sixty million trebles

Sunday Sevens #79 16.4.17

~ Making Stitches ~ 14 Comments

Happy Easter Sunday to you. I hope that however you are spending it, you are having a happy time. We have enjoyed some gorgeous spring sunshine this week, although today the sun has abandoned us as things are looking rather murky and misty at the moment.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Sevens…

A return to the Med Steps


Our trip back to the U.K. as well as other things have got in the way of me climbing the Med Steps of late. On Sunday I had absolutely no energy at all, I think it’s a combination of a couple of very busy weeks and hay fever kicking in (which is unusual for me), but after a very lazy morning I hauled myself up the Med Steps and felt much better for it.

I’m supposed to be doing the Med Steps 5 challenge next month and according  my training schedule (aka Mr Postcard) by last weekend I should’ve been doing twice round. I didn’t, so the jury’s out on whether I’ll be able to manage 5 times round this year…

The Steps are looking very spring-y with wildflowers blooming all over. On my walk back down the Rock, these apes were putting on a good show for the tourists near St Michael’s Cave.

Easter holiday fun


We’ve been doing a tour of Gibraltar’s parks this Easter holiday, first Commonwealth on Monday, then Europa Point on Tuesday… we went back again the next day too! I didn’t eat ice cream on every visit… I promise 😊.

Raising the roof


Mid week saw a bit on excitement on Queensway as traffic was given a front row seat to a very delicate operation. The roof of the one remaining gatehouse at the entrance to the Dockyard was lifted off so the structure could be dismantled and rebuilt on another location nearby. The contractors hearts must have been in their mouths as they watched the roof raised and swung round to another place after over 100 years in the same spot.

Lent Crochet


I made a pledge to crochet a square every day through Lent so that I could create another blanket for the Sixty Million Trebles project. The project aims to raise awareness and funds about the plight of refugees around the world through crochet. My pile of squares was getting bigger but would I succeed in completing the blanket by Easter Sunday?? I’ll have to let you know next week.

Five minutes of peace…

On Good Friday morning I found myself in town, quite early on, killing time before picking up a Little Postcard from an activity. I think it was the first time I had actually been alone (apart from the Med Steps trip) since school broke up for the Easter holidays (barring the shower and trips to the loo – although they invariable involve a knock on the door from someone). I thoroughly enjoyed my coffee with my crochet in hand watching Main Street spark into life around me.

More peace and quiet…


Later on Good Friday I got the chance to go back up the Med Steps, and this time I managed it twice round for the first time this year! I’m so pleased with myself, it’s a bit of a milestone to cross and I didn’t feel half dead at the end of it, so potentially I could have done some more had time allowed. Now I feel a lot less anxious about the Med Steps 5 Challenge which is fast approaching next month. 

This picture features a photo from each circuit of the Steps. I noticed this pretty honeysuckle was out on the road back down the Western side. It looked so pretty, sadly it had no noticeable perfume, but perhaps it comes alive in the evening.
Lunch with a view


Yesterday we enjoyed beautiful spring sunshine. We went round to Catalan Bay and met some friends for lunch. It’s at times like this that we are reminded how lucky we are to live here.

Thank you so much for stopping by, and hope that the coming week is a good one for you.

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins blog

A springtime rainbow

~ Making Stitches ~ 12 Comments

This part of the world seems to be very colourful at the moment, from the geraniums and nasturtiums by my front door…


To the bright yellow and acid greens of the wild flowers growing alongside my regular walking routes to school and up the Med Steps.


The blues and purples of the native Scilla Peruviana (impressed? I have the Alameda Gardens to thanks for the name) and decoractive Osteospermum. 

Even some of the trees are putting on a show!


Just look at the calming pastel hues of the Gibraltar Candytuft and more Osteospermum (also known as Cape Daisies). 

Even the sunlight is joining in…. I spotted this plethora of rainbows 🌈 while I was waiting for a lift in the Mid Town car park.

I must have arrived at just the right moment for the sun to be in the best rainbow producing position. The louvred glass window was the perfect vehicle to produce these technicolour stripes.

