T on Tuesday, heatwave maybe?

This evening, and here is my mug of hot chocolate - or to be more accurate - hot raw cacao with a little coconut sugar, cinnamon, ground vanilla and nutmeg. Yum. Why - well it is T for Tuesday, that day when you can blog anything you like if you include a beverage (real or crafted) somewhere along the line and if you join in at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's blog.

This week's Dancing in the Sea square is bobble hearts. Some folk are getting creative with different motifs, I did attempt dog's paw prints but gave up and I like the hearts anyway!

Kenny was here! 4 year old Kenny took about 20 photos of his Minion light with my phone, but it has my tea in it!

Lily was fascinated with my crochet, it is a wonder I got any done at all!

My own strawberries for breakfast!

It's short and sweet, I am shattered after a week of grandchildren and family staying. I know it does hubby a lot of good, but the family were shocked at how ill he looked and how tired he got when we went anywhere. He wants to do it while he still can, but he can't be anywhere for very long before he needs to go home and rest.

Tonight we went to the hospital for hubby's scan and I started another C2C blanket for a premature baby to keep busy while I waited. I started my last heart square but lost confidence that I was remembering the pattern correctly (I checked when I got home and it is right so far). I used one of my new Tulip hooks on the C2C, I love how it feels in my hand! I just hope I don't find out I am allergic to rubber!

Now Clover Armour hooks are half price at Amazon I am tempted to get a set to try against the Tulips (no - behave Cazzy!).

Once more I haven't got round and commented (apologies again) and now I am two weeks behind on that! 

It's Tuesday so it must be time for T on Tuesday.

On Tuesdays a bunch of folks get together to share their beverages and views of the world and this all happens at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's blog. I missed last week, it was Wednesday by the time I would have posted which is a day too late! I know it is Monday, so do you but I see the T post is there so here goes!

See my peppermint tea in place as usual and viewed from my crochet chair! I knocked it over last week when full, and that is a pint of hot tea that went over my WIPs, and the carpet (who cares about the carpet)!

I bought a blocking board for the Pesian Tiles blanket, but have only used it on Dance in the Sea, here it is blocking 7 squares at once. I had to post to find out which holes in the board to use, couldn't work out how to block a 19cm square! Someone said these are no good for the Persian Tiles, so I might have to get some foam mats and blocking pins. The sides of my squares seem to bend in (liek they are too stretched) but straighten out when it relaxes. I wonder if I need some blocking wires to stop the bending.

This is the week 2 square of Dance in the Sea CAL. I hadn't done star stitch before and really enjoyed it, I had to go up two hook sizes to get the square the right size but as this was suggested in the video I did it right away. I love how bulky and soft this square is, it would make a warm blanket on its own.

This is the week 3 square and I adore this colour. The square was quite tricky and I had a bad start, frogged and tried again, frogged and tried again then got it! I took it to the hospital while I sat with hubby as he had his treatment, and I couldn't access the video because the wifi signal is non existent in the oncology suite. He had been going for blood tests and treatment on his own before he had a spell in hospital, but he went for blood tests on his own and came back wiped out and in a terrible state, so I went with him. He said he would have been fine on his own that day, but he forgot that I took over when we got there and sat in a car park for half an hour waiting for a space, so he would have been late and stressed if he was on his own. As it was the blood form had not been filled in correctly and they had to ask for two more tests before he could start his treatment so we were there a few hours.  I am pretty happy with my week 3 square, but......

 ......when I made my second square of week 3 I realised there was just one stitch I had done slightly wrong and now my bobbles are better defined. So I have to decide if I leave the first square or frog it and redo it.
Underneath you can see a few of the Persian Tiles which have moved on and I am doing two rows on each before the next now. The next row involves a hook change - then there is only one row left! I seem to have a lot of yarn left, hope it goes into the border.

 More Persian tiles, I still have to sew in all those ends!

Someone posted about storing their squares in the bags you get with bedding, those clear ones with zips. Great idea but I didn't have any, however I spotted some on the B&M website so made my second ever visit to that store to get some. I really thought they were square in the photo, but I guess they will do.

Looks a bit empty here, but it now has the blocked squares in it, and will soon have more!

 I printed off one of the pattern sheets and cut the title out to use in the spine of my display book.

These are the Scheepjes scissors that came with the deluxe kit, along with the lovely beach bag, some stitch markers and a sachet of Eucalan, which is an intriguing substance that I had never heard of before. It was invented by an Australian woman to address the problems of washing during drought. You soak your hand made knitted or crocheted goods in it and you don't rinse. If you use the washing machine you put it on a rinse only programme and put it in the conditioner bit I think. It is made of lanolin and natural oils and is available in lavender to deter moths, and other scents. Of course if you are allergic to lanolin it isn't a lot of use to you and I hope I'm not. Anyway some folk are soaking their squares in Eucalan before blocking, but as I only have the one tiny sachet I have only used water. I might invest in a bottle.

