I hope you had a peaceful and happy Chtistmas time. I’ve been a bit quiet on here lately owning to being very busy. I am hoping to be around here a little more often in future if life allows!
I’m looking forward to sharing some posts about the last few months including a fabulous visit back to Gibraltar in autumn in the coming weeks all being well.
Gibraltar in October 2025
Before then though, I wanted to let you know about a very special Making Stitches Podcast episode which is out tomorrow – Episode 100!
Before then though, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read my posts, sent me comments and messages, listened to my podcast and joined in with the Making Stitches 2025 CAL this year. You have made it a very special one for me as I celebrated 10 years of this blog (previous Postcard from Gibraltar) and now Making Stitches.
Hello there, how are we at 14th July already? Almost at the midpoint of the month! I hope it’s been a good one for you – it’s been a decidedly warm one for us, with temperatures in the 30s (which for those of you in hotter climes probably doesn’t sound too hot but we felt it was!).
Last month was a rather special one for me in my blogging life, this little blog celebrated its 10th birthday. Never in all my imagination did I think, it would still be going after all this time when I first started out. I can vividly remember going out for a walk one evening (about a decade ago) along the winding streets and passages of Gibraltar taking photos of bougainvillea to illustrate one of my earlier blog posts and thinking, ‘is there anyone out there who will want to read this?’. I’m thrilled to say there was, and I’m still here knocking out posts (a little less frequently these days due to work commitments) and you’re still out there reading them! Thank you!
That bougainvillea from 10 years ago!
Anyway, here’s a quick look back at June in my world:
International Stitch Day
What a way to kick off the month, and what an amazingly on-brand event for Making Stitches! I was thrilled to be able to attend International Stitch Day on 1st June at the opening of Woven in Kirklees Festival in West Yorkshire. It was a brilliant day hosted at Oakwell Hall in Birstall. There were stalls, workshops (including one I had a play at), lots of interesting things to look at, and the most amazing thing I have experienced this year so far, the Red Dress was on display in the old hall itself.
I have been aware of the Red Dress for quite a while now through social media and blog posts I have read, but to be able to witness it myself in real life was quite something. As I arrived early at the start of the event, I was able to go and have a look once the initial flurry of visitors had been in and at one brief point, I was the only person in the room (apart from the staff standing discretely at the back). The atmosphere was amazing and I felt truly privileged to witness it for myself.
To see the intricate stitching and the countless hours of work by 380 different embroiderers, both professional and amateur, and to learn about some of the stories of the people who have stitched onto the dress was just amazing. After seeing it for myself, I was able to go and hear the ‘creator’ of the dress, Kirstie Macleod, give a talk about how the project had come about and a snapshot of some of her adventures as she has traveled around the world with it. It’s just mindblowing how big this project was and the complexity of the logistics involved.
I was delighted to be able to sit down briefly with Kirstie after her talk to record a short chat for a future episode of Making Stitches Podcast and I’m thrilled to say that she agreed to a longer chat with me for a special ‘Red Dress’ episode which will be out in autumn.
A weekend away
Unfortunately one of us had to take the picture – but there were 5 of us!
I was so lucky in June to experience not one, but two brilliant weekends – first came Woven and next came a weekend away with four very special ladies who I have known since University days (one even since primary school!)
One of them lives in the Lake District and we have been trying to arrange for us all to spend a weekend together at her house for years. Each time we thought we had a date in the diary, something would come up and we were determined to do it with us all there. Persistence paid off and we had the most amazing couple of days reconnecting, walking, eating and drinking.
True old friends are just the best. They hold you up in the worst of times, share the best of times and, no matter how long passes between your meetings, when you are back together it’s as if you were never apart.
I feel truly blessed to have them in my life.
10 years of this blog
Back in June 2015, after years of reading other people’s blogs, I decided to have a go myself. I thought the chances of anyone reading it were slim, but I thought I could use it as a kind of diary to record our life as a family living in Gibraltar. In its first iteration as Postcard from Gibraltar, it really surprised me – I found people around the world all reading it and sending me lovely messages.
