Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! 

Windsor Castle.

The boyfriend and I spent a few days in Windsor last week, we went round the State Rooms and saw Queen Mary's Dolls' House and spent a long time wondering who lives at Windsor Castle (we know the queen does, but there are a lot of other rooms and cottages and things, who lives there!?)

 Have you ever been to Windsor Castle?  Do you know who lives there?

We also went to Legoland, I will save those photos for another day though.

Baby Crochet, Crochet Cupcake Hat and Hairclips.

My brother and his fiance had a baby yesterday! She was born lovely and healthy and cute!

She was a little earlier than expected, so excuse my quick pre-work photoshoot, in bad lighting and using a tub of antiseptic wipes as a hat display stand!

I used the free pattern for a crochet cupcake hat from the blog Repeat Crafter Me.  My sister in law has a cake making business, so I thought a crochet cupcake hat would be the perfect thing for my new niece. 

The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, which I think in UK terms is aran weight wool, but I didn't have any and I'm still working on using up my yarn stash.  So I used a strand of 4ply and a strand of dk white yarn, held together, with a 5mm hook for the white, icing part of the cupcake.  I used one strand of beige dk and a 4mm hook for the brown, cake-y part of the cupcake (I tried using 2 strands of beige dk and it was too chunky, especially for a baby hat). 

The beige part of the cupcake hat is made using front and back post stitches, which I'd never tried before, I can notice where I've made a couple of mistakes, but hopefully no-one else will!  There's a really helpful video tutorial for these stitches on Repeat Crafter Me too.

And of course you can't forget the big sister!  These hair clips are for my older niece.

Are you making anything?  I'm still working on my mustard shawl (you can see it in the background of the photo above), I'm trying to decide on a suitable edging.

Linking up with Annemarie's Haakblog.

Library Love, How to Build a Girl, Paper Towns, Roomies, Lost Lake.

This month I've been reading,

How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran

I was not a teenage music journalist in the nineties, but I was a teenager in the nineties so this book made me feel all nostalgic.  The writing is funny and feministy, with lots of cringey teenage moments.  It's about finding out who you're going to be, I really liked it.

Paper Towns - John Green

John Green is really popular at the moment, so I thought I should give one of his books a try, and as I wasn't up for the weepfest that is The Fault in Our Stars, I ended up choosing this one.  I think this book was abour 100 pages too long, but apart from that I liked the story of Quentin and Margo and their adventures.

Roomies - Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando

The two main characters write alternating chapters in this book, and I think that the authors wrote a character each, which is an interesting concept.  Elizabeth and Lauren are assigned to each other as college roomates, and spend the summer emailing each other.  I liked this book!

Lost Lake - Sarah Addison Allen

I like everything Sarah Addison Allen writes, they all have similar plots (woman has some sort of crisis, goes to a location connected to her family/past, finds magical occurrences in said location, meets attractive man, life changes for the better) but I find that kind of comforting.  This one is about a woman whose husband dies, leading to a road trip to a lake resort owned by her great aunt, magic, romance and crocodiles ensue. 

What have you been reading?

 

Simple Pleasures #18.

Candlelight on cosy, autumnal evenings.

from here

A Crochet Trolley.

I wanted to show you all my newest pride and joy, a trolley to house all my crochet accoutrements.  

It's a Raskog Trolley from Ikea, I love the turquoise blue colour.

In the top I have my current projects, hooks and pom pom makers.

In the bottom two baskets I have my cotton yarn and my acrylic dk yarn.

Having my crochet stuff organised makes me sooo happy!  Where does your crochet equipment live? 

Vegan Chocolate Courgette Cake.

Every year I grow courgettes, mainly so I can use them to make this vegan chocolate courgette cake! 

It's very yummy and you can't even tell there's vegetables in it!

You can find the recipe here, you need to scroll down a bit.

Linking up with Chic on a Shoestring and Making, Making Do and Mending.

Simple Pleasures #18.

Reaching 15000 page views on this here lil' ole blog.  Thanks!

(I don't normally look at my blog statistics, but I just caught sight of this when it was at a nice, round number!)

Charity Shopping, My Second Hand Wardrobe #2.

Here are some more of my second hand dresses.

This is a H&M tunic/dress (I think it's a top, but I'm 5 foot 1, so it's a knee length dress for me!).  It has a wrap top, which I've sewed up because it was showing too much cleavage!  £3 plus postage, Ebay.

 

Flowery, Asda dress.  £2, charity shop.

 

These Birkenstocks have been my favourite summer shoes and cost between £40 and £60 new.  £15 including postage, Ebay.

Have you bought any lovely second hand clothes lately?

The View from my Window.

I like living up in the clouds!

 

What can you see from where you are?

Easy Eco Actions October 2014

Here are this months easy, eco actions,

Use this online form to object to proposed fracking in Lancashire. 

Sign Greenpeace's petition to make the Arctic a global sanctuary. 

The RSPB's campaign to 'Vote for Bob' is  a challenge to politicians to protect nature.  Sign the petition by following the link above.

The badger cull has restarted in some counties in England, use the RSPCA's online form to ask Liz Truss, Environment Secretary, to stop the culls.

If you have any causes or actions to add then let me know in the comments and if I like it I'll add it in.  And feel free to share any of this info (or the whole post) wherever and with whoever you like - if you sign any of the petitions and use social media then please consider using the share on facebook or twitter options that pop up, it increases the reach of these actions and awareness of these issues even further.