Photo's on my phone - 9th-24th/4/2024

 I love the idea of making a photo diary for my grandboy's, their mummy does a photo catch up every month on Facebook, so I'm copying her. 

It's also a reminder to myself that even though life is hard it's also full of love, laugh's and sunshine.

Photo's on my phone - 9th-24th/4/2024

I published my very first colouring book and we walked the dogs on the moor at Ilkerton. 

My Mother-in-law sent us some photo's including this one of Daisy Mae

 (Mummy of my grandboy's). 

The sun finally shone, so we went to the allotment

We walked the dogs at Lee bay and I took some photo's of stones, with the idea of a potential drawing, maybe a 0.03 pen.......

And I continued work on my Ilfracombe drawing, Ive nearly finished the sketches and couldn't wait to start the digital version.

Maggies Blanket Book

 Repost form my website blog, posted in October 2021

I'm very proud to announce the publication of Magnus's Magnificent Crochet Blankets, which is available as a paper back on Amazon HERE

Magnus is my second grandson, his book as take over 4 years to complete, the book started off life 18 months before Magnus was born, its was originally going to be a book of crochet circles blankets, hence the reason why the blanket motifs start with a simple crochet circle.

I had made several of the blankets, but never really got started on the book, once Magnus was born I knew I needed to dedicate a book to him as I had for his big brother Bert.

It's taken me nearly 4 years to finish the blankets, plus 6 months writing patterns and a week of stress trying to get it accepted by Amazon's computerised review system (apparently one of the pages was a fraction of a mm too big).

The book contains 9 blanket patterns which were all photographed on some of our favourite local beaches on the days we looked after our boys.

Some of my favourite reject photo's of all the blankets.

It's not easy photographing two small boys, so I let them loose to play, get the blankets wet & cover them in sand. Dogs, dinosaurs & dump trucks also feature, it was a special moment in time recorded for the boys to remember in the future.

I'm very proud of this book, its very personal to me full of love and laughter.

I feel it is my magnum opus, at this moment in time I have no plans to write another crochet book and so might be my last.

The patterns are only available in the paperback book, when I have time I will add them to the Ravelry reference library, but I'm afraid they won't be available as single patterns.

Also the kindle version won't be available for some time, maybe next summer, Amazon publishing has changed their publishing programme and which means I will need to rewrite the whole book.

It all started...

 It all started a couple of weeks ago, whilst colouring with Magnus the Magnificent, Prince of Mud I realise that I was doodling instead playing with him.

Over the past few year or so I haver struggled to force myself to be interested in crochet, I think I've made my last blanket (at least for the foreseeable future).

I think my lack of enthusiasm and inspiration is partly a result of the 2020 covid lockdown's, at a time I when I should of been most creative as we were in lockdown I decided to write another crochet book. The book was a rewrite of my 2012 Desirable Crochet Motif books, I concentrated on making small motif samples for patterns, most of which were old designs. 

I half heartedly started a new blanket and badly knitted jumper. I eventually finished the blanket a few weeks ago, I'm still enjoying mindlessly knitting, and have cast on a second badly knitted jumper. Absolute zero chance of needing to write a pattern.

I was on the critically medically endangered list, the government sent me a constant stream of letters telling me to lock myself in my bedroom or there was a chance I could die. It was terrifying, my mental health really suffered, my anxiety was out of control. I wasn't in a good place, no wonder my inspiration died.

I still have 2 books left to write, the first is Magnus's blanket book, luckily the blankets are made, all I need are photo's and to lay it out, I'm hoping to get it published this year.  The second book is a scarf book, I don't know how many yet, but I can make scarves quickly so its not a big weight hanging over my head, it will probably be published in 2022, maybe 2023 depending on how much enthusiasm I have.

Going back to colouring with Magnus, I realised how happy it made me to pick up a pen again. It made me think that maybe I could start drawing and painting again, maybe I could be an artist again. It doesn't matter how good or bad I am, the process of creating was the source of my happiness, so I opened a new Instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/queenies_trees/