Persian Tiles & Sweet Magnolias

It was late one night last week while bingeing some episodes of Sweet Magnolias on the Netty that I finished the edging and sewing in the last of the ends of the Jane Crowfoot blanket Persian Tiles. I had ordered the yarn pack of the Eastern Jewels colourway by Lucia's Fig Tree. After a few years of lust and procrastination I happened to find it discounted on the Wool Warehouse site. 

By the way that Sweet Magnolia show is the most ridiculous saccharine thing I have watched since The Love Boat but I can't stop watching it. They're constantly being nice to each other, and cooking, and forgiving each other for the tiniest things, and drinking yummy liquids and eating and cooking and did I say they're always being nice to each other? Ugh. So much sweetness that it's made me pre-diabetic.

Anyway, gratuitous crocheting photo ahead...

As I set myself up for this project I was super organised. Anyone who knows me would recognise this is NOT one of my traits. I am normally the anti-organised. I rolled the skeins into tidy yarn cakes where they sat snugly in my favourite basket.

I was so super organised that I sewed in my ends as I went along. Sewing every 2-3 rounds. And for fun I popped my yarn ends in a wooden bowl instead of throwing them away. Why? I really don't know. Laziness? A morbid fascination at what eleventy thousand yarn ends from one blanket would look like? A sort of half thought that I should help the environment by reusing these synthetic fibres again for something like filler for amigurumi instead of contributing to the landfill? A slight tendency towards hoarding? 

There are some other yarn ends in there too. When I tipped this bowl out I also found a Freddo Frog wrapper, some white cat hairs and a finger nail. So gross.

I worked out that just for the octagons, squares, triangles and edging there would have been 1064 yarn ends. And that doesn't include all the yarn ends from crocheting all the pieces together. 

8Track kept trying to imbue his scent and DNA all over it whenever I lay it out for a photo. This was just before I started the blanket edging.

So as I mentioned before it was finished late one night during an episode of Sweet Magnolias where one of the ladies got snippy at the the other 2 ladies, then they made up and laughed and hugged over margaritas which they only seem to take one sip of, then decide the party's over and they'd have to leave for TV show reasons. If I had my friends over for margaritas, the first two drinks would be skulled like water, we'd fight over the dregs of the tequila bottle and we'd laugh and complain about our children, cry about our wrinkles and there would be lots of happy swearing. 

So I almost didn't notice that I had sewn in the last yarn end of the border. What an anticlimax! 

A couple of days later I met up with my fellow saucy hookers at our monthly Crochet & Coffee meeting where I was able to show off my blanket. My friend Tania who organises our catch up took this photo.

We thought it would be fun to do 'the blanket pose' like from the original image...

And back at home in a more domestic setting...

This blanket is only big enough to keep you warm on the couch but I'd like to make another that is big enough to cover my bed.

And here he is again possessively laying claim to the blanket after I was rude enough to take it out of the house. I spent quite some time picking white cat hairs out of it before I took it to show the girls. It wasn't long before he put them all back in again.

My thoughts will very soon turn to more blanketness. February is our last month of Summer and while the days are still beautiful, warm and sunny, there is that dried scent in the air.

You know that smell of drying out leaves at the end of summer? Not dried out from lack of rain, but that distinctive dried Autumn smell. Look, I know there's a more romantic word than 'dried' but I just can't think of one right now.

Usually late February gives us one last blast of heat before the steady decline into cold. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year thanks to the delightfully wet La Nina summer we've had. 

On my morning walk yesterday some of the Acacias were giving a thickly scented last flush of blossoms. 

I've walked past these grevilleas for ages now and this was the first time I've found any flowers on them. Aren't they adorable? Soft pink with dustings of yellow.

I really love our native birds. A flock of Galahs were fairly unconcerned as Chuck and I walked past.

All that talk of margaritas has made me thirsty. I'm sure it's wine o'clock somewhere?

Thanks for visiting!

Louise

Red Haired Amazona