Telstar

It took me a long time to find the right name for my latest crochet blanket. It's a smaller and simpler version of my Starburst Blanket and I wanted another star-related name but nothing seemed right. Then my daughter commented that the pattern squares looked like tiles.

Tiles ... tiled ... tilded stars ... Telstar! I got there in the end. In this photo Telstar is lying across Starburst so you can see how much simpler the new pattern is.

I think it looks rather nice on the floor in front of my fireplace.

Those Rainbow Gnomes started out as a Christmas pattern in 2022 but they've been up there ever since because I love them so much.

Anyway, enough about crochet. Once I thought of that name all sorts of memories from my childhood in the 1960s came flooding back. It was a decade dominated by all things Space related, or so it seems to me in retrospect at least.

Launched in 1962,  Telstar was the first communications satellite in space. Reading about it, I was struck by the beauty of the thing.

But the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Telstar is actually the hit single by the Tornadoes which got to number one in the same year. I defy anyone of my age not to get all nostalgic when they hear this.

I remember the excitement of the Apollo Missions of the '60s and '70s too, from the tragedy of Apollo1 1 through to the first moon landing in 1969 and the ill-fated Apollo 13. My brother was allowed to stay up for the moon landing (which happened in the middle of our night) but I wasn't. I later met lots of women my age who didn't see it while their brothers did. Just saying.

Closer to home, there were lots of Space themed children's television series, most of them pretty awful. I don't think I noticed the clunky sets in Lost in Space but Zachary Smith was a great character. But yes, we did think the puppets in Joe 90 and Thunderbirds were odd. 

Mum took my brother and I to see the film of Thunderbirds which was fun. For some reason the phrase "OK Alan", said in a stilted voice became something of a family saying afterwards. Here's the trailer for that film from 1966.

Then, of course, there was Dr Who which was first shown in 1963. My brother had a Dalek toy I remember but the thing I most liked about the series was the theme music.

Written by Ron Grainger and created by Delia Derbshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, this was the first electronic theme tune. We enjoyed Star Trek too and, as a teenager, I went to see the first (and at that time the only) Star Wars film in 1977. I quite liked it but didn't think it was anything special. Around the same time I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind but the only thing I can remember from it is this five note theme composed by John Williams. This was the start of the musical communication between Earth and the alien spaceship.

I've already mentioned my brother's toy Dalek but there were lots of other space themed toys in the 1960s although we didn't have many of them. The only other one I can think of was the Johnny Astro set which involved trying to land a balloon on the moon - probably more fun than it sounds. Here's my brother playing with his set which I should think was a birthday present. It's a poor quality photo, taken from an old slide.

And while I'm sharing fun photos of my brother from 60 years ago, here he is dressed up as an astronaut and ready to go to a birthday party.

One of my favourite toys from that time is one that I'm sure lots of people will remember - the Space Hopper. I loved mine and treated it as one of my dolls. When my Mum prepared me a surprise doll's tea party on my seventh birthday, Hoppity was there with all the others. Here I am sitting on Hoppity in the garden with my best friend Heather.

When I was planning this blog post I thought I must to include all the chocolate bars from the 1960s with Space themed names which I have always assumed were part of the general trend ... only they weren't. Mars, Milky Way and Galaxy were all produced by the Mars company which took its name, not from the planet but from the family who set up and ran the firm. 

Milky Way bars were first made in 1923 and their name came from a popular malted milk drink and was nothing to do with the galaxy. I also discovered that the US and UK Milky Way bars are completely different. Ours has a light and airy texture while the US version is more like our Mars Bars.

Speaking of which ... the first Mars Bars were sold in the UK in 1932 and remain a combination of caramel and nougat. Whereas, in the US, the Mars Bar featured nuts and was replaced by the Snickers bar (still known to many of us here as the Marathon bar). It's all very confusing and nothing at all to do with Space.

And then there's Galaxy chocolate (one of my favourites) which was actually first sold in 1960 in England although I imagine the name was chosen to match the exisiting brands rather than for any other reason. When it was introduced in the US in the 1990s it was called Dove.

So, all those chocolate bars we enjoyed in the Space age had nothing to do with Space. Perhaps the coincidence of the names helped their sales though. They had good advertising slogans. Who can forget 'A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' or 'Milky Way - the sweet you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite'?