In the intervening years, our family has changed, has moved back to the UK, I’ve gone from being a full-time stay at home Mum to a working Mum Postcard from Gibraltar morphed into Making Stitches and the Making Stitches Podcast was born too! If you missed my post about the anniversary, you can find it here.
First strawb of the year!
I don’t know what happened to my strawberry plants over the winter – but I went from having about six containers full last year to just having three weedy looking specimens. My parents felt sorry for me and sent me over a new container filled with healthy plants and this was my first strawb. I am giving the new pot a lot of attention – especially during this very hot and dry weather so that it survives beyond the first month in my possession!
Soccer Aid
Honestly, trips to Old Trafford are like buses, you wait for years to go and then get two trips straight after each other! After going to the last match of the season for Manchester United in May, I went back with my Dad and Youngest to watch Soccer Aid on Father’s Day.
It was a great evening’s entertainment and really quite funny at times. There was even a musical interlude at half time which included a grand piano on the centre circle!
Making Stitches 2025 CAL : June
Summer Solstice SquareBonus Birthday Square
June saw not one, but two new squares for the Making Stitches 2025 CAL. The main reason for me doing this CAL this year is because of the special anniversary, so it seemed appropriate to mark the occasion with a bonus square in addition to this month’s main square. The Summer Solstice square was launched on 1st June and the Bonus Birthday square pattern was released on my blogiversary.
There was just one episode of Making Stitches Podcast released in June as series 9 drew to a close ahead of the summer break. My guest this time was Micah Clasper-Torch a punch needle designer who has taught thousands of people the craft through her online platform. She has a new book out and is hoping to reach an even wider audience through her wearable punch needle designs. You can listen to the episode with Micah here.
Before I go…
This Postcard is almost at an end but before I head off, just a couple more things…. I have been so busy with crochet designs and recording new episodes for the next series of Making Stitches Podcast that I am well and truly ready to have a bit of a breather as life shifts down a gear and we hit the soon-to-be-upon-us school summer holidays.
Before the holidays hit though, I am looking forward to sharing a bit of lovely news with you very soon. Keep your eyes pealed for that please – because I am going to need your help with something very special and worthwhile.
Also, when my boys break up for their school summer holidays I will be launching my Summer Craft Challenge 2025 when I do something creative every day during the school summer holidays. I would love it if you would join in too! I love doing it each year and carving out a little bit of time each day to do something creative (it’s a real sanity saver amongst the chaos). As one of my boys finished for the summer on Friday this week, so I am going to be starting day one on Saturday (19th July) and posting a social media post each day to share what I have done, which will keep me focused on maintaining the challenge.
The thing about a Summer Craft Challenges is that it’s always better when you’re not the only one doing it. So… please do join in and share your makes this summer on social media with the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2025 so I can see what other creativity is going on – just like the Making Stitches 2025 CAL – it’s better with friends and it would be great to build a Summer Craft Challenge community!
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!
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.
The Rock of Gibraltar painted by me at one of my watercolour lessons
Way back in the summer of 2015, I set off on a blogging adventure. Inspired by the likes of Lucy at Attic24 and several other craft bloggers, I decided that I would have a go at sharing a few snap shots of my life on the Rock. At the time, I had a the unique selling point that I was based in Gibraltar, and at that time, there were no other craft bloggers active on the Rock. I thought that even if no one was interested in what I was making, at least I could share beautiful photos of my sunny surroundings way down in the south of Europe.
The Upper Rock Nature Reserve
I felt compelled to share some of the quirks and beauty of where I was living at the time – a much misunderstood place from the outside. There is so much more to Gibraltar than the day trips from cruise ships and bus tours from along the Costa would have you believe. There’s much more than red phone boxes and fish & chips, British bobbies and Marks and Spencer in the sun. It’s home to a diverse group of people with origins from far and wide, the fortunate byproduct of it’s geographical location at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsular and just a short distance across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco and the African continent beyond.
The Europa Point lighthouse with the Strait of Gibraltar beyond
Soon I began sharing a series of blog posts called ‘A stroll around Gibraltar’ as I took my camera and later my phone along on walks around the narrow streets and back alleys of Upper Town and into the Nature Reserve of the Upper Rock – in fact my post about the ‘facts and figures of the Med Steps’ remains my most read post to date. I posted more than 200 Sunday Sevens posts and hosted a Friday Photo Challenge on Instagram one year as well.
