Crochet Blanket Inspiration: A Finished Project!

It seems like ages since I finished a crochet project and that has everything to do with the fact that I cannot finish things, I can only start them. I must have six or seven projects on the hook at the moment, some huge and some tiny. But!! I have finally finished something! It’s been a long project – a year long, in fact - I have finished my Temperature Blanket project!

I started this on my 30^th birthday – you can read about the beginning here. I started the blanket on holiday to Norfolk. The aim was to make one year long blanket to get a full change of temperature for my 30^th year. However what actually happened is that I didn’t plan it very well and I had to split the project into two smaller, six-month blankets instead. The second blog I wrote about it is here; after less than two months I already had a list of things that I would do differently.

My birthday and Davids birthday, in crochet temperature blanket form.

A row of sparkly gold for the day we got engaged

The third main update on the blanket was in February, when I was halfway through the first part. These blankets have been great to pick up when I have been anxious as I could just focus on a few rows and get them done without worrying about complicated stitches or patterns.

I finished the first six-month blanket in April and you can read about it here. I do love this blanket – I really dislike the colour green which is just _great_ as I work outdoors and have an allotment, but the blend of blues and greens on this blanket is very earthy, natural and soothing. It is muted and calm and is very interesting to see the daily fluctuations in temperature over time. Each colour had only three degrees attached to it (for example, 36+, 35-33, 32-30, 29-27 etc) so the colours represent a narrow range.

In May 2019 I had started the second half of the Temperature Blanket project. I had a slight stitch-counting issue and I had to make a patch for it – read about that here. I haven’t blogged much about the blanket since May, probably because it was a scorcher of a summer and thus not blanket making weather! It is great being able to cosy up under a blanket as you make it, but not when temperatures are around 30 degrees.

I took this blanket away with me to the Isle of Wight for our annual birthday holiday getaway trip. I was determined to get it done by the time we got home! When we went, I had about seven weeks to catch up on, so I had my work cut out. Fueled by hot chocolates with mini marshmallows and whippy cream, I nearly did it! By the time we left I think I only had a week left to do on the blanket. I finished it that weekend, only a week later than planned.

The two blankets, side by side. October is at the bottom of both pieces.

So my year-long blanket project is over and I nearly finished it in a year. I stopped counting how many balls of yarn I used but it was a lot. I learnt so much doing this project and will probably never make another one (or two!) for lots of reasons. However, saying that, it has been fun, I have two new blankets out of it, and they are both so different yet I somehow managed to get them the same size.

Only two more blankets to finish before I can start a Sophies Universe…….

My view for much of my holiday to the Isle of Wight

Allotment Life: A Chilly November Weekend

There isn’t very much to do at the allotment at the moment, or rather more accurately, there isn’t much that I can do as it is just mud, slop, quagmire, and generally very slippy. The wood I bought is too wet to paint, and the ground is too wet to dig. I have been plotting and planning though, and do have a large to-do list that I’d like to get done over winter. When it’s dried out a bit.

So instead of doing big jobs, I went to feed the birds. I have been having issues with my lower back so I decided to walk to the plot; it is only about a quarter of a mile from the front door step to the allotment gate but still I tend to drive it all the time. I decided to walk to stretch my legs a bit, and hopefully ease my back out too.

It was quite cold and the wind was so sharp when I went up and I had several layers on. I do love wrapping up warm in this weather even though I tend to overheat quite rapidly and need to strip off again.

I filled up the fat ball feeders and as I did, a long tailed tit came and landed in the plum tree where I hang the feeders, sat and watched me for a bit, and then flew off again. After I had filled all the feeders (a mix of fat balls and seed), I stood up by the shed and watched all the birds come down. It doesn’t take them long – I am sure they sit in the bramble thicket watching me, waiting for me to leave. I saw sparrows, a robin, blue tits and great tits. The long tailed tit didn’t come back while I was stood there.