Hollyhocks

Nearly all the flowers in my garden this year are shorter than normal. I've had dwarf foxgloves, mini love-in-the-mist and pint sized lupins. Because of this, I was dubious that the little hollyhock plants I planted in the Spring would come to much. I needn't have worried.

The flowers are coming out in ones and twos rather than in a mass but still ... I'm pleased with them. I've got five all together, these two near the house and three more up the garden. They're all doubles and four of the five are pale pink with just one deep pink.

I'm hoping they'll self seed and be back next year.; I have no idea which type these are so we shall have to wait and see. I've always loved hollyhocks but this is the first year I've really managed to grow them. I'd like some single ones too and ore colours but you have to take what they have from the plant stall in the market which is the only place I can get to for plants. It's and excellent stall though and it's quite fun just seeing what's there.

My Mum always had a lovely display of hollyhocks; this photo is from about sixteen years ago.

You can just see her runner beans up at the back. There may only have been two of them in the house but she still had a full row of plants. She loved her fresh runner beans. I find that three or four plants on a wigwam of sticks gives me more than I need.

Inspired by the flowers in my garden I thought I'd have a look round the house for other hollyhock prettiness and found all sorts of treasures. This is one of my favourite cup and saucer sets. Isn't it lovely?

And I love this teapot, complete with cup, saucer and tea plate. I used this set for my tea the other day.

I have a whole cupboard full of pretty china and, every so often, I swap it round and choose a few sets to go on my kitchen dresser for everyday use.

Cottages with pretty gardens which nearly always featured hollyhocks were very popular themes in china and embroidery from the 1930s and are back in fashion again now. Or maybe they're not and I just think that because I like them so much. 

Over the years I've found various embroidered pictures in antique shops. This one hangs in my front room ...

... and I've written about this little one before. You can read about it here. It just took me ages to find the blog post I wanted to link to. This is what comes of being lazy labelling the posts when I write them. You should be able to click on any work in the word map at the side to find posts on that subject but I'd forgotten to list that particular post under 'embroidery'. Oh dear.

Anyway, if you read that old post, you'll learn that this particular embroidery came from a 'Good Needlework' magazine from November 1937.

I have lots and lots of old needlework magazines like this. Often, hollyhocks were combined with the ubiquitous crinoline lady as in this design from the 'Good Needlework Gift Book' of 1936.

This is an early catalogue of Weldon's embroidery transfers. Note the hollyhock tea cosy in pride of place on the cover.

I've shown you this lovely embroidered firescreen before too and, four years on, I still haven't managed to re-lace it and mount it properly.

I found a couple of other crinoline ladies to show you in my trawl round the house. This is actually a handkerchief sachet but I've put a piece of plastic canvas inside it and it's been propped up in  my kitchen for years (it could probably do with a wash).

Then there's this bag which I made from one of my many charity shop finds.  This is hung up in my craft room and holds my embroidery hoops.

Lorna Bateman is partial to embroidered flowers and crinoline ladies too. Her work is absolutely beautiful and I would recommend her book Embroidered Country Gardens.

As well as lots of detailed projects, she has instructions for embroidering all sorts of garden flowers and features so that you can design your own garden picture.

I have to admit that I haven't made anything from this wonderful book yet but I will - one day. That reminded me of these two tablecloth kits that I bought about thirty years ago when I found them very cheap.

I think they're both beautiful but - you've guessed - I haven't actually made either of them yet. I did make a start on one years ago ...

Mmm, quite a bit more to go I think.

The nearest I've come to knitting hollyhocks are these on the side wall of my Summer Cottage.

I have just published a pattern for some crochet flowers though. 

Crochet Bouquet

Having crocheted lots and lots of these flowers I thought I'd just try making mini versions and these turned out to be favourites.

I had fun choosing colours to match the threads on my old cotton reels. These are now sitting on my desk and they make me smile every time I see them.

Before I go, I just wanted to show you the woven blanket I finished the other week. This is the pin loom one I was working on with the help of my improvised Lego loom holder. I crocheted the squares together with a lacy join, added a simple crochet border and it's all done. It took less than a month to make from start to finish. That's a lot quicker than knitting or crocheting a blanket. 

Daisy Time

 

It's that time of year when my garden is at its wildest and even I start to think it might be time to cut the grass. I have to wait for the Ox-Eye Daisies to flower first though and they're in their full glory right now.

