Nayu's Craft Time #292 Why a coolbag isn't always cold enough

I've got all of these bags (not my photo) I use the wherever I go and I like them! The cool bag is the one I used later in this post.

Morning! It's a rainy day today, no heatwave either so it's mostly a rest day as my body doesn't take kindly to rain. I am positing this on my other blog, Nayu's Reading Corner simultaneously, and I get to the main title topic quite a bit further down in the post. 

I've been super quiet over this past week because last Thursday I had to go on an errand for something I'm not discussing yet in public. Where I went was within a shopping centre, so I did peek into a toy shop and picked up a new friend, who I showed on Twitter. 

She is really big, a great hugging size.

At first I wasn't sure whether Tulip was a llama or an alpaca, so now I think she is an alpaca. I got her in a bargain summer sale where I got this set of Disney Tsum Tsum toys for a crazy low price compared to the original. 

It must be noted this eraser set did include Pinoccio, who I absolutely hate so he went bye-bye in the bin. I dislike him that much! I didn't realise you can actually switch heads and bodies around, that's not something I enjoy as I like my Disney characters whole and in their own body thank you. 

Shared a moment similar when Stitch felt lost.

 Now I did almost lose my car in the shopping mall, I couldn't quite remember where it was, so I thought I'd start at one end of the several car parks and hope for the best. Went to the 5th floor, no joy. Thankfully the 4th floor was my stop as I was super tired by that point (that kind of going out even though I don't go far in the mall is an awful lot for my body). 

I knew I'd be resting for a few days after, but this was hampered a little bit by having younger family members to stay. It was fun but they are permanently on the go. I got to game several hours with them on Saturday morning when I wasn't feeling great to begin with. Being social that long is tiring, and add to the fact they couldn't sit still (as in constantly figiting (fi-git-ing (not fighting)) on the same sofa as me my body didn't take well to that either. 

My base! This is the 3rd level, one is a bedroom for a girl, another is a work room for a girl, and the blue and white structure is my room! Sadly the boys do wander around up here, but I like it as a girls only space!

I'm still playing Dragon Quest Builders, I'm on the 3rd chapter (still) which is hard but I'm starting to get better weapons and building materials so I'm hoping to get to chapter 4 soon. The honeymoon period was over for a little bit - I still love it but it's definitely not as easy as it was in the earlier chapters. 

This isn't my picture, and as far as I know I can't ride on the larger animals, but the character is similar to mine. I finally have a cute hairstyle (loopy braids) but I also just got a headscarf as an item and my character looks so cute! When I have more time I'll do a post on NRC about it - I'm trying to complete it before I write a review.

I've unexpectedly and happily got in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles. My younger family members loved it, it was so much fun going around having them look for stuff for me including the 55 cats that need rescuing in the game. I'm now over 50% through the main story which makes me a bit sad. I heartily glad that I think I've built all the bridges I need to - getting enough stone was quite an issue! It involves making things with the materials that you collect around the world which is never dull, because the world feels quite large and for some reason I'm not able to remember where everything is so it always feels like a new area even when it isn't. 

That's all I've been gaming (mostly), although I must get back into Pokemon Sun because I want to finish the main story by the time the next Pokemon game comes out. 

Such a shame a pretty parasol can't make it easier to craft in heat.

Craft wise not much has happened because I haven't had the energy, and when I did it was too hot to handle metal: I hate the way metal feels in high temperatures, which is why it may be a few weeks before I can continue with my craft.

I have been reading a few good books that I'll be reviewing soon over on Nayu's Reading Corner, but I will link to a couple here in the right hand menu where I put my latest NRC post (when I can get online to do so). 

Thank you for being patient in my non-posting: I've some life stuff going on (nothing bad) which may affect my blogging from time to time over the next few months, but I'm doing my best to keep you updated when I can. My priority is to rest! 

the good white stuff! Which I get in a carton.

