Wonderful winters weekend

I’ve had a lovely weekend, full of fabulous festive things. Friday night was the Fabulous Frost Fair.

It was the VIP charity evening and was very glam. We were welcomed in to a goody bag and a glass of bubbles with Christmas music filling the air. After a few speeches we were free to start browsing all the wonderful stalls full of gorgeous handmade crafts and they were all local too which was brilliant. It was great to be child free so I could take my time and really look at stuff. I was very good though, I didn’t buy anything. I could’ve spent a fortune on myself but with Christmas coming I need to concentrate on gifts for others. I’ve mainly got just men to buy for now and most of the products were aimed at ladies. I felt so inspired looking at everything though, I kept thinking to myself, I could make one of those or Ooh, I’d love to try my hand at that. One day I actually might find the time to give a few new crafts a go, wouldn’t that be good?

On the Saturday evening was our village Christmas light switch on. The rain stayed away and we joined the hundreds of other villagers meandering about with a mulled wine and mince pie. I met up with a couple of my friends and we had a good catch up and a wander into one of the little boutiques that was open for the festivities. Everywhere looked so pretty all lit up, The Salvation Army band played Christmas carols, local choirs sang, it was just a lovely festive evening.

On the Sunday, we took a family trip to Thomas Land to celebrate Jude’s birthday. It was such an amazing day, I can’t praise it highly enough. Jude absolutely loved every minute as expected, even the teenagers enjoyed themselves. We’re not really a theme park family so this was perfect for us, nice gentle rides! I’d highly recommend a visit here for any Thomas fan, especially around Christmas time as they’d really gone to town with the decorations, fake snow and Christmas music playing. They had a show in the daytime and then a Christmas wishes parade at the end of the day followed by fireworks. We felt so festive. We paid a little visit to Father Christmas in the Castle of Dreams, went Ice skating and watched The Polar Express in 4D which was fab. They also have a small zoo there which was home to two adorable reindeer. They were getting plenty of rest in preparation for their forthcoming long night.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend full of fun, friends, fizz, festive cheer and most of all family. (Sadly, my big son couldn’t be there as he’s growing up and had to work, but he was there in spirit!)

Where I’m up to

Hello! I’ve been rubbish lately at blogging. I used to manage a couple a week but more recently it’s been one every couple of weeks. I can only think it’s because there’s been so much going on family wise. There’s been a lot of birthdays to celebrate, including my little boy turning a big 3! How is my baby 3 already?

I feel bad as for his 1st birthday I made him a cake (a two-tiered one no less), though never again. For his 2nd I made him a big card that got shown on cBeebies (Woo!) but for his 3rd I’ve done nothing. No party, nothing. We are going to Thomas Land this weekend so he’ll absolutely love that. I just feel I haven’t ‘created’ anything special for him this year. It’s not like he’s noticed though, just me being me.

I’ve been hooking away behind the scenes making a couple of Christmas presents. I’ll share those with you at a later date when it’s safe to do so. I’ve also started another blanket, it’s going to be one to sell. Do you remember the skittles rainbow blanket  I made in the summer? Well I sold it!! My first ever crochet sale, I was over the moon. I sold it through my Facebook page, if you fancy popping over to see me there you can click here. And I’m also on Instagram, I’m not sure how to link to that so search for vickimccav. I don’t do Twitter, I’m afraid I’ve never got it and never will!

I’ve been getting that festive feeling already, I’m like a big kid when it comes to Christmas! I’ve got a couple of new things planned for this year but otherwise it’ll be pretty much the same as last year. I opened up my December issue of Country Living magazine this morning. I’m completely in love with the cover!

Wow, I just want to wrap up warm and go sit there in the snow with good food, wine and friends. It’s so magical!

We’ve had a bit of white stuff here this morning, shame it was just hail, but still looks pretty.

I’m still mulling the whole blog/media storage thing over. I had my eyes closed tight and just peeked a teeny little bit when I was uploading these photos, half expecting them not to go on!

Right I’m off to go and do some jobs and get ready for The Fabulous Frost Fair this evening, I’m very excited and will be child free too so I can get fully festive with freedom! ❄️🎄⛄️

Bloggy Dilemma

I’ve known this day would come but was hoping it wouldn’t be for ages yet. I’ve used up my 3GB of media space here in my little blog which means I can’t upload any more photos!!! Arghh! This is devastating for me as a big part of my blog writing is done through my photos too. I’m in a right pickle and really don’t know what to do. I had to delete a few older pictures the other day just in order to do my poppy post. I really don’t want to delete any old posts or pictures because to me this is a lovely diary that I can look back on and see my progress and remember some great times.  It’s not just the pictures but how I felt at the time.  So my options are to pay an annual fee to upgrade my blog to get more space which will run out again at some point in the future. Not really happy to be paying out either as the blog doesn’t earn me any money. The only other option is to start up all over again with a different blog provider. I’ve had a quick look at what’s out there and it seems there are free options with unlimited storage.It would also mean leaving behind all my lovely WordPress followers that I’ve built up over the last 22 months. Starting to build up a new following all over again doesn’t appeal but what can I do? Do any of you have any suggestions or experience with other blog sites? I’d love to hear any ideas you may have.

Thanks, Vicki xxx

Poppy love

This year (a little bit late, but better late than never), I decided to have a go at making some crochet poppies. I already had the perfect yarn in my stash and I followed the YouTube tutorial by BellaCoco. I only set out to make one for myself but I enjoyed it that much that I decided to make some more to send to some family and friends.

Do you like my little poppy field?

Here they are all sewn together.

I had to wait a few days to finish them off properly as I had to wait for the brooch backs to arrive from eBay. They came yesterday and I bought a piece of red felt to help attach them.

I used a pound coin size circle of felt, snipped two little slits into it to bury the brooch back, then mod podged that to the back of the poppy. 

There, all done. What a lovely satisfying little project.

And don’t you think black and red are very striking colours together?

Three cute crochet cushions

My original plan was to make one crochet cushion, a blooming flower one for my bedroom. After making them for my mum and mum-in-law for Mother’s Day, I thought how nice one would look on my bed.

You can see my post about starting it and my colour inspiration here. Before finishing it, I decided to start a second cushion in the same colours as I was so in love with them. I took this on holiday to start. I thoroughly enjoyed making this one and was finished in no time at all. Here’s my post about it.

All the while, my original cushion was sat there feeling all lonely and neglected. If I’m honest, I’d kinda got bored of it and kept finding other projects to work on instead. I already had a third cushion all planned out in my head but guilt got the better of me and I put all my efforts into finishing the blooming thing. It really didn’t take that long once I’d set my mind to it.

For the back of it I used every colour from the front but in blocks of colour (less ends!) I finished it off with one row of petals.

Doesn’t it look lovely and plump?

So with this finally completed I felt quite justified in immediately starting the next one. It was to be a granny square cushion.

And it grew and grew quickly…

Before long, I’d finished. It’d make a lovely blanket if I kept going.

So, stitched around my cushion pad at an angle, here’s the finished article and I have to say I love it!

A very simple project that looks very effective. And with all 3 together, they look great.

Three very different cushions using the same colours, but I think it works. I have to say though, I prefer the two I didn’t originally plan on making! Don’t think I’ll be doing any more blooming flowers anytime soon. Now these are done, it’s time to focus on my Christmas gift making.