One of the things I also did during my long absence from the blog last year was to finally learn to crochet. A longtime fan of the Anne Claire Petit crochet toys and accessories which I stock in my shop I have always envied people who could knit or crochet and any time I visited my local craft shop I used to drool over all the gorgeous yarns and so wished I was able to participate in this elusive craft.
When I was a teenager many years ago, my mother who was a fantastic knitter, attempted to teach me once. Although she was an excellent knitter she wasn't actually a very good teacher as she had no patience and found the whole thing very frustrating and I was left with the feeling that I would never ever master the yarn :)
I now know that crochet at least isn't nearly as difficult as I had imagined. I borrowed a couple of books from my library and set to work. At first it did seem awkward and I hold the hook completely differently but I'm having a whale of a time with my granny squares :)
After a bit of practice I decided I wanted to actually make a project. There is loads of great inspiration over on flickr and I really liked the idea of making an afghan blanket for Livvy, but being new to anything yarn related I had no stash. Then it struck me, I have lots of left over tapestry wool from some Jolly Red needlepoint kits I've made over the years for Olivia, although I've only ever actually put her Christmas stocking together!
I confess I did have to visit the craft shop to add more colours in the wool and of course got carried away and bought some of the gorgeous Debbie Bliss Cashmerino plus some Rowan hand-knit cotton - well I am stash building :)
The really fun part is when you actually start joining the squares together and see the beginnings of a blanket
which gradually gets bigger
until ....
you realize over Christmas that you didn't buy anything like as much of the cream wool as you need and have to wait with fingers crossed until the shop re-opens in the New Year and hope that there is more from the same dye lot ...
Phew, I did manage to get some more, not as much as I would have liked so I will need to have a re-think on the rest of the blanket, but I'm pretty pleased with how it is going so far and think I may have a bit of an obsession with crochet going on.
Who knows, I may even take up knitting next ......