probably the time I need to stop procrastinating and give it a whirl. The picture below was taken of the picturesque Manchester Ship Canal at the end of my first proper training run – I managed to run for 10 minutes four times – which I impressed myself with.
I shall keep you posted on my progress and let you know if this is indeed the year for a 10K attempt. Watch this space!
10K training
Podcast news
Cathy Wright from Lazykate Textiles
I’m pleased to say that Making Stitches Podcast made a return last month after a longer than expected Christmas break. My first guest was Cathy Wright from Lazykate Textiles who spoke about her passion for spinning and weaving. You can catch her episode here.
That’s all for this month’s round up. Let’s hope March brings us more blue skies and good times ahead.
Thanks so much for stopping by! See you again soon.
