Playing catch-up..

Sorry I haven't been here for a few day's.. I didn't realise, but it's almost been a week!

I will remember to let you know next time I think I might not be on here for a little while...

I'm amazed at the response I got to my give away..! My followers have soared from 53 up to 91! Blimey, I never thought I'd even have 20 people reading My blog! haha

So, welcome to all my new followers, lovely to have you here. :-)

(I might just be kidding myself and as soon as the giveaway has ended, I might lose quite a few... hopefully not though!)

If you haven't entered.. you can do so here.

I had my Mum come to visit for a few day's last week, which is why I haven't been able to do much blogging. I've popped on to leave a few comments, but haven't been able to sit down and write a post. It was really nice to have her here to spend time with myself and Rose, as she lives far away so I don't get to see her very often at all. 

She came on Wednesday and with her she brought a hamper full of lovely goodies for me! So so generous of her and SO not necessary! (But much appreciated..)

My favourites were a Gorgeous creamy coloured shawl which is so soft, some beautifully smelling handmade soaps, some Cath Kidston fabric goodies and a 100gram skein of Ethical twist yarn, which I have already started knitting into something lovely for Rose. Obviously everything else was great and I felt completely spoilt.. Thank you very much Mum xXx

(There were some photo's of mum and I with Rose, but they're not very flattering of either myself or Mum. So I think she'll understand if I don't post them on here!)

Rose is now on the move....

Forget 'Where's Wally?'.. it's where's Rose!?

First she mastered rolling from back to front and now front to back. She just keeps on rolling right across the living room floor and getting herself into very awkward places... not that she seems to mind this much though! More things to explore.. more chair legs to gnaw away at!

She turned 6 months old on the 24th July, it's so scary how quickly time is flying by. It won't be long until she's leaving home! Okay.. maybe I'm being a little too dramatic there..

It was our 1st Wedding Anniversary yesterday. My friend babysat for us and we went out for our first evening meal that was just us together since having Rose. We went to a lovely Thai restaurant and the meal was completely delicious but I definitely haven't reached my target weight at Slimming World this week!

If you do the maths you'll realise that Rose was well and truly already with us on our wedding day! But somehow that feels so special, that she was part of our magical day. (Ewww.. how cheesy is that!)

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*****My first give-away!*****

I'm having a give-away to celebrate getting 50 followers... well, now actually 60! So we'll celebrate that number instead!

Hello to all my new followers, lovely to have you here.    :-)

It's such a nice feeling knowing that people do actually like to read my blog, I've well and truly caught the blogging bug and love it!

The giveaway goodies include:

* Cath Kidston needle case

* Cath Kidston tissues

* Cath Kidston make-up case (you could use it for anything though!)

* A brooch that I made from one of my Mollie Makes flowers.

* A string of granny bunting that I made

*A pretty purse from Accessorize

To enter you must:

* Be a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post.

* If you blog about this giveaway on your own blog, let me know and I'll enter you twice for the giveaway.

* Feel free to enter even if you live outside of the UK.

* The giveaway will finish at 9pm on the 9th of August 2011.

Good luck!

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Cute baby accessories!

I follow a really great blog called Maybe Matilda and you can visit Rachel here.

She's got some brilliant tutorials on there and I wanted to try out the knotted crochet headband, I used a small bit of dusky pink Debbie Bliss - Andes yarn and whipped it up in less than an hour whilst watching a film one evening. It's a wonderfully simple idea, I just wouldn't think of doing it myself.

Here is her tutorial on how to make it. I think it looks very cute... but Ray's reaction was 'What is that on her head!? She looks like she's out of Flashdance.' Not Quite the look I was going for...

I had a wander into town today and popped into Next as I remembered that their sale was on but I think I was quite late as everything that was left was either a size 6 or a size 20! So as I'm neither of those, I didn't find anything for myself but I did find this extremely cute pair of shoes for Rose. A bargain at £3! Cute eh!?

I'm annoyed at myself for not making the most of the sunshine today, I spent most of indoors. Rose was napping in the morning when we could have gone out, then had Sainsbury's being delivered 12-1pm and then she had another nap in the afternoon... I spose I could have woken her up to go out somewhere but she was being particularly grumpy, so I didn't really fancy risking it. Hopefully it'll be sunny tomorrow and we can get out to enjoy it.

I spent some time whilst she was napping updating my flickr and ravelry. I'm beginning to fill in all of my finished projects on ravelry, it's quite satisfying seeing all of the finished objects all displayed together. I didn't realise how much stuff you can actually do on there, I've only ever really used it for browsing different patterns before.

Okay, I'm off to go and finish my giveaway project and then hopefully I can do the post tomorrow.

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Nearly there...

I've been busy getting thing's together for my give-away and I'm almost finished..

I'm making something to go along with the other give-away goodies and I'm almost finished with it, just some blocking to do tonight and then I'll finish it off tomorrow and then hopefully I'll get my give-away post written and then you can all decide if you want to enter..!

I've been given a Gorgeous book by my auntie called 'Cute knits for baby feet'.

It's an amazing book and is completely chocca-block with gorgeous patterns for baby-to-toddler sized socks and bootee's. The only problem is I've never knitted with DPN's before and so I'm struggling to really get anywhere! I've only knitted a few rows on DPN's when my auntie was knitting some fingerless gloves with them, but I'm finding it really hard to join the first row together after casting on. It just seems to twist and not connect properly as I knit row after row... ahhh well, I'll just have to keep persevering! I'm not feeling too hopeful though..