The view northwards from part way up the Med Steps
I also used Postcard from Gibraltar to share what I was making, from the dressmaking and watercolour classes which I was able to attend once all three Little Postcards (my three sons) were old enough to all go to school, as well as a number of community crochet projects I joined in with from Yarndale worldwide appeals for crocheted bunting and mandalas to Eleonora from Coastal Crochet‘s Seaside Stashbusting blanket and Changing Tides blanket crochet-alongs.
My Seaside Stashbusting blanket inspired by Sandy Bay in Gibraltar
As our family went on trips around the place I would blog about our travels in my ‘A Postcard from…’ posts which included Rome, The Algarve, Carcassonne, and skiing in the Dolomites, as well as UK destinations like Manchester, Cheshire, and Suffolk.
A few photos from one of our holidays in Suffolk as I worked on an Eleonora Tully design from Little Box of Crochet for that year’s Summer Craft Challenge
Postcard from Gibraltar also opened doors for me and I began writing for an online parenting magazine in Gibraltar which now no longer exists sadly, I also got articles published in print for the Calentita! Gibraltarian food festival magazine. In short, Postcard from Gibraltar gave me the confidence to venture back out of my domestic set-up after many years being a stay-at-home Mum.
My Attic24 cosy stripe blanket at Europa Point
In 2020, along with everything else which was happening in the world, close to home for us, change was afoot. We found ourselves moving back to the UK after 11 very happy years in Gibraltar. It was a big adjustment, which wasn’t made any easier by the pandemic, but we survived! At the time, I wondered whether I should continue with Postcard from Gibraltar as it would no longer be ‘from Gibraltar’. I had begun my new podcast project ‘Making Stitches Podcast’ by then, and whilst it brought me very welcome creative distraction – especially during lockdown, I felt I would miss Postcard too much if I just finished it, so I kept it going in a slightly less regular, less sunny and blue skies kind of a way!
I may be in the north of England now but we do still get occasional blue skies! (Photo taken at Dunham Massey this week)
More than 2 years on from our move though, I think the time is right to say goodbye to Postcard from Gibraltar. I won’t be saying goodbye to it completely though. This blog and all of the previous posts will still be available to read and if you should search for Postcard from Gibraltar online, it will still lead you here. Postcard from Gibraltar is evolving, just as I have, and from now on, will be known as Making Stitches.
It felt right to adapt what I’m already doing to compliment what I have been working on with Making Stitches Podcast. In the last two years, that has gone from strength to strength and is now in it’s 6th Series with more than 50 episodes featuring interviews with creative people from many different disciplines including crochet and knitting (including my old friend Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet), dressmaking, embroidery, textile art, weaving, yarn dying and more. In addition to this, I have made a foray into crochet design myself with the launch of my amigurumi crochet patterns. My life has changed quite a bit from what I was doing back in Gibraltar and it’s time this blog caught up with me.
Looking south towards the Rock – photo taken on Alcaidesa beach
I will still post my monthly Postcards (because I would miss writing them too much) although I can’t guarantee I’ll be any more prompt with posting them (!) and I’m pretty sure I will have another go at a Summer Craft Challenge again next year, so in a way nothing has changed, just the name.
View of Gibraltar from La Linea
Thank you to everyone who has read my posts, liked them or commented through the years and a special thank you to those of you who have become friends through this medium too. Your support, although virtual, has been very much appreciated over the years and it’s that which has kept me going. Who knows what lies ahead?
Hello there! I hope you’re doing ok. I kept meaning to post my postcard from January throughout the beginning of February but there seemed to be so many other things which needed my attention, so I was rubbish and let things slide. We are now on the cusp of another month though, and I’ve decided that it’s time to take the bull by the horns and stop procrastinating. So here you go, two for the price of one, a postcard from January AND February rolled into one.
I deliberated about whether I should even post at all, there is so much going on in the world at the moment that things like this seem very frivolous, but I think it’s important to keep going, as burying my head in the sand and veering between trying to block the outside world out and being glued to the news updates and fretting about the helplessness I feel about the plight of so many innocent people isn’t actually helping anyone. I thought it better to try to put some sunshine and positivity out into the world, so here goes, and if you have been affected by the terrible actions taken against Ukraine, please know that you are very much in my thoughts.
