Another new beginning!

So here at PLNT headquarters, we've had a busy year!

Last September I reluctantly took on the role of Chair of the PTA at my kids school.  I think I did a fairly good job, but hadn't realised the time it would take from the rest of my life.  I'm no super-mum, I am not good at being organised in my family life, and housework and me don't always see eye-to-eye.  However, I was determined to do the best I could do by the school, and for that role, I managed myself pretty well.  We did ok, running successful events and increasing the amount of funds raised.  It was an intense year!

The flip side was my family, and my home life, suffered.  I also discovered that I'm not the strong person I thought I was.  Criticism couched in 'friendly' terms cut me deeply, and left me an emotional wreck for months, paranoid that people didn't like me.  The negative emotions had an impact on my interactions with my husband, and on the kids.  I was short-tempered, snappy, pushy, over-emotional and definitely not a delight to be around.

So, at the end of the school year, I sat down and properly contemplated my future.  When thinking about remaining as Chair, everything felt bleak, and dark.  The thought of NOT being Chair though - well!  Happy days!

And now, after a busy summer of holidays, and entertaining kids, I'm coming back to what I love doing.  Creating!

After sharing pictures of one of my favourite makes, a Baby Bear combo of hat, mittens and booties on a writing blog, I received two orders!  I was ridiculously excited, and it's really fired me up to get going on more!

I've also ordered in new stock - pretty stuff that I'd like in my house (and, at the moment it is!).  

What do you reckon?

Anyway, come the 17th Sept, I will hand over my Chair-ship to a new incumbent, and then I'll be free to concentrate more on what I want to do!

A special little mouse

Yet another bookmark - inspired by another fabulous author (you know who you are!).

This one will be winging it's way to it's new owner soon

Hurrah!  I finished my orange dragon bookmark, and am pretty pleased with the result.  Took me a while to figure out the attachment of the wings - the instructions were quite straightforward but my brain just couldn't wrap itself around them.

What do you think?

Once the ends are all sorted I think this one is on the way to the person who inspired me to try it in the first place.  

I wonder how it'll look in red . . . 

Today I've started on a Dragon Bookmark, in honour of someone who writes fabulous stories about an orange Dragon.  Once I managed to get my head around it, the pattern is fairly easy, so far!  It's been pretty quick to make up (at least to this point!) so will see if I can finish the whole thing today. I have a lot of washing to catch up with, and a mountain of ironing to do, but somehow I feel this should take priority!

If you like the pattern, you can find it here, on Etsy:  https://www.etsy.com/uk/transaction/174946169?ref=fb2_tnx_title

I'm back!!

Golly, it's been a bit of a busy year.  I'm terrible at keeping up with these things anyway, but the year of 2013 was obviously awful for my organisational skills!

In a teeny, tiny nutshell, hubby started a new job which proved rather stressful for us all; his mum was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, which obviously was extremely stressful for everyone; my weight ballooned (as did I), I signed myself up to be Chair of the PTA for my kids school, and I tried to make a bit more money making scarves.  In the last few months of the year, I shook myself up and lost nearly a stone in weight, dropping a dress size in the process; my mother-in-law has beaten the first round of cancer, and the new job for hubby is looking up.

Wow - my potted history of 2013.  There was obviously a lot more, but that's all enough for now.

In amongst everything else recently, I've rediscovered my love of crochet, and quilting.  There is nothing to show for my quilting efforts yet, but I had a bit of fun making some crochet bunting with granny triangles - so easy and quick, and the bright colours are cheering me up in the miserable weather as I look forward to spring.  What do you think:

The twig tree is from a Lilac tree we pruned last spring, that I found whilst rummaging around my garden before Christmas, and on a whim I spray painted it white.  It looked lovely with a few selected Xmas decs on before Christmas, but now my plan is to make loads of flowers and butterflies, and decorate it for the coming spring/summer.  Something the take my mind off the rain.

I've never written a pattern, and I'm sure that anyone with basic knowledge of crochet would be able to make the bunting with no problem, but if you'd like some guidance, let me know and I'll do my best.

Cheers Peeps - lets not leave it so long next time, hey?
xx

And I have a best seller!

Firstly, I have to say that the ball last night was absolutely brilliant.  In aid of the RSLB, the aim was to raise money to expand the nursery services that they offer to blind and visually impaired children, from just being based near Sevenoaks, Kent, to more of the south east and London.  The work they've done with our friends kids is so fantastic, giving so much hope to kids who would otherwise be left behind by most of society.  Slightly gutted that hubby's attempt to secure us a two night stay in a 5* hotel in London was out-bid in the silent auction, but hope that the very large sum of money we spent last night will help towards the overall goal.

The second thing, is that I sold two of the baby hats as well - the pink, and the large fluffy one.  Very exciting!

Thirdly, I was approached by one of the mums at school who feels that my scarves are not really her style, but would be perfect for her sister-in-law, if I could come up with something in orange.  Handily, I happened to have a ball of yarn in the very autumnal colours of rust red, orange and browns.  I also managed to find the time, amongst all my other tasks, to knit the thing last week, and showed it to her on Friday night.  She loves it, and is happy to buy it!  But she did agree to me taking it home and getting some pictures of it, so that I could add it to the FB page, and the website, (which is still very much a work in progress - will post a link in the hopefully near future!).

Yesterday, I duly took some pictures of the scarf, and finally uploaded them this morning (when the after-effects of last night had dimmed somewhat!).  Through that picture, I have now taken two more orders!!!  Slightly annoying in that I don't have any of that yarn at the moment, but a quick order and they might be in and knitted by Wednesday if I'm lucky, but definitely by the end of the week.  Have also found some more colours that might become popular too.

So, here, I present my new bestseller:

New Things

I'm off to a charity ball tonight!  Very, very excited.  I haven't been to one for a long time - since pre-kids I think.

The event - The Little Heroes Ball - is being held to raise funds for children who are visually impaired or blind.  The people who we are going with have two children who have a rare condition which means they only see in shades of grey, and have been going there for the last 2 years or more.  Their eldest child was the poster boy for this years fundraising campaign.  It's going to be a great night with friends.

Last Wednesday I spoke to the people we're going with to arrange the logistics of the evening.  During the conversation, my friend asked me whether I'd ever knitted a hat for a baby?  Apparently a friend of a friend of hers had her baby 10 weeks early, and the tiny little girl is now just about 4lbs.  The friend saw a blanket that I'd knitted and wondered if I could do a hat for her friends baby (confused yet?)

So, despite getting nervous about my first ever fayre to sell my scarves, for which I'm also the event organiser, next Wednesday, I popped out on Thursday to get some very soft, but still machine washable, yarns, and here is what I've come up with.  Thing is, I'm not entirely sure just how tiny the baby's head is, so have done a few sizes.  What do you think: