Crafty Friends

Who's hands are these?

There has been a lot of sunshine about this week. Hooray for that bag is all I can say. Oh, and the inevitable start of spring.

Last week, the postman came with more goodies, well timed to coincide with the visit of my friend Stacie, a sewing buddy who was then able to coo over the contents of the pink parcel with me.

Getting married in wool?! No, WI members are not entirely batty, I promise you. I was very taken with the pictures of the wedding dress in question as they appeared inside this magazine. Were it not a complete afterthought now, I'd have taken a picture for you. But alas, the arm chair is so comfortable, and the camera and magazine all the way upstairs, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyhow, this little selection of fat quarters is what I opted for following the disappointment of the bag fabric that never turned up.

I'm going to try my hand at some simple quilting for the bambino. Just squares, nothing more fancy, with the hope of making a cot quilt to go with the knitted blanket.

Last Friday, I invited a few fellow mummy friends round with their toddlers. We had some lunch together, after which the children ran loops of the house and played, and we got the chance to chat a bit (in between the usual interruptions and chaos that happens when a small crowd of toddlers invade your house).

And look at this! A couple of the girls just couldn't resist getting their needles out and showing off their new found knitting skills.

They had a starter lesson with Monster Yarns last week, and now (with some gentle arm twisting from me) they have been overcome with an urge to knit some baby blanket squares.

At the last count, I think there are ten lovely crafty friends now knitting baby blanket squares for me. What can I say - a big thank you, girls. As you can see from the pictures above, the finished blanket will be big enough for a cot - and lovely with it.

Mum came up at the weekend. Here we have a beautiful hand knitted blanket, just the right size to be baby's first blanket in the little Moses basket. And people wonder why I am so lazy with my own knitting, when mum just seems to trot out lovely things like this after just a few evenings of TV time.

"Oh, I like the way you have stitched your squares together", I said. "Would you like me to do the same to yours?", she asked. "Oh, yes please!" Subtle, aren't I?

Actually, the offers of crafty help didn't stop there, either. With talk of a house move on the cards, mum has kindly said she'll come and help with blind and curtain making. There may need to be a shopping trip for fabric first, of course, she said. Hurrah to all that, is all I can say. It definitely beats this morning's joyless moving related task, which was clearing out a decade's worth of rusting paint tins (and other similarly appealing tat from the shed) and having an outing to the tip.

And now for the next task from the list of joy. The loft.