A New Year and a continued fitness quest…
A view from one of my January runs
Back in November I began my quest to get my weight down to a healthy number and get a bit fitter and began the Couch to 5K programme for the third time in the last couple of years. This time though, I managed to see it through. I am now over a stone lighter and I managed to complete the whole Couch to 5K programme. Not only that, I’ve kept going and am now running just over 5K in 35 minutes. I don’t want to sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet too much or that I’m building myself up for a fall, but I’m really rather proud of how far I have come.
I haven’t found the process too arduous and in fact have quite enjoyed getting out and pounding the streets and enjoying the beauty of sunshine and nature on my way around the neighbourhood. Who knows where it might lead me?
My couch to 5k graduation!
A New Year and a new hedge
The terrible plastic ‘hedge’
You might remember last year that I said goodbye to our old ‘fake’ plastic hedge which we inherited when we moved into our home the year before. Well, the intention was always to replace it with something else, of a more natural variety. It took me a while to decide what to do for the best, but in December I realised that winter was the perfect time to plant a hedge, so I did my research and ordered my new privet hedge which arrived early in January. Then came the hard work…
Our front garden is more of a carpark than a garden, we inherited an area covered in small stones which lie on top of black weed suppressing fabric. After a lot of scraping away of stones, and the lifting of not one, but two layers of fabric which had several inches of compacted dirt between them I was ready to dig the holes ready for the baby hedge plants.
It was quite a job. Fortunately the weather was favourable – it was cold, but the ground wasn’t frozen, and it stayed dry for most of the two days it took for me to plant these 22 specimens. Plus my very helpful neighbour offered me the use of this rather nifty device (on the right of the picture below) for digging holes.
They are in, and I’m really chuffed that I managed to do this – single-handedly! How many years it will be before it’s an actual hedge is anyone’s guess but it’s a vast improvement on what we had before! My next project is a flower bed out front, but I may wait a while before beginning that.
A lovely walk and coffee by the river
River Mersey
In the middle of January, the weather was being very kind to us indeed, so a really good friend and I decided to leave the jobs which needed doing one afternoon and put our muddy hiking boots on for a wander along the River Mersey and a coffee at the Riverside Café. It was such fun, and just what we both needed to have a chat and mull over stuff which was going on before heading back home in time for the school run.
Getting the garden kickstarted
Who needs a potting shed when you have a wheelie bin lid?!
I so enjoyed having sweet peas in my back garden last summer, so decided to have a go at planting them again. I had quite a few seeds left over from last year’s attempts so I went ahead and planted them up in loo rolls again like last year. Fingers crossed this year’s crop will be as successful!
Some of last year’s sweet peas
A Sunday walk
I don’t know if it’s because of memories of lockdown and being restricted on where we can go, but I often find that it’s suddenly Sunday afternoon and apart from going to Littlest’s football match and perhaps the shops, our weekends are passing without heading out of the house as a family. I decided to change that and am trying to get us out and about if the weather & teenagers allow!
Fortunately, the lovely National Trust property; Dunham Massey is a short drive from our home and once the youths are corralled into the car, we can be in amongst the deer within half an hour. As long as there’s the promise of ice cream or hot chocolate involved in the outing, it’s generally a goer!
Another WIP begun…
Back in September last year, you may remember that I made the trip across the Pennines to the Yarndale festival in Skipton – it was a truly amazing day which you can read about here. While I was there I bought some lovely hand dyed yarn from Michelle at Woolly Wumpkins. I’ve been debating what to make with it; another pair of hand-knitted socks? A bobble hat? I settled on a shawl/scarf as that is the item of woolly clothing I wear most of all.
Unlike in my previous experience of winding a skein, this time it was a painless experience (perhaps because It hadn’t been sitting in my stash for years first) and I got to work on this pattern for a one skein crochet shawl which I bought from Annie Design on Etsy. I’m rather happy with the colours and look forward to enjoying wearing it when I eventually finish it. I have a feeling it will be something I dip in and out of while working on other things.
