The summer is pretty much over and I’ve been ‘staycationing’ year. Not having managed to escape to some heavenly beach retreat with my tent and sleeping bag I thought I’d bring a taste of the coast to me instead by creating a set of seaside inspired characters. One creature led to another and another until I ended up with four different patterns based on two distinct body shapes and a mini friend with a shape all of it’s own. I’ve bundled them into one bumper pattern and called it ‘Ocean Buddies’.
Ocean Buddies Pattern
This pattern has been through a few evolutions as I played around finding the right proportions and it proved to be the perfect picking in and out of pattern to take outside and work on in my garden while I daydreamed about being beside the seaside.
I’m not completely high and dry here in my favorite spot because we have a tiny pond in the shade of a shrub I can never remember the name of. I have even made a little shingle beach and scattered around a few of my scavenged fossils to remind me of past beach-combing adventures in Watchet on the Somerset coast.
Little 4 ply, 2 mm hook narwhal contemplates a dip but is somewhat put off by the film of duckweed. Can’y say I blame him. I wont be dipping my toes in either, no matter how hot it gets!
The Ocean Buddies accompanied me on landlocked car journeys up the motorway when we did take the odd day trip to Lancashire to visit relatives.
Annoyingly, I failed to bring any safety eyes or stuffing on this particular occasion (an early start you see, and my brain is rarely fully engaged until midday) and so my relaxing crochet session was properly scuppered. Aaaagh! The thought of three hours+ in the car with idle hands was almost too much to bear. Luckily I had started sewing a pompom trim onto my project basket the night before so I solved the fidgety fingers problem by painstakingly stitching on the rest of the trim.
Quite a fiddly process, with tiny stitches and a wickedly sharp needle for such a bumpy journey but I managed it with just the odd finger prick here and there to show for it.
By the time we got to our destination I had a very pretty pimped up basket. To be honest I can’t think of many things that don’t look better with pom poms attached. Do you see the green, green grass of my mother-in-laws garden? It really does put my coarse, dandelion infested back yard patch of scrub to shame.
Laddie, previously having belonged to said mother-in-law before we adopted him after she got poorly, and thus having been the joint owner of the garden perfection above, is so used to a fine weed free lawn that he appears to disapprove of my more slapdash approach to green spaces. So much so that he can only tolerate being in its vicinity if there is a wooden tray between the ground and his butt!
I also can’t help thinking he’s planted himself next to the lawnmower and rake as a sort of reprimand. Maybe I’ll get into this gardening malarkey one of these days. When there’s a showdown between the hook and the shears the hook will win out everytime!
In the mean time I’m content to use crocheted rugs to hide the multitude of unmown sins, unswept prickly leaves, miscellaneous weeds and bare patches of earth. The rag yarn crochet makes things a bit comfier and adds a bit of colour – a real plus point when all the flowers I have tried to grow are constantly eaten by slugs and snails.
Pesticide free, organic gardening is easy when you let the weeds take over, and rather good for the wildlife too no doubt. Everything has an up side! I think I’ll make this unkempt approach my horticultural hallmark.
As lovely as this unusually warm summer has been I have to admit that the heat did get the better of me from time to time. A shady spot in the studio with the slatted blinds sending the daylight coolly up in towards the ceiling went a long way to redressing the heatwave when things got too hot outside.
Crisp white walls and a clean white desk all add to the oasis like calm in here.
Mojo is not too keen on the savage sunshine at the peak of summer so I often found him in my crochet corner waiting to keep me company whenever I scuttled inside for a cool down.
It’s a little more difficult to get hold of my wool while he is around but we always manage to share it in the end.
When we got back from our day trip up north I attempted to put my newly embellished basket to good use as storage but before I could fill it with the next batch of yarn Mojo had crept in and wound himself into it – while it was still on my lap.
Yeah I know that look – ‘move me on at your peril human, I shall sulk for an hour if you do’ – or meows to that effect. So you see Mojo has a nice new cat bed. A bit on the small side maybe but it doesn’t seem to bother him one little bit.
This new sleeping arrangement has the added bonus of freeing up the rest of my chair for me. Instead of a furry, sprawling, purring cat rug draped over the entire seat Moji now likes to roll himself up like pill bug, tuck his head in and forget all about the outside world for a bit. Sounds rather appealing to be honest. Perhaps we should have human sized hibernation baskets to disappear into from time to time!
It frees up space for Orwell too. We all share and share alike here. A happy family of people, cats and crochet!