Even my Lent granny squares for my Sixty Million Trebles project blanket are joining in on the act… 


And please tell me I’m not the only one who finds the arrangement of these recycling bins pleasing to the eye?

What ever you’re up to today, I hope you have a bright and colourful one!

Crafting for others…

~ Making Stitches ~ 13 Comments


I make no secret of the fact that I do crafty things to keep myself sane. When things get on top of me, as long as I have a little bit of head space free to craft, I can find a way to negotiate myself out of my pickle. When I am in a stinker of a mood, it’s generally because I haven’t been able to create anything for a while.

I have been interested in making things all my life pretty much and was taught to sew, knit and crochet as a child by my Mum and Gran. My making was rested a bit while I studied, although I did manage to knit a cardigan for myself during my second year at University, mainly because it was far cheaper to knit one than to buy a ready made one.


Over the years, as friends and family got married and had children I got back in touch with my crafting side as I made gifts to mark the special occasions but when I was working full time I didn’t feel the same need to make for myself when I was relaxing at home.

Once I’d had my first child, that’s when the crafting bug bit hard again. I bought a sewing machine and started making bags to be sold in a craft co-operative near to where we lived at the time. Just as a space came free for me in the shop, we were forced to move areas with my husband’s work and unfortunately nothing came of my bag making (I did go on to sell some of them at craft fairs once we landed in Gibraltar though).


Wherever we have lived (and there have been quite a few homes over the years) my boxes of yarn, stash of fabric and sewing machine have travelled there with me. I’ve tried my hand at quilting, embroidery, dressmaking, card making, crochet, knitting, tapestry, watercolour painting and glass painting, but there are so many other crafts I would still like to try (stained glass making really appeals to me.)

I feel incredibly privileged that I have been able to put my career on hold to have a family and now that my boys are at school and need me a little less, I can turn my attention now to indulging my passion for creating. Regular readers to my blog will know that I attend two lessons each week during term time, watercolour painting and dressmaking. I love this time I can dedicate to improving my skills, but it does so much more than that. It gives me the chance to expand my mind and use my brain after 13 years as a stay-at-home-mum. In short it does wonders for my sanity.


I believe that like so many other things in life your craft muscle needs to be exercised and the more you exercise it the more your creativity grows. I am making and thinking about making so much more these days than I ever thought I possibly could. Of course the internet has a lot to do with this, I try to stay off Pinterest as there is just so much wonderful stuff on there I get frustrated that I can’t do it all, but Instagram and other blogs provide me with such amazing inspiration.

It is through Instagram and the blogs I follow that I became aware of several opportunities to get involved in crafting for a cause far greater than just making something pretty for myself or my family. Over the past few years I have been able to contribute items I have created to fundraising and awareness raising events which have much further reaching benefits than just keeping my brain ticking over.

Llanita at Catalan Bay
In recent years the Yarndale festival organisers have called on crocheters and knitters to send in items to be raffled off to raise funds or to raise awareness to the good causes they support. Yarndale 2016 was the year of the sheep, hundreds and hundreds of little yarny sheep were sent in to raise money for the Martin House Children’s Hospice (you can read about the 2016 Woolly Sheep Project here.) Do you remember Llanita the Gibraltar Yarndale sheep who went along to the Yorkshire Dales?

Llanita & Lucy from Attic24 at Yarndale
Last summer, Jenny’s Blanket of Hugs was organised by Kate Eastwood at Just Pootling. Kate appealed for crocheters to send her squares which were made in a strict palette of colours and to her design to be made into a special blanket for Jenny, the daughter of Amanda Bloom (the lady behind the Little Box of Crochet). 

Squares for Jenny’s Blanket of Hugs

Jenny has terminal cancer and the blanket was made to show solidarity for Jenny and her Mum. In the end enough squares were created all over the world and sent in, over 1,000 in total, that both Jenny and Amanda received blankets and five extra blankets and cushions were made and given to charities to raise funds. You can read all about the Blanket of Hugs story on the Just Pootling blog.