Great tit taking advantage of the broken feeder with no lid

Blue tit on fat balls

A wee robin

I ran out of bird seed so Momma and I went to a new Wilkos to explore, and bought 12.75kg of seed for £6 – absolutely brilliant price and I think I’ll buy this more often. I decant the seed into old fat ball tubs for storage, and one bag fills 2.5 tubs. I took this to the allotment the day after, and I also decided to put up a new seed feeder with a finch seed mix in it. I spotted a greenfinch in the hedges of the allotment site back in August so I hope it comes back now that it has its very own feeder.

The bird feeding tree - a cluster of four plum trees. There are 5 seed feeders, 4 fat ball feeders, 1 finch seed feeder, and a suet block feeder which is used for wool and cat fur for the birds to take as nesting material.

Again I went back towards the shed to watch the birds. The usual suspects appeared; sparrows, robin, magpies, blue and great tits – and then – then!! – a great spotted woodpecker flew down, landed on the tree and then went over to the fat balls. It was on the feeders for a good five minutes when I became aware of something hopping around the road at the bottom of the plot. I managed to get a view of it between everything and for the first time in the ten years that I’ve been on this site, I saw a green woodpecker. A green woodpecker!!! I was so excited. Another plot holder told me last year that he had seen one a few years before, so to know they are around again is brilliant. Green woodpeckers are ground feeders and like to eat ants, whereas great spotted will hunt for grubs under tree bark.

Great spotted woodpecker on fat balls

Green woodpecker. This was at the bottom of my plot and I was stood at the top - my phone was on 25x zoom!

I still want to see the long tailed tits as they are just so incredibly fluffy and cute. They often hang around in packs and earlier this year I had six on a feeder at the same time.

Allotment Life: One Year of Plot 4!

Momma P took on her very own allotment just over a year ago and she has been working away at it, slowly transforming it into her own space. She has built all of the raised beds from scratch, laid weed mesh and shifted barrow loads of bark chippings. We laid a path together but she dug out all the compost and levelled it off herself. Harvest-wise, she has had potatoes, beans, peas, leeks, chard, nasturtium, patty pan, courgette, marrow, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, apples, red cabbage, sprouts, quinoa (!), and hopefully soon, aubergines.

I took this picture back in November 2018:

And this is November 2019:

Making the Seasons: Autumnal Wreath - Finished!

I started this last year sometime - November 2018 to be precise, read the blog here!; I wanted an autumnal wreath made with both crocheted items and things that I collected from varying walks. The wreath base is polystyrene and from Wool Warehouse, the fairy lights were from Poundland, and some of the decorative things were from either Poundland or Sainsburys in their seasonal aisles. I think I am finally happy with how this looks. I just need to put more foil in the battery pack, change the batteries, fix the scarecrow to it, and then add a hanging loops – oh, and then find somewhere to hang it!

I used star stitch and Stylecraft DK Cabaret. The hedgehog was made using a pattern from Crochet Now magazine, and varying things were either leftover from other projects or just quickly made without a pattern. I used a leaf and little ball patterns from Attic 24, acorn pattern from a blog that I cannot remember, and the littlest pumpkin came from Ravelry. The toadstools I think I freehanded as the patterns I found were all way too big, so I used embroidery floss and a 2.5mm hook for them. I used absolutely loads of fabric tack glue from the Birmingham Rag Market to glue it all on to the wreath as I absolutely hate sewing, especially when it is really fiddly.

Acorns, knopper galls, conkers, sweet chestnuts, mouse-chewed cherry stones, larch , alder & pinecones, and catkins were all made by Mother Nature. The catkins have dried and fallen of – I didn’t know about preserving leaves and things when I started this wreath. The little wooden mouse was handcarved and a gift for my fiancée who passed it to me. Star anise was added but I’m not sure why, I think I just liked it but it smelled foul to start with.

It is a truly mixed media piece and I’m very proud of it, but it is very fragile as things are drying and crumbling. Hopefully the cones and acorns will hold on for a while, but it did look good with dangly catkins.