I'm not feeling brilliant tonight though, Ray has brought some kind of cold virus home with him from work a couple of day's ago and we've both steadily been getting more bunged up and snivelly (if that's even a word!). We had a lovely Christening to go to today but I had to go to bed for an hour when we got back as it had completely wiped me out! So I'm going to curl up on the sofa this evening under a blanket, with a box of tissues and keep attempting these socks! Wish me luck!

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Another thing to tick off the list.. and a first time to the beach!

I've had so many different projects on the go for some time now and I just kind of got to the point where I wanted to feel the satisfaction of getting some things finished again. I started with the baby shrug for Rose that I finished the other day, I lovvvee it and am so glad I made the effort to finish it off.

I then decided that I would finish making my patchwork cushion cover that I began sewing over a year ago! I got the idea to do it from my Cath Kidston 'SEW' book and I've had the half sewn together hexagons stashed away with all my other crafty bit and bobs for ages. I got them out a few day's ago and have been speedily connecting all the hexagons together, the materials are all by CK and it's now in pride of place on my sofa! Sorry the picture's a bit crummy.. It was miserable and raining outside so there wasn't much natural light.

We've had a lovely couple of day's here.. it's been Sunny!! Shock horror!

Rose had her first visit to the beach. :-) It was gorgeous weather so thought it would be a great opportunity to head to the beach... time for me to brave it in a bikini! :S Those poor people on the beach, having to look at my pale body! Not to mention the last time I wore a bikini, the skin on my belly was a whole lot less wobbly!

I'm not sure why but the photo's make it look like it was a dull and miserable day... It looks more like I'm a crazy lady wearing a bikini in winter! I thought she's hate the cold water but she didn't seem at all fussed, she even sat down in it.. and smiled!

I've been given the Kreative blogger award by the lovely Nelly at Nelly's Eggs, I was having a bit of a tough morning with a cranky Rose at the time, so it was a great pick me up! I've done it once before, but I'll try and think of some more facts about myself...

1) I lovvvee musicals. When I was living in London Ray and I went to the West End to see many musicals. My favourites so far have been Les Miserables and Sister Act, I've loved the Sister Act films since I was a kid but I wasn't sure if the musical would be good or not, but it was amazzingg. I came out of the theatre that night on complete high!

2) I'm allergic to black rubber. I know, sounds really dodgy doesn't it!? But it's really not very interesting.. my feet come up in blisters when I wear some kinds of shoes, usually flip-flops.

3) I had a home birth with Rose and it was the best decision I ever made. I was incredibly lucky that everything went to plan and I was able to have her in my 'Birth pool in a box' from Ebay! Although it was a Little strange having a huge blue swimming pool-like thing in our front room for the week before I had her!

4) I suck at growing my own vegetables. Flowers are alright... most of them stay alive once I own them, but vegetables... well my runner beans produce about 2 runner beans a month! And my lettuces are munched all the way down to stumps by slugs and snail, even though I've put down slug pellets. I don't know how they get to them!

5) Ummmm... well, I can't think of anything else right now I'm afraid.

I'm going to pass on this award to Sarah at ShabbyChicSarah at Gem at Treasures from the cherry tree.

I know that both these lovely ladies have received the award already, so don't expect them to do the questions.. but I wanted to give it to a couple of blogs that I'm really enjoying reading at the moment.

Right, I'm off to bed now as we have another busy day tomorrow. We have a christening to go to, we've all been asked to bring a dish and I've made a pasta salad called 'Deli Pasta salad' and surprisingly... I'm very happy at how it turned out!

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Ta-dahhh! Rose's shrug all finished..!

Well..! Here it is..!

I've been busy knitting a shrug style cardigan for Rose and I have to say, I absolutely love it! The pattern is from one of my Debbie Bliss knitting pattern books, called 'Simply Baby'. I used some of her Baby Cashmerino wool in this really sweet minty green colour. It was nice to not knit it in really really girly colours, I think it'll suit her very nicely..! Although she won't be able to wear it for a little while yet as it's in size 12-18 months, I did put it on her but it completely swamped her and did look a bit silly!

I added a flower as a corsage that I crocheted from the most recent Mollie Makes magazine, I think it really makes the cardigan. Before I added it, I think it looked a little bare and plain. But it looks much prettier with the flower now, the colours from the flower make it a bit more interesting to look at.

It was relatively easy to knit, the only part that I got stuck on was when I had to pick up the stitches to create the ribbed edging. I'm sure I have had to do it before but for some reason, I just couldn't figure it out this time.. so I got a helping hand from my Auntie Lettie @ Poppy Cottage when I was back in Dorset. It was knitted in one piece on a circular needles and I have to say, it was Sooo lovely not to have to sew together countless seams this time! :-)

So what do you all think..?! Do you like..?

I just want to say Hello to my most recent followers! :-) Thanks for coming to visit me here.. when i first started writing this blog, I really didn't think anyone would be very interested in what I had to say! But now it feels like a little online community and every time I get a new comment, I do get a bit excited. Is that completely sad of me?!

But I've now reached 50 followers.. actually 53! And I'd like to do a giveaway to celebrate but I really have no idea where to start. Sooo, do I buy some lovely items and then pop them on my blog and offer them up as a giveaway..? What are the rules with it? Basically, I'm blabbering away now, so if any one can explain to me where i start.. I'd be very grateful! :-) Thanks!

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