1 year later

It appears having baby number 2 completely boggled my brain. As it's taken me this long to write a second blog post! We had our second little girl last October and we couldnt be happier! The baby blanket I made whilst pregnant is a hit, and used lots, and were swiftly followed by 2 more blankets! I have managed to make quite a few things in the past year, a flower garland to go in the girls room, a crochet bag and a hooded scarf. Obviously having 2 young children means these projects are done in the  few spare hours (if that) in the evenings.

In January we bought our first house! This was a big achievement for us, after living with my parents for 18 months to save up for that pesky deposit, we bought our first house in Devon. It's an end of terrace 2 bedroom house and it has quickly become our home. Me bring 26 and my partner  being 27 with two children, 3 and almost 1,we  feel quite happy and fortunate to be able to make this big life purchase. Now my partner and I are not married ..... yet. It is not something high on our priorities list, as weddings are expensive! Weddings can cost about £10,000 and we made the decision to buy our house first as that is what our family unit needed. One day, we will get married and we will have two beautiful flower girls to help with our special day.

My eldest started Preschool last week and she loves it! We dropped her off for her first day and she ran off without  a second glance happy to play with the other children. Walking back to the car my youngest was hanging off my arms looking for her sister, it is going to be a big adjustment for her to get used to not having her sister around all the time. 2 and half days a week she will be at preschool. A month ago I went back to work part time 20 hours a week in the phone shop. They have both managed to adjust to that and  are both now doing well at adjusting to her going to preschool, it's just me finding it hard to adjust to my babies growing up!

My eldest and I have embarked on a letter learning journey. We have currently spent a week on the letter A and 2 weeks on the letter B. I plan the crafts in advance, the drawings pictured are drawn up by either me or my partner and then get let poppy decide how she wants to decorate them. My partner is definitely the more artistic of the two of us, so I generally plan and get him to draw things!

Here  is some of the letter A crafts.

She had such fun making all these and can now recognise the letter A. 

Angel painting, top tip to stop the paint over running the lines ,go over them with a waxy crayon and it helps your little one keep in the lines!

Her lowercase a complete with ariel sticker :-)

Her capital A complete with Applejack sticker, she has a my little pony obsession so they will probably pop up in a lot of our crafts!

She requested I assist with this one so this is a joint effort from both of us+

Acorn tissue paper craft

Apple tissue paper and glitter pens, this is the beginning of her love for glitter pens!

She loved cutting a sticking, colouring glittering and building everything. However making the paper marche asteroids she didn't like. She didn't want to get her hands in the paper mache glue (flour and water) to stick the paper to the balloons. She has become quite particular about getting messy sometimes,and I'm not sure why. I will keep offering up messy crafts and hopefully she will get over her fear of getting dirty hands. I shall post about our adventures with the letter B soon, and get some pics up of other crochet creations I have made.

My First Crochet Project

I recently decided to subscribe to a Crochet Magazine online after deciding that I would love to make a blanket for my upcoming addition to the family, baby number 2. I tried a few magazines subscriptions via my Ipad as they seem to come with a month free trial and eventually decided on the Simply Crochet magazine. I found a lot of the magazines to be using the American format and using yarns only available in the U.S. With me being an absolute beginner I was not confident in substituting yarns. I found the Simply Crochet magazine to have clear instructions and gorgeous designs. In my first magazine I fell in love with a blanket that uses a shell stitch technique. I loved the colours and so, on a whim decided to buy the suggested yarn and give it a go. Now, this blanket was a bit pricey, but after reading reviews of the yarn online, I couldnt find any suggestions for an alternative to the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK yarn that was suggested. In total I think it was about £60 for all the wool. This isn't small change, but at this point I was 7 months pregnant and becoming obsessed with making my own blanket, this blanket. So I took the plunge, and I have zero regrets. The finished result is soft and pleasing to the eye, and if I do say so not bad for a first go! I went adventurous once I had made the blanket as, being a beginner I had not mastered weaving in the ends, so I improvised and tidied up the edges with a double crochet in the Ecru colour.

My Eldest daughter loved watching me make this, and now it is finished and I am 8 months pregnant, we love to snuggle up under it and watch Disney films.

Now in preparation for this I bought some cheap yarn from a local supplier and practised the stitches for this project for a few rows to get used to the stitches. The yarn I used was horrible, and split constantly which worried me that I would have the same trouble with the Debbie Bliss yarn. However, it was a dream to use in comparison, a pleasure to crochet with!

I made a few crochet flowers too, with the horrible yarn, to practise doing the Double Crochet (DC) and Treble Crochet (Tr) stitches. Here is a lovely tutorial on how to make crochet flowers.