Where Am I?

One evening after school we were in Waitrose. Our food was paid for and we were chatting away, heading for the car. 

A lady came up to me and said hello, I read your blog. 

Sometimes people do this and it's lovely to see the people who read the words I write, who look at the pictures I share of our world.  All the happiness in my life is for the most part what I want to focus on, celebrate and share. That's what a creative life is to me.

Well this lady then asked why I haven't blogged so much. I gave her an honest answer and I will give you one too.

I told her my marriage had just ended and so I hadn't found much I wanted to write about.

The next few months will be hard, there's a lot of change that has to come about from all of this.
Some will be good of course, some is scary and some completely unwanted. All the same, we've got one choice my girls and I, and that's to make the best of it.

With that big news spoken aloud, I'd like to get on with the talk of creative whatnots to be honest. Ive not felt like making anything these past few weeks, but I've still been busy hatching plans and continuing with projects.

Some of you might recognise these pictures from Vanessa's blog do you mind if I knit?

Well an idea grew after I set up the online memorial to her. A few people on Instagram asked if there was a way of raising money to go towards mental health, as Vanessa suffered from this as so many people sadly do. 

A conversation grew and the idea of a collective blanket that would then be raffled off came about.

Colours were discussed with my friend Penny of PlanetPenny after I'd come up with the design based on a scarf of Vanessa's. We wanted to keep to her palette of colours so a lot of thought was given to them being as near a match as possible. Then I got in touch with my mate Jane at teawagontales to create an id badge for this project.

Colours were then releaased with details on Instagram, it's such an immediate format almost like being on the phone with everyone at the same time. From Saturday to Monday all the squares had been taken and I'd had to increase the size twice to allow everyone who wanted to take part join in.

The squares have been popping through my door every day lately, the next step will be sewing them all up and then selling the raffle tickets. That's the plan you see, to give everyone the chance to win the Do You Mind if I Knit? blanket and raise much needed funds for MIND.

It's brought a lot of people together to share and chat while they hook their squares.
My apologies for not bringing it into the blogosphere but it would have been so much harder to organise, especially with my world falling around my ears.

In the middle of all this I had a week off work with exhaustion. 

Turns out I'm very anaemic, not surprising for a veggie who misses loads of meals out. 

I sat on the sofa every day, after all the school running back and forth. I watched endless films and found a project to keep me busy.

I'd seen a pattern for a floral heart on Lucy's blog Attic24 that seemed a perfect sofa days make.

I changed the colours to suit me and worked the centres in white instead of adding buttons as Lucy had.

To make it easier to sew the hearts on, I covered the pipe cleaners in a strip of fabric.

I was really pleased with how this turned out..

It's been the last thing I've made for a while, I do feel the urge to get my creative head working again.

First thing I've got to make is something from a beautiful new crochet book Ive been asked to review. 

The book is soon to be released and so I've been asked, along with a few other bloggers to take part in the blog hop. That means there will be links to win goodies too for my readers. 

I'm booked to write that post on the 16th February, so if I'm not back before then, then I will definitely see you then.