Frank and Josie's House

This year I went a bit crazy but I'm really proud of the fact I made so many Christmas presents. The picture below is a selection. So there's three adult hats,  three kids hats , one pair of gloves and an ear warmer. Add to it another hat for my dad, a pair of slipper boots, a toothless hat, a chunky cowl, a Shield logo cushion, another child's hat, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Not really but it felt appropriate). Today it's the Marvel hat and Shield logo cushion I want to show off about....I mean discuss! I found this awesome website whilst looking for patterns. It's called  The Happy Hooker . Basically the lady's who runs it (Jess) does tapestry crochet and puts up tons of free patterns, most of which have pictures showing you the finished projects. Some are really stunning. I was searching for a Marvel logo for Frank's hat and found one here . I like following chart patterns like this as they are so simple and you can really see what you're doing,

I'm not normally one to write blog posts about celebrity deaths. I leave it up to other people usually. But waking up the news today that Debbie Reynolds has died only one day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher , moves me to write this post. I know there are other turmoils in the world, and I'm not belittling those. Yes, there are deaths every day and wars continue and cause chaos and rip lives apart. I am someone who wears my heart on my sleeve and regularly cries at the news. But it's one of those strange twists in life that because we see celebrities and, in this case, know their films well, can read about their lives etc that we feel we know them, even if all we truly know is their public persona. For me both these women have given a great deal of inspiration. I consider myself an actor. I've deviated from this as a professional career as I had children instead but it remains my first true love. Two films I love (and I mean are my go to films when I'm ill/tired/

So I can't show much of my Christmas makes just yet but I can show you some of the kids stuff. First is the Polka Dot Dog hat for my baby. This was one of the first presents I started for this year's Christmas haul. It's a really good detailed pattern. I had to alter it slightly as the yarn I had was double knit and not aran (or worsted as detailed). But it was enjoyable to make and the instructions were lovely and clear. I love how detailed the pattern is. Sometimes I feel patterns assume you know a lot about crochet. Whilst I've been crocheting a while I haven't made many hats for babies so it was good to have lots of pictures, which I like to refer to.  The best part was that Rose is young enough I can sneakily try it on her head without her realising what I'm doing! The little touches really make this hat for me. Well they make all the hats to be honest, otherwise they'd just be beanie hats! But I love how easy the details were to make and set in the ri

I've been so super busy it's been crazy. I suddenly found myself with three part-time jobs which was awesome, if time consuming. I loved it though, and was just starting to hit my stride regarding being a working mum when illness struck.  Suddenly, one day, I was in pain. I thought it was random girl stuff even though it was the wrong time. However, much pain and general exhaustion prompted several trips to the Dr and one to hospital. To cut a long story short it took two weeks to be diagnosed as an ovarian cyst rupture, even now they're not 100% sure. [caption width="721" id="attachment_1104" align="alignnone"] The dog kept me company though and even warmed my seat for me[/caption]  It took me another week to start to feel human again and even now it's touch and go with how much I can do in one day. I have days when I feel great and others when I just have to sit down. It's always crap to be ill but even worse around Christmas especia