Scrap Blanket Update

Remember that blanket I spoke to you about last week? Well it's not going so great anymore...

You may remember that my aim was to just use up some wool I already had and not go out and specifically buy wool for it. I've stuck to that but because I'm so adamant on not spending money on it, it has gone a bit weird.

I've ended up making 33 squares before I ran out of the colours and instead of trying to find yet more wool and add even more random, uncoordinated colours I decided that to make up the rest of the size I would do a granny border around it.

So first I played around with the square alignment:

Tried this first but didn't quite work

Then I settled for this

After deciding the order I then had to weave in the ends and join the squares. That's when it started going all wrong! I have never had to join these many squares before and I made sooo many mistakes. Even though I fixed them the blanket is still lumpy!

See, lumpy!

Any normal person at this stage would have probably given up but I had already spent a tonne of time on it. I mean it takes me about 20mins to make each square, that times 33 is 660 minutes or 11 hours! 11 hours making squares! And this doens't even take into account the darning and joining! Anyway I am fully aware that lots of people often make blankets with 100+ squares but this is new to me! 

So because of all that effort I decided to continue and add the border.

As you can see I went for some Ice wool, purely because it has pink and grey in, two of the square colours and also because I've had it for ages and don't really know what to make with it. 

The blanket is still not done and I will finish it and I will update you but I'm 99% sure that once finished it's going in a cupboard to never be seen again!

Have you ever had a disastrous crochet project? Feel free to show it to me on the facebook page or twitter and don't forget to say hi in the comments!

  

Miss Sporty products

So this being a mom business really is tiring! And the lack of sleep shows pretty quickly. In the past month I've started getting spots again, I have gigantic bags under my eyes and there's a sneaky bald patch appearing.

I don't really pay much attention to my appearance and I'm not bothered by what people may think but the other day I felt like buying something to make me feel good about myself.

I am a total makeup noob. I have been wearing it in and off for a while but it has really been more off than on. I think the only time I seriously wore make up was when I invested in some Bare Minerals stuff and absolutely loved it. I just love the natural look, unfortunately for the time being that's abit out of my price range.

So with this in mind I popped into a chemist and went to the make up isle. I went straight for the one with the most attractive packaging, yes cheap marketing tricks like that do work! And I ended up by buying two things from Miss Sporty.

Because they weren't particularly expensive I thought I'd take a gamble on something I'd never used before and it paid off.

The BB cream is really light and easy to put on and blends quite well to a natural look. It obviously doesn't eliminate all imperfections because that's not what it's designed for but it does enough to make me feel less like a zombie. The powder just takes away that shine and has a slight glow to it which again keeps to the natural look.

I'm not writing this post to review beauty products because I am no expert but I am writing it to say how much little things really lift your spirits. Just the act of putting on the cream and powder make me feel a bit more human again and like I have time for myself. I am incredibly lucky to be raising my baby in a house with so many people, there is always someone there to pick her up and give me some time for myself so it's quite nice to have something to do with that time!

Anyway that is all I wanted to say! On Friday there is an update on my blanket project! Until then don't forget to say hi!

Sirdar Beachcomber DK yarn

Every now and then I indulge a bit. By indulge I mean buying some yarn that I know I shouldn't. The reasons why I shouldn't buy the yarn can vary greatly but it's normally because they are too expensive and/or I have no clue what to do with it.

For a few months now I have been eyeing up the Sirdar Beachcomber yarn in particular the collecting shells, catch the sun and windward. I just absolutely fell in love with the colours. They are so soft and delicate and they just feel quite special. So I went to my local wool shop and got them.

Sorry, the ipad camera does not do the yarn justice

This yarn is 100% cotton and has quite an uneven texture but it feels really soft. I haven't done anything with it yet. Well that's a bit of a lie, i made a chain and worked 2 rounds and I'm going to be honest, I found it quite difficult to work it because of the unevenness. But I still love looking at it!

I'm really not sure what to do with it and I won't be working with it for a while yet since I have a few projects lined up and whatever I do with it is going to be slow going.

You can buy it pretty much anywhere like Deramores and Woolwharehouse.

Have you done anything with this yarn? If so send me an email with pics and I will feature it in a few weeks time! 

That's it for now, don't forget to say hi in the comments! 

Coffee cup cozy

Hello everyone!

As some of you may know I'm originally from Portugal. However what you may have not realized is how interwoven Portuguese culture is with coffee. After all Portugal was responsible for introducing coffee production to Brasil. You are very welcome! One of our greatest poets, Fernando Pessoa, has a bronze statue outside his favourite coffee shop: A Brasileira where he regularly drank espressos, arguably the nation's favourite drink.