This is the view of the garden from my bedroom. The bottom half is a bit tamer and you might just be able to make out the winding cat (and human) path that goes through the middle of it. All the visiting cats keep to it, including Violet who doesn't live here but thinks she does. I have to keep the back door shut if I'm upstairs or she wanders in and helps herself to Tolly's food.

As well as the daisies, my roses are all flowering now after a slow start because of the lack of rain this Spring. Here's Kew Gardens all mixed up with some Love-in-the-mist and a Geranium.

Next to it and hiding behind another rose is one of my short foxgloves. I know, they're meant to be taller than this but all mine only grow this high. Maybe they give up once their roots hit the heavy clay soil? 

The big leaves by the wall are some of the Hollyhocks that I planted this year. These look like they might be a more respectable height anyway. I bought them from the plant stall in our market which has really nice plants that you can get when they're small (and cheap). I'm very lucky to have that stall nearby now that I can't drive to garden centres as I used to. I do have to enlist help to carry my purchases though as I can't carry things and breathe at the same time.

This is Buff Beauty which lives on the other side of the garden and has lots of coffee coloured flowers. David Austin roses aren't cheap but they are really good quality and grow quickly even when planted as bare roots. 

Just up from this one is  my rose in a cage ...

I planted The Pilgrim inside this big obelisk about three or four years ago and it looked ridiculous sitting at the bottom. It's being making good progress ever since though and the frame is doing a good job of supporting it.

Yellow roses are my favourites but what I call marmalade coloured ones come a close second. This one is Lady of Shalott and is holding its own against the wild daisies now that it's got a bit bigger.

That's more hollyhocks next to it; these ones aren't as tall as the others yet although they all started off the same. Isn't this a gorgeous colour?

Tucked down by the side of the house where it gets virtually no sun is a rose that has been in this garden longer than I have. I'm not sure of its name - possibly Maiden's Blush although the pictures I've seen all look more pink than mine which is very pale. That could be down to it to being in a shady spot perhaps?

Last Spring my daughter helped me plant three new bare root roses in the front garden, two more yellow with a white one in between. They flowered last Summer which I hadn't been expecting but have really come into their own this year.

This is the wonderfully named Tottering-by-Gently and, next to the gate, is The Poet's Wife.

Apparently, this one has a nice scent. I try to buy scented roses even if my Long Covid means that I can't smell them. Passers-by can enjoy them. The white rose in between (White Flower Carpet) is a ground cover rather than a shrub rose so it only just reaches up to the railings at the moment. It's absolutely full of blooms though.

This year I planted two Lavender Hidcote plants in between these three roses. They're tiny at the moment but they will grow. I particularly wanted the Hidcote variety as they reminded me of a lovely day spent at Hidcote Gardens back in the days when I was well. It's a series of little gardens, almost like rooms, each with their own character and style and I spent a long time wandering through them.

In between admiring my daisies and roses, I've been crocheting flowers. Some big ...

... some small ...

... and some absolutely tiny.

These ones are crocheted with a 1 mm hook using size 20 Lizbeth tatting thread. The buttons are about half an inch across. I got the idea from Diane's blog - if you search 'button flowers' on there you can see hundreds of lovely examples. I enjoy reading a blog by someone else who does lots of different crafts like I do. Anyway, I just used part of the pattern for my bigger flowers to make my little buttons. I want to make more of these but I'm going to order a more comfortable hook first. I find thin metal hooks tricky to grip so I shall get one of my favourite Clover Amour hooks to play with.

Mass Production

I like to think of craft as a peaceful relaxing activity, preferably accompanied by a pot of tea. In reality though, it often degenerates into something like mass production with me determinedly making lots and lots of the same things and regretting my initial enthusiasm. Luckily, I'm normally re-enthused once I see the finished project but in the meantime it can be a bit of a chore.

Would you like to see some of the projects that are currently filling up my days? This year I'm on a mission to actually make all the cards I send, rather than just think I'll do it right up until about mid December when the penny drops.

In the first three months of 2025 I made all the birthday cards I needed for this year. I can only show you the ones that have been sent so far. These are all cross stitch, a mixture of kits and patterns from magazines.

There are a couple of canvaswork designs in this next batch and the red one is Lagartera embroidery.

Having made the birthday cards I moved on to Christmas preparations last month (Don't laugh, I'll be the smug one later in the year). I started by making lots of Christmas gift tags, some in cross stitch and some blackwork. They're now packed away in a pretty tin with this year's mini stockings that I always design and knit in January. I tie these to the outside of the presents and fill them with little chocolates.

