Is it Monday already?

Sunshine and Spring weather arrived this weekend. The house became thoroughly spic and span. We can see out of the windows again and there's not so much stuff piled up around the edges.

I got on with attacking Little Bun's cardigan as I've only got until this weekend. When I went to sew it up and knit the collar I found the back was half the length of the front. For some reason I'd just stopped and cast off. Bit of unpicking, no tantrums and I got going again.

I couldn't avoid the pull of the hook either. After seeing hooky hangers at Dottie Angel I was inspired to knock up a few of my own. They're so quick and easy to do. I think I'm going to have fun with the colours and embellishing these with a few bits and bobs.

I also found the time to knock up some burnt brownies for a picnic on Sunday. Free entry to most National Trust properties pulled us out of our little piece of heaven and off we went to explore.

Surprise suprise - other people knew about this too and had come out to play. Queues of other freebie seekers meant we avoided the house, which was a shame as it's my favourite bit. I'm not a great outdoors lover, but my lot are so they had a great time racing around the woods and walled gardens. We even found a pair of friendly donkeys and a ton of nosy hens.

After all that fresh air, it was off to collect Alfie Blue from the grandparents, eat most of their cakes before setting off home to a fire, fizzy stuff and a cosy up.

Now, suddenly it's Monday again. Have a great week.

Julia is another crochet addict and also a very talented artist. She asked me to put a few pointers her way about the hooky hangers. Well I did take the initial idea from Dottie Angel as I said, but I guess as I played around with them to fit my hangers and my understanding of what I should be doing, I hope Dottie won't mind if I help you along your hooky path.

The pattern uses a basic shell pattern of five trebles in each repeat with a double crochet in the middle of each. Dottie's size didn't fit my hanger so I counted out the extra I would need and so I worked 83 chains to start with. To start off you need to work into the 3rd chain along and then work 4 more tr into this chain. Work a dc into the 3rd chain along and then work your next 5tr shell into the 3rd chain along. Repeat until you get to the end. Then turn and work along the bottom using the same pattern. You need to work your hook into the bottom of the dc's and into the ring made by the shells. Make two of these for front and back.

Because my wooden hangers are quite wide one row of dc around the edge wasn't enough to stretch so I fiddled with this a bit.

Join your new colour at the end of one side and work in dc all the way around (once if it will fit or twice if wider hander). Then join the top with a row of dc and then put your hanger inside before setting off and joining the bottom edge with a row of dc.

Hope this helps.