If we took a holiday

We have just returned from a fortnight in the sun and I could do with a week off, it's exhausting doing nothing.

Before we went I should have spent the day before I left packing but I took a couple of hours out to make a travel wallet for our holiday documents.

  During my time away whilst hubby and the boys lived in the water, I spent lots of time sitting still and relaxing mainly reading

 and crochet, my holiday activity.  

This is going to be a scarf; it is the pattern Gigi by Amanda Perkins from Ravelry.

Well back to reality with a bump, but I do love this next season best of all and there is a lot to look forward to. 

My most exciting bit of news is we are getting a new member of the household, he is my 40th Birthday present (which is coming up in December) meet Oskar.

He is a Silver Tabby Siberian Kitten and I am in love.

We spent an couple of hours with Oskar and his mummy just before our holidays he will be ready to come live with us sometime in September after his last set of jabs and I am so excited.

I am a cat lover and have one already but I am quite allergic to them.  This breed is known to be somewhat hypo-allergenic which is what attracted me to the breed to start with and after a couple of hours with Oskar and his mum I was overjoyed to have no reaction whatsoever (I usually flare up within minutes).

By the time I met him, allergy or not I was already smitten, how could I not be?

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Laa Laa Land

You lovely lot are sure to remember Hookin With Laa Laa.  My lovely friend Lynda closed her blog down but she still going strong.  In fact Lynda has taken the bold move to leave her job and embark full time on her dream of designing, making and selling her beautiful handmade creations, patterns and kits as well as needlework accessories.

Lynda has created a range of beautiful vintage inspired designs with a contemporary feel, in her own words:

"I have a love for all things British, UK iconography and nostalgia. You will see this love reflected in my designs. All of my work either harks back to a bygone age or celebrates 'Britishness' in all its quintessential hope and glory!

I love to mix traditional with contemporary. So a lot of my designs give a modern twist to more traditional techniques and ideas."

Her shop is now open online, it is not fully stocked yet it is a work in progress but Laa Laa Land is open for business.

Here are a few of Lynda's recent stunning designs:

 Victorian Rose Needlepoint

 'Pin' Cushion Kit

 Bungalow Pin Cushion Kit

 Bourbon Pin Cushion Kit

 Custard Cream Kit 

 Oreo Pin Cushion

The designs are all available to buy in kit form with all of the materials required to make your design up, or alternatively if you have a healthy stash of materials at home you can buy pdf versions of the pattern only.

Lynda is bringing her years of teaching experience together with her craft expertise to host a forthcoming workshop.  You can learn the art of needlepoint and create your very own needlepoint pincushion.

The pincushion has been designed especially for this workshop and you can create your own monogram as all letters of the alphabet are available.

This workshop will be held on Saturday 21st September, 2013 at The Blue Door Bakery in Hagley, Worcestershire, there are more details on Laa Laa Land in the Workshops section. 

Lynda will also be exhibiting at the NEC in Birmingham later this year on the 7th to the 10th November at the Crafts for Christmas / Hobbycraft Event, if you are visiting this year pop along and say hi, she is lovely, tell her Kandi sent you.

I've been delighted to be privvy to some of Lyndas up and coming designs and I can tell you there are many more delights to come.  I have been helping out stitching up designs for display, I have just completed a couple of makes from her kits and am in the middle of another, they are a delight to make and I find it a very relaxing and easy thing to do, I must admit that I'm a bit addicted. 

A bungalow blocking.

A Custard Cream before it's final stages...

...and after!

I must add that this is not a sponsored post, Lynda is a dear friend and I just love her work and wanted to share as I am sure you will love it too.

You can find Lynda in any of these places:

Shop

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

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A Little Catch Up

Hi, once again its been a while.  I am finding it more difficult to follow blogs and to blog these days, it is mainly down to the fact that I have become a little bit addicted to using my iphone and ipad for everything.  I know its possible to blog from a phone and ipad but it's just not for me.

I am getting my fix of crafty goings on from my little Instagram family so I rarely venture into blogland these days.

I did start this blog as a little online diary of my makes and goings on, so I am not quite ready to give it up just yet.

In my last post I mentioned my first ever knitted jumper, well I did finish it, after much frogging and a bit of swearing I have a completed garment.  It is very thick and covered in sequins and to be honest I can't see me wearing it much (I know, what was I thinking) but it will be a good cover up when the cold comes back.

 Knitted with a crochet rib band.

 I finally managed to make something from my ever growing pile of 6" squares

Its my mish mash blanket in tones of pink and grey. It's been a WIP for a long time but I'm glad to have it finally done and dusted. It seems odd making blankets in this weather but it's made a nice garden blanket this summer.

Still on the crochet theme I was delighted to make a little gift for a special little girl.  My gorgeous friend had her precious baby girl christened last month and I was honoured to be asked to be her Godmother.  I made this bunting for her christening cake table, 

 here it is insitu with a stunning cake hand made by Sophies Mum and Granny,

 isn't it special?

The last of my crochet makes was a long string of bunting for a friend of mine, Lynda.

Lynda is embarking on a new business venture, I just have to share her stuff with you but that deserves a post all of it's own.  I will be back to share tomorrow but here is a sneak peek at one of her designs I have recently completed.

 

 Back soon, promise.