Llanita’s Travels continue…
Llanita in Catalan Bay in the summer of 2016
Long time readers of Postcard from Gibraltar may remember my little friend Llanita the Yarndale Sheep. I made her back in 2016 for that year’s Yarndale charity appeal. You can read all about Llanita’s adventures with me here.
Can you spot Llanita in Karen’s sewing room?
Well when Llanita arrived at Yarndale back in 2016, she was bought by Karen (aka WakeyMakes on Instagram). Karen’s sisters have recently been to Gibraltar on holiday and they took Llanita back to her homeland for a visit!
Llanita in Ocean Village
I had a lovely treat when I logged into Instagram one day to see that Llanita was back in the sun!!
Llanita on the Windsor Suspension Bridge
Stormy weather
We got off rather lightly when Storms Eunice and Franklin came to town. Just a couple of wobbly fence panels which are rather worse for wear and this one almost bit the dust. Thankfully my lovely Dad came round with his bag of tricks and some timber to patch it up until it can be replaced.
A sunny seaside walk
Crosby beach beckoned on Sunday when the sun came out and I found myself with an empty diary. The ironing and housework could wait, living back in Manchester makes you realise that you need to grab sunny days by the hand and make the most of them. I got the Little Postcards in the car and headed off west to Crosby on the Merseyside Coast.
We first visited Crosby last year after it was recommended to me by my lovely friend across the road. It’s pretty much the nearest beach to where we live and it takes under an hour to drive there. Plus the beach is home to a load of Antony Gormley statues so that makes it even more special. It’s a favourite with the Little Postcards – as is the ice cream reward at the end of the walk.
And that just about brings this postcard to an end. Thank you so much for stopping by. Where ever you are in the world and whatever you are facing, I hope that you can find some positivity in the days ahead.
Hello there, thanks so much for stopping by on what’s a really special day for me. Today I have launched the first of my crochet patterns for sale on my Etsy shop. It has been a long journey of many months (perhaps even years) to get to this point and I would never have achieved it without certain events happening or some special people helping me along the way. Here’s the story of how ‘Up the garden path’ came about…
The Rock of Gibraltar
Many moons ago (well about 18 months ago to be precise) we moved back to the UK after spending more than a decade living in Gibraltar. Before we moved there we lived in a house with a garden and I loved my garden. I loved the huge oak tree in our neighbours garden which made a really pretty backdrop to our own small patch, I loved the really old hedgerow which bordered the side of the lawn and was a throwback to the old days when the land the house was on was farmland. I also loved the apple tree we planted expecting to spend years there and watch it grow.
Life had other plans for us though and we found ourselves packing everything up into boxes and moving thousands of miles away to a tiny place call Gibraltar at the very southern tip of the Iberian peninsular. In Gibraltar land is scarce and gardens are scarcer. We ended up in a lovely apartment with a beautiful balcony filled with pots of geraniums and other mediterranean plants, we were also lucky enough to have a sun scorched patio which we put potted citrus trees in too. I missed my green English garden though (the grass truly is always greener!).
Our old ‘front garden’
When life brought us back to the UK to live last year, it opened up the possibility that we would be able to enjoy the delights of a proper garden again. I was like a coiled spring…. I had spent years watching Monty Don and co. on Gardener’s World from afar wondering if and when I would have my own garden again and what it would look like.
Then, one year ago (almost to the day) we moved into our new family home, it doesn’t have the biggest garden but it’s ours and it’s allowed my imagination to run wild with possibilities of what I could plant and grow.
My first batch of seedlings this spring Some of my sweet peas from this summer
Meanwhile, I have long admired many talented people who design the most wonderful crochet creations like Lucy at Attic 24, Eleonora at Coastal Crochet, Rosina at Zeens & Roger, the lovely ladies at The Crochet Sanctuary and many, many more and wondered whether one day, I could have a go at designing something myself which other people might like to make. I knew I couldn’t attempt to design clothing – sizing would be sooo hard. I also didn’t want to attempt a blanket – there are already so many beautiful ones in the world to choose from. But, I could have a go at amigurumi – there’s no end of possibilities when it comes to making little people and creatures out of yarn and a hook.
