I've been thinking a lot in the last 24 hours or so about choices, or lack of. 
Yesterday I spoke with someone in an abusive relationship, and we talked about power and control. She has neither (or, more correctly, she feels like she doesn't). 

I am (mostly) happily married, I (mostly) love my work; all in all I'm incredibly lucky and fortunate. What struck me yesterday is that where I am most lucky/made the best choice is in my husband.

This isn't a 'I'm so clever, I would never be so stupid as to have a relationship with an abusive man' post. The woman I talked with didn't, to begin with. When I was younger I did have a relationship with someone (I hesitate to call him a man) who, although not physically abusive, tried to distance me from my family and friends, put me down, gaslighted me, lied, cheated, basically made me feel crap and like he knew best. Fairly low level stuff compared to what so many women go through, and he never hit me. We were only together for a few years, but what if we'd stayed together? What if we'd had children? Then I would be in the same position as the woman I talked to. 

From a distance it all seems so simple. If he hits you, leave. If he cheats, leave.
But I'm left sitting here feeling like it wouldn't have been a stretch for that to be me. I'm also feeling helpless in my ability to make a difference to her. 

Blue bunting for Blaire

Lovely title, no? Sadly (purely for alliterative purposes) her name isn't actually Blaire. It's a hilarious in-joke between me and one other friend when my olde Nokia 3310 (remember them?? T'was the height of sophistication at the time) autocorrected her real name to Blaire. (Obviously, it's totally impossible to guess what her real name is.) I don't know about you, but I've never met anyone called Blaire in real life.

Anyway. Back to the point, and some lovely (I think) bunting. Pics:

Unusually clutter-free mantelpiece. No, I'm not keen on the flowery stuff either. But LOOK AT THE BUNTING!

Close-up. Stylecraft DK in petrol, turquoise, cloud blue and denim. But you knew that anyway, right?

One more pic for luck....

If it looks familiar, it's because it was in Simply Crochet and is Attic24's Summer bunting pattern, which you can read about here. See how I am challenging gender stereotypes by doing blue for a girl. Or, also because I just prefer blue...

I got my buttons from the lovely Stephanie at Berry Nice Crafts. I believe Wool Warehouse are doing an Attic bundle of the four balls plus buttons Berry's are cheaper

I haven't seen the bunting in situ yet, as Blaire lives not that close to me in the big, big city. But I think it was a success...

Goodbye Alison

Today I went to a funeral. I'm lucky (?) enough that this was only the eighth funeral I've ever been to in 40+ years.

It was for one of the mums at school. Her son is the same age as my first born, my DS (and she was a year younger than me). So although we were friendly rather than good friends, it hit hard, thinking of my children in the same circumstances, being left without a mum.

She died of multiple myeloma - a cancer that has highest incidence rates among people who are:
- over 75
- male 
- black
- living in deprived areas. 

She was none of those, and it was less than six months from diagnosis until she died. Looking at the stats, the number of women in the UK who were diagnosed with this type of cancer between 2009-2011 numbers... 13. In a population of what, 65 million. 

I'm still wondering to what extent the tears that I cried (there were lots, but I'm a big crier) were for her, to what extent they were for her children, and to what extent they were to do with me, my losses, my feelings and thoughts. 

Anyway, I wanted to do something, so I made a heart, based on the Attic 24 heart. 

It isn't my best effort. I'm not being modest - I made a similar one for my mum and it was better. But here it is:

Front side. The main body is Drops Paris in turquoise, and the flower and petals/wings (there are two, honest) is a variegated cotton yarn, but I don't have the brand anymore.

Back side. The one I did for my mum was blank on the back, but I've added an 'A' for Alison here in the same variegated yarn - the pattern for the A is from Moogly alphabet. 















I hope it brings her parents some comfort. 

Goodbye Alison.  

Strawberry flower pattern

As this is my first ever, pattern, I didn't realise you couldn't just put all the details in Ravelry and had to link it elsewhere!

So here it is:

PATTERN

Ch = chain 
S/s = slip stitch 
DC = double crochet (single crochet in US terms)

Round 1: In yellow, either chain 3 and s/s to join, or use a magic loop. 
Round 2: ch1, then 10 dc into the loop. S/s to first dc - 10 dcs. Fasten off yellow.

Round 3: In white, join in any of the dc stitches. Ch3, then 4 tr in the same stitch. S/s into the next stitch. 
Five trebles into the next stitch, s/s into the next one. 
Repeat until you end up with five petals. S/s behind the first ch of the ch3 to join. Fasten off.

Round 4: In green, join behind the flower in a vertical stitch of the yellow dcs from round 2, between two petals. Ch5, then s/s into the second chain from the hook. Dc into the next stitch, then s/s into each of the next two. 
Ch1, s/s into a vertical stitch that’s between the next two petals. 
Repeat around until you have 5 tendrils, roughly between each petal. 
Ch1 and s/s join to the bottom of the first tendril. 
Cast off leaving a long tail, so you can just anchor each tendril to the back of the petals (so the stitches aren’t visible from the front). This will keep them in place and stop them moving about.

I hope you like it - let me know if there are any issues please, and I'll try to edit it.

Why I love crochet

So, I was hooking away at this rainbow square below in a spare five minutes today (it's for a group blanket, themed for Sochi - hence the subtle protest of rainbow colours),

when DH said, 'You really like your crochet don't you?!'