On that note I can finally get to this post's title topic. Usually when I go grocery shopping I'm able to put everything away straight away (the main storage fridge is in the garage which I can't access on my own). The last time I went I couldn't do that, so for some unknown reason I decided milk would be ok in a coolbag, with frozen food and a tray of ice cubes for a few hours. There wasn't  much room in the internal fridge so I thought it would be ok. 

While it was very cool, I don't think it was cool enough: every single pint of milk I'd bought then and used this week has gone off. I'm not sure why I realised it may be the cool bag thing (it's organic milk which my family pointed out may have shorter shelf life, I'm not sure) but that is the one thing I did differently to other milk. From now on no matter how tired I am I'm putting milk in the fridge as soon as I get home! Thankfully the flavoured milk is fine which suits me. Cool bags do keep food cool, but it's advisable to put perishables away promptly to avoid them spoiling and you temporarily being wary of using milk. 

Essential emails are almost done, this blog is ending and it's nearly time to go back to some gaming! I hope you have a good day whatever you are doing, and plan to put up the next post this weekend!

Searched for 'see you soon' picture, saw this one, thought it was adorable and then discovered I already had a copy ^u^

Nayu's Craft Time #274 Spring is coming!

The flowers on my window sill certainly think warmer weather is on the way (let's ignore the fact they do flower all year round when I remember to water them regularly - that's why leaves are brown! I'm always amazed they flower at all).

Apologies for it being much longer than expected before this blog post. The cold I had during my mega strong medicine dose the other week has lingered - thankfully I no longer need tissues, my throat isn't sore and I can breathe just fine. My body simply takes forever to get over germs - while gaming and watching dvds all day may sound fun, it can get frustrating at not being able to do anything other than food and bathroom breaks. So long as I take things slowly I think I can safely say I'm on the mend! 

The mega cold spell we had in England last week including the not so epic snowfall also made my body go on strike further. I love snow so much! But mostly because I don't have to go anywhere so can stay safely inside. We haven't had snow like this for a couple of years, so I was mega excited even though I wasn't feeling well. Unfortunately a friend had way more snow than me (over 30 cms...), we had a few centimetres which was enough for me to do...

You can sort of see it's an angel...look closely!

..a snow angel!!! Has to be done ^u^ If you aren't sure what a snow angel is, you carefully lie in the snow with legs straight, then do a scissor action with them to make a skirt, and do the same with your arms to make the wings. I didn't feel great when I did it (snow always makes me unwell) but I knew the snow was due to melt later that day (it did) so I took the opportunity to do it. I also made...

 ...a demented snow bunny! I say demented because it was harder than expected to make the right shape without the snow crumbling away. It took over 6 tries to put the eyes on (currants - some lucky bird had an extra yummy meall that day), but it looks fairly like the Japanese snow bunnies that I see a lot in anime (which exist in real life and are the equivalent of snow angels for Japanese children). 

This one is far better than mine - hence why mine is demented!

The excitement from those two activities were worth the effort! I'd love to hear if you had any snow, what you did in the snow, and if you have any snow traditions. I'd love to live in Canada near a maple farm and make 'sugar snow' from the syrup like they do in the Laura Ingalls book series including Little House in Big Woods, that sounds so tasty and great fun! ....and it's only now as I type this that I realise I could have done it because I have some authentic maple syrup!!! The link takes you to my post about this delicious better than honey treat. 

Did you know maple syrup is about 3 times sweeter than sugar (& possibly honey) so you need less to get the same sweet taste. I like it in milk!

The next few days will continue to be full of resting with gaming and some more crochet (I've done a bit over the last few weeks), I'm working towards going out maybe Friday for errands and groceries, and doing a few bits & bobs slowly so as not to over do it. I hope you have a good day and there should be another blog post in a few days! Thank you again for being patient with blog inactivity, I have zero control on both the weather and my body throwing tantrums.

Nayu's Craft Time #110 Chaotic Long Weekend!