I guess I took a fantasy trip back to my childhood, where I remember so many of the books and stories I loved were based in gardens and adventures in nature. What if I could combine my fascination with gardens and plants and trees with crochet? I had hit on an idea.
Hooking in front of Hootenanny
So, after finishing the Christmas crochet blanket I’d been working on in the run up to and over Christmas last year, I found myself on New Year’s Eve with a burning idea, some yarn and a hook and I set to work with some of my stash making the first prototype of an amigurumi doll. It took a bit of frogging and lots of note taking, and then another couple of prototypes before I bought the yarn I needed to have a go at my first little person…. Hope the Snowdrop.
Hope the Snowdrop
She was my New Year project and loads of fun to make. I called her Hope because snowdrops are pretty much the first plants to flower in the year and offer such hope of the better weather still to come, and the promise of Spring.
Next I decided to have a go at my alter ego, Flora the Gardener. Flora (in my imagination) has just acquired a garden of her own (remind you of anyone?) and is filled with expectation for what her new garden will offer her. The peace and quiet, the anticipation of what would sprout up from the soil and how successful her seedlings would be. I imagine that in the seasons and the years to come, she will make lots of new friends.
Flora the Gardener
So that was Hope and Flora. But then, a very good friend of my mine, Emma, saw Flora and asked if she could illustrate her. I didn’t need asking twice. Here’s the beautiful illustration she came up with:
Flora the Gardener Copyright: Emma Jackson
Isn’t she marvelous? Hot on the heels of Flora came Hope….
Hope the Snowdrop Copyright: Emma Jackson
Then…. Emma, being the wonderful friend she is, offered to design my patterns for me too. I wanted them to be as clear and simple as possible and with lots of photos (pretty much like a blog post) and that’s just what she’s done. I’m so thrilled with what she’s done for me!
And so, after 10 months of experimenting and absolutely bursting with ideas of what to do next (I have a list of about 30 future projects!!) and lots of to-ing and fro-ing between Emma and I, the big day has arrived – it’s launch day of the first of my patterns. Flora and Hope are available to buy from my new Etsy shop – Making Stitches Shop. [The proceeds of which are going to cover the costs of my podcast – Making Stitches].
The patterns are quite photo heavy so in addition to every illustrated pattern, you will also receive a text-only printer friendly version so you don’t run out of ink!
I couldn’t have reached this point without the help of Emma, and so many other wonderful people who have listened to me go on, and on, and on about my little ‘Up the Garden Path’ people. Sharing my successes and failures and not telling me to be quiet!! My sincere thanks also to my pattern testers and everyone who has offered me help and advice along the way.
If you would like to see some of Emma’s other work, you can find her Emma Jackson Art website here.
So, that’s the story of Up the Garden Path so far…. I can’t wait to share a couple of seasonal friends with you very soon as well!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Lindsay x
PS: The super logo for my shop was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.com
I hope you have had a decent festive period, it’s been rather muted but also rather nice to be at home too with no pressure to attend events either. We now find ourselves in Tier 4 like much of England and my friends in Gibraltar are in lockdown due to a huge spike in Covid cases there after being relatively unscathed until this point. I do hope they manage to get things under control over there very soon.
I’m having an internal debate about when to take the decorations down, there’s something a bit sad about packing the twinkly lights away for another year and yet there’s something nice about having clear surfaces and a fresh start too, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow…
Anyway, here’s this week’s Sunday Postcard and the first one of 2021.
First snow! ❄️
It was a big day in our house when we woke up to this on Monday. A generous dusting of white stuff had arrived while we slept and for Littlest it was his first experience of snow ever!
It was such a treat to see and completely changed the way I look at my new garden, I feel very lucky to have a little patch to call our own especially now we are effectively back into lockdown.
It was also rather fun to sit by the window and crochet snowflakes while looking at the real thing outside!
After the snow came the freezing fog which enveloped us in a rather murky gloom for an entire day. I found it quite atmospheric although not everyone in the house agreed.
Then more snow arrived on New Year’s Eve…. and a heavier dusting.
Doesn’t it just make everything look magical?
Missionaccomplished!
