comfortstitching

Top Choc

My current (currant) chocolate bar beau is the toweringly handsome Green and Blacks milk chocolate with spiced fruits.  This is the mulled wine of chocolate and yes I know its nearly Feburary.  It is the lovely mix of the fragrant cardomom and the sticky sweet raisins which are such a lovely couple.  At presant I have prescribed myself with two bars per week until further notice.  Dosage must be taken when all children of the household have been tucked up in bed in order to work to its best efficiency.  Will cure all ills, hangovers and long running family rifts.

Get Thrifty

Crafting of any kind can be an expensive hobby.  No matter how many tools and resources I have tucked away I always get tempted by more, especially fabrics, there are so many lovingly designed pieces in hyper delicious shades resistance is futile.  I buy one then keep on finding complenting designs which would patchwork perfectly with something I already have.  It pleases me in a spend/save balance reasoning sense when I manage to make something new from something already in my possession waiting in the wings to be re-employed in some new important vocation.  The magenta and green childs chair cover in these photos is one such new recruit, it was made of t-shirts that were now too small for my daughters.  The green doggy fabric was an old Mini Boden t-shirt, the applique colours and fabric were really lovely to look at and there was still plenty of life in this little canine.  The chair was looking a bit worn out from being sat on so much it really needed the surgery and now looks years younger.  Once you get the make-do and mend bug everything around you has potential.  Go on get nifty... 

Are we sitting comfortably?

How are you finding this weblog so far?  I hope it has all the manners and charm that you would expect from a new accaquaintance.  I would be interested to know if you have any views on the posts I have blogged so far, in particular I would be interested in how easy you are finding it to navigate the site.  All comments would be most welcome.

Here is another pillow for your delectation and comfort.  As you may have noticed comfort is a vital component in the theme of this little island of webland

selection box

Here is a selection of different snapshots of my blanket.  The lovely thing about the repetitive square making method in this type of crochet is that is a good way of really playing with colour.  I Picked the colours up as I went along, just adding different shades as I pleased rather than commiting myself to a colour selection at the beginning (just too heavy for a new love) .  I found this a really enjoyable way to go about making crochet as I didnt get bored of making up as many different colour combinations as I could, then deciding which ones I liked the best and looking at why certain colour concoctions work better together.  I call this my confectionary blanket because like all good selection boxes I cannot decide which square is my favorite.

The First ever crochet I ever did

This time last year I had never crocheted a stitch.  I had thought about it and every time I had watched miss marple knitting which was often, I had wished I could knit or crochet (and solve a few complicated murder scenarios at the  same time obviously).

So I went out and bought myself a crochet hook.  When I got home I put in  my haberdashery box, then periodically over the next couple of years I would think about learning but never get around to it.  The trouble with crochet is mostly that you have to learn how to hold the yarn correctly, using your fingers so that the yarn feeds through at a good tension.  The best way to understand this is by having someone who can crochet show you.  In my case this was my friend super do it yourself girl Zoe.  Although I had to go away and practise using my copy of Readers Digest "Complete Guide To Needlework" (a handy old tome if you can get your hands on a copy from a charity shop or car boot sale), it was having had Zoe showing me that made me understand if I was going about crochet the right way.  Once I had learned to do a granny square I was totally addicted to crochet, thinking about crochet, buying wools to crochet, looking at books about crochet, planning what I was going to crochet next...... unfortunately the  problem with crocheting something like a blanket is it takes so long, much longer than you would ever think.  By the time you finish you want to do something completely different before you turn into a granny square quite literally.

Trying to get the hang of it

This is me trying to work out why I can't get big pics in my blog.  Is it just me.  I thought this was going to be easy,  all I want to do is post some delicious pictures and talk about whats going on.   All this is enough to make me get my threads out and start doing a little bit of stitching.  Which brings me to why I named this blog "comfortstitching" .....

I have thought for a little while now that getting on with a little bit of the more ladylike pastimes involving threads and yarns takes me on a little holiday away from where I am there and then.  Whilst cooing over some embroidery floss colour combinations or folding up a pile of fabric I've just bought I am transported to a place of no worry or stress even for just a little time.  Being preoccupied with doing something you love is a very therapeutic for the mind.  The bonus is you also end up with something you can use or at least enjoy looking at.

Birth

The pitter-patter of tiny online feet,

my blog baby has arrived

WELCOME  to my world.  It is stashed full of fabric, yarn, buttons, bias binding, colour swooning granny squares, little and big daughters, tea and cakes, agatha christie and a bit of legacy.  All this will be served up with lashings of ginger beer and fun will be had by all.

My name is aneela hoey and i am a stay at home mum with a compulsion to make lots of lovely homey things out of any nice bits of fabric hanging around in my stash.  I have potentially six and a half hours each weekday to attend to this need so housework gets done at marathon speed to allow for lots of leisurely me time so put your feet up and let me put the online kettle on.