There’s nothing more addictive for me than learning a new skill, for me the hardest thing is choosing what I’m going to learn! I love knitting, but over the past year I’ve kept thinking “I should learn to crochet”, so I do the smart thing:
1. Buy a crochet hook when I’m wandering the craft store and feeling ambitious.
2. Put it away when I get home.
3. Repeat four months later.
As a result I have a small pile of crochet hooks, and all I could use them for was eating sushi.
Thankfully a friend showed me some great online tutorials for two different styles of granny squares (purl bee + attic24), and I figured it out! I’m a crochet machine now, and I think I’m going to make a giant granny square blanket to celebrate. My success got me really excited, and I finished a new hot pink scarflette for the fall, and placed a new wool order with my favourite shop. I’ve got it bad, guys. Again. This fall will be very soft & very wooly!
On Saturday Mister bribed me away from crocheting long enough for us to get to mini-farmers market. We brought home armfuls of artisan bread, stinky french cheese, blackberries, jellies & new potatoes for $30 and promptly dove into it as soon as we could. After a deliciously carb-y lunch we made our way to see Inception- which was fun, but much more straight forward than what I was expecting after all the hype about how complicated it is. I really enjoyed it, it is dark and lovely Joseph Gordon Levitt filled escapism, but Shutter Island still holds it’s place as my favourite movie this year. Have you not seen it? You need to go rent it tonight. It’s a beautifully crafted, complete mystery & gets even better after you watch it a second time.
Work on redecorating the house is starting to pick up, and next weekend we’ll (hopefully) be repainting the whole main floor & my craft room. It’s going to be a busy week of working ahead, but I can’t wait to have that next big project finished. I swear, we’re going to move the house into shabby chic territory this summer no matter what.
After a week of paperwork, meetings and running around from place to place, the weekend is my carefully guarded quiet space where I can recharge. I don’t think there’s anything better. More, please? :)
ps – This Thursday I’m posting my next dress for six months six dresses & will be featuring pictures of girls who are playing along. If you want to join in for a month or for the whole challenge grab the badge & details here :)
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh goodness me! That’s my wee little card that I made for you way back when.
xx
Yes! And it’s still one of my favourites :)
I’d love to learn to knit or crochet. I tried teaching myself how to knit, but I didn’t have the patience at the time. I need to pick it up again … After I learn how to sew! ;)
I love weekends in which I’m able to recharge.
Looking forward to seeing your dress for this month! I need to post my July dress this week! :)
Hi Kyla! I’m a reader who is finally de-lurking…I love your blog, and your photos are just lovely.
Anyway, I’d like to join your six months six dresses challenge. I’ve got a few dresses that I seriously need to use, plus I feel like I all I wear is jeans or sweats. I think it’s time to pull out the femme.
:)
Thanks so much for de-lurking, I’d love for you to play along with Six Months Six Dresses! It’s a good excuse to get girl-ified ;)
I absolutely love farmers markets. Your bread, cheese and potatoes sound divine and I just want to slink into my computer screen and share a meal with you! Thanks for always sharing your delicious thoughts and finds with us!
Aren’t farmers markets one of the best things about this time of year? Love them! I agree, my weekends are closely guarded times of recharging and clearing my head. I would apprecite more of them. =)
Ooh perfect timing about the dress – my next post will be before Thursday!
LOVE that picture of the blackberries – yum! And I can’t wait to see what you have in store for fall – I love soft and wooly!
Oh, the berries! I love summer produce so much. And how great that you are using your crochet hooks now. Learning to crochet is one of my long-term goals. :)
i’ve decided that i really want to learn how to crochet. or knit. either will do. i want to make big warm fluffy blankets to cuddle on the couch with in the wintertime. also, i want something to keep my hands busy when i’m watching tv, so i don’t snack!
I thought Inception was relatively simple too until I started reading what other people thought of it/their interpretations. Totally changed things, at least for me. I have yet to see Shutter Island but I guess I’ll dive into it, maybe this weekend.
Stinky cheese + break + potatoes sounds really good right now!
This morning I had a brief thought as to how excited I am for fall so I can wear jeans + woolly sweaters + Boots. I think I’m starting to be over summer already!
Oh really? I would love to know what you read :)
I’ve made tons of little scarfettes and things like that, but I STILL for the life of me cannot do a granny square! It’s the most frustrating thing ever :S
Your weekend looks like it was lovely! I saw Inception last Thursday night and quite enjoyed it! I have this thing with dreams and the concept of dreams-as-reality though so it was definitely right up my alley and had me up at night thinking of all the Possibilities, lol. I’m a dork! I have not seen Shutter Island but thanks for the recommendation! I can’t wait to watch it. :)
I LOVED Shutter Island too. The previews made it look a lot more horror-filmy than it actually was though.
