Back again & 2018 update.

Dear Followers

I have decided to start writing this blog again and turn my website blog into a news blog for grown up business posts. But don't worry there will still be a lot of crochet here :-)

So much has happened since my last blog post back in November 2017, this is a long recap post, I was going to add my crochet updates at the bottom, but have decided to do a second blog post.

When I last wrote I had a 2 month old baby grandson, now I have a 17 month old toddler grandson and am expecting a new grandbaby in the next few weeks, I can't wait to meet Bert's baby brother or sister, the arrival of new life is so exciting especially when its your own flesh and blood.
This is Bert, his mummy & baby sibling bump on our visit to the tallest tree in England yesterday

In the foreground there is a strange looking dog, who is our new puppy Ron.

We lost 2 of our beloved pets within 6 months of each other, firstly Billy the Maine Coon cat died just before Christmas 2017 and then Loki our beautiful GSD died in May last year, I still can't think about them without tears welling up in my eyes.

So at the end of August last year we brought home a tiny 8 week old lurcher puppy, he has the same Dad as Tinkerbell our existing lurcher, but his mum was a greyhound x. We were expecting him to end up as a bigger version of Tinks, instead of which it looks like he is going to grow up to be pseudo greyhound, he's a lot bigger than he should be and has a smooth coat rather than the rough coat we expected, plus he moults!! But we love him regardless.

Bert really loves Ron, Ron really loves Bert, together they are a nightmare bundle of chaos with 6 legs, 2 hands and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

Ron has grown so much in 5 months, he's still got a lot of growing to do, hes going to be massive, he's also impossible to photograph as he's a camouflage sort of brindle colour

 

In June last year we moved house again!

I was heartbroken to leave our big roomy house and large garden, but didn't take long to fall in love our new small ground floor flat and south facing courtyard.

The courtyard is long and thin, I decided I wanted to turn it into a Mediterranean courtyard, so as it was my birthday soon after we moved and I was given a olive tree, a grape vine and fig tree, they were so beautiful......

But Ron has since eaten the grape vine and fig, they are both stumps I have my fingers crossed they will both grow back in the spring and Ron will have outgrown his destructive phase.

In October my beloved Beast died, I know most of you will read this and think why the fuss, its only car, but to me a car is so much more than a big metal box. I genuinely love my cars, they are kind of big metal pets. 

I love driving and the sense of adventure when I get behind the wheel, we could go anywhere and do anything, the Beast was an extension of me, big, lumbering, middle aged and slightly broken.

So we had a new (old) car, which was a slinky and speedy BMW, but it didn't feel like our car and as it drank petrol every time you accelerated we couldn't afford to keep it. So last week we traded it in for a Mercedes, which is the poshest car we've ever owned, but quite old so not as expensive as it sounds. We took it on a road trip to Cornwall at the weekend and fell in love, its big, middle aged, not lumbering, only very slightly broken, with surprisingly good fuel economy and very very posh, so we've named it the Posh Beast.

Emotionally I have been up and down like a yo yo, so much grieving and sadness, but so much new joy, I'd really like 2019 to be calm and stable.

I had written a cathartic post about being my traumas and being depressed on my website blog, but I've deleted it and re-posted it HERE

Dear Followers & new blog

You may wonder where I have been for such a long time, let me assure you I've been here.

Unfortunately I've had a serious sign in problem and haven't been able to access my blog for several weeks, however I was able to access someone else's.
As you can imagine its been a nightmare, especially has Google has no interest, no customer service and no phone number or e-mail address.
But as you can see I've finally managed to access my account.

However in the meantime I've opened a shiny all singing, all dancing website and I love it :-)
It's got a blog attached and a mailing list.
The site still needs a lot of work, but the basics are there, it has everything I need and I'm really enjoying building it.

So here it is
https://www.amandasperkinscrochetblankets.com/

From now on all my blog posts will be on my new blog, I've already started blogging and you can find information about the new Ravelry GAl I'm taking part in.
https://www.amandasperkinscrochetblankets.com/blog

If you want to carry on following me you can find a "Join mailing list" form on the homepage

I look forward to you joining me in my new website home
love Amanda

Yarn Thing & Queenies Square

I've got two exciting things to blog about today.