Next I stitched the cards I make for the four people in my immediate family. Which left what we call my mass produced Christmas cards. Every year I work out a design for a handmade Christmas card and then make an awful lot of them.

Last year I sewed together strips of scrap fabrics and then cut them into tree shapes and added a felt pot and a sequin star.

This year I decided on papercraft cards and found some nice cutting dies in the shape of baubles. This is what 50 Christmas cards in kit form looks like.

This was after I'd cut out all the various pieces. Now I'm on to the gluing stage which is fiddly but, by doing one small stage at a time, I'm getting there. 

These are the essentials for this year's cards. Well not Tolly obviously but he does like to join in. First, my Sizzix Big Shot machine. This is so good. As well as making cards I also use it to keep my daughter and I supplied with thread bobbins and to cut aperture cards for our cross stitch. The little bronze shapes are two of the dies I used for my bauble cards. You can cut out the basic bauble shape and then re-cut it with the detailed cutter. I'm using shiny card but I also tried it with felt, thinking it would probably be too thick but it worked perfectly. Think of the possibilities ...

The plastic thing with a snowflake pattern on is an embossing folder. You put a piece of card inside it, run it through the machine and end up with a pattern of snowflakes embossed into the card. You might just be able to see some of the card at the top of the picture with all the pieces in. When it comes to gluing small pieces of card together I find my fine tip glue bottle from Petite Properties is a must. I fill it with ordinary PVA glue. The tweezers were a present from my son; they're reverse action tweezers which means that, once you've got them holding whatever little thing you want, you can relax your hand, only pressing when you want to open them again. As well as holding tiny pieces of card to be glued, I've also used them when painting miniatures.

So, that's one lot of mass production but, obviously, there's always a production line of knitting and crochet going on here too. Out of my many unfinished projects that need working on, I'm currently trying to concentrate on three different lots of crochet. 

This is my box of corner to corner blocks; I need to make 64 of these all together. They'll go together something like this ...

Then there's my box of African Violet hexagons too.

These are fun to make, mostly because of that pretty yarn. I don't know how many of these I'm going to need but I know I've still got lots to make.

Then I had the bright idea of making some crochet flowers on sticks (as you do) and I seem to have got a bit carried away.

I'm producing these at a rate of six a day, mainly in an attempt to get them finished before I go off the idea. I think I might need to give them some leaves too.

The only bit of mass produced knitting I'm working on at the moment is these little pouches.

Last year I decided to work out how to make my own crackers using thin card, wrapping paper and ribbon. I made a dozen, six for here and six for my daughter's house.

The inner tubes and the ribbon can be used again and I made notes on how I made them so this year's set should be a lot easier to make. I wanted to put something nice in the crackers and, after much searching online, came up with the idea of little jigsaw puzzles. The most economical way to get them was to buy one of these.

This is the Christmas Village Advent Calendar, 24 little 50 piece puzzles. It cost about £30 and gave me enough puzzles for two year's worth of crackers which I thought was pretty good.  Also, isn't the box pretty? I'm going to keep it to turn into a special advent calendar one day; there are little pictures in the back of each drawer too. 

The puzzles come in plastic bags but I decided to knit little pouches for them too, just in case those plastic bags split. I used my old Gift Wrap pattern and oddments of plain and variegated yarn left over from knitting socks.

This year I'm knitting plain pouches but, every time the yarn changes colour, I knit a round or so in K1, P1 - stops me getting bored.

Although it's very satisfying to be getting ahead like this, it will be nice to get back to making just one of something. 

Meanwhile, the decorating goes on. Over the past month or more, I've been working on the bedroom on the middle floor. 

Looking good you might think but, if you look at the other half of the room ...

... you can see that it's not finished yet. Once we've moved this lot, I've got to do it all again. Mind you, I'm not varnishing the floor under the bed. I might give it a clean but that's it. The second lot of painting and varnishing might be a bit quicker as there's less wall to paint. The built in cupboard, fireplace and window take up quite a lot of it. Of course, that does mean I've got to paint the window frame. Maybe by the end of the summer I shall be able to show you another finished room. See the bags on the bed? They're my Mum's quilts, waiting for new storage in this room once it's finished. I'm really looking forward to showing them to you once I can get at them properly. There are masses of them and they're all beautiful.