Crafty Mermaid

Myself and three friends ended up in Sheridans on the Docks in Galway on Thursday last week for a late night snack. I got this yummy cheeseboard with edible flowers! Hmmmm... Apologies for the poor image, the light wasn't great or should I say it was 'atmospheric'! I wonder how much of my garden I can cannibalise when I return to NZ? I also was served tea in this great teacup. It has two layers of glass and has no handle (again bad photo but this one's my fault). So so cute. Can I have one? Though tempting I didn't put it in my handbag!

Two of my friends are getting married tomorrow. I just had a slight panic when I realised I forgot to book the B&B but the son of the landlady happily took my booking so I get to go after all! :) I brought over the embellishment from New Zealand in my frenzied packing in July and assembled the card here. Uncharacteristically I've gone all soppy (and nonsensical) in the sentiments in the inside. Actually the nonsensical is characteristic! Looking forward to the day and off to play frisbee with the happy couple and guests the following day on the beach in Portmarknock in Dublin. Should be fun! And congrats guys!

I was so lucky to visit a friend's mother when I was home a few weekends ago. I forgotten how lovely it is to catch up with people. In the time I've been in New Zealand, she's built a really beautiful, light filled house with the most amazing views of my home town. I could sit up there with a cup of tea and my crochet for days. She also gave me this great bracelet - ooh! Isn't is cute? She's been taking jewellery classes and making me jealous! Thank you!

I went shopping with a friend of mine Galway yesterday for earrings. Not for me. Nope, for her. So I bought these. At least she got some too! I really do like these and put them on as soon as I could outside of the shop. I'm even wearing them now.

And here's the crocheting for the foreseeable future. Which hopefully will get me to somewhere about half done. The blanket is taking shape now and I am beginning to love, love, love the colours. I may use some of the green in future rows but not until I have a proper lead in! Though I am getting a tad obsessive about the whole thing. I managed to spend hours talking with people while crocheting and as they weren't too keen on starting their own craft project, its a tad antisocial. Ah, what's a girl to do?

Yup. This ain't green! I ditched the green idea when I visited another wool shop last weekend. Yum! It wasn't in a city, oh no, that would be too obvious. I found a great little (actually not so little and really well stocked) in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember the name. Pox. So I moved onto a lovely light purple and happily finished the first row of it last night.

I bought these babies in Hickey's (4 balls) and Ryan's (1 ball) of Galway. Two of the three wool shops I've been able to find. The third is Lola Rose - a very cute shop but with no acryric yarn. As I don't want my picnic blanket to start to felt and it definitely has to under go the washing machine, its a no go. Unfortunatey all the shops are a tad on the restrictive side for colours. I'm hoping the situation will improve in New Zealand. I'm not going to use the one from Ryan's as the colour is too similar to the light green I bought in Hickey's and I prefer the minter version!

This is very exciting! I'm on the last of my first five balls of wool (or more correctly yarn as its 100% madey-uppy stuff). I'm having a bit of a think about the next set of colours, though I've already bought some. The selection in Galway isn't great unfortunately and I think that might be a bit of an Irish issue and not just Galway. But I think greens might be next and as I haven't got a lot of choice, I don't know how much diddering I can do about it!