Only 364 days between posts!

Wow, that turned out to be more than a brief break over the Christmas holidays, with tomorrow being one year since I last wrote on my blog. In that post I was bursting with excitement about the impending birth of my brother's first baby. Well that little baby was indeed born on Christmas Eve and is now the most adorable wee boy, crawling like crazy and utterly, utterly gorgeous. I still can't believe he is going to be one tomorrow. Happy birthday little Mr K!

So, my excuse for not paying my poor blog any attention for a year, well the big change to my life was that I started working again after almost 10 years of being an at-home mum. I'm only working part-time, but boy has it cut into any spare time I might have had in the past. So sadly all things blog related took a hit. I haven't been able to spend much time visiting my favourite blogs or discovering new ones - and to all you gorgeous gals out there who I loved to visit, you know who you are, I miss you!! I have managed to still squeeze in the occasional evening with my crochet hook.  I am almost finished another blanket, this one is for Miss 7 (who has given me very subtle hints that she's keen for it to be finished). The problem being that now the temperatures have suddenly improved, it's not so appealing to have a huge blanket draped over you when it's 25 degrees. It was great over winter, but boy am I struggling with it at the moment.  Only about 6 rows left to go and then the big decision of what sort of border I'll do. Any suggestions?

I got a bit carried away when I was doing my foundation row and made it much bigger than I anticipated. The yarn was starting to diminish so once I'd done three repeats of the wide stripes, I've then extended each side of the blanket with wide white stripes and a thin stripe of colour which makes it seem a lot less 'heavy' if you know what I mean. She chose the colours out of my stash and laid them all out in the order she liked. I'm just kicking myself that I didn't get it finished so she could have it on her bed through the winter. Knowing Miss 7, she'll still insist that it's cold enough so she can use it soon!

I did however whip up a poncho for her which she got lots of wear out of. I added tassels all around it as that was the way my Nana M made mine when I was little. I've now got requests from Miss 7's friends to make one for them too. It was a lovely easy pattern which worked up really fast, so I'm sure a few more won't be too tricky.

Another little project that I've been working on are these cute little bunny ear egg cosies. These are being made for our school Easter fair. They will sit on top of a wrapped marshmallow Easter egg. I made up the pattern and am really happy with them. That's the great thing about crochet, you have a go, if the stitch choice doesn't look great, just undo it and try another one. My first attempt had stumpy ears and they looked weird, but I've managed to get them taller and they suddenly have a lot more personality.

It is absolutely roasting today, so I'm going to end this post now and go and sit in the sunshine with a nice cool drink.

Merry Christmas to you all! Have a truly fabulous festive season and hopefully I'll see you again soon - not in another year...

Leah
xxxx