here comes the sun... hopefully!

here comes the sun..., a photo by pilli pilli on Flickr.

Sheesh! So much for midsummer's day, huh? Is it raining where you are too? Ever hopeful, Pilli Pilli has stitched a little bit of sun just beginning to peek out from behind the clouds in this embroidery. Come on, summer! You can do it!

Actually, the rain has kind of worked in my favour so far today. I had to stop off at the post office on the way to work and everybody was either staying indoors or running from pillar to post and not stopping off anywhere, so there was no queue. Hooray! This meant I got to work early and was able to blog before starting work proper (just a shame the internet ate it and I had to retype it all later in the day!) as well as having time to pick up a tasty pain au chocolat en route. What a terribly French sentence. I think I'd still probably rather see summer kicking in, mind you...

some nice sights to see

A pile of rainbow-coloured granny squares that I've been crocheting this week. I didn't realise how cheery my colour palette was until I piled them up like this last night.

I've now just got three more squares to make before I stitch them together into a sensibly sized baby blanket, about one sixth the size of the ripple blanket. I really just started making these to practise granny squares (I have a plan for another granny square blanket in different colours) but thought I may as well put my practice to good use by making a blanket out of these squares too. I've used some of the same colours as are in the ripple blanket, so I'm going to give this to the same baby as a little accompaniment present. I'm telling you, this baby has lucked out being conceived just as I was learning to crochet! Well, I suppose it's only really lucky if the baby (and its parents) turn out to like crocheted blankets...

Last weekend was my dear old dad's 60th birthday, so Graham and I went through to Perth to meet him and my mum. He knew nothing about it and seemed very pleasantly surprised. We stayed overnight and went out for a very fancy and delicious five-course dinner. Apparently I took no photos of the birthday boy, but I did take a photo of this great sign. I was a bit disappointed to learn that a Friendly Society is really just an insurance/pensions company, but I'll keep imagining the existence of a society especially for friendly Scottish girls. I'd like to say I could join, but I am immensely antisocial these days, so much so that last night Graham heard of a rumour going round that he had murdered me, so long was it since anybody had seen me out and about! Oh dear. I have some other news from Perth too (a lovely shop and an artisitc blast from the past) but I'll try to share that some other day.

I hadn't seen Lola since she ran away from the hoover this afternoon and thought she had gone missing, but I discovered her having made a bed for herself inside a drawer. I should have chased her out (my pyjamas are going to be all hairy now) but I couldn't bring myself to move such a cosy-looking kitty.

And last but not least... It took me nearly five whole years, but I finally managed to get a photo of my favourite part of Poppy. All her paws have black pads, but this one has one little pink pad.

And that was my little whistlestop tour of some pleasant sights of late. Hope you enjoyed!

wuthering heights

wuthering heights, a photo by dropstitch on Flickr.

According to my flickr photograph, I bought this copy of Wuthering Heights over three years ago (after years of searching for my ideal copy) and I can now report that I am finally reading it. Yay! Much to my relief, I am actually really enjoying it. I read some lady fiction from this period when I was at university and did not like it one little bit. Jane Eyre is probably my most hated book of all time, but then I did have to read it in a oner before an impending exam, which was some new kind of extreme torture... Anyway, Wuthering Heights is not at all like Jane Eyre. Phew! I am loving Heathcliff and his non-humanesque wicked darkness. Great stuff.

I realise I have not been around much on the old blogosphere of late (and after such an impressively bloggy April too!) but I will try to rectify that soon. Ish. I've really been living the quiet life (books, naps and crocheting granny squares) but I'm a firm believer that the quiet life can still make for a good blog post or two and I KNOW you'll be wanting to see my new granny square skillz, right? So I'll try to bust out my camera and start sharing again soon.

Now, how to spend the rest of my Saturday night? I could read a couple of chapters of Wuthering Heights, have an early night, watch a cheesy movie, or crochet some more granny squares... What a lovely set of options. I might do a little of all four :)

cute kitten overload!

One of my sister's cats (Meg) had five kittens on Friday morning - three tabby cats, one black and white and one grey. Too cute! Meg actually started giving birth while sitting on my sister's lap, which is kind of adorable and creepy in equal measures.

Look! An actual kitten bundle!

My sister's other cat (Rosie) is also pregnant and should be giving birth in about three weeks. It'll be kitten central at my sister's house this summer. Needless to say, my nephew and nieces are very excited and are about to have the best summer holidays ever. I think I'll send off my passport renewal form today so I can go to France and visit them all before they get rehomed. The kittens will be getting rehomed, I mean, not my nieces and nephew!

Cute kitten overload! Don't say I'm not good to you...

human beans!

Aw! Look what the girls from Stuffed Nonsense have been making with the fabric they won in my Girls' Day giveaway.
Human beans! You can have a closer look over at their blog here. It's so nice to see my old familiar fabrics being used for something completely different from what I might have made :)

somewhere between meh and yeah

I'm getting the feeling I might be the only one who's interested in quilling around here, but I shall carry on regardless and present you with the teatime quilling update. I think I still like it, but I'm foreseeing problems now. 1) How do I finish it? Quill tightly right up to the edges and leave no white space or try to be arty and leave loose curly bits? I think the second option would look better, but might be beyond my artistic inabilities. 2) I'm not managing to get decent photos of it (though admittedly it is practically dark today) and if I can't get a photo of it, I can't turn it into postcards. Waaah! I'll plough on. I'm really enjoying curling the paper and fitting it into little pockets of space so it's been a good day's occupational therapy even if we don't get anything out of it at the end. And we may still have an end product! I haven't written it off just yet!

It hasn't really taken me all day to do this. After lunch I went and pursued my latest hobby - afternoon napping. I've had a pretty decent nap every afternoon this week, I think. It started off when I had the cold and so had an excuse. Now I'm all better, but I just can't give up the napping. I don't know how I'll cope when I have to go back to the life of ten hour shifts in a few days' time. Now that I'm up and about again post-nap, I'm wearing clothes (obviously) with my slippers and my dressing gown (with hood up) and have a hot water bottle shoved up my top. I'm so cosy! I can't believe it's only taken a fortnight off work for me to get to this stage...

lunchtime quilling update

Here's my morning's quilling. I'm liking it, both how it's turning out and how much fun it is to do. There's something very satisfying about it and it is easier than I'd thought as the paper coils are very pliable. I'm looking forward to continuing with my second shade of blue after lunch. Yay for quilling!