The Stairs

Feeling a bit proud of myself at the moment. Despite thinking that I should do some work on Vivod while I had some time off I didn't actually think I would be motivated enough to, especially with still keeping the day job going too.

However, cast your minds back to this post though. They stayed like that for a while to be honest, and then one day, quite out of the blue, I decided to finish them.

So I finished sanding them last week, over the course of a couple of days...

Then, making the most of a kid free weekend, I varnished them 4 times. Twice on Friday evening and twice on Saturday morning...

I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening sanding the risers and undercoating them (twice). Then sanding and filling the sides ready for undercoating...

Finally, on Sunday I under coated the sides twice and gave the risers a third coat too. 

I am sooooo pleased with them. They are lovely to walk up and down and they look a thousand times better than they did. It was a truly messy and tedious job but so worth it in my opinion. I still have to gloss them (I'm waiting for a couple of weeks when the kids spend a fortnight with their dad and the house is quiet), and a final coat of varnish will go on too. 

I'm now working on the bannister and spindles (varnished bannister and painted spindles to match), but that's no where near as messy thankfully. I should be doing that right now really, but here I am sat blogging! Hmm.

The Stash Ripple Blanket

With no less than 4 blankets on the go (1 knitted and 3 crocheted), I am pleased to say that I actually finished one of them a couple of weeks ago.  Remember this one that I began back in March? Well this is it now...

It took me ages to decide on the border but (well that are 150 in this book!)...

I wanted something quite simple, and neat but which allowed me to use 3 or 4 of the colours from the blanket too. I settled for this one in the end, I started with a round of double, in light blue.

Then a round of treble in baby pink.

Then I had to make a round of double treble in hot pink, I was a little concerned that it wasn't looking great at this point...

But then I read the next step where you use double crochet to fold the double trebles on half, created this rather nice 3D effect...

Finally ending with a round of trebles in lime green.

I do quite like the border a lot, even though the majority of this was done when I was ill! ILL! With a horrid cold type virus that had me chained to the sofa for 48 hours feeling rubbish and living on painkillers. At least it made me finish the blanket though! 

The thing I love most about this blanket is that it used wool that I bought when I first learnt to knit, that has since sat in the stash cupboard for years and was destined to stay there for probably decades. The brighter colours are those that were left over from the first ripple blanket. I did have to go and buy one ball of light blue as I ran out but that cost me about £1.80.  I wasn't sure if I was even going to like the blanket that much so it could well have ended up as a Christmas gift but there's no chance of that now, its ace, and warm, and is now draped over the back of the big sofa to be used as needed. 

I better get back to the other 3 now.

Greenacres Farm Park

Wow, it's been a while! Lots has happened, lots of things I need to tell you about. As usual, I've been busy.

Let's start with the Farm Park. I've not been to the Mancot farm park since before child #3 was born but I did remember that it was a great day out for kids. Our visit was a bit spontaneous. I had a couple of weeks off work (well I was at home...we merged with another college on August 1st so things are a little crazy at work lately so I've been doing lots while I've been 'on leave'). Anyway, I decided we needed a day out.

It was great, weather was still good, and the farm park was just as good as I remember, deceptively bigger than you think too. 

I took a whopping 153 photos! Here are some of them...

You can buy poultry, pig and goat food when you buy tickets. The animals aren't stupid...you only have to take a step towards the ones you can feed and they huddle around instantly for food!

"take a photo of me with the bird!"...

"Take a photo of me with the clown"....

"Take a photo of me with the.." (You get the idea!)...

Never too big for the park....

This guy was great, biggest rodent apparently....still cute though...

 

We were on the tractor ride at this point, this guy's trained to perform 'smiles' and jumps in return for half a loaf of bread from the farmer. Obviously he goes by the name 'smiler' too! 

These were my favourite, we spotted them wandering around down by the shire horses. So I followed them...

I must admit, she has her ducklings under far better control than I have mine! She did shout a lot more than I do though!

"Don't take pictures of me!!"...

"But if you insist then I am quite the poser!"

This bit is ace too, you can sit in this little under cover shelter circle and they bring out loads of the animals for you to look at, stroke and feed...

Finally, before leaving, Child #3 had to have a go on the pony ride...

Fab day out! 

Back soon (honest!)