Allotment Life: October 2019

October was fairly quiet at the plots (I think?) as I was away for eight days on the Isle of Wight (read part one here and part two here). I have also been battling LauraFlu for a couple of weeks. Just a sniffle and a sore throat, but a monumentally foggy blurry head, and it has left me feeling really rather lethargic and rundown. Added to that, a practical physical job at which I do the bulk of well, everything, so I have also been nursing sore muscles for a while.

One of the big jobs that I have completed (mostly) is the almond tree! I made this raised bed in August I think, but only recently had the money and the works van to go compost shopping. I dug out six wheelbarrows worth of crud and grass clippings from my compost bin and made a layer cake of thick cardboard, crud, more cardboard, more crud, cardboard, and then fresh brand new peat free compost. The crud is used to bulk out the bed otherwise it’d take a lot more than ten bags to fill! The cardboard acts as a biodegradable weed suppressant but also gets rid of waste cardboard, and saves me a trip to the recycling centre. I don’t use weed mesh or matting wherever I can as this is plastic and it degrades into smaller bits of plastic. After ten years I am still digging up plastic tarpaulin, weed fabric, or pea netting that I used when I first started on the allotment.

The selection of bulbs for the almond tree bed. 3kg of daffodils, 100 crocus, 50 allium and 15 tulip.

Ta-dah! Almond tree with two rings of flower bulbs around it. and two watering tubes straight to the roots.

So now the bed is done! It has been filled with crud and fresh compost, and it has had two rings of flower bulbs planted. I have planted daffodils, tulips, alliums, and crocus. In the middle I have planted an almond tree! I am SO excited for this. It will be a beautiful tree even if I never get any almonds from it, it will give somewhere else for the birds to sit, and as it grows it will provide a bit of shade to the bottom of the plot. The next step is to buy some 20mm decorative pebbles to put over the top. This will a) be decorative, b) deter foxes and birds digging up the bulbs, and c) act as a mulch which will help to retain moisture and hopefully reduce how much watering I have to do.

As well as planting a tree and loads of bulbs, I also spent a squelchy wet day digging slop to plant bulbs in front of and alongside raised beds. I dug four trenches; one by the compost, one at the side of the herbs, one in front of the raspberries and one in front of the almond bed. Each trench has had a mix of daffodils, tulip, crocus, snowdrop, anemone, and alliums. I inverted the clods so that the grass will rot and fertilise the bulbs a bit, but also so I could see where I’ve been digging. I am determined to have the most bulbs in the spring!

On Plot 4, Momma P and I laid a path! It is a very simple construction. There was a ditch which has been filled in by Momma and lots of compost dirt, and levelled off. We then laid some weed control fabric down (Momma does not share my plastic reducing ideas, plus it is actually a useful thing to use - I just don't like it), pegged it in place, placed 300mm slabs on top using the handle of a spade to ensure the same distance between slabs, and then we poured loads of 20mm pebbles around them to hide the fabric and make it look nice. It is so good! Very simple, very effective.

Back on Plot 31, I have cut down the raspberries and have been enjoying the last of the harvests. There are no more carrots left! It is very much sprout and chard season at the moment. I have planted my onion sets and the garlic that I bought from the Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight. I have replanted the garlic a couple of times – I think I am going to put some mesh over the bed to protect them from the birds while they establish.

So it has been another productive and busy month on the allotment although it doesn’t feel like I have done much, and it is hard for me to remember how much I have actually done. This is why I take so many photos. My allotment time is mostly restricted to weekends now, though I do occasionally pop up after work to harvest things or feed the birds. I have lots of plans for November – I will get the paving slabs done this side of Christmas!

Plot 4 sprouts

Plot 31 runner beans. Still producing beans on halloween!

An October harvest. Pumpkins, apples, chard, leek, raspberries, courgette, sprouts, carrots, nasturtium, sorrel, and physalis.

The Hourly / Daily / Weekly / Monthly Struggle

I’m struggling. With quite a lot of things. It hurts to admit it and it hurts to accept it and it hurts to realise it. I have been and am in denial about it all. I keep things close to avoid the questions.

