Crocheting baskets and the London boat show!

6th December

On our way to ExCel, the London boat show,
view from DLR, the Gherkin and 'Cheesegrater'

...and so it begins, the children have returned back to school and we are again ruled by a clock.  My daughter has exams and my son informed me late last night that he would need cookery ingredients for school today!  The peaceful Christmas seems an age away and we tumble and stagger into the new working academic year...

But before this Monday began we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, it was Mr H's favourite day of the year above any other and the children and I will always try and be with him on this day, whatever we are doing and where ever we are, what am I talking about?  The London boat show of course.

Almost as if about to climb a mountain to ski,
London's cable car across the Thames

As always we mooched around, made our way to the Guinness tent and met with old friends, spent more money in our dreams than we have in reality and noted items that need to be replaced and others to put on the wish list.  Leaving the boat show, we decided to try a different means of transport and instead of using the Docklands Light Railway, as we did to arrive, we left using the Emirates cable car that takes you high over the Thames.  It was dark and raining and I was not sure if it would be worth it, but WOW, London looks great at night.  From there we jumped on a fast clipper boat that drove us at high speed past the O2, Greenwich Maritime museum, the Golden Hind, Tower Bridge and many other iconic buildings.  Our capital is an amazing place.

 

View of the O2 from the cable car

Of course my weekend did not involve just the boat show and sight seeing, I had time for a little hooky and embroidery too!  I completeed the Christmas red make up basket and am secretely very pleased with it, although I have decided it is too Christmassy, so am going to embellish it with a mass of floweres and such like to crochet 'bling' it and trasnform it into something very different.  I quickly hooked up a partner for eyeliners and the such, in a vivid 'hot pink', very girly and included the Christmas red as the fold down top.  Might not need to embellish this one, but am still thinking about that.  As I was in London and had no access to my crochet books I sat in bed (Mr H had popped to the gym) and began to make up a pattern for a daisy to begin embellishing the basket.  It really is true that you need to block your work as whilst working on it, the daisy was so crumpled and tiny, I almost abandoned it.  Wish now I had taken a photograph to show you, but after blocking, it was as if it had been transformed from an ugly duckling into an unsure swan.

 



So I shall continue to hook up some flowers and see how the baskeys turn out, but am very tempted to buy some chunky yarn and make bread baskets in spring like colourrs.  They are very easy to make, for the large basket I followed a patern to begin with, but the smaller one, I made up as I went along.  They a super quick and would make excellent presents, I think...  the pattern for the larger red basket, can be found here:  Thank you Chickpea!

http://chickpeastudio.typepad.com/chickpea_sewing_studio/files/crochet_basket_pattern4.pdf

 

 

 

 

Finally I leave you with a sneak peak at the next blog posting.  I have returned to some embroidery after many many years away!  It is all very seasonal and I cannot wait to share it with you!