Which has got me thinking. Why do I like crochet so much? What is it about it?





I think the reasons are several:

- It scratches the creative itch. I'm not an artist (although I do also love crafting with the kids, now that they're mostly past that age where you have to sit on your hands to stop yourself from grabbing the paintbrush or colouring pens out of their chubby little hands because they're just not doing it right) but I think there's something primal and basic about creating. I have a theory: I am suspicious of people who say they don't like music, or stories, or art full stop because these things are universal across all cultures. The variety of all of them is huge, so I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't be able to find some type of art/book/music that does resonate with you. 
So I think creating is in that genre - perhaps not quite so universal, but in the zone. But why crochet rather than some other artistic expression? Well that leads onto the next few reasons...

- You can work something up really quickly. I made a hat in just over an hour the other day let's ignore the fact that I've since frogged it as it was too big

which was immensely satisfying. Blanket squares are just perfect for my short attention span - I can knock one of those out in less than an hour. Brilliant.





- I'm not bad at this crochet lark. I'll never be Attic24, or Little Tin Bird, or the Royal Sisters, but I can usually follow a pattern and make some pretty good-looking stuff.

Not your taste? To be honest, it's not my usual kind of thing either - but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It was a birthday present for my mum, so probably utterly misjudged as she's a leopard print, sequins and diamonds sort of person, but she also has everything she ever wants, so I went for the personal touch. Which leads on to...





- I suppose it's the egotist in me, but I love seeing one of my squares in the WoollyHugs galleries and going, 'I made that!!'. This year I've made infinity scarves like this

for friends, and some rose brooches. I hope they like them - one didn't even realise that I'd made it rather than bought it - and it seems so much more personal and intimate. Which is not to say that I'll be foisting my handmade creations on everyone for evermore, but it's nice to have that option.






- It's fun challenging myself with new patterns and new ideas. A Valentine's Day yarnbomb you say? On it. 

SUCH FUN!!







Those are the main reasons anyway. Oh, and the fact that it's tactile that yarn stuff, and playing with colour combinations is quite fun. 

And.... here be dragons!

Valentine's Day Yarnbombing!

I love the idea of yarnbombing - but some of the creations look way beyond me in terms of both skill, time and opportunity, for example:

I look at this and think it's fantastic. But, how did they get the measurements right?! And how long must it have taken?









A friend of mine did this one:

Fabulous, no?












But both a bit beyond me I think. But earlier this year I saw via the One Sheepish Girl blog the suggestion for a Valentine's Day global yarnbombing. And with a do-able heart pattern (that I'll have to search out later!) to hand, I made three. 

So, Valentine's day I took the kids out around our village. The first one we put on the pagoda-type structure where the village yoofs hang out:

I can't remember which one says which, but they say 'You are loved', 'You are unique' and 'Happy Valentine's Day'
















Next, we visited the bus stop. We had to hang around a bit waiting for the bus to come and the passengers to embark/disembark (there's only one bus an hour - typical that we of course got the time when it was due!).

Eldest daughter, my finger and a heart. Notice how the delicately crocheted heart complements the graffiti (including the classic 'X is a peado').










Close up (so, this is the one that says 'Happy Valentine's Day')

(Yes, I did have to check where the apostrophe went, as I do every year for Mother's Day.)












Next, we went to the bench that's near the Kwik-E-Mart shop. In the summer we often sit here and enjoy an ice-cream or some chocolate.

It was quite a cold day, true. 














The bench as we left it:

Not only is it missing slats at the back as you can see, but the seat part is rather bowed as you sit down. One of these days I'll ask the parish council if they're going to replace it. On a related issue, I'd quite like a bench in a nice place after I die. University Parks would be nice, but I suspect you have to be related to the university in some way.





A couple of days later we went back to check what had happened to them, if anything. I was fully expecting at least one to be trodden into the ground (it was particularly muddy weather) - but they had all gone, hopefully to people whose days were slightly improved for finding them.

Knitted knocker

Yes, yes, it's crochet, not knitting, but that doesn't have the same alliterative ring. And there's a pattern for knitting one too!

Again, this was a request to the Woolly Hugs team from the breastfeeding and expressing support team at the Royal Brompton.  Babies born with heart conditions often find breastfeeding more difficult as they do not have the energy required for it and, with many newborn babies being transferred to the Brompton, it is vital they are able to support mothers with this. They have decided knitted breasts are the way forward to help them teach hand expressing techniques, positioning and attachments skills to new mums and to new staff.

Here's my effort:

It was a little odd watching it take on such a familiar shape, and in hindsight I think perhaps it would have been better to do what some of the other crafters did and go for bold colours rather than 'natural' ones. But I had some pink yarn that I knew I wouldn't use, so....











Here's some of the 40-odd knockers that MN crafters made queueing to get into the delivery box:

See, fab colours! (I think that's mine third from the box.)







The knitting pattern can be found at the bottom of the Woolly Hugs website page, here and the crochet pattern can be found via DillyTante's blog, here.

Disclaimer: I'm not a so-called 'breastfeeding Nazi' (the most inaccurate use of the term 'Nazi', what, ever?!) but breastmilk is generally considered to be absolutely the best food for babies, but especially for babies who are ill or premature. So if my crocheted boob can help, so much the better.