first aiders

Seems like this band are right up my street.  Whenever I hear a song I like on the radio and wonder who does it, I find out later that it was First Aid Kit.  This number is tickling me at the moment, though I still can't bring myself to approve of their choice of band name.  

Ugh, it's taken me so long to construct those poorly constructed sentences.  I'm not sleeping well lately (and not just because of my little limpet baby, though she doesn't help matters) and it's definitely affecting my brain.  I find myself pausing mid-sentence when I'm speaking and the simplest of words escape me on a regular basis.  Ah well, I'll let the music do the talking for tonight, man!  Far out :)

bored? pop it!

While pushing the pram through Kelvingrove Park yesterday, I spotted this chalk message scrawled across the pathway in the herbaceous border.

Following the arrow, I found this bench...

... with this bit of bubble wrapped tacked to it, along with the instruction, "Bored? Pop it!"  There were similar but slightly different messages all along the walkway (my favourite being, "Waiting?  Well, sit down and get popping!") although this was the only one with the bubble wrap still attached.

Ah, Glasgow, how I do love thee.

happy face

Looking back through photos from recent weeks, it's hard to find a picture where Dulcie doesn't have an extra-large cheesy grin on her gorgeous wee face.  I guess that means we must be doing something right as parents.  Hurrah!  Here she is enjoying lunch in Kember and Jones (mmmmm!) with me and my mum.  She had a packed lunch of sweetcorn fritters and made friends with everyone on the surrounding tables (it's amazing how far a smile can get you in life!) while my mum and I caught up and enjoyed the delicious food.

And here she is having just eaten a pot of yoghurt with her bare hands - oh, the joy!  She does do things other than eat, but I guess meal times are one of the few times I have my hands free to take photos.

This was Dulcie's first outing in the super-cosy foot muff for her pram.  It's basically a giant, fuzzy sleeping bag and she loved it, hence this smile, which she had on her face almost constantly until she eventually dozed off for a snug afternoon snooze.

As you can see, Dulcie brings out the best in me too.  No matter how rubbish everything else is (you're probably picking up on the fact that things are pretty rubbish at the moment) I can't help but be happy around our wee smiling faced Dulcie.

how to crochet a phone cosy

Graham took Dulcie out in her pram for a couple of hours this weekend and in that time I managed to make the cover I'd been planning to for my phone.  Halfway through making this I decided that a phone sock type affair would probably be better in terms of accessibility, but then I wouldn't have been able to use my fancy button so I stuck to the plan and made one with a fastenable flap.

I just worked this pattern out as I went, but I made a note of what I was doing so I'll share the "pattern" here in case you fancy making a case for your own phone.  It was very quick and easy.  My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Ace, but I think this would fit most smartphones.  (Well, I don't know really, being a fancy-phone novice and all.)

Here's how I did it.

Using double knitting wool and a 4.5mm crochet hook:

- Chain 25 stitches and join with a slip stitch to make a ring.

- Crocheting into the foundation row, double crochet for 20 rounds.

(Crocheting in the round is not the neatest for making stripes, but the bits where you change colour will end up on the side of the phone and not be too noticeable... or you could make your case all one colour for added easiness.)

- Double crochet in the next 13 stitches.

- Chain 1 and turn, double crochet in each of 13 stitches...

- ... then repeat this for a further 10 rows.

To make the buttonhole:

- Chain 1 and turn, double crochet 5 stitches, chain 3, skip next three stitches, double crochet 5 stitches.

- [Chain 1 and turn, double crochet 13 stitches] x 2

- Weave in any ends, sew/crochet up bottom opening and attach button.

- Et voila!

If you wanted to make a simple phone sock, you would just:

- Chain 23 stitches and join with a slip stitch to make a ring.

- Crocheting into the foundation row, double crochet for approximately 25 rounds (until your phone sock is just longer than your phone).

- Weave in ends and sew up the bottom opening.