Last summer I also became aware of the Sixty Million Trebles project. At the end of 2015, the UN announced that there were 60 million displaced people in the world. The team behind Sixty Million Trebles decided to take action and use crochet to raise awareness about the plight of refugees as well as raise funds to help those affected. 

A Sixty Million Trebles blanket in the making
They are asking for donations of square blankets which measure 36 inches x 36 inches which will be joined to create a record breaking blanket totaling sixty million trebles stitches (one treble stitch = one life). The Gibraltar Crochet Collective is currently working towards the goal of sending more blankets to the cause from Gibraltar.


We are currently making a square for every day in Lent in an attempt to boost our blanket production process!

Another ongoing appeal is through Cherished Gowns UK, the organisation takes donations of wedding dresses which are then made into tiny gowns for babies who are stillborn. They are currently appealing for 2500 knitted or crocheted blankets to be made during the month of March. 

#wrappedinlove blanket for Cherished Gowns UK

Having seen friends of ours go through the pain of losing a baby, anything that can be done to help comfort bereaved parents at this terribly difficult time has to be a worthwhile cause. If you would like to support the #wrappedinlove appeal, please click on the link below.

So there you have it, crafting doesn’t need to be a self-indulgent passtime (although there’s nothing wrong with that!). There are so many opportunities to help contribute to good causes through your craft if you want to and there is very little cost involved other than yarn, time and postage.

If you would like to join in with one of these initiatives, please click on the links below to find out more about them and help spread the crochet love ❤️

For more information on how you can support these great causes, please click on these links:

Sixty Million Trebles

Cherished Gowns UK (wrapped in love blankets)

Sunday Sevens #52 9.10.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 8 Comments

 

Despite the fact we are well into October now, it’s been very warm again here in Gibraltar. As I sit at the dining table writing this, I have steam coming out of my collar!!

This week has been a rather busy one for me, there’s been nothing in particular, just lots of different stuff going on, so there was no midweek post from me this week. I hope you’ve had a good week, whatever you’ve been up to. Without further ado, here’s this week’s Sunday Sevens:

Across the Strait

This photo kind of sums up the weather we’ve been having for about half of this last week. I took the photo on Sunday afternoon when we took the Little Postcards to Europa Point park to let off a bit of steam on their scooters. You know when they are bouncing off the walls that you need to get out and exercise them like dogs!! The sky was crystal clear overhead but in the distance across at Morrocco there was a hazy mist which looked like someone had taken an eraser to the bit where the mountains touch the sea!

So for most of this week, in the afternoons  it has been clear, bright and hot (especially when standing outside the school gates waiting for the bell to go!) but the mornings have been misty and town was sitting under a heavy Levanter cloud with gusty winds whipping up the dust.

Dressmaking class


Sewing continued on the sample top I’m working on in my dressmaking class. The photo doesn’t show it to advantage as the back is still unfinished and open. Part of the exercise for this sample is to make up the front, then remodel the arm holes and neckline. This is before the remodelling takes place.

In addition to working on my sample top, I have also been making a skirt for my Mum who has been over visiting at the moment. A straight skirt with a small slit at the back and in a colour to compliment her new winter coat is underway. After several fittings and alterations, I am now about to machine stitch the side seams and hand sew the hem. Hopefully it will be ready for her when she returns before Christmas.

Watercolour class

After two weeks of pencil sketches, I finally got around to mixing some paint colours and worked my current project at my watercolour class this week. I just love the brightly coloured beach huts at Southwold, and wanted to work on a painting to reflect that. I’m working from a photograph taken by Mr Postcard of a stretch of predominantly blue and white ones, but have used a little artistic licence and injected more colour based on photos I took on our visit in the summer. I’m really enjoying painting this one. 🙂

Sea mist


We had everything crossed on Friday evening. After dropping my parents off at the airport to fly home, we returned to find our home had been engulfed by a real pea-souper of a sea mist. Just as their plane was due to land it got thicker and thicker.

Miraculously the plane landed. The two photos above were taken 30 minutes apart. The first one is of a tree about 100 metres from our apartment – there was no point taking one of the sea, it would have just been grey!