Big man, small cup

Recently I have developed a new addiction. Going to the petrol station near the house and buying a cappuccino from a Costa machine and a chocolate muffin. Not particularly healthy I know, but darn tasty!

This is why I decided to make a cup cozy, something I've never done before. It was the perfect little project to do in an hour or so while taking a break from my main WIP. I dug mine and my mum's shared yarn stash and found this lovely bright green.

As soon as I started working with it it reminded me of this dude:

Mike from Monsters inc.!

So I decided to try and base the cozy around him. His most distinguishable feature is the big round eye so I decided to make his eye. It didn't quite work...

But after already making most of the cozy I decided to not quit and go ahead anyway. To be honest I wanted to see what it looked like all together...

It is far from perfect and I doubt you would have understood what it was supposed to be if I hadn't told you but hey, I actually quite enjoyed making him! I may even try and figure out how to do a Sully one. There is something incredibly satisfying about completing a project in one sitting. 

That is enough from me for today. What are some of your favourite things to do in one sitting? Don't forget to say hi in the comments and I hope you all have a brilliant weekend!

Wreck This Journal

Hello everyone!

Last year I found out about Wreck This Journal and Keri Smith. For those of you who have never heard of it, Wreck This Journal is a sort of interactive book. I know, there I go again talking about interactive books, this time though it isn't a futuristic idea and it does actually exist.

Keri Smith is an author and illustrator and she came up with this concept of a book that you create. Each page has a prompt and you have full liberty to do as you wish and interpret the prompt however your heart desires. It is brilliant for people like me that wish to be more creative than what they actually are.

I obviously had to go and buy one and I had tonnes of fun with it. Unfortunately I can't show you any pictures because I threw it away when we moved to save space and all the photos were on my phone which I broke back in January! I have been missing it so Dan bought me the "everywhere" edition which is smaller and is tailored to be completed outside.

I've only had it a couple of weeks so haven't done much. Here's it so far:

Done by my sister Marta. She got the dogs to lick food off the page.

Done by me but not quite finished yet.

Done by my sister Vera.

I've also chosen three pages to do next and I will update you once they are done. The pages are:

I'd definitely recommend the "Wreck This Journal" for a bit of fun and to get some creative juices flowing. In fact all of Keri Smith books are a lot of fun. If you just want to see what other people have created there are tonnes of photos on Pinterest and also a few Youtubers have uploaded videos of themselves doing their journals.

So that is it from me for this post! I hope you've enjoyed reading and don't forget to say hi in the comments!

Current crochet project

Hello everyone!

If you keep following my blog you will soon find out that I am a big fan of crochet. There is something quite satisfying about picking up some wool and turn it into something entirely different. I am no pro but I am capable of doing most crochet techniques and enjoy working on projects.

My current project is a granny square blanket to use in the pram when out and about. Normally I would jump at the chance of buying wool for a project but this time I decided to use what I already had since this month I'm starting a pretty intensive savings scheme.

Because I decided to only use wool I already had this meant that I had to be pretty flexible with colour schemes. I started by using some Stylecraft Special DK in pomegranate and some beige/grey merino I had. I quickly realized that it wasn't going to be enough even for the small blanket so added some Stylecraft Special DK in Aster (not 100% sure that's the name as I've lost the label).

Now I'm about halfway done and fast running out so will probably be adding one or more colours which I haven't quite decided yet. I'm actually really enjoying this random colour co ordination and can't wait to see what it will look like when finished! I'll keep you guys posted!

That's enough from me. Thanks for reading and don't forget to say hi in the comments!

Netflix addiction of the month

Hi, my name is Claudia and I'm addicted to Netflix.

O.K, it may be a bit over the top to call myself an addict but I do spend an ungodly amount of time on Netflix. Although I do enjoy watching the odd movie on there, my favorite genre is the documentaries.

I'm a big fan of Louis Theroux and his series exploring American subcultures. I have however watched every single episode of every series as well as the standalone documentaries. So I needed to find something else.

Enters "Unplanned America".

This is a series where three Australian friends travel through America and explore the subcultures. The only fault I find with it is the length of each episode. They cover one topic per episode but split it into two sub-topics which are both covered in a 20 minute episode. While the topics are always quite interesting the short episode running time means they don't go into much detail which really is a shame.

Despite that I am really enjoying the series. It's one of those shows that you can watch while doing something else, in my case feeding the baby or failing to get her to sleep, and still keep up with what's happening. And the Australian accents are always a plus too!

I've also just found out that the show has a website (www.unplannedamerica.com) where you can find blog posts of about their american adventure. Season 1 is up on Netflix and they are currently filming season 2 and 3 so hopefully there will be more to watch soon!

Anyway that is it from me for now, I need to go find a new show to obsess over! Thank you for reading and don't forget  to say hi in the comments!