Baby Alpaca

I think I'm in love with baby alpacas. Not just because they are enormously cute but their wool is so soft and warm, and doesn't make my skin itch (a big plus). I decided to set myself a woolly project to take away on holiday to Cornwall this year and so have treated myself to some of this beautiful baby alpaca, silk and cashmere blend wool.

The colour is Silvery Grey but when it arrived it is more of a soft aqua - which happens to be my most favourite colour. The wool, a fine lace, was on sale from Meadow Yarn in Suffolk and is made by a non-profit co-operative in Uruguay called Manos del Uruguay. I'm not much of a knitter but I do like to crochet sometimes and I recently bought a great book by Nicki Trench, Cute & Easy Crochet. It's full of useful projects from the very simple to the more complicated.

I'm taking a bit of a leap as I wouldn't call myself an advanced crocheter but I'm hoping I can make this beautiful shawl.

I'll post a picture of the finished article whatever it looks like - promise. And if the weather stays wet and windy while we're on the Lizard for two weeks I may get a lot of crocheting done! 

Down the Rabbit Hole

My apologies for the lack of blogging recently but if I tell you that in the last two weeks I've been to a certain famous Swedish furniture store twice and assembled a lot of flat pack furniture I think you'll understand. Going to Ikea is like tumbling down a rabbit hole and arriving in a world where time moves at a different speed. You wander innocently through the revolving doors, set off around the mock rooms and find yourself, six hours later, walking out with boxes you're not sure will fit in your car (luckily they did) and wondering where the time has gone.

All this activity is because we've been re-vamping our work area. This is the before shot. As you can see, this part of the room was a mish-mash of bits of furniture and storage, which made it very difficult to keep a track of everything. I don't normally have all those books out but I'd begun emptying cupboards before I thought of taking a quick photo.

Things always have to get worse before they get better when you're doing this sort of thing right? This was the mess that ensued while going through our stuff and before the new storage went in.

At last, the after shot - two weeks later, with new storage units, reorganised desk area and a very compact dining table.

Now we can see where everything is and have new storage boxes for the Etsy shop and plenty of room for my crafting supplies too. I especially love the little dining table and chairs, which were a bit of an impulse buy but finish off the space very nicely.

Our guinea pig salt and pepper shakers, Bogey and Bacall, look right at home next to my thrifted Serpentine table lamp with its new Ikea shade. It was a bit of an effort but well worth it and now we can sit back and relax over the extended holiday weekend. Phew.