Well Hello There

Once again it's been a while.

With the changing of the season from Winter to Spring I have been busy making changes.  My youngest boys are now 14 and have very little interest in our garden so this year we have decided to take the garden back and make it nice.  

All of these years there was no point with four boys playing out there but as they have no interest in the outdoors we chucked the trampoline and took back the back 1/3 of the garden.

I must admit most of this is down to the hard work of my husband, he has planted it up with potatoes, onions, cabbage, broccoil, lettuces, pumpkins, rapspberries etc and we have been repairing hedges, adding new shed and gates and now it is somewhere I want to spend time.  

This has involved a bit of crafting too, hubbie spotted this in one of my magazines and asked me to make one, if you have ever had a wasps nest in your home or outbuildings you will know it's not much fun.

This is supposed to deter wasps, as they are very territorial and will not come within a certain radius of another nest.  

Behold the waspinator!

As part of the garden tidy I wanted an insect hotel, I love bees with a passion and want to do what I can to invite them into my garden. 

Hubbie once again came up trumps and made me this, a bee/insect hotel! The irony of an item on one side of the shed to keep insects away and another on the other side to invite them in is not lost on me!

This year my Hubbie decided we should get some chickens, and I can't say I was terribly enthusiastic but...

 Here they are, Henley and Billie our two girls.

 They just love corn it's like chocolate cake for hens!

... I love them, they are the funniest little things and I just love to sit and watch them bobbing about.  They are so friendly and inquisitive and so easy to look after.  A wonderful bonus is that there are two fresh eggs waiting for us each day!

The need arose for a sturdy bad to hold their grit and corn so I got the oilcloth out and ran two little bags up.  Every room in my home now has at least one handmade item in it, including the shed!

I have been pottering on with my crochet in the meantime and am making good progress on my first ever knitted jumper. 

 I have frogged this back so many times I've lost count!!!

 I hope to be back soon to show you a completed garment.

~ ♥Giveaway Winner ♥ ~

Thanks again everyone for joining in my little giveaway, I was blown away by all of the entries, there were 141 in total across blogger and instagram!

I wrote you all down in a list and gave you all a number and the random number thingymajig picked No 133

~ drum roll please.....

Winner ~ Shelley - All4meggymoo (via instagram)

Please email me your address (kandipandi@live.co.uk) and I will send some goodies your way!

Thanks for entering everyone x

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

~ ♥ Giveaway Time NOW CLOSED ♥ ~

Well today is my 3 year blogiversary.

Although I find less time these days I do enjoy reading blogs and getting to see your makes and gathering inspiration and ideas, it is something I could not do without.  I have come to know many of you through your blogs and Instagram and I have made some great friends along the way.

As a little thank you for following and bearing with my ramblings, I would like to offer up a little giveaway.

I just bought myself this book and really love it so I bought another to offer to you.  I have made a little knitted wool pin cushion inspired by the makes in this book. 

I will add a couple of other little treats in there too.

To be in with a chance to get your hands on my goodies please follow the simple rules below, no jumping through hoops required :0)

Simple Rules:
This giveaway will run on both blogger and Instagram.

To enter the giveaway you don't have to follow me but I do need to be able to contact you. If you don't have a blog or instagram account please leave a valid email address.

Blogger - Just leave a comment on this post and I will add you to the list. 
Instagram - Please repost the giveaway photo and link to me so I can count your entry.

If you have your own blog and if you wish, please add my button to your sidebar and link to this giveaway and I will add you again. Please let me know if you do and I will add you twice.

I will draw the winner one week today on Tuesday 16th April and post out the following day!

~ ♥ Good Luck ♥ ~ 

A wooly catch up

I've been busy hooking up a few little easter gifts and though I would share them here, first up is little 'Lynda the Knitting Bunny' made for my Knitting Guru friend, made from the pattern here.

I made a little crochet spring / easter bag for my friend's little girl. 

Sophie is just over 6 months old and too little for chocolate so I bought her a few books and thought a little bag might be nice to give them in. 

I made this up as I went, it is just a big rectangle of alternating double crochet and treble crochet lines finished with a simple scallop at the top and a couple of curvy handles.

The daffodil is from an Attic24 pattern.

 Whilst the hook was out I did myself a couple more 6" squares for the CannyCAL crochet-along.  Hopefully at this rate I will have another crochet blanket to show this year!

 Check me out in my favourite position, feet up with my slippers on!

I've made extra squares that are not on the CAL just to keep up the momentum as I need to have this blanket completed this year!

 

Back to the knitting and my shawl kits finally arrived and I have made a start, but I am struggling. 

 I don't find knitting comfortable at all I have very tight shoulders after a short while, I am persevering for now though. 

In the meantime I made some knitted gloves from this pattern available from the same designer on Ravelry.

  Now I really enjoyed making these and didn't find the tight shoulder thing happened at all.  

They are not perfect and they did take me a while but I am in 

love with them.

Excuse the weird photo but they are hard to model!

I am wearing them with my Colour Affection shawl which was a special handmade gift from my talented friend Lynda and I adore it! I'm very much a pink stripe girl it seems!

I still love my little place in blogland and this Tuesday is my 3 year Blogiversary. To celebrate I would like to host a little giveaway, I will be back on Tuesday to share.

Back Soon