Easy peasy, huh?  Let me know if you use my rough guide to make any phone cosies of your own.  They'd be a great idea for a handmade Christmas gift and the simple phone sock could probably be completed in about an hour, I'd think.  And that's going by my snail's pace crocheting.  Enjoy :)

upgrade of the century

Something major happened this week.  My battered and very old pay-as-you-go phone (which lost its screen when I dropped it down the stairs a couple of months ago) finally gave up the ghost and D-I-E-D died.  This forced me to bite the bullet and dive headfirst into the mysterious (to me) world of modern phones, something I hadn't so much as dipped my toe into for the best part of a decade.  Ch-ch-ch-check it out!  I got me a smartphone!  And, yes, that is the ripple blanket I have as my wallpaper.  Squee!  That alone is enough to make me a smartphone convert.

I have had a few teething problems, the main one being that I discovered I had been saving numbers to my phone rather than my SIM card for the last six years or so, so when my phone died I lost pretty much every number that I ever actually use.  Bummer.  But last night my old phone miraculously came back to "life" (i.e. switched itself on and did nothing) long enough for me to scribble down all the missing numbers.  Phew!  So now you know if you never hear from me that it's just because I'm ignoring you ;)

I'm hoping to find time to crochet a wee cover for my new phone this week and I'm thinking it could be the perfect use for this button.  Yay!

Now, if only someone would phone me...

it's (nearly) chri-i-i-i-i-istmas!

 Last week I felt like Christmas was still ages away.  This week I feel like I've left it all too late and may have to cancel Christmas altogether.  I'll do my best to catch up and get in the Christmas spirit though.  My mum brought me a copy of the free Tesco magazine this week because of the wreath above, which she thought I might like.  It is nice, I think.  There are instructions on how to make it, but I reckon you could work it out for yourself.  (Put ribbon on bobbins, make wire circle, put bobbins on wire, attach ribbon, hang.  You knew that already, didn't you?)

In an attempt to get in the mood, I made this seasonal treasury on etsy.  All the items are related to classic festive television.  Of course, thinking of 16 classic festive films/programmes and finding items that could represent them was not as easy as I had anticipated and had me scratching my head for a long while yesterday.  I even had to include my own EastEnders cards (bad, bad me!) to fill the final space.  Talking of my EastEnders cards, I sold quite a lot of them in my etsy shop this week.  That would have been exciting enough in its own right, but it turned out that the lady who bought them works on EastEnders (jealous, me?!) and intends to give the cards to some of her colleagues, so my cards are actually going to be delivered to Albert Square!  This pretty much made my week :)

p.s. I'm already running low on individual Ethel cards (just three left!) so if you wanted an Ethel I would act fast to avoid disappointment.

lurve

Love Attack Gocco Prints

Originally uploaded by painter girl

I don't think I really blog much about lurve, do I?  But today marks the ninth anniversary of my first date with Graham.  He took me to see his ex-girlfriend's band.  Smooth...  Well, it worked - nine years and one baby later we're doing pretty well.  Last year I spent our anniversary having a miserable day still in hospital, fasting (noooo!) and having an angiogram (double noooo!) where my veins spasmed and the tube got painfully stuck halfway up my arm on its way to my heart (triple noooo!).  Still, I did get to watch my coronary arteries doing their thing on a big TV screen in real time.  I suppose watching your own heart could be viewed as romantic...?  Anyway, since year eight was such a crappy day, we've decided to make year nine a good one and are leaving Dulcie at home with her grandparents tonight and heading out for a meal AND a cinema trip.  Wow.  This will be the first cinema trip sans Dulcie since she arrived.  I'm so excited that I just booked my annual haircut a couple of months early for this afternoon!

Over the last year of scary heart nastiness, Graham has really proved his salt and cut the mustard (can't think of any more condiment-related compliments) and continues to be my very handsome rock and entertainer in times of woe.  He twiddles his thumbs in hospital canteens while I lie in MRI scanners (that's our less romantic plan for tomorrow unfortunately) and even asks my consultant all the questions I'm too scared to.  I'm very lucky to have him.  I will do my best to be the model girlfriend on our date tonight.

And I think that is about as soppy as I can (un)comfortably get in a blog post.