Can’t wait to see Inception – that’s on the agenda for next weekend when Eric arrives. I hope it’s still in theatres then!
i’m so jealous of all of your fabulous crochet work. i tried once to learn, but it was a total disaster. :)
i’ve spent most of my summer evenings eating my weight in the fantastic fresh fruit from the farmers market down the road and pretending it’s “dinner”. i love it.
I can crochet! Ha! Actually I can do ONE stitch over and over and over. But I’d really love to learn how to knit. How about I come visit and show you the one stitch I know (which you actually have already mastered) and you teach me to knit! And sew! And how to use photoshop, and I’ll get a SLR camera and you can show me how to take fab pictures! Sounds like an even trade to me! ;)
Also your farmer’s market booty sounds amazing!
Honestly? That sounds like a crazy amount of fun :)
Oh, your weekend sounds lovely… all the crafting and good food! :)
I missed the Farmers Market this week and I regret not being able to go…
I am thrilled you’re getting into crocheting! Let’s swap some ideas! :)
I desperately need to learn how to sew. Like I told Nora last week, my mother is a drapery designer with four industrial machines yet her only daughter (me) can’t sew for the life of her. =/ This must change very soon. Oh and I loved Shutter Island too.
Learning to crochet is on my to-do list, but I’m making so much awesome progress with my knitting I just don’t want to change gears yet.
Look at you getting your crochet on! Also, I wish I could see Shutter Island but I LOATHE scary movies. Isn’t it really scary?
I don’t do scary movies at all, especially anything violent, but Shutter Island is an old fashioned thriller. You spend the whole movie trying to solve a mystery & in the last scene the whole movie changes. There’s only one ‘scary’ scene in the movie, and it’s just tense, it’s definitely a story driven movie & not what it looked like in the previews :)
sounds like a perfect weekend!
I also saw Inception over the weekend, but I was very meh on it. You’re right – it wasn’t that complicated. But, you couldn’t just sit back, relax and enjoy the show. I was tense throughout the entire thing and constantly feared blinking, lest I miss something important. It took work to follow that movie and at the end, I was left with emptiness.
Ahh, just be warned – crocheting is addicting! :) Everyone always said that it’s easier than knitting, but it took me the LONGEST time to figure out how to do it. I think that might have been because I’m left handed? Either way, once I learned I whipped up a granny square blanket. It’s so fun. Be sure to post pictures of what you make!
I’m with you, I don’t think it’s easier at all! But I find crocheting a lot more fun, you have to change up what you’re doing here & there and it’s more engaging. I feel like with knitting, you’re either making scarves or something extremely complicated! I like this as a middle ground :)
Oh my goodness, seeing that adorable scarflette (what a fun word!) makes me want to learn how to crochet. I’ve always done cross-stitch, which is great, but I keep meaning to learn knitting/crocheting because there are so many useful things to make.
Isn’t crocheting lovely? I only know the very basic basics (like, I can only make things that are rectangular, none of this circular business), but I’d like to learn more! I haven’t really made anything since, oh, 2006? when I made a GIGANTIC green blanket, which is probably my favorite thing in our condo. :)
It seems as if everyone is talking about going to the farmer’s market these days. I think we have one around me, but haven’t looked into it. This post makes me want to visit one SOON.
Blackberries! I drove out to the farms yesterday and came home with 30lbs of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries … but no blackberries! Sadness.
aaahh, i want to learn to crochet SO bad! (i feel like i’ve said this multiple times on your blog… but it’s true ;)) and mmmmm… blackberries are so, so delicious. :)
I don’t think I have the patience to crochet! I just might give it a shot one day–teaching me would make my grandmother’s day.
Oh, I’m so glad you mentioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was my favourite part of that movie, but I thought I was the only one. I’ve always liked his work and I think he is going to be someone to watch, going forward. He totally held his own with the rest of the cast (who were equally good). I really enjoyed the movie – I don’t watch TV and rarely see previews, so I had no preconceived notions of what the movie was going to be like. I thought it was quite imaginative and I thought it captured the nature of dreams remarkably well. The architecture made me shiver (then again, I am a design geek).
Well done on the crocheting! Love the granny squares! I am working on a big crochet projects that is going a little bit slowly for me ( just can’t seem to make the time to do it!), but I need to kick it into high gear and get the first project done – esp since I have to make another one! At elast I have until December to finish them, though!
Mmm, those blackberries look divine. Mmmm.
We tried out a new (to us) farmer’s market this weekend and it was amazing! Fresh bread and flowers and peaches so juicy I almost need a beach towel to clean up the mess. Farmer’s markets are the best!
Crocheting seems so popular nowadays. All it makes me think of is middle school when we had to learn to crochet and I hated it. Maybe I should give it another chance.
Way to go on learning to crochet! I really want to try knitting but I have a knack for never beginning new hobbies… Just ask that dusty guitar in my corner.
I need to learn how to crochet. I just don’t think I have the patience to try and learn it. :p