Clamshell-along

Winter is almost here now. There is a decided chill in the air and the vineyards outside are finally starting to turn red - they were a long time coming this year. Very soon the big machines will come to prune the vines and there will only be bare branches left. So I stand at the bedroom window a few minutes every morning and savour the autumn colours. Love this time of year.



Even though the days are still warm in the sunshine, at night it's 'brrrr'. Constant reminder that here in South Australia we are literally at the edge of a great big desert the size of a continent. So my projects these days have 'warmth' as a common theme. I have made Alice another hat (will show it to you soon), working on one for Alexander, and I was thinking it would be lovely to make Alice a little blanket for the car / pram. Then the next morning I was reading my favourite blogs over coffee and croissant (my breakfast ritual), and I saw the new clamshell crochet pattern posted by Sandra from Cherry Heart. Swoon. Even better she was running a crochet-along in her Ravelry group for anyone who wanted to use the pattern to make something, anything. I signed up in a heartbeat, to make a blanket. My first crochet-along!

Then to choose the colours for the blanket. Those of you who follow me on Pinterest would have noticed that I collect images of colour combinations on my Colour Palette board. I love looking at pretty colours, and couldn't wait to use them for a project one day. So I went and had a look and this one immediately caught my eye - perfect for a baby blanket. Pink but not too princessy in its pinkness - more a peachy-apricoty-blushy kind of pink. And lots of earthy beiges and browns to balance it as well. Even better, I already had yarn in almost the exact shades. Perfect.



And here is where I got to so far. It took a few rows to get the hang of the pattern but I know it by heart now. I am absolutely loving the colours. You may have noticed my slight love affair with pastel shades. I may flirt with brights, but I will always be a pastel girl at heart.







In other news I finally completed and submitted the secret squirrel project I have been working on for Homespun magazine. I am very pleased with how it came out, and can't wait to see it in the feature. I had to complete a personal profile questionnaire for the feature, which took me almost as long as the project itself. They wanted a portrait photo as well. Good heavens. I don't have any recent photos of me without a cute kid or two hanging off some part of my anatomy, so I asked my husband to take a photo especially (OK who am I kidding, to take a few hundred photos so I could find one where I looked semi-presentable).

And last but not least - the postman brought me the best present the other day, goodies I won a few days ago in a giveaway run by the lovely Clare from Clare's Craftroom. The perfect present for an embroiderer - not only a great book with a full library of embroidery stitches (I didn't have one! Squee!), but Cosmo floss (my fave), some gorgeous trim, and a cute tape measure and scissor set. LOVE! Thank you Clare!