I’m very pleased to say that Mum and Dad made it back home safely and we look forward to seeing them again just before Christmas.

Autumn leaves


It’s October, and of course that means autumn. I do love autumn in the UK in a kind of bitter sweet way. It’s such a beautiful season with the colours of the leaves on woodland walks but it also spells the end of summer and all the fun which that season promises. Back when we lived in England, I kind of dreaded winter with the grey damp urgh kind of weather it could spell for weeks between the odd beautiful crispy frosty day.

One benefit of living here in Gibraltar is that although we do have seasons, they aren’t quite as noticeable as in England. Summer is undboubtedly hot and sunny and winter is often damp and grey but not quite as cold and depressing as I remember English winter days to be. That does mean though that spring and autumn aren’t quite as obvious as what’s experienced in the UK.

I remember feeling a bit homesick that first autumn after we moved to Gibraltar and I just couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was. Suddenly it hit me, the vast majority of the trees here on the Rock are evergreen and that meant there are very few leaves to crunch through and collect with little people. Autumn always used to mean Sunday afternoons spent at one of our nearest National Trust sites or parks collecting sticks, conkers and brown, red and golden leaves of all shapes and sizes to bring home. That just isn’t an option here.

In recent years though, a few new trees have been planted here and some of the ones in Commonwealth Park (which was built a couple of years ago) are deciduous. It was so nice to sit under the browning leaves on a bench for a while yesterday as the Little Postcards played football. We were all in T-shirts and shorts so it’s not really like autumn, but it was nice to pretend.

A new crochet project


After finishing my sixty million trebles blanket last week, I was free to crack open some of the lovely new yarn I bought at Yarndale a fortnight ago with a clear conscience. The gorgeous mohair and bamboo Louisa Harding Yarn I bought from Esgair Fibres had been calling me from my stash and really needed to be worked on as soon as possible! I’m using it to make a shawl/scarf for when the weather here turns a little bit fresher. It’s so lovely to use, the constantly changing colours which change even within just one treble stitch are gorgeous and it feels so nice between my fingers as I hook up another row.

 
PS : just one more thing…

A couple of people asked to see the finished picture that I posted two weeks ago from my watercolour class, here it is, mounted and ready to go to its new home in England.

 

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie from Threads & Bobbins blog.

(Natalie, if you’re reading this I hope you’re ok! You’ve been very quiet lately.)

Sunday Sevens #51 2.10.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 4 Comments

Let the sewing begin!

Three weeks into our dressmaking course and we have finished with the pattern drawing and cutting and we are now in the process of constructing a sample top. Because it’s a sample, we are just using curtain lining material to make it, hence the rather boring photo. I’m eager to get this finished and move onto the next ‘real’ project.

Bunny bombshell

Bunny Postcard had a trip to the vets this week. We had been meaning to take him for months so that he could have some vaccinations to allow him to play out in our back patio. Now the weather is beginning to cool a little bit, we thought he might like to have a hop about outside. The first thing the vet said when she saw Bunny was ‘Oh what a lovely girl’. I thought nothing of it, thinking clearly she’s made a mistake…

Once the full medical was done, including checking his heart, ears, eyes and teeth, the vet cottoned onto the fact that we had never actually officially been told Bunny’s gender. Well the big news this week is that Bunny is officially a girl! It’s taken a bit of time for that news to sink in in certain quarters, but I’m thrilled to know that at last I am no longer the only female in the Postcard household!

Suspension 

When I flew back from Yarndale last weekend, not only did I bring with me a suitcase full of yarn and wonderful memories, I also brought my Mum and Dad with me too. They hadn’t been to see the Windsor suspension bridge yet so one afternoon this week, while the Little Postcards were still at school, we took a walk up the Rock and along the bridge. I have to say, since my last visit, a discernible creak has developed as you walk from one side of the gorge to the other which did put me slightly on edge. The view is still as stunning as ever from there though.

