Makings - Holiday Crochet

Remember my idea to use up the colours left over from my Cosy Stripe blanket?
I had started making a stack of Maybelle Flowers with the colours and then I planned to turn them into squares.
I thought that this would be a good project for the summer holidays. Once you have a couple of the flowers and squares done then you don't really need to think about the pattern and so it's just the sort of project to work on while keeping one eye on boys running about outside.
I got the first two rows of a blanket done in the first couple of weeks of the summer holidays and am really pleased with how it's looking. I'm trying my hardest to keep the colours random but then at the same time not have too similar colours close together!

 But then I got to thinking that since this is going to take a while, and since I have not long finished a big blanket project, it would be nice to work on something smaller that I could complete quickly.

Over on Instagram I read about these Fat Bottomed Bags that were basically just a big granny square. The square is gathered at the sides, top and bottom and the bag is embellised.

 Everyone was using this pattern here, in memory of crochet blogger Wink who very sadly lost her personal battle with depression last month.

There were so many variations of the bag going around. Some of them very colourful and with lots of embellishments and others more simple.

Since my one was going to be for myself, and since I'm not really fancy or into lots of fussy trimmings, I knew I wanted to keep mine neutral and quite simple.

And here it is...

It took me a week to complete, but that wasn't with me working on it every evening, and I'm pretty sure that if you don't have quite as many distractions as I do then you could easily complete it in a few days.

I was able to buy all the supplies I needed for it from two local shops on the island - a wool shop and a craft shop. The sparkly button in the flower was one that I found in my mum's sewing basket.

I love the vintage feel of the lining - which is actually very shoddily hand sewn on as I couldn't find any pins in my mum's afore mentioned sewing basket, and so I was stitching it on as best as I could while trying to also hold the rest to the shape of the stretchy crochet below!

One change I did make to the pattern was the sides, which according to the pattern were left open. I wanted to make mine more secure and so stitched up the sides.

It's not going to be my everyday bag, which always ends up more full of everyone else's stuff than mine, but will be my special bag. Maybe my Sunday bag for going to church, as long as everyone else realises that whatever they want to bring they carry themselves!
Now I need to decide whether I should do a few more small things - I bought the Mollie Makes Crochet Special and it has lots of lovely wee projects in it - do another row of the Maybelle Flower blanket, or do a bit more of Calum's neglected ripple blanket that I told him would be ready in time for the weather turning cold.
Any suggestions?

Summer Holidays

Hello, remember me?
I've been a bit too busy enjoying the long days of summer to get any time to record our happenings!
What with lazy mornings, long days and late nights for the boys, it hasn't left much time for me to escape to the laptop.
Here's a snapshot of what's been happening in our houseful of boys over the last couple of weeks.
A couple of weekends ago my parents had some visitors from Korea staying for the weekend. Imagine coming all the way from Korea to what you think is a peaceful little island and finding that your hosts have their five grandsons staying too! Seriously though, they were a lovely couple and the boys really took a shine to them. One afternoon they took the Koreans to show them the rock pools at the shore at the end of the road where Granny & Shen live. The clouds were especially beautiful that day.

One incredibly simple highlight of the holidays so far for the boys, was a scramble that my Aunt's husband did for them. 

Is a scramble just a Scottish thing? 

If so, then it's simply handfuls of coins thrown in the air and you have to gather up as much as you can. Whatever you gather you keep. It used to happen at weddings - the bride and groom would throw handfuls of money out of the car to the children. James (15) was very noble and helped Fraser (1) and Alasdair (6) to collect the money.

We've made sure to pop in to see my Granny as much as we can.

This photo was taken last weekend before James and dad headed away from the island. James is now away at Army Cadet camp for two weeks and my hubs went back to work this week. The other boys and I are staying on a little longer.

One thing Alasdair wanted to tick of his list of things to do was a round of Crazy Golf.

This is, apparently, how all cool guys stand on a golf course.

Of course Fraser didn't want to miss out on any of the action!

Another huge highlight for Alasdair so far was the chance to finally buy some Lifeboat wellies. 

He has been after these for months and months.

Fraser likes to go and visit Shen in his study so that he can listen to some of his music.

Whenever the weather has been dry we have tried to be outdoors. 

This week we spent an afternoon at a playpark at the north of the island. It's built in amongst some sand dunes.

The park is also right by the beach.

I could happily spend all day sitting by the sea. It wouldn't have to be sunny.

This beach is on the Atlantic coast of the island so the waves are more impressive than on the other side.

Also impressive are the sand dunes.

Perfect for jumping off.

Or running down. In your lifeboat wellies.

Now, just in case all the photos so far have given you the impression that we have been having beautiful weather so far this summer, let me just put that right.

There have been quite a few that looked like the one above, but that just gives us the excuse to spend some time like this...

But back to those rare beach weather days, when I obviously take a lot more photos than on the more common grey ones.

Today we headed to a beach that lies just around the headland of the beach in the previous post. With yet more rain forecast for the next few days we were determined to make the most of today's sunshine!

David & Calum drew out their badminton court in the sand.

David was so excited to discover a couple of little caves.

And that's us all up to date with the summer holidays so far!