Ta dah! Finished Neat Ripple bright blanket

I love this blanket!
I finished it a couple of weeks ago and its been on my bed ever since.It's soft and drapey and heavy and so bright. I started making it about a year ago and it's popped up again and again until now, here it is done
I used Attic24's neat ripple pattern which was pretty straightforward once I got the hang of it.The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo and I think I used 30 balls.
I struggled to take a complete picture of the whole blanket, which is why I'd taken it outside, but I think you get the idea

I love it so much!

Worthing Birdman- one giant leap!

We'd arrived at the pier fairly early on the Sunday morning and the weather didn't look great initially but we prepared our "craft" and got ready for flying anyway.
The sun came out as the day went on, by the time we were due to jump the sun was bright but the winds were very strong. We watched our competitors jump ahead of us, some of whom struggled to actually leave the platform with winds pushing them back.
When it came to our turn to fly we made our way up to the top of the platform holding on to our flying carpet for fear it would blow away! We spoke to the compères and then had to wait before jumping for a good ten minutes as the wind was too strong! The wait was agonizing, I think Kathleen was more worried than I was, we were sat for the whole time waiting so it didn't actually feel like we were that high up.
After being given the go ahead we pranced around for a little while dancing to our chosen music ( of course we had picked "A Whole New World" from Aladdin) we had a couple of  visual gags such as holding up a small globe when the song says "I can show you the world" because we think we're both pretty hilarious!

Then Kathleen poked me and we both ran to the edge and leapt.

It was terrifying, the feeling of no longer having something solid beneath your feet, that the ground had simply disappeared was completely odd.
It felt like I was falling for ages, I remember screaming as I left the platform, running out of scream and still falling for what felt like several more minutes.
I hit the water fairly straight apart from having my arms out instead of straight by my sides as advised which smarted a lot. I had a couple of seconds panic under water with a mouth and nose full of sea and my face covered by my ridiculous plastic six pack before I surfaced.

The rescue boat came to meet us quickly and as soon as I reached it I couldn't stop giggling. The massive adrenaline rush and joy at being alive and no longer hurtling through the air meant I had uncontrollable giggles until I had to transfer from the boat onto a board on the back of a jet ski, being dragged through the water I had to close my mouth or have it fill again with water!

Though I'm quite pleased that I've done it, there is no way that I'd want to do this again. I think it was the feeling of falling that was worse than actually hitting the water. People kept telling us that the water wasn't too cold and would be fine but I'd never had any fears about that. Kathleen and I regularly swim outdoors in Salford Quays and I'd swam the previous day in the sea so that wasn't an issue but actually leaving the security of the solid platform and trusting you'd survive was awful.

The last six pictures come courtesy of John Topman whose amazing photos are on flickr

Behind the scenes at Worthing Birdman

On Sunday my friend Kathleen and I took part in Worthing Birdman. I'm going to split up the pictures I've got because there are quite a lot!
We got to the pier just after half ten on Sunday. It did not look like a promising start to the day, there were a couple of brief but heavy showers, the sky was dark and made the water look uninviting.
Other competitors arrived throughout the day, it was so much fun to see everyone's costumes! There are three categories of flyers, home made aircrafts, fun flyers(us) and serious competitors with modified hangliders. For our category the judging was based on costumes, platform routine and distance.
There was a lot of camaraderie with the other flyers, almost everyone was nervous so there was much discussion of technique, what was the best way to enter the water, were you taking your craft with you etc.

 Most other entrants in our category were raising money for charities too so there was also discussions about that and why they'd chosen their costumes. The pair dressed as Dastardly and Mutley were rasing money for Canine Support Animals , the girls dressed as giant boobs were raising for Breast Cancer care. We were fundraising as Aladdin and Jasmine as Aladdin was a street child just like those whom Retrak supports.

There were also two entrants from an Australian children's tv show. This gent here in his bowler hat and the girl near the top in cricket whites are making a programme where they travel around the world entering bizarre competitions, there's a chance Kathleen and I will feature on Rookies on the Run on ABC at some point! 

This amazing, steam punk inspired flying machine was made largely of recycled materials and was very impressive. Mike the guy in the blue overalls had made it using a BMX and lots of jumk and spray paint. I'd love to have a go at making something like this!

Worthing Birdman preparations!

This Sunday, the 11th, with my friend Kathleen and I will be taking part in Worthing Birdman competition where contestants dress in funny costumes and jump off the end of Worthing Pier and try to fly.
Now, while Kathleen and I do like to have peculiar adventures, this one is a big leap for both of us, particularly as I'm really rather scared of heights! The reason we'll be doing this and why we've spent weeks sewing costumes, preparing our "craft" and honing our dance routine is to raise money for Retrak, the charity that Kathleen works for.Retrak works with street children in 4 African countries and tries to rehabilitate children as young as 5 who find themselves without homes or families to care for them.

I'd love it if you were able to support me in raising money for Retrak you can do so online here;
There's also a rumour that the competition will be live streamed so when I find out about that I'll update
PS. can you guess who we're going to be?

Playing with colours (what to do with all the left over crochet blanket yarn)

 I've been having fun recently playing with all the scraps of yarn from my crochet ripple blanket. I've not quite finished the blanket but all I'm doing now is the edge, so I won't need these little ends of colour. I really like mixing and matching the shades together. Each little granny square has three rounds and is Sirdar Baby Bamboo yarn chosen specifically for its brightness. I don't have a lot of all of the colours so sometimes I've only done a couple of stitches and then had to change colour but I think I quite like the random colour placement.

 I've done a couple of gradient squares, the red centre, then orange with a yellow border in the top left corner and the opposite corner with a dark green border. I'd like to make some more like this, maybe for a more deliberate project?
When I've finished edging the ripple blanket, I'm hoping I'll have enough yarn left to add another round to each of the squares and then join them all together. Maybe it'll be big enough for a scarf or a cushion cover or a baby blanket.

I'm having some troubles at the moment, either with blogger or my computer, uploading pictures takes several hours and doesn't always work even then, I wanted to show lots more pictures. Hopefully this will sort itself soon.

Scarborough; how a bit of sunshine changes everything

 This weekend I went to Scarborough. I'd never been before but my friend Grace is at uni in Hull and it seemed like a fun place to visit not too far away.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and meandered over to our hotel. We had chosen to stay at The Grand knowing that it had very mixed reviews. It's a beautiful Victorian building that's not been very loved recently, we didn't really have any problems with it .

After we'd got ourselves settled and had a good old nosy around the hotel we set out for the seafront. We walked all the way along one of the bays to the harbour, stopping to eat chips and poke about in all the tacky touristy shops.
 The sun was so beautiful. Everything looked golden in the light of the late afternoon. I'm enamoured with the seaside any way but for a short few hours everything seemed to sparkle.
 I can just feel my soul relaxing by looking at the pictures, bright sunshine really effects my mood so much. I feel invincible on a sunny day, full of power and joy that I can't quite find when it's grey. I must keep remembering this

  

(aren't seagulls funny?)

A little bit of sunshine

Oh I do like sunshine!
It's been such a lovely weekend, I've been out in the garden enjoying some brightness, doing some out door crafting, going for a nice walk through central Manchester to Salford Quays
1, dried out hydrangeas, looking bright again
2, grumpy Peel cat face
3, pretending I can paint
4, love all these bright colours
5, terrifying high swings in Picadilly Gardens, Manchester
6, Kathleen posing for The Voic, Media City, Salford Quays