A few photos from this week

This week has seen the end of the summer holidays and the start of the new school year.  Brownies starts back soon, I've been to a planning meeting and a social event for leaders in my area (Guiding really isn't just about the girls!) and we're all raring to go, with many activities planned for the next few months.  I've been working on a journal article using data from my PhD research, and carrying on with job applications.  Whilst that's not really worth taking photos of, here are a few things I have photographed this week:

Ben and I went on a trip to Hobbycraft, always a dangerous place.  This visit was quite restrained, though, for once we both only bought what we needed!  These cupcake paper cases were only 50p a pot (two pots shown above) and they're very cute.

I'm planning on making some crochet Christmas decorations for the tree (and as gifts, if they turn out welll), mainly sweet little baubles.  I needed some gold or silver yarn for the top 'metal' bit of the baubles, and this gold yarn caught my eye.  Look, it has sequins in!

Sequins and Christmas tree baubles, perfect!

I gave blood again (apologies for dreadful photo, taken on phone).  If you've never given blood, please do consider it.  You can save a life and you get biscuits afterwards.  Two packs of biscuits, if you're lucky!  

A very, very good friend of mine, H, has just announced her engagement.  I am so very pleased for her, I can't wait to see her in a few weeks and hear all about it!  I wanted to send a card, but my ability to draw is incredibly limited...so I raided my stash of sticky-backed buttons (one of the more unusual craft purchases I've ever made) and made this slightly-squashed heart card.  This is about the limit of my artistic capabilities!  

As it now tradition for friends getting married (well, I've done it once before, but a tradition has to start somewhere) I'm going to make the happy couple a king-size blanket as a wedding present (this idea is copied from a friend of mine, I think it's lovely to make something so personal).  When I asked what colours she'd like, she replied with 'navy and pink'.  We then narrowed down what shade of 'pink' she would like, and I had a play with some patterns.  The last blanket I made was lots of octagons and squares all joined together, I loved it but goodness it took hours (and I mean hours) to sew up.  This time I wanted something that had significantly less sewing.  This in turn means it's much less portable, and will get quite hot to work under, but it's coming up to longer and cooler nights, and I have no plans to rush off anywhere any time soon, so I think I'll be fine with this.

This is the first pattern I tried, using little bits of yarn I had in my box.  (Also note the Fimo-covered crochet hook, it was my first attempt at decorating a hook and I'm quite proud of it.)  I like this pattern but I think I'd soon become bored of it, so I've gone with this one instead:

It's Stylecraft Special DK in Midnight, Pale Rose, and Cream.  The pattern repeats so it's one row of pink, one cream, one pink, one navy. I think the colours go well together - it's what H asked for, anyway! Quite a bit of maths has been involved, working out how many stitches I needed for that first row (342 if you're wondering) and then how much yarn was needed for each pattern repeat (22g of pink, 13g each of navy and cream), how many repeats would be in the blanket (170cm = 34 repeats), how much of each colour do I need (748g pink, 442g each of navy and cream) and how many balls is that (8 pink, 5 navy, 5 cream) and how many balls do I need to order given what I already have in my stash (8 pink, 5 navy, 4 cream).  I think that's about right, anyway...

This magnet is part of a set Ben was given for Christmas, and this week we did almost run out of tea bags.  Normally I buy catering supplies of tea (cheaper that way, and you're unlikely to run out any time soon) but recently we've been trying different brands of tea, mainly because the water in this part of town tastes different from the water in our last flat and so the tea has been tasting funny.  We went through quite a few brands of tea before we found one that tasted as we thought tea should taste.  We're currently drinking Marks and Spencer City Tea, especially for hard water areas, which is one of the best teas I've had in a while.  M&S currently has a 3 for 2 offer on tea, so we've now got City Tea, Breakfast Blend and Luxury Gold.  City Tea is the cheapest, and my favourite.  Excellent!

Lots of Guiding people produce unofficial badges to raise funds for their unit - I have quite the collection!  One lady decided to be different, and have these tshirts made up, saying 'I loved being a Brownie'.  I couldn't resist, and it's now my favourite pyjama tshirt.  It goes very well with the print on my new pyjama bottoms:

I am very much looking forward to wearing them at the next Brownie sleepover!

Talking of sleepovers, this arrived in the post for me this week:

I love it!  I saw a lady on Facebook who does personalised embroidery, and a few Guiding and Scouting people had shared photos of their bags.  I had to have one!  This is a Christmas present from Ben, so will now be hidden for a few months.  

It's been a good week - and I've arranged to see quite a few friends over the upcoming weekends, there's nothing quite like seeing an old friend you haven't seen for months (years, in some cases!) and falling back into such a comfy friendship it's as though neither of you has ever been away!