Mojo managed to prise himself out of the comfort of my stash basket when he saw the stage was set for a photo-shoot, sneaking in just in time for his cameo role.
Despite the intrusion I eventually took some shots I was happy with.
I have a new Nikon camera and have been experimenting with using it in manual mode so some of the colours are a bit more uneven than I would like but I think I’m getting the hang of it. Practice make perfect and and all that.
I’ve also been watching some YouTube videos on how to get whiter backgrounds for product photography by using Adobe Photoshop.
I’m learning so much that isn’t crochet related at the moment. None of it as much fun as crochet itself – but it comes quite close.
As summer draws to a close and chances of a holiday on some windswept beach diminish for another year I can’t say that I’m too heartbroken. I’ve had a wonderful summer at home with my family, my cats, my crochet and my imagination. A winning combination in my opinion!
I have a big bunch of autumn/winter projects to be getting on with over the next few weeks. (Spoiler alert – sneak peak for one of them below!)…
I’m aiming to tie up all the loose ends on my current WIPs and share in my next post. I hope you’ll join me then!
I hope you all had a spookylicious time this Halloween! Now some of you might think it’s a little late in the day for a pumpkin pattern – but in my view pumpkins are for all of autumn and not just for carving freaky faces into. So, undaunted by the lateness of the hour, I’ve been busy stirring a potion in my crochet cauldron to bring you a pattern for a crop of gorgeous gourds.
…and a  hard backed craft book for the larger specimens, some paper towels and a heap of pretty leaves, my youngest son and I got to work.
And what a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.
Fast forward a little bit and here they are, all rustic and glorious in one of my favorite old chippy china bowls…
…and I’m loving how they echo some of the colours in my almost-very-nearly-finished poncho. I may have started it last season but I think the colours are just right for this season.
I’ve only got to put the rest of the tassels on and darn in a few more ends. One last heave-ho push and it will be ready to wear just in time for the cold snap, especially useful when we’ve just been told to expect a month of storms ahead! My house is old and draughty so it will be nice to have a woolly buffer zone made by my own fair hands to swan around in this winter. So far as the usual British climate goes, we’ve had more than our fair share of sunshine and tropical temperatures this year. It couldn’t have been any hotter when I started making this poncho during a trip to 
The squares have actually turned out to be a crazy mix of the rich reds and browns of autumn thrown in with this gorgeous azure blue of the sea at Chesil Beach, which all seems very fitting – like I’ve crocheted the memory of that glorious day into a winter comfort. The bright reds in my poncho will remind me of the accidental sunburn too. Oops!
Wow, it’s good to look back and remember all that fabulous weather, I’m very glad of this years copious sunshine and feel I can more cheerfully face the winter months with a little more vitamin D and a lot more happy sunny memories stored away!
I’ve been around the poncho once and put tassels in every chain space, but I think the fringe needs to be more dense. It will hang better too with the extra weight. I cut a few more 12″ lengths to finish the fringing, counting out the right amount of threads, so as not to waste any precious yarn. That’s stage one of the final push done and dusted.
Stage 2 is to get distracted piddling around with the colours for no obvious reason, other than it’s fun! Look, I made a still life in the style of Van Gogh. This ones called ‘Sunset Over the Malvern Hills’Â 
Or how about ‘Starry Night with Fish’?
Really, it’s no wonder it’s taking me so long to get it finished! And then, the inevitable Minnie Interlude. Aww bless.
On with the Daisy Blanket instead then. The end is in sight for this project too.
Which begs the question, how long until another of my cats turns up and decides they just have to have a nap in this pile of woolly heaven? I’ll let you know… but I already suspect it won’t be too long. Perhaps we’ll all curl up in it this chilly autumn night and be glad of the warmth and the company!
Or I might go work on my new Elephant pattern. This is Elijah and he’s looking kind of cute so far.
It appears he enjoys snuggling up in blankets too. In fact he’s refusing to come out until I crochet him a girlfriend. He says he’s too shy to go on Etsy on his own. He’s made me promise to start making Eleanor tomorrow at the latest. So that’s my plan, unless I get distracted again by random things, like housework, though I’ll try my very best not to let that happen 🙂
3) Knitting more socks. AÂ girl can never have too many pairs and the 4 ply stash has to be used up somehow, if only so I can go out and buy more.
…and the soup from the excavated pulp, complete with roasted, spiced pumpkin seeds for scattering on top.