There isn’t anything specific and I don’t know if it’s because of work or because of realisations about work and the direction of my career. I don’t know if it’s about where I feel I should be in life and where I actually am. I don’t know if it’s because of money and I don’t know if it’s just a good whack of depression which means none of it matters because my brain is just being a monumental fart.

My anxiety comes and goes, but it mostly comes. My brain whirrs and I have to set constant reminders and I have to write everything down and I realised today I wrote exactly the same list with exactly the same pen in word-for-word exactly the same order as a list that I wrote yesterday. I ask someone a question, they answer, I reply, I ask them the same question again without skipping a beat. I drive my finger nails into my fingers by curling my hand or I press the nails into the palm. I have to keep my nails short now. If I have an itch on my left eyebrow I scratch it twice, and then I have to scratch the right one twice even though it doesn’t itch. I crack my left pointy finger knuckle and then I have to crack the right pointy finger knuckle even if it doesn’t need it. I like things to be symmetrical, even the kisses from David. He cannot kiss my left cheek or left eyebrow without doing the other side. If he doesn’t I get angsty.

I just feel sad. I feel empty. Maybe I even feel desolate. Barren. Devoid. Devoid of any human emotion or feeling.

Years ago I went to yoga and I went every week and I got the bus and after the session I had to walk a lot of the way home before the next bus came and it felt GREAT. I trusted myself to be out, I went to a new place by myself and kept going back, I walked in the dark by myself while waiting for the bus home. And then I got so anxious I stopped going. Just, stopped.

Last winter I tried a pilates class and just before it started I had an anxiety attack, cried in the lift, managed to suppress it through the rest of the session, and had a massive panic attack afterwards. I have never felt like that before. I could feel it ripping through my heart, coursing through my veins. The sheer terror of I-don’t-know-what. It was absolutely brutal and I never want to go through that again, though of course I have.

Last spring I did a reading at a friends wedding. I had been asked months before but only in passing so I’d put it to the back of my mind. A week before the wedding I had a text, oh by the way can you do this? So I did. I don’t know how I did, but I did. I was an anxious wreck the day before at the rehearsal, I was a wreck on the day of the wedding, I was fine in the church until everyone else sat down and I was left standing. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream I wanted to cry I wanted the ground to swallow me up and I wanted to just not be there. At all. Somehow I managed to get the words out. I finished it and I basically fell back into the seat, into Davids arms so he could comfort me. I clenched my fists SO tight. I fought back big, heavy, shoulder-heaving sobs of tears. I tried to keep quiet and I don’t think I managed. It took me over a year to be able to listen to that song again.

I have closed off so much in the last few years. I’ve never been popular and I never feel like I’ve had a friendship group and I never particularly fit in anywhere or with anyone. I thought I had a best friend who helped me through uni when I went back after a monumental mental breakdown. She was one of the few people I actively kept in touch with. I used to drive to hers to pick her up and take her places just to get her out of the house. She used to dye my hair stupid colours. We went on a three-day girls only roadtrip purely to be nerds and I got her shit faced on cider on the beach. She stayed with my family. One day she asked me for my opinion so I gave it, and she didn’t reply. In fact, she hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s been maybe two years now and I still get hung up about it.

I stopped going to gigs as I fell out of love with it for lots of reasons. The main one was late nights – I used to get up stupid early to do a big fat commute to work in Nottingham and I just couldn’t do the late nights + sedatives + getting up early + driving long distance. I also had issues with friends dropping out last minute. David does not like gigs and I feel bad for always asking him to come. Pretty much every time we’ve been to a gig, we’ve had an argument after it. So I just stop asking him. And I stop going. It also came down to financial reasons. Gone are the days of doing five gigs in a week in four cities every three weeks. I feel like I’ve been excluded from groups I used to gig with but I know that I am the reason I am excluded. I excluded myself. I stopped answering messages. I stopped getting excited about seeing bands I love.

