Archie The Wonder Dog

'Eighteen months and thirteen years of what?', you may be asking.  Well, I'll tell you!  It's exactly eighteen months since I started this blog and Archie celebrated his thirteenth (ish) birthday a couple of weeks ago.  ('Ish' because he's a rescue dog so his exact date of birth is a mystery.)  I realise that most people celebrate their bloggy birthdays at yearly intervals but I like being a little different.  Or contrary. I had planned this for last August but I was too tired to be able to promise to make the prize so I delayed it.  And delayed it.  And delayed it.  I've been counting down the days until my eighteen month bloggy birthday and decided to let Archie in on the fun (he's going to choose the winner!) to mark his birthday!  I'm so glad I started my blog (after a bit of a push from Nicky !) - I was already reading and commenting on lots of blogs (but not as many as I do now!) but there's nothing like a blog to help make you an i...

and a catch-up?!  I'm planning to drink at least two big cups of tea while I write this post (I've done more, and shared less, in January than I thought!) so if you fancy joining me then pull up a pew...there are biscuits, if you want one two!  (Garibaldi's at the moment, or Rich Tea if you're not a fly cemetery currant lover.)  Ready?  Then off we go... I can finally share one of my FAL objectives (item three: to finish some knitting) as it has been received by its lovely new owner and is settling in nicely! Here's the (awful!) photo I emailed to Leanne  (at the start of the quarter) of my third Umaro scarf (this time knitted in ' Stonewash '): And this is what I sent across the pond: All finished! I received a beautiful parcel from Deb, wrapped in the loveliest tissue paper I've ever seen.  Yes, of course I kept it! Not that I'm done with this knitting lark or even this pattern ( Umaro  from Brooklyn Tweed) - I've star...

Long, long ago (well, 13th August 2011 - it feels like a long time ago!) I started piecing hexagons, along with many others, as part of Lynne's hexalong , which was inspired by this fabulous quilt  by Lizzie Broderie .   I decided to go for a 'Miss Marple's garden' look for my quilt - a sort of typical English cottage garden look and all which that phrase brings to mind, without the dead bodies!  It's been quite a while since I last laid out all my hexies, when I had pieced 101 of them, so I was really looking forward to seeing them all again and finding out if the quilt was going to work.  On Monday I laid them out (on a blanket on the front room floor) and I think I'm finished faffing with the layout.  At least, I am unless you all have changes to suggest! It took ages to lay them all out.  I had to start somewhere so I started with the hexies that had seams going anticlockwise, so I could put them together and surround them with hexies without sea...

I've spent this afternoon faffing about with my hexies and thought that while I faff some more lay them all out and try to sort out the arrangement I'd bore you with share some yet more photos of the hexies.  This time I've photographed them in design groups so you can see all the similar hexies together.  There are a fair few photos so I'd make yourself a (large!) cup of tea before you get going... Oh, and if you click on them you can see them in Flickr - there are some other photos in my Hexies set , just in case you haven't had enough by the time you get to the bottom, including four hexies that have already been culled... Design A - the first half Design A - the second half (the safety pins are marking the hexies whose seams rotate anticlockwise) Design B Design C Design D Design E - a really simple hexy, to offset all the fancy pants hexies! Design F Design G Design H.  I think I need to swap the lila...