I set myself the challenge of completing my Christmas Eve blanket (pattern by The Crochet Sanctuary) by the end of the year seeing as I had missed my initial Christmas target (whoops). I didn’t manage to finish the border but the blanket is finished for now (last stitches completed on New Year’s Eve) so I’ll take that as a win. I love how it looks and really chuffed I managed to pull off the mosaic crochet Christmas trees too – my first attempt at that technique and I love the effect.
Party time
My word, I know how to party. A new crochet project in front of Jools Holland’s Hootenany is how I rolled on New Year’s Eve! I did have a few bubbles though curtesy of my lovely brother and sister in law’s Christmas gift hamper! Cheers!
Since New Year we haven’t really done anything of note, a bit of preparation for the return (or non-return) to school and a bit more crochet for me. I will share more pictures when and if they are worth showing!
I will leave it here for now and hope you are doing ok where ever you are and whatever restrictions you are facing. I had a look at my ‘best nine’ photos on Instagram and it’s a sign of the times that my lockdown rainbow featured, I’m glad it was filled with two of my favorite things though – crochet and Gibraltar!
Until next week, take are and thanks for stopping by!
Hello there, thanks for stopping by. Before I begin this Postcard, I just want to say that I know this coming few days is going to be difficult for many people this year more than ever. Following the announcement yesterday of even tougher restrictions in parts of the UK, many people’s plans have been left in tatters.
I’m really sorry if you have seen your Christmas plans reduced or even cancelled, or if your work situation has been rocked even further after this turbulent year. I don’t know what I can say or do at this point other than say you are not alone, even if you are physically isolated. Do reach out if you need someone to talk to.
Now to the usual tripe! Apologies that this year I’m not sharing uplifting photos of the blue skies and seascapes of Decembers gone by in Gibraltar… my location has changed this year to a rather greyer but no less friendly and happy Manchester in spite of everything that’s going on. Here goes…
Final flat pack delivery
Finally after almost 2 months of living in our new home, our final furniture delivery of 2020 arrived a couple of weeks ago. Eldest now has a desk for his homework and I have a bookshelf for my crafty books – hurrah! That means several more boxes have been unpacked. They are getting less and less!
Keep on running!
My Couch to 5k training is continuing. I’m pleased to say I have now passed the point at which I stopped last time. Having a training buddy with me is a huge boon and makes us deliberately schedule in our runs, plus now we can hold a conversation most of the time too, so it feels like less of a chore! I snapped a brief bit of sunshine on one of the morning training sessions last week.
A Postcard birthday
We had a family birthday earlier in December – it gave me the chance to bake an old fashioned Victoria sponge with buttercream & jam filling. Yummy!
Christmas lights
There are some super examples of Christmas decorations in the streets near where we live now. I am planning on taking the Little Postcards on a nocturnal walk to see them as soon as we get a dry night! I love Santa in the camper van and this house (below) has Santa projected onto an upstairs window complete with “Ho ho ho!” sound effects!
More baking
It’s just as well I’m running at the moment – there’s been a lot of cake-age going on Chez Postcard lately. Middle Postcard has been having to do his Food Tech lessons at home so last week was Swiss roll. The last time I made a Swiss roll I was at school!! It turned out alright. Although I would have preferred jam as a filling to chocolate spread – the chef had the final choice naturally.
Model making
In addition to baking there’s been model making on the go too. This is a waterfall which had to be produced for an end of term geography lesson. Hours of work went into it, I’m still finding paint splatters in the kitchen!!
Empty Malls
I had to make a trip to the Trafford centre last week for a couple of Christmas bits. The joy of living close by means I can be there when it opens and before the hoards arrive. It was a successful trip and I was able to leave just as it was getting busy.
Crafty bits
I got some very unexpected happy post this week… this pack of Scheepjes yarn and a super case of Knit Pro crochet hooks. I recently renewed my subscription to Simply Crochet magazine which had elapsed this year while we were moving about from house to house. I had received the magazine for several years while living in Gibraltar but as an overseas subscriber I never received a subscription gift. This time I did! Woo hoo! What a treat – thank you Simply Crochet!