I am still trying to reduce my reliance on social media. I hate it. I hate that I always turn to it when I’m down and that it always makes me feel worse so I keep on doing it in case I magically feel better. It never makes me feel better. I have stopped using and deleted Tumblr. I have stopped using Instagram for personal use, but I do use it for work on my work phone. I no longer use it for work on my personal phone. The next step is to stop using Facebook. It makes me feel so disconnected. Maybe I already am disconnected. From everything. I feel lonelier than ever. I don’t have many friends and I never see them. I feel like I’m too much of a wreck to be around people. I can’t relax around people. If I’m not comfortable around you then that’s that.

I am 31 now. I am miserable. Not because of my age, but because of what I view as failing. I am surprised that I have lived this long and I don’t know where to go with it. The last time I tried moving out and living on my own ended with a massive mental breakdown, dropping out of uni, being dumped, and then being held up against the wall by my throat by my own father.

I am 31 now. I have fucked up so much. I guess I have another 60 years to fuck up. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be 32, 35, 40. Will I still be here? Will I still be on medication to help my brain? Will I still need sedatives to calm the anxiety monster enough to let me sleep? Will I still be living at home? Will I still be poor? Will I still be in entry level work? Will I still be lonely and have no friends and shut myself off from everything?

I am 31. My joints are seizing up with sitting on the bed to write this. I feel emotionless as I haven’t cried while writing this. I need to start doing yoga but I am too anxious to start doing yoga. I need to get back to doing what I love. For me. Not for the benefit of anybody else. For me.

I am 31. I am the only me that I’ve got.

Allotment Life: September 2019

I don’t think I did very much at the allotment during September for lots of reasons. Work was very busy and stressful, money was short, and the weather was (mostly) beautiful. I have done very well for yellow raspberries throughout the month, and we picked the first pumpkin from Plot 4.

Holes bodged (with a finger) ready for carrot seeds.

I cleared out the brassica bed – removing the red cabbage plants and harvesting the only red cabbage. I then planted some plug plants of cabbage in the brassica bed but they have since been eaten / lost to the nasturtium monster, so that hasn’t worked too well. I sowed more radish and carrot seeds in the big square foot bed, and I have been doing very well for fresh salad still.

Allotment salad, except the bell pepper. Very nice with a jacket potato!

Another big project has been ticked off the list; I have wanted to sort out the bulb bed for a few years now and I have finally done it! You can read about it in this blog post. I am very much looking forward to seeing this in the spring!

I have decided I want another fruit tree, so that means I need to buy two now. I am having an almond but I don't know what the second one will be. One already has a raised bed box built (no compost in it though!) and the other will need a raised bed frame. The list is just never ending. I might take out shares in the timber department of Wickes.

We had the first allotment flood of the season. Some of my beds closer to the bottom of the plot, and thus at the bottom of the slope, were under a few inches of water. This is the sole reason why I am trying to build my beds up above ground level. I cannot grow potatoes on my plot and I love growing my own spuds!

Next on my to do list is to get the blue tree bed filled with muck and compost, plant loads of bulbs in it, then buy an almond tree to go in the middle.

I need to completely overhaul the herb bed – remove plants, weed, build the next tier of timber frame, put cardboard down, loads of fresh compost, put herbs back in, then 20mm pebbles in the gaps (for decoration, mostly).

After that, I (read: David) really need to figure out what I’m doing with the paving slabs near the shed. The grass roots are pushing the slabs up so it is getting harder to open the shed door, so I need to lift the slabs, de-weed, dig down a bit, level off, put sand down, then re-bed the slabs and add three new ones so that it is two slabs wide at the front of the shed where it gets really muddy squishy in winter. I have the slabs and the sand, but not the motivation.

Other good things from this month:

Apples and golden raspberries

Aforementioned golden rasperries with some red brethren in a dollop of greek yoghurt

Mommas cosmo bush on Plot 4

Some of the harvest from Plot 4

A wee froggo