Such a sad post and so hard to write.

This is one of the most difficult posts to write, some of you may have wondered why it has been so long.
The reason was that my husband lost his 3 year battle with cancer in August, and for a few months before that he had got very weak and ill and all of my time and energy was focused on looking after him.

He was just 59 years old and he died from metastatic melanoma, which began with a mole on the back of his arm. Metastatic just means that it spread, and once they decided that treatment wasn't working and stopped it the spread seemed to speed up.
It has been a very sad time and really horrible to watch him turn to skin and bone as he couldn't eat much, and for him to not be able to do any of the things he wanted to do and used to do.

This was Shaun in November 2015 meeting our new baby granddaughter Lily. Back then we had faith and hope that the treatment would work, or there were more treatments if it didn't. In the end nothing worked.

During the past few months I stopped paper crafting and instead crocheted, crochet being more portable and you can sit down and do it anywhere with just a hook and ball of yarn. It is very therapeutic, however even the crochet stopped in the last few weeks before Shaun passed away in a local hospice called Dorothy House where he spent his last 5 weeks, coming home for just one weekend that didn't go very well.

Two weeks before Shaun died Alfie dog went over the rainbow bridge to wait for him, Alfie was 15 years old which is the oldest any of our Miniature Schnauzers have lived to.

Now Sooty has lost his friend and master, we only have each other apart from family and friends who visit and sometimes stay. So we are learning to live all over again and readjust for our losses.

How do we do that? When I find out I will let you know. I am sleeping a lot more which is probably good, for the past few years I haven't been getting enough sleep. I'm getting up earlier as a result.
We are walking a lot more, again good for us, not so good when I am in pain with sciatica or my back but I am mostly working through the pain and hoping it is doing me good. It certainly was necessary to pound out my anger or grief along the pavements and paths long before we got to Shaun's last day. Cancer is so unfair and doesn't care how old you are.

We had the funeral last week, Sooty came along too and was very good. Everyone said the service was lovely, and the food at the wake too. I had to write a eulogy and the boys helped and it was well received.

It's not quite all over, there is the interment of the ashes to come, and I am still catching up with paperwork.

Sooty is 12 years old now, and beginning to show his age a little.

I can't seem to get enthusiastic about paper crafting yet, but at one stage I had to clear my craft room to get a hospital bed in and other equipment but poor Shaun was not able to come home and use it because there were no carers available during the Summer break. I haven't put everything back yet, I really want to buy one of those Storage4Crafts Petite Salcombe storage unit that I hope will make things more organised and tidy, then I will sort things out to go into it and some things to go to the hospice that cared for Shaun for 5 weeks so they can use it for their crafts. Maybe when I have done that I will be able to start crafting again. I am just waiting for a good discount before I buy one.

I continued to crochet, finished my blanket and then didn't start anything for a few weeks, but I will show you all of that in later posts.

Mystery revealed!

I haven't blogged for ages, and I nearly didn't tonight because I have been in bed trying to sleep off a migraine!

As well as the Dancing in the Sea blanket I have been taking part in a Mystery Craft Along at Melody's Makings. The final reveal told us that we can make our mandalas into either a bag or a pillow (cushion), and I chose to make a bag - the only thing is it would work perfectly in my living room as a cushion! I think I might have to make some more, they are quite addictive.
I began making the bright one in the first photo which is made in Marriners DK, and it seemed to have the same tension as the Rico Creative Cotton Aran used on the purple version, which didn't make sense but now I have completed one mandala it is about 1" (2.5cm) smaller, so not sure if it is big enough for a bag or if I need to add more rounds.

Here is the bag with handle shown with the fabric I purchased to line it.

I had the perfect button for the bag, bought at a show last year! Just need the toggle now and to do the lining. I was thinking of trying to do something to the strap to make it be able to be shorter or longer as required, I'm still thinking about that.

The mandalas were quite complex, stitch markers, stitch counters, writing out the pattern, much frogging, and yet they are still quite addictive!

Here are some more of the Scheepjes CAL Sea blanket squares coming along.

I like this openwork bobble pattern.

Crossed trebles were fun.

Waffles anyone?

This square has sort of defeated me,

 although I got the stitch after watching the video and frogging what I had done which was just slightly different. But the edges were going to be a nightmare to border, but then the whole thing shrank so small! I would have to go up a size or two in hook size to get the size. People say it will stretch out a lot when blocked, but I feel this pattern will naturally try and shrink back again!

 I might substitute it with this version, which is using one of the stitches and just a back loop, it seems to be behaving. If not there are a few alternatives being tossed around the closed group that I might use. The lines have a meaning to the designer of this square, and the stitch was Marinke's favourite apparently so it is a shame that it doesn't work so well in a square.

I think Kenny was redecorating with my coasters! I found this a week after he had been visiting!

Hot cocao (without milk) and next to it my new nutmeg grater which is very good! I will join in at T for Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place, later than I hoped to, and I didn't get round to comment last time and I apologise for that.

Sooty and I have been walking every evening, I hope he will forgive me for not going tonight, and here is a really pretty calf who wanted to see him - from a distance!

When we walk it is fast and I feel that I am pounding out my anger and sadness as my hubby gets sicker. 

The last few weeks have been so tough, we heard that the cancer was worse and had spread to the brain on the same day we heard that hubby was suitable to go for a drug trial in Oxford if he wanted to continue fighting.

Yes he wants to fight, he wants to live! So we were told he would have to have a special radiotherapy, which we now know is called Gamma Knife, to destroy the brain tumour.

Then we went to Oxford, by then hubby had been told he can no longer drive, and our friend's car broke down at the hospital. At least we got there, and came back by taxi that the AA sent (£153 on the clock when we got out so glad we weren't paying).

We were told that the brain tumour had to be dealt with before the drug trial can begin, and hubby can't get any sicker than he is.  We were also told that the MRI scan he had to have might show up extra tumours and if there were too many they wouldn't be treated and that would be the end of the trial too.

Then there was the MRI scan, then a phone call the following week to say there was only one tumour and we had a call from Bristol asking us to go in the next day. We saw the consultant and he agreed to do the procedure last Thursday. It seemed to go very well, and we were on tenterhooks expecting to get the next phone call to go back to Oxford this week, but when it came the appointment is not for two weeks. I don't know if that is to let hubby get over the procedure but two weeks is such a long time for him to wait in his condition.

The Marriners I am using for bag two.

See how much smaller it is, at least 2.5cm

Hush - look what the postie brought me! It's a self striping lace weight yarn, I didn't have any and I keep seeing lovely lace weight patterns! I will add it to the yarn mountain!

Talking of yarn mountain, I decided I should make my super chunky cardigan from Simply Crochet which will be so quick to make and will use up one of the three variations of yarn I bought to make it.

I hope to do this as well as the CALs, and I need to finish my Persian Tiles blanket and get on with Frida's Flowers!

I know - it's Summer right now and has been really hot and sunny this week, but it needs to be done. Besides it is very cool evenings! I have a lovely Summery sweater I want to make too but this should be a lot quicker to make in Super Chunky Sirdar Indie yarn. It has to be Knit Pro hooks, I only have a size 12 and 10mm in Knit Pro.

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!