Strictly Crochet…
Wasn’t the Strictly Come Dancing final glorious last night?! In the words of the great Craig Revel-Horwood, it was “Fab-u-lous”. The only problem was I had to keep stopping my crochet to give the dances my full attention! I love that Bill & Oti won – they were my favourites after Caroline & Johannes left.
So what was I working on whilst watching Strictly? My Crochet Sanctuary Christmas blanket CAL. Will it be finished by Christmas this year? Who knows? I’m trying though… I’m over half way…
Don’t look too closely at the unorthodox bobbles near the top… I did one bobble row 4 times because I kept miscounting it and getting it wrong, so when I discovered later on that I’d missed 3 bobbles a few rows back I couldn’t face unraveling and added them afterwards. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!
Last Friday I released another episode of Making Stitches Podcast featuring a weaver called Agnis Smallwood. She spoke to me about how she first got into weaving, her enjoyment of passing the skills of weaving and other crafts onto her students and how she found colour inspiration in her lockdown veg patch. You can listen by searching for Making Stitches on your favourite podcast app.
And that brings this Sunday Postcard to a close. It’s been a funny old run up to Christmas, and my mind keeps being taken back to the many Christmases we enjoyed in Gibraltar. We may not be there right now, but it will forever stay with us, just as our Christmas tree is reminding us.
Wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a peaceful Christmas and are able to find joy in these coming days.
Hello! Did you know it was International Crochet Day yesterday? It almost passed me by. I managed a tiny bit of work on my Trip to the Seaside wreath from Little Box of Crochet, so I just about fitted some hooky in!
I hope it’s been a good week for you, for part of this week I had all 3 Little Postcards in school for the first time in 6 months. My word, what a difference it made!
Here’s this week’s Sunday Postcard…
Rain rain go away
So last Sunday was a bit wet (thankfully it cleared up later on though). It meant we had the perfect excuse to stay at home and just hang around. Two Little Postcards had begun their new schools the week before and youngest was due to begin his new school on Monday. A quiet day at home listening to the rain was rather pleasant and called for.
Unearthing treasures
During a much anticipated morning alone with all 3 in school I set about on the hunt for the elusive name tapes to sew into new uniforms. As we only found out what schools 2 of them were going to last week – it was all a bit last minute.
I failed to find the name tapes but I unearthed some crafty treasures. Embroidery patterns given to me by my Gran as a child (above). I had no idea they were in a bag with some yarn scraps and long forgotten WIPs. I will have to have a go at some of them! Plus…..
… what must’ve been my first attempts at granny squares, no doubt taught by my Gran! Not the neatest attempts granted, and those colours have a touch of of 1980s about them don’t you think?!
Diamond update
Our bunny, Diamond is doing very well and seems to have adjusted to life in his hutch in England well. He’s a happy chappy and seems to like stretching out listening to the birds in the garden and watching the neighbour’s cat as it parades past!
Happy post
I got a lovely parcel through the post this week, all the way from Gibraltar….
When we were over in Gib to collect Eldest’s GCSE results in August, I bought myself a lovely artisan silver and garnet ring.
I thought it looked a bit lonely on its own and decided to contact Frances, the lady who made it and asked if she would make me another, this time with a blue stone.
It arrived this week, along with a cute little stacking ring to sit in between the blue & red stones. I am so happy with them and will always have a bit of Gib with me now!
You can find Frances’ work on Instagram @silver_quirk and her Etsy shop can be found here.
Podcast preparation
The recorder is out, and that can only mean one thing… work has started on Series 2 of Making Stitches Podcast. I have a couple of interviews in the bag and I’m hoping the first episode will be with you very soon! Watch this space…
International Crochet Day
As I said before, yesterday was International Crochet Day… who knew that was a thing?! I only had time for a little bit but enjoyed making some swishy swashy grass for my Little Box of Crochet wreath.
Gibraltar National Day 🇬🇮
Gibraltar National Day 2019
On Thursday, it was 10th September- Gibraltar National Day. It was our first national day since leaving the Rock and the first one without any of the big community events which normally take place because of Covid. I did listen to the political rally on the radio though and enjoyed being with my Gibraltar friends in spirit.
And that brings this week’s Sunday Postcard to an end. I hope it’s been a good week for you. Until next time, thanks for popping by.