The first is that I'm delighted and excited that I am going to be interviewed by Marly Bird on her podcast today.
I should of told you ages ago, but the baby got in the way. If you miss the live podcast you can still listen to the archived version.
All the details are HERE

Second is that I have published a new blanket pattern, its called Queenies Square.

When my daughter Daisy first told me, she was pregnant in December 2016 I decided that I needed to make my first grandchild a granny square blanket. I haven't made a granny square blanket for nearly 15 years, and even though granny squares hold a very special place in my heart I just couldn't get inspired.

I tried all sorts of variations, but eventually gave up and decided to use a slightly more complicated motif instead.

I wanted to make my grand-baby's blanket with The Natural Dye Studio yarn, but knew that not many people would have the yarn as NDS has been closed for over 2 years and it would be very difficult to match the colours, so I made two blankets.

The first is made with Fyberspates Scrumptious, John Arbon Textiles Knit by Numbers, Drops Alpaca and Cascade 220 fingering.

I chose colours that would be suitable as a unisex blanket, as I didn't know what sex the baby was going to be.

The design is bold and geometric as new born babies can’t focus and find it difficult to see single tones meaning contrasting colours are ideal to help develop their eyesight.

The second blanket is The Natural Dye Studio version.

You might not have heard about NDS, it was my hand dyed yarn company that ran from 2002 to 1025. We dyed luxury natural yarns with plant dyes, it started off very small I dyed a little bit of yarn in my kitchen at home, but the demand grew so quickly I had to move it out into its own premises in 2006. NDS kept growing and eventually my husband Phil and daughter Daisy came to work with me.

A few years after we moved to Exmoor Phil was offered a grown up job, so left us to carry on without him, Daisy and I struggled on until I started writing my book, then the workload became very stressful and unbearable, so I decided it was time to close the business.

When NDS closed I kept quite a lot of yarn, but blankets take a lot of yarn and nearly all the blankets in Rainbow Crocheted Blankets were made with my stash. 

Eventually I decided to only use it for very special blankets and keep it as a memory to love and look at.

My first grand-baby deserved a very special blanket.

Albert (Bertie)was born on September 1st 2017.

The blanket is named Queenies Square because Bertie already had a great Granny (and a great Grandma and Nanny), so I decided to be his Queenie which is my nickname, both on-line and in the real world.

You can find the pattern HERE on Etsy

And HERE on Ravelry, I've set up a special discount in my Ravelry shop that runs from now until October 1st 2017, just add Bertie to the code box at checkout and you will receive a 50% discount on the pattern.

Drops Alpaca Colour Pack's & Bertie Update

As you might of guessed by now I have a lot of yarn, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 
I try and keep it in order of the colour wheel as the colour wheel is my main palette

So you can imagine I was delighted when I was invited to create a yarn pack for Dermores, 
I've chosen Drops Alpaca as its my favourite budget yarn. Its soft, crochets beautifully, comes in a range of beautiful colours and is amazingly good value. 

The colour wheel pack is perfect as blanket starter collection, I chosen colours that I love, use and go well together. You can find it in my shop on Deramores - Here

If you've already got some of the colours or just want to buy them one at a time, this is the list of colours in the pack.

Goldenrod - 2923

Dark lime - 2916

Olive Mix - 7233

Dark olive mix - 7238

Dark turquoise - 2918

Teal - 2919

Dark blue - 6790

Purple violet 4434

Dark Pink - 3770

Pink - 2921

Deep pink - 2922

Orange - 2915

I have to admit I've got rather a lot of it and use it all the time, I like to make up my own shade cards just to keep track of which colours I've used in case I need to buy some more for a blanket or rather what I've already got in my collection so I don't duplicate when I go on a yarn spending spree.

Albert update

Life is not really back to normal, I didn't realise how much a tiny grandbaby would disrupt our lives.....

At the moment we have a constant stream of family members coming to stay with us so they can meet the newest member.

Plus Dais had to have an emergency c-section so needs constant attention to stop her doing too much too soon, so I'm spending quite a lot of time with her cuddling Bertie :-)

Here he is with his Grandpa and Mummy enjoying the warm Exmoor sun on Sunday.