scarf to...to...to...hmmm...

I've been trawling the charity shops like I always do and found a cheery scarf whose colours evoke for me boiled sweets by the seaside...[bad for the teeth but hey, we were young, we knew no better...] It had to be bought, and so it was.



It duly got shredded (well, cut into long strips). And the strips stitched together. A large crochet hook was located deep in the bottom of stitching craft paraphanelia box no.59 [third from the right, second shelf down].

Google was fired up and my almost annual search for how to perform those basic crochet stitches unleashed.




I was beginning to wonder whether I'd have enough of the strippaged yarn to make anything useful (cos, y'know, it's all about usefulness round here ;-) ) when, lo and behold, deep in to-be-upcycled-sometime-this-century stash box no. 33 [extreme left, bottom shelf] what did I find but another candy-striped scarf bought in a different charity shop sometime last year and utterly neglected, nay erased from the memory banks entirely.


A silver lining in the cloud of the hideous forgetfullness that forms the very core of my being these days.


Still not sure what it might end up being, but I do love it...

brooklyn meets canary meets the boyfriend (hat)...

OMG...O...M...G...

how many months was that? flew by...in the twinkling of an eye...and the meanderings of a bleak London winter full of lurgeys and Too Much Day Job...(TMDJ by far!)

anyway, here we are again...I won't even apologise for my absence, or promise to do better next time...will just enjoy the fact that I've found a window and I have some bloggable photos on my laptop, all at the same time...

so, I've got this lovely friend called Bert (you may remember him, Bert the Baker from a previous post... what? just the last one? no way...it was AAAAGGGES ago...) and Bert needed a new scarf. He mentioned this to me and all the little cogs in my rusty old brain whorred and whirred and finally engaged upon the notion of making him just such an item for Xmas (ok, so it's a historical post, forgive me...some day I'll catch up with myself again...maybe). Apart from anything else it presented itself as a charming opportunity to try out some beloved noro yarn in the form of a lovely Brooklyn Tweed inspired stripey scarf. (BtB loves stripes)

Shock Horror though, the man started talking about needing a new scarf a bit TOO much. And looking at them in shops and craft fairs a bit TOO much. Yours truly began to get anxious, and worried. And wondered how to avoid having her present (non-original as it was) undermined by coming second to a new SHOP BOUGHT item (the HIDEOUSNESS!)... until the obvious solution presented itself : send him an anonymous warning note.

Of course!

One happy evening of cutting and sticking later (I may be 42 but the simple pleasures never fail me) the job was done and winging its way courtesy of her Majesty's most Royal Mail to deepest East London (where he lived at the time - I wasn't just randomly sending it to East London, oh no, I'm waaay cleverer than that)

And a couple more happy evenings of knitting and purling later (well, many hours on buses, trains, sofas, hard chairs and soft if I'm honest, my knitting ain't a speed sport) the scarf was born.


BtB loved it. And hadn't even bought himself a new scarf in the meantime. RESULT!



Later I added a small linen robot button and loop so he could fasten it tight (on super chilly mornings)

the addition of the button turned everything green...it was like magic*

and made him a matching hat, which I call Brooklyn meets Boyfriend as it's an amalgamation of the Brooklyn Tweed inspired noro striping and Stephanie's Boyfriend Hat

(waiting patiently for a tube)

And he wears them all the time...

Bye, for now....

*errr, not really

on a roll....bringing back elevenses...

just over a week later and I'm back again...what's going on?!

Well, following on from my teacosy sucess last week I went one further, this week I made two teacosies and found a good cause to raffle them for...


...last Sunday morning I hosted a "Tea and Talk" event in support of the Mental Health Foundation...that's my kind of fundraising, none of that sweaty running about or (God forbid) dangling upside down from a length of elastic above some whitewater rapids...no, no, no give me elevenses (much underrated in my opinion) in my kitchen with a bunch of friends and a tableful of tea and cake anyday...

The full spread...mmm

...and just LOOK at this maple, chocolate and walnut swirl my friend Bert (Bert the Baker, nice ring to that actually) made for the occasion...particularly delicious heated up was that one...swoon...

with only 3 days notice lots of people turned up, ate cake, drank tea, bought raffle tickets from the ever eager Ms Reva and contributed £117.07 to this great cause...

here's the teacosy winning team, Amarapuspa and Jill with their prizes

I've also set up a Justgiving page and I'll try to put a widget on the sidebar in case anyone who wasn't there fancies throwing a few bob into the pot, as much or as little as you like...I might even run an online teapot and cosy raffle for those who support the cause that way...oooh, yes, now that might be a good idea...what do you think? Fancy a teapot and cosy to call your own?...

hmmm....that took a while...

...I know...I know...it's a joke...veritably...

...however, I AM still alive [apparantly]...