Not much painting going on…

Inspired by our summer holiday in Southwold back in August, I decided that my next paining project should include some of the beautiful beach huts you see along the seafront. Last week I spent the entire lesson trying to sketch out the huts freehand, and not using a ruler. Unfortunately due to the composition of the photo I’m using and it’s perspective, even when just one line was out of place, it made the whole thing look wonky and a bit rubbish.

This week after a quick refresher lesson on perspective, horizons and eyelines, my teacher very kindly gave me some tracing paper to get the skeleton of the picture down onto the paper so that at least next week I can start painting. Shhh, don’t tell anyone I cheated 😉

Interesting keyhole



I went exploring over the border in La Linea on Friday morning looking for yarn shops (not that I need to buy any more after Yarndale last weekend mind you). I had heard there were some and that they sold nice stuff. Thinking ahead to Christmas presents and such like I thought it was worth following it up.

Almost next door to a really lovely yarn shop, this most unusual keyhole caught my eye on the front door of an old building. There’s some really lovely architecture amongst all the late twentieth century and more modern apartments and shop fronts if you keep your eyes open. Next time, I need to take my camera with me….

Cake anyone? 

Yesterday, if you were in Gibraltar town centre there’s a good chance you were  ‘encouraged’ to part with your cash for raffle tickets and cakes for the Scouts. As two of the Little Postcards are in Scouts, there was a bit of baking going on this week for the annual cake stall fundraiser. My fairy cakes aren’t in this picture, they were hidden down at the other end of the stall… I photographed the pretty cakes instead 😉

Rainbow hope blanket completed


Begun on the last day of August (the very last day of the school summer holidays) and completed on the last day of September – it’s taken me a month to complete my contribution to the Sixty Million Trebles project. The blanket I made will join hundreds of others and be joined to make the worlds biggest ever blanket. It will be used to yarn bomb a site in London before being unpicked to make ‘normal-sized’ blankets which will go to charities in the UK and Syria.

The project is being run to raise awareness about the plight of the sixty million refugees who are displaced from their homes around the world at the moment. It will also raise funds for the cause too. It’s hoped that sixty million treble stitches will be crocheted to represent all the people who have been driven from their homes. Where ever my Rainbow Hope Blanket ends up, I hope it brings some hope to whoever receives it. This 36″ square blanket adds 10,656 trebles to the current count of almost five million.

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Nat at Threads & Bobbins. For more information about it, and if you would like to join in, why not  pop over to her blog.

 


Sunday Sevens #47 4.9.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 6 Comments

An evening in Catalan Bay

On Sunday evening, it was still swelteringly hot around our side of the Rock, so we decamped to Catalan Bay for a lovely evening of calamares, pinchitos and Russian salad at one of our favourite eateries The Seawave. As it was the last Sunday of the school summer holidays and a bank holiday weekend to boot, you can see that we weren’t the only ones who fancied spending time by the seaside!

A walk at the Alameda Gardens

On the bank holiday weekend we took ourselves off to the Alameda Gardens in search of shade. As you can see from these photos – we almost had the place to ourselves, the rest of Gibraltar was probably on the beach! My word, it’s been swelteringly hot lately.

Cooling fog at sunset

The heat continued all week, but we had a great respite on Tuesday evening when the fog rolled in from the Strait of Gibraltar at sunset bringing with it a drop in temperature. By the time the sun had gone down we couldn’t even see the ships in the Bay of Gibraltar in front of our apartment. It was bliss to sit out on the balcony and feel the cool dampness on your skin.

One last trip to the beach

Wednesday was officially the last day of the school summer holidays so we had to have one last trip down to Sandy Bay. We met up with some friends from school and the Little Postcards had a great time in the sea and playing in the sand. The plan was to wear them out so that they’d go to bed nice and early ready for school the next day…. they were a little bit too excited for that!

It was a wonderful day though, and as you can see from the photo, for a long time, we had the beach almost to ourselves.

I learned a new skill this week!

If you saw my Summer Craft Challenge 2016 Part 8 on Friday, you’ll know that I have had a couple of crochet lessons with the very talented Marisa Boselli, known as @mariwish on Instagram. This week she taught me how to master the art of joining granny squares as you go along. For non-yarny appreciators this may not seem like a big deal, but believe me it’s a life changing moment… I will no longer have to sew my squares together.

