Inspiration – man blanket

I’m currently in cahoots with my broseph for his birthday. I wanted to make him a blanket, but I soon realized in order to make one he genuinely liked, I would have to consult him on the pattern and colours, therefore it would not be a surprise.

It needed to look manly, but not too boring. I was conscious of it looking dated in the future, which meant the colour and pattern we chose would play a huge factor. After much humming and hawing, I found a style of blanket that broseph very much approved of {you can see it here}. It was straight forward, masculine, wasn’t too colour restrictive and doesn’t scream a particular age group. In stead of blue and yellow, he wanted maroon to be incorporated {no objections here}, so here’s what I sent his way for approval …

From there, I made some tweaks and we narrowed it down to this …

… he’s very happy with it, which is something I didn’t expect. After work yesterday I managed to find the perfect Aran wool, whose colour I can only compare to a warm gunmetal grey, and came in the perfect quantity of two shit-tonnes of yarn. The detail colour yarn only comes in similar amounts, so I’m scouring the internet for some smaller skeins. 

Since broseph’s birthday is now less than a month away, I literally had to start crocheting the moment I got home last night. The selfish side of me is so happy to have a project to work on, and I happily crocheted 4 lines last night. I’m the kind of person who constantly needs something to do. Otherwise I’m screaming with boredom.

Before I went to sleep last night, I said to hubby “I’ll do a couple lines in bed before I go asleep.” I sound like a crack addict. 

Craft central

What a weekend. I took a road trip with my folks across the west {or ‘wesht’} of Ireland and it was amazing. Until now, I don’t consider any trip within Ireland a holiday, but what I just experienced was a holiday. 27 to 30 degrees, sun, sand, impeccable weather and about 80lbs of food. It was glorious. 
We came across this adorable tiered mini craft cul-de-sac set-up, Ceardlann in Spiddal Co. Galway, and I demanded we stop so I could take copious pictures “for the sake of my blog”. Please note none of these pictures do the real thing + that fantastic weather any justice. The entire place was painfully adorable and felt so homely. 

I could have devoured the outside of this shop. It was my favorite, and was convincing me hits of yellow wasn’t something I would have to be afraid of – at An Spailpin Fanach {Irish language and culture shop}.

Lovely lavender shades …

Unfortunately, since it was early on a Sunday morning, only one of the shops was open – a basket and weaving shop – whose name I can’t remember / cannot find online! Sad face. The owner happened to be teaching a basket weaving class, so I took some sneaky pics {with permission, obv}. Happy face!

I’ll end this post on that sky … Very rare in this country. Hope you enjoyed your weekend, and if you’re anything like me, you’re looking forward to the long weekend already.

A new lease of craft

As I have mentioned, and any of you out there married / getting married will know, this planning-a-wedding-deal devours a lot of your time. It also acts like a rabid zombie and eats your brains while sapping all your creativity for items that are not wedding related, i.e. craft-hagging and blogging. And as horrid as this sounds, I’m at the stage where I’m looking forward to the far side of our wedding. Meaning, I can’t wait to get back to normal and plan normal stuff. In a good way.

Moving on {well, just a little I’m afraid}, after jumping from one honeymoon adventure idea to another, we have finally come to our ideal honeymoon destination. Without giving away too much, it was our first choice, but were briefly side-tracked by shinier options. The good news is our honeymoon has me daydreaming about crocheting and knitting a couple of new and unusual delights. So here’s to a burst of inspiration and hopeful blogging of knitted and crocheted items of all sorts!

Then, with impeccable timing, THIS arrived for me yesterday …

… I nearly shit a kitten when I saw the post man with it. How wonderful is this Cath Kidstonknitting bag‘? Pure craft win. Even the packaging was adora-balls. I’m really excited since I’m going on a road trip this weekend and I can’t wait to exit apartment with said knitting bag on arm and craft my brains out in the back seat with my newest project. Happy crafting everyone 🙂