A New Kitchen and Summer Skies

This week life has been returning to normal here at The House With The Blue Door. Busy, but normal again - phew. After five weeks our new kitchen is finished. Hooray! It's been a long haul and we are delighted with the result. It was finished almost two weeks ago and we've been gradually moving everything back in to the new cupboards and finding new places for things. It's meant that we've had a big clear-out and got rid of lots of stuff along the way which has been a very good thing. So, at long last here are some photos ... ta dah!

This is what it looked like after the walls were damp-proofed, a few weeks ago. Clover seemed to enjoy exploring in here and quite liked sleeping in a basket on top of the washing machine.

I've really enjoyed having our room back again, cooking and using the new sink. It shows how much we take everyday objects for granted when we don't have them for a while.

Whilst I was washing up a few evenings ago I caught sight of the sky and went outside with my camera to record it. After a very hot day the clouds were being illuminated by the setting sun.

The bright blue sky was full of soft grey cloudlets with silver edges. 

It was beautiful, and unusual.

Dramatic.

It reminded me of one of those skies you see in Renaissance paintings.

After a very hot week it's been a cooler day today, with warm sunshine and some very heavy showers. The weather's been wonderful lately, but I'm not a fan of very hot weather so it's relief to feel a bit more comfortable. Hope the week ahead isn't too hot or cold for you, and that you have a chance to stop and notice the good things x

Crochet Catch-Up

I've been blogging so much about flowers lately I've neglected to tell you what I've been up up to crochet-wise. To tell the truth there hasn't been a great deal of yarn-related action going on, just a little here and there.
This is because we are about to have a new kitchen fitted, as well as having the walls damp-proofed, so we've been spending a lot of time emptying cupboards and drawers. I had a conversation at work the other day in which we all agreed that everyone's kitchen has a drawer full of the same things: old keys and phone chargers (not sure if we still own the things they're used for), tickets, receipts, string, tubes of glue, small screwdrivers, labels, elastic bands, drawing pins, batteries (old or new? - hard to tell), those pesky plastic bag ties that get everywhere, matches, plugs, small unidentifiable electrical-type things (perhaps they are important and we'll suddenly need them one day) ... the list goes on. And that's just the drawers. As for the cupboard-under-the-stairs ... I'm quite a tidy person on the whole, but we've lived here as a family of five for a good few years, and a sort-out was definitely overdue.

So we've spent two weekends clearing the kitchen and under-stairs cupboard, and soon we'll be temporarily kitchen-less. I am very much focused on Concentrating On The End Product, and persuading myself that it'll be fun - like indoor camping. It's very exciting that we are lucky enough to be in a position where we can say goodbye to our old damp cupboards and hello to a new kitchen - that's definitely something to look forward to.

So with that in mind, I have squeezed in a tiny bit of crochet here and there amid the jobs. I finished the crocheted hellebores which I mentioned in this post ages ago, but took a while to steam them. I was pleased with the finished result, even though the real ones outside have gone to seed now. They're made from cotton yarn in colours which are a good match for the real flowers. However, the strands of the cotton stamens separated and lost their definition, so I'll use wool or acrylic yarn next time, I think. I just have to decide what to use them for - I keep thinking they'd look nice on a tea-cosy.

Still on the hellebore theme, I also made a little needle-felted hellebore picture, which I'm very happy with. I enjoyed making the petals first, and then sewed the stamens in contrasting silky embroidery thread, finishing off with some tiny beads. Needle-felted items are always irresistibly tactile, aren't they?

Back to crochet again, I decided that another mandala-type table mat was needed for our dining room table under my flowers, so made another very easy granny-style circle to the same design as my last one. Not at all complicated, and in fresh spring colours, I enjoyed crocheting this one in front of the tv. I can see I'll be making a whole set of these for the changing seasons, and will try a different pattern next time.





After all  the high winds and blustery showers that we've had here recently it's sunny and warm today. Hope you catch some sunshine, wherever you are this week.

PS A very big thank you to VeggieMummy who has named me in the Two Good Reads tag - it's a great compliment and I shall enjoy deciding on two blogs to nominate, although this will be a tricky task! x