...and I even knit something last week : a pretty orange eco-wool tea cosy to keep my friend's tea...ummm...cosy...now Ms Bester wants one, but without the spout and handle holes, to wear as a nice bobble hat...sounds good to me

it's proving a funny old year...I'm hoping things will settle down soon and I'll be able to get back to crafting and connecting with my much missed crafters blogosphere...fingers crossed...

in the meantime...this is post 97...about a year ago I promised to make something nice to give away at post 100...watch the space as they say [at this rate of going you've only got a couple more years to wait!!! ]

long lost annie XXX

(from the sublime) to the ridiculous...

ok, so there really was no sublime...but this is getting ridiculous...it's JANUARY!!! I posted last in OCTOBER...blimey, how did that happen?

well, stuff has been going on, as always. Big changes afoot chez Milkwood. Am sure I'll you all about them in due course.

The crafting has been hit as a result of the energy demanded by the changes, but I still have some things to show (as I should, I've had 3 bloody months!)

First up - my dear and darling friend Gail had herself a dear and darling third child, a beautiful little girl called Maya. So obviously it was an opportunity not to be missed to indulge my love of all things cute and cosy and rustle her up a baby quilt...


isn't she adorable? good god, I'll be coming over all broody next, and that would NEVER do, believe you me...

Then came Xmas (Happy Xmas all!) and I went a bit crazy making neck warmers for the ladies in my life. All from ultra gorgeous, warm and snuggley Noro Kureyon

One for Granny Margaret, another for Granny Una and a third for my lovely friend and colleague Mia, who much to my delight wears it every day in our chilly office (well, whenever I am there anyway, for all I know she rips it off with relief the minute I leave for the day - but I hope not)
Cute aren't they - I got the pattern from the woman down the wool shop, but apparantly you can get similar pattern on Marths Stewart's website - don't say I never tell you anything...

Oh, and I finally finished the Stolen Moments wrap, which I am very happy with...my one quibble with it is that it (the Big Wool I knit it from rather than the wrap per se) moults a lot all over my coat (one of the guys at work thought I was covered in cat hair - it's GREEN - huh? what kind of cats do they have in Sydenham then??...) and (oh, there appear to be two quibbles) it has gone very bobbley very quickly. Sigh.

Is very warm though and I LOVE the colour...(is a bit, um, greener, in real life)

Ok, I will make no promises about my return...but I hope to be back sooner rather than later...

Hope you are all doing ok out there in blogland and sorry again I've been so useless of late...

the shock...

...of finding I hadn't blogged since July...and it is now October...OCTOBER!!!

Jeez I feel like I was dead or something. But I wasn't. Not really sure quite what was going on...oh yeah, real life (I think they call it) bloomin' 'eck it doesn't half get in the way of bloggin'n'craftin at times...

Anyway, here I am, back to some sort of bloggin'n'craftin half life at least...sorry about the hiatus...I'd promise it won't happen again (but you know what, I bet it does)...

Ms Reva had a birthday during that self-enforced silence...girl turned 7


We had a number of celebrations and I made her a cushion, well we made it together really, though she didn't know it was happening. Best sort of mum'n'dottir crafting where no-one quite knows what's going on. Happens a lot round here.

She stuck all these bits of fabric from my scrap box onto a square piece (from a sheet we had in our holiday "hut" in the 1970s - aaaah, those were the days) one day while I was busy doing something else and one night while she was busy doing something else (sleeping to be precise) I appliqued them all down exactly as she'd put them, added a back and a label (for I suffer from an acute case of labelitis) and an internal cushion and a crafty birthday pressie was born.


The look on her face on the morning of the day was priceless, and the sight of it on her bed every day better still.



Gotta do more of that sort of stuff. I love it.

Realised tonight this is my 95th, or 96th post. Now I know that's fairly pathetic over more than two years compared to all those prolific posters out there, but it does mean post no 100 is approaching (sometime in the next decade that'll be) and so I'll have to start thinking about a suitable giveaway for the traditional celebration. Unless fashions have moved on so far since I was around last of course that that is now passe. Hmmmm...watch this space... (ahem...if you have the patience of a saint that is)

Hope anyone who found their way back here again after my very impolite silence is well and enjoying life and all that Autumn (can it really be) has to offer...

21 go down to the sea...

annual summer camping trip time again...our largest group outing to date...11 adults and 10 kids all went down to Dorset for a weekend of fun, frolics and fossils...

...chesil beach in the mist...

we managed to celebrate two birthdays

with home made cake...now a pre-requisite for any camping trip for me I'm afraid

...fit in some walking...

there be a baby in that there purple scarf refashioned into a sling apparatus

we visited some rocky beaches

the girls jointly invested many weeks pocket money in an inflatable

(versatile that scarf!)

and my lovely friend Jane (one of the Birthday Girls) even made a dress over the weekend...
a rather small dress, but a dress, nonetheless

go camping...it rocks!