Yarndale 2016

Screen Shot 2016-09-02 at 17.45.33.png

I’m so excited I could burst, I am going to be following Llanita the Gibraltar Yarndale Sheep and travelling to Yarndale later this month. I booked my flights and festival tickets this week. I promise that I will take loads of photos and tell you all about my own woolly Yarndale adventure!

#GMF16

 

It’s that time of the year again, the Gibraltar Music Festival weekend. We spent the day there yesterday and enjoyed music from Toploader, Travis, Paul Young, All Saints, and Foxes to name just a few. I will share some photos from the festival with you next week.

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins blog. 
Thanks for stopping by!

https://threadsandbobbins.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/sunday-sevens-new-logo.jpg

 

 

Summer Craft Challenge 2016 Part 8

~ Making Stitches ~ 9 Comments

This is my final Summer Craft Challenge 2016 blog post. By making the decision back on Saturday 9th July (the first day of the holidays) to attempt to do something crafty each day throughout the long school summer holiday in order to help me retain my sanity is one I’m very pleased that I made.

Normally the holidays see the end of any crafty endeavours and I get increasingly frustrated at my lack of productiveness. This year though, by just ensuring I spend even a few moments each day with a crochet hook, paintbrush or needle in my hand I have managed to produce a rather varied range of things, my sanity has been retained (almost) and I have still been very much present for fun with the Little Postcards. I would highly recommend it to anyone!

If you have travelled along with me on my crafty summer journey, thank you for your company, I have had some lovely comments along the way. School has now restarted as of yesterday (1st September) and we all survived the long summer break.

Here’s the final instalment of my challenge:

 

Day 50 : Saturday 27th August

On Friday night I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with the crochet guru known as @mariwish on Instagram. Marisa Boseli teaches crochet in London but is actually from Gibraltar originally. Whilst visiting family and friends here this summer, she decided to put on some crochet classes.

So, on Friday night after a meal of tapas in a beach front restaurant at Catalan Bay, we set to work. Marisa has taught me the art of lacy shawl making – something I’ve never attempted before. The lighting was more suited to a romantic evening meal than a crochet class so as you can see above, we hooked by the light of our phone torches!

In daylight, on Saturday it was much easier to make progress…

Day 51 : Sunday 28th August


Oh no… a mistake! I had to unravel almost two entire rows to get back to this part!

Day 52 : Monday 29th August


My shawl so far – I’ve really enjoyed making this and can’t believe how quickly it’s growing.

Day 53 : Tuesday 30th August 


A lovely time was had al fresco hooking in the park with friends in the afternoon, by the end of the evening I had reached the end of the line.


I’ve run out of wool! I think I just need one more ball. This beauty will just have to wait a little while longer before I can get her finished…

Day 54 : Wednesday 31st August

On the final day of my challenge, I thought I’d share something with you which I’ve only become aware of recently: the Sixty Million Trebles project.

At the end of last year, the UN estimated that there are sixty million refugees worldwide. Sixty Million Trebles is a project to create the world’s largest blanket containing sixty million treble stitches. The huge blanket will be used to yarnbomb a venue in London to raise awareness of the plight of the refugees before being split up to make blankets 50% of which will be donated to UK charities, the other 50% will go to ‘Hand in hand for Syria’ an organisation which helps refugees from there. They also hope to raise a penny for every treble crocheted to help refugee charities.

To find out more about the project, check out the Sixty Million Trebles blog or search for them on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

The granny square above is the beginning of my contribution, with just 246 trebles included. I’ve decided upon a rainbow colour scheme as rainbows are a sign of hope. I hooked up dozens of square centres on the beach on our last day of the school summer holidays. This may take some time…

And so I guess, this is the end of my Summer Craft Challenge for this year, thank you for all the support and encouragement along the way! I’ll keep you updated on the progress of my Rainbow Hope blanket for the Sixty Million Trebles project in future posts.

Here’s just a few highlights from the past eight weeks:


Thank you for stopping by!