Crafting on holiday

We have been on holiday recently to some islands off the west coast of Scotland, known as the Western Isles or the Outer Hebrides.  We stayed in a traditionally thatched cottage on the island of Benbecula, sandwiched between North Uist and South Uist.

If you have a look at a map of these islands, you will notice that from the air it looks like a whole lot of puddles - these are very small lochs called lochens.  Among other things my Mr likes fly-fishing so this was fisherman's heaven for him.  He did buy me a rod but I just wasn't really in the mood for it, so this is what I did, whilst snuggled down amongst the heather:

Crocheted flowers inside hexagons.  I started this little project a while ago and it is perfect to keep me occupied whilst travelling (and whilst being a fishing companion)

Here you can see both Mr and myself happily enjoying our holiday in our own preferred activities!

The ferry ride over from mainland Scotland is 5 hours and in that time I really managed to get very quick at making these up, I even perfected my techniques on the ride over so much that I no longer have to refer to the pattern.  On the ferry ride home I even received a compliment on my crochet work from a stranger who said in a spanish accent "so is a flew-er?  Is buw-tee-foo"

Here is my successful fisherman with a 1.5 lb freshwater brown trout.
He also caught a 1 lb and we had one each for our tea that evening.

Our first week the weather was grey, cloudy, wet and windy.  I wasn't very impressed by my Mister's choice of holiday destination at all - especially when mainland Scotland seemed to be basking in the first spell of sunshine we've had in years.

I'm not a happy holidayer = wet, grey and windy.

But thankfully the Outer Hebrides (and Mr) redeemed themselves when we started to enjoy some of that sunshine in our second week of the holiday.  I did wear some me-made dresses but only in the 3 evenings when we went out, otherwise it was a comfy-clothes kind of holiday, learning the history of the people, exploring the nature reserves and photographing the scenery.
For those of you who may be interested, here are a couple snaps from our holiday:

the many lochens of Benbecula

beautiful and peaceful beaches everywhere

remains of an ancient stone circle

wild flowers are protected, known as machair

Disclaimer for the unscrupulous:  These photos were taken by myself so please do not copy or use them without direct permission from me.  Thanks.

Can't believe I'm Crocheting!

Whilst visiting lots of lovely and inspiring blogs throughout the month of May I happened across some lovely crochet.  Now, although I can crochet, I've never found a project that I liked enough to venture beyond sample squares that practice the stitches.
That is until I visited Jo Avery's myBearpaw blog where she has been slowly working on this lovely blanket:

This photo and lovely blanket belong to Jo Avery

Isn't it amazing!  I am really drawn by the idea that they are flowers inside hexagons!  Jo used a vibrant set of colours in Alpaca and Merino wool.
So here is my first ever attempt at my own African Flower Hexagon:

I used a YouTube video to watch this step by step, some colour varying yarn that I already had in my cupboard and a size 4mm hook.  On this one I forgot to do the bottom left corner.

Then I decided to make another one with a slightly larger sized 4.5mm hook but I think it looses it's cuteness.

I imagined my own blanket in lots of muted and natural colours, so decided on 100% Eco-cotton from Debbie Bliss.  Here is my first flower inside a hexagon for my own blanket!  Yay!

Once the yarn arrived in the post, of course I couldn't stop at just trying out one:

Now I am loving the pale ones a lot, but in the future I think I'll only use the darker shades in smaller doses.

Also, I noticed that my flower centres look a lot like the spokes of a wheel.  So I googled a little more and found a photo step-by-step tutorial from Heidi Bear that suggests a different way of making the centres, so I've tried that and I much prefer this kind of centre:

So that is how I will do them from now on.  

I am having a bit of trouble joining the threads and then starting the next row.  I always seem to be too far forward, in front of the hole I'm next supposed to enter, so if you have any tips or can point out any tutorials you may have bookmarked, I'd be most appreciative! I shall google for a few more tips anyway, as it could be because I am left handed and am following right handed tutorials.

Lots to Learn!

Heidi Bear also has a tutorial on how to join up the hexagons as I go!!  ooooh - got to love a challenge!

Have you thought of copying being inspired by someone else lately?