OK! Let’s do it… I’ve finally had a chance to have a good mooch through my archived photos. I’ve been puzzling about where to start with this blog post for a few weeks now. I figured I’d read back through my last newsy post from July 2020 to give myself a refresher and then take it from there.

Last time I was here I had just finished the pattern for Pjeter and Petra Puffin and had begun working on a princess and an axolotl. So lets start with a few Princess pics.

It was summer and I spent some cosy pyjama days crocheting on the downstairs sofa. It’s not always that warm in summer – especially the early mornings – so if you think that fleecy leggings are a bit weird in July they’re not so odd around here!

I had bought a greenhouse when the first lockdown was announced and was really glad to be able to double up it’s use as an extra workspace. My three grown-up boys as well as my husband were still mostly working from home so I escaped out to the garden whenever I could as the crowd took over the house in what was, in more normal times, usually my exclusive daytime domain.

It didn’t take long for the cats to encroach on that space either though!

Hmmm – so four people working in the house and three cats in my new greenhouse. Maybe I need a shed too!

As ever though I found a way to work around the kitties – stealing in and planting my backside on the chair by stealth when they weren’t looking.

Despite the musical chairs type problem of finding a suitable workspace, the princesses multiplied, stitch by stitch.

And here they are in all their medieval, romantic court finery…

 

With a few tweaks I was able to create a cheeky nod to Anna and Elsa form Frozen. Ah, the adaptabilty of crochet!

Then along came Alice the Axolotl. She was a special request from a friend and, to be quite honest with you, I didn’t even know what an axolotl looked like then! As soon as I saw a picture of one I knew this was going to be fun but that the challenge would be in making the gills. I ended up using a 2 ply cotton crochet thread for the frilly bits and she turned out so cute.

While doing my research I found out that they come in many different colours so I raided the wool wall and opened up the stash boxes to match up all the different flavours closely as possible .

I say flavours intead of colours because they reminded me of ice cream hues when they were made.

And so I named them accordingly. From left to right we have Lemon, Vanilla, Pistachio, Strawberry and Blackcurrant. Yum! But the one that went on the pattern cover was called Alice because I love my designs to have alliterative names whenever possible!

Next (though with a little bit of overlap as I rarely finish one design before I’m racing ahead and working on another) came Drake the Dragon’s new buddy – Izzy the Ice Dragon.

The weather was great and I continued to work outside as much as I could.

Lyra is all grown up now and hugely improved healthwise since her operation to fix her feeding issues when she was a kitten. She’s turned into a small but bright and sparky little thing that is always in the running for a bit of yarn action.

She loves to keep a close eye on what I’m doing.

And she seemed to have a special liking for being around Izzy

Having been expertly overseen by Lyra the final incarnations were ready (or maybe inyarnations would be a better word? – if it actually existed of course!).

I made a little version too. My favorite way to shake up the pattern testing repetition, especially as I didn’t make any major colour variations for this character as I wanted to fit her tones in with the icy theme.

Now this hasn’t been in precicely the exact chronological order because of my short attention span when it comes to starting much more than one crochet design at a time but I hope it’s given a little insight into what happened in the first half of my blogging absence.

I blame all the lockdowns and the chaos of a houseful of homeworkers for my sabbatical but things are a bit more normal around here now and I have exclusive use of my studio again without having to share the computer and other tech with anyone else. I’ve got one more catch up blog post then we’ll see if I find it easier to pop by and say hello a bit more often!