Mr and Mrs

I can hardly believe it has been two weeks already since I married my beloved. After all the months of preparation, the planning and the crafting, it whizzed by in a flash.

I had the best day- I've never felt so happy in my life. It was of course emotional at times- I had to hold it together at the church door and again when saying my vows- but I don't think I stopped smiling all day. We've seen our professional shots, and I can share them with you later. But for now, here are some little snapshots of my first day as a wife.

Thank you to everyone who baked, sewed, stamped, DJed, came, saw, cried and sent us beautiful cards and unbelievably generous gifts. I am in awe of you all.

xxx

A Perfectly Perfect Weekend

I had one of those weekends that, for me, was the absolute pinnacle of 'weekendness'.

Saturday morning I was up and out the house early for a haircut followed by some thrifting. I managed some lovely fabrics and a couple of real finds- a gorgeous cream knitted skirt for £1, and two skeins of Sublime Baby Merino Silk Cashmere DK for 50p each! Lunacy.

After lunch with a friend I settled down for an evening of TV catch up and crochet- a quickly invented striped hat (with ear warmers) for my man. Which he then wore for the snowy day!

The weekend in pictures:

 *Warming home made chunky vegetable soup*

 *Beautiful daffodils*

 *A quick striped hat for my man*

 *and one little boy loving the snow*

 *building a snowman at the park*

*snowball fights, roast beef dinner, wedding planning, LOTS of tea and remembering Stan- my grandfather who died on Tuesday.*

A weekend filled with some sadness, but lots of joy and taking great pleasure in small, ordinary moments.

Stash-busting

This last couple of weeks has been so busy, I've barely had time to think. I am on deadline and my H2B had last week off so general daytime happenings have been restricted to work and preparing for D's birthday. I have managed to squeeze in some stash-busting, though! After a few nights of no sleep (thanks, Albie) I spent one lazy Sunday on the sofa, with hook in hand and Wizard of Oz on the DVD player. Bliss! My man bought me tea and snacks- I was just so exhausted. In one afternoon I made a cafetiere cosy...

 Just hooked up using leftover yarns, in double crochet...

 I added some gingham vintage buttons that I got at a vintage fair when I was pregnant...

It matches the tea cosy!

I am also working on a scarf for my man. It was supposed to be a birthday scarf but I couldn't knit it in secret, and I ran out of time. So it's an autumn scarf...

knitted up in garter stitch, with lovely chunky wooden needles. The yarn is a combination of three I got at the knit and stitch show.

I have also been rippling, again for a birthday present...

I used the ripple instruction from Jan Eaton's book A Compendium of Crochet Techniques, which was simple but somehow I kept going wrong. I wasn't concentrating I think. So when I attempt my ripple bedspread, I will be using Lucy at Attic24's technique, her results are stunning.

Last Monday we went to the beautiful village of Little Baddow. We visited the vicar and the village hall and booked our wedding! For next June. Lots of vintage fabric to collect for tablecloths, jam jars to pretty up and wild flowers to grow! It is the weekend after the Queen's diamond jubilee, so we're very much having a British street party theme, with bunting galore, Pimms and bangers and mash for dinner. I am very excited. I am sourcing outfit items, but I'm REALLY excited about decorating the venue. The village hall is a lovely big space, so we can go mad with fairy lights and flowers.

After booking the church and village hall we took a walk along the canal, had some tea and cake at the Paper Mill Lock tea room, then wandered up along the canal and gathered some sloes- there will be bottles of sloe gin on each table at the wedding! I will also be making lemon curd and jam for favours, though I got a wonderful package from Tiptree jam (just up the road from us) with 12 mini jars of posh jam and marmalade! The canal was beautiful, I loved the colours on the barges and long boats...

On Friday it was D's birthday, so we went to Colchester Zoo. It was brilliant! Standing face-to-face with an Amur (Siberian) tiger, watching a family of three chimps eat their vegetables, seeing the Elephants being fed by small children...it was all wonderful. We ate ice cream while the Lions had their enrichment day and I bought D a toy bear in the gift shop. Albie was a bit out of sorts, and kept getting frightened by everything except the animals. He even said 'tiger' and pointed at the leopard and said 'cat'! He made monkey noises when we saw the monkeys and absolutely loved the penguins and chimps.

 

In between Monday and Friday was work, baking, more birthdays and even more work. I can't wait until this deadline is done and I can enjoy H2B's week off (again) next week, with my birthday at the end of it.

Happy hooking!