I ordered a couple of new books, this one is called Crochet Geometry by https://wordery.com/shannon-mullett-bowlsby-author and has some really unusual and lovely patterns in it. I first saw it on Twitter and was intrigued, googled it to find more images and bought it from Wordery. It took a while but it is worth it. I have so many patterns and books, not sure when I will get to it but I hope to make something soon.

I started this post last week, since then hubby has been in hospital but only for one night, has come home with more tablets so he will rattle, but he is home and not too bad thankfully. I took him in Sunday lunchtime, spent 4 hours sitting in A&E (emergency room) before they decided to keep him for a night or two, luckily it was only one night in the end. I got a little crochet done but was fetching and carrying. We are both on antibiotics now, I have a foot infection possibly cellulitis, I wore my Mary Janes Friday and only walked from the car park to the hairdressers but one of them rubbed and made a hole and by this morning it was swollen, hot and throbbing so I guess I should be sitting with it up higher than my head really! I will I promise!

T for Tuesday - zzzzzzzzzz

As you can see I missed last week, and haven't posted anything since the last T day!

What a difference in the weather from last week, this morning it snowballed, really! Look - little balls of snow! They were soft when you stood on them. So no sitting in the garden crocheting this week, I've been inside bundled up with the heating on instead! We did have a little sunshine, but it was still very cold outside.

Last night I made a mug of peppermint tea and sat down in my recliner to do a little crochet before bed - then I fell asleep and woke up (to a cold mug of tea) after having a nightmare still in the chair at 2 a.m. Alfie dog also woke, and stood up all distressed trying to work out where he was, after having a nightmare at the same time. I hope it wasn't the same nightmare! What do dogs have nightmares about I wonder?

So here I am again, sitting in the recliner before bed with my crochet and favourite mug of peppermint tea (well I will be in a minute after I post this, and my tea is cooling down to drinkable temperature hopefully and not cold like last night), trying not to fall asleep before bed! If you want to find out more about this weekly event hop over to Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place.

Here are the views from my recliner, complete with bits on the carpet from grandson's recent activities that you can read about at the bottom of this post!

 I have got further on my Persian Tiles blanket, the remaining 15 tiles are coming along nicely. I really thought that by last Wednesday I would have completely finished them all ready for joining and end sewing, well that didn't happen!

 The reason I hoped to finish was the Scheepjes Dance in the Sea CAL started on Wednesday last week when they released the first pattern for the first squares to be made. Tomorrow the second pattern will be released. So I am trying to finish my 4th square tonight. I realised - after someone else also noticed it on their squares - that my border is the wrong side facing, so on the 3rd and 4th squares I did it without turning to get the border the right side. I might have to redo the first two borders now!

 Hopefully Alfie won't have nightmares tonight, here he is settled in and wearing his jumper.

Sooty's in the other bed, at least I hope he is and that he's not pinched my chair as he often does!

I joined the Facebook page for the Last Dance in the Sea CAL, I might have mentioned that last time, and after seeing someone posting a project book filled with prints and yarn samples I remembered I had some similar books and it was really a good idea so....

Here it is, I need to print off something to go in the spine bit, probably the top of the page with the CAL name.

I inserted the info sheet that came with the kit...

and a couple of pages printed from Marinke Slumps' blog from a post created by her sister, and this one shows the blanket I am making and the yarn samples. This is a good idea to identify the yarns if the last bit has lost the yarn band! I also added the hints and tips sheet with the reference square we created first, then the first pattern. Tomorrow I can add the second. This will keep my patterns nice and clean and neat and I will always know where they are.

The reason last week was missed was that my hubby was unwell at the weekend and I took him to A&E (emergency room) on Monday morning and they kept him in from Monday to Saturday in isolation treating him for an infection. I found it really strange that we had to put on a disposable yellow plastic apron when we went in to visit him, what does that do? It doesn't cover a lot of your clothes really, and what about handbags, coats if you take them off etc? On leaving the room you had to dispose of the apron and use the hand gel outside - except I am allergic to the hand gel, so they said wash your hands. The only place to wash my hands was in his room. My eldest son and his little family visited at the weekend which made hubby determined to be discharged, and he was finally on Saturday, after being declared "safe" and not likely to infect anyone on Friday ("you don't need to wear the aprons now" - we were sat there with them on), and being converted to oral antibiotics.  He is very weak and has lost weight, and was given the news that the cancer is still growing although it hasn't spread to anywhere else. We are waiting at this time to hear if he is suitable to go on any cancer research trials in Oxford, I so hope that he is. It has given us a little hope for the future, our little grandson feels the same love for my hubby as hubby feels for him, and he said his granddad is his best friend and his favourite. It could be very tough on him to lose his granddad when he is only just coming up to 4 years old in May. This was him posing with a "get well" card he made for his friend who has scarlet fever, Kenny has just recovered from Chickenpox himself. He was in trouble when he added more bits to this card because he used the child friendly scissors to cut a hole in the heel of his sock - while he was still wearing it! Then he kept insisting to his daddy that it was an accident - scissors were confiscated, even plastic ones! He looks so innocent doesn't he! This is a rare photo of him smiling nicely!