inspiration

The first month of the year is behind us, no idea how that happened but happy to say goodbye to January and hopefully leave the worst of the winter behind. If you follow my blog you will know I have some resolutions for this year, and thought it might be good to share some of my progress with you.

I am proud to say I have been meeting my goals for the year, including number 4: Take more photographs, go on a photo journey around town once a month.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up early on a Saturday morning, excited to start my day because I had planned to go on my first photo journey of the year. I decided to go to the Water of Leith since it is one of my favourite walks in Edinburgh. It was a frosty but sunny morning, and even though I was a bit shy at first I soon became quite relaxed and really enjoyed it. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Having the blog has definitely helped to keep my resolutions and I am happy to share them with you. I have been listening to many podcasts lately and have enjoyed listening to the journey of such amazing crafty people. This has made me realise how important it is to give yourself time to be inspired, to be creative, to be in awe of life and everything around you. I would have never considered myself a creative person before but I have come to find how much I love to have creative escapes in my life, how much I love colour, textures and shapes and how great it is to feel inspired by them.

It is strange but lately I have been feeling as if I’ve finally started to settle in to… well, me. I am realising what it is that I truly like and don’t like, even if it is unexpected or if it doesn’t fit with the way I have always been. I am sure it will keep on changing but that is alright, I just need to keep filling my life with what makes me feel good, happy and relaxed and I will know I am on the right track.

Everything is a journey I guess, a crochet journey, a life journey.

Sol

Hello my dear readers! How did January treat you? This month went incredibly fast for me, despite the bad weather and short days. I did get quite a lot of crochet time with all the travelling that my work requires, many train rides to just relax, crochet and listen to podcasts.

I have realised that crocheting in trains is where I enjoy it the most, and thinking about this today I realised there is a very simple reason for this: there is nothing else I have to be doing. We all have busy lives and you probably struggle just like me to fit in some crochet time in the day. Even if we managed this there is always something in the back of our minds that is screaming for our attention like laundry to fold, plates to clean, or sometimes in my case even having to make myself some food. When I am on the train, there is nothing else that I could be doing. I couldn’t possible use that time to clean or cook, or anything else for that matter and I think that is why crocheting on the train is such a bliss, because it gets all my attention and it fills up a time that otherwise would be “wasted”. I always want to be productive, can’t help it, its the engineer in me.

By the way, I am obsessed with a few podcasts lately, specially Woolful and Knit British. They are quite different, Woolful is the podcast of Ashley, in each episode she shares interviews with people in the fibre industry and you get to hear their fibre journey which is always so inspiring. Knit British is the podcast of Louise, and here she shares her love of yarn produced, spun or dyed in the UK. Be sure to check them out if you are looking for a new podcast.

The reason for this post is that my cobbled street inspired cowl is finished! This cowl was, as many of my projects recently, a lovely train companion. It is worked in tunisian crochet using only two stitches, it was very easy to work and the yarn is lovely. It really does remind me of cobbled streets so I am very pleased with how this turned out. It uses only one skein so it is a great little project if you want to start with tunisian crochet.

The only problem I had with this project was that the yarn (Madelinetosh Merino Light 4ply) smelled a bit like vinegar when I bought it. It went away while I was crocheting with it but when I blocked it (just spraying some water) it came back and it smelled awful! Had to do an intense wet blocking to get the smell off but it is all good now.

I will post this pattern soon, need to do a chart for it so may take a bit. I am not a fan of opening Excel when I am not in the office but will do it for you guys 🙂

Hope all is good with you, I am working on a couple more tutorials and of course some more patterns. I will share my progress of that Moroccan-inspired bag soon 🙂

Have a great day!

Sol

a crochet journey

Tales of my journey to a colourful and creative life

January photo journey

Cobbled Street Cowl Ta-dah!