A calming picture of a pair of zebra finches (similar to one of my birds)

I'm here! Been a crazy few days Friday I was too tired to post - visited a friend in the morning, came home and promptly napped for 2 hours. Me needing naps is a sign I need to rest so I did just that. While I'd meant to post Saturday, I'd forgotten that I'm trying to keep Saturdays as the one day where I do no blog work, no crochet, no review book reading - it's my 'day off'. I started this post Sunday but was doing it in between other blog bits so had to stop without posting it when my online time was up. I hate sticking to a schedule but otherwise I don't fit in enough rest. 

Nothing like the cat in question but a cute one all the same.

Monday I'd had 3 hours sleep due to a stray cat incident which is ongoing. I promise to do a full post once it concludes. I'm find it hard emotionally and am praying for a happy ending, so well wishes and thoughts most welcome! 

My latest craft news will be up in tomorrow's post.

Such a cute themed bed! I'm guessing the larger bow is a cushion...if not I wouldn't want it attached to the duvet.

While I slept better last night (no 1.30am wake up call) I'm more tired than I was yesterday. So after a very quiet morning I'm finally managing some blog work between household tasks. Go me! 

I wish this cute pencil was mine! Adore the dainty flowers and ring/tiara. Very girly!

Due to life getting in the way of my book review work for Nayu's Reading Corner, I'm now doing review blog work every alternate day, so I can get some writing of my own novels in too. I was trying to catch up with review then write, but I'm missing it too much, life happens, and I want to write! Alternate days will do for now.

Nayu's Craft Time #101 Inspiring blooms

One of my gorgeous flowers!

This morning as part of sorting stuff in my room that has piled up due to weather related illness (for lack of a better word) and recovering from the wonderful pain medication ketamine I sorted my crochet project bags. These are bags which have various projects in, although lately other yarn has got into it (with some tangles, which took time to sort). I effectively cut and threw away the worst offending 'nests', as there are limits to how much patience I have for detanglement. It helped remind me of which projects I'm doing next which is useful and fun to look forward to. Here's a great example of sorted, funky coloured yarn in baskets over on Attic 24, a fun crochet blog by Lucy which I read semi-regularly. 

Looking at these makes me want more colourful yarn! I can buy some only once I've finished some more projects.

I genuinely didn't think to take photos of each project bag before putting them away, and they don't look anything special where they are so I haven't taken any. I didn't want to have a post without something pretty of mine, so I thought I'd show you some of my flowers! 

Since it was dusk to get a better picture I put them on the floor. I've had all of these over a year now, I think.

I'm amazed that these 3 plants have all reflowered, only because my watering habits are sporadic so my poor plants can suffer a bit before I give them water. Go hardy plants!  

Some of the purple flowering plant, which a family member gave me. The bookshelf in the background is a fraction of the books I have - happy sigh!

 I'm  not sure what type of flowers I have - I know the one below and the one at the top of this post are both from M&S - I probaby need to repot them, or at least remove the part of the plant which hasn't reflowered (it sprouted and this part is a new one! Clever plant). I like them because they are a bit of nature in my room, and the colours both cheer me up and make me think of projects to use them in.

Tomorrow I am out visiting friends so not sure if there will be a post, so I aim to be back here at the weekend!

Nayu's Project Progress #9 Gloves Galore!

Not the best pic, colours are more vibrant than they look

Those who follow me on Twitter @Nayuleska will know I've been hit with evil reaction from the flu jab which I had on Saturday. I'd presumed since the previous years I'd had no reaction I'd be fine this year. I really should know better! Possibly didn't help I had my once every 5-6 week dose of ketamine a few hours after, but lesson learned. Ketamine usually just makes me really tired now, but ideally I have it on it's own so I can see if I react any differently. This time the flu jab made me feel absolutely lousy, but after a few days in bed I'm on the mend, slowly. 

As soon as I was up for it I was having fun with yarn - how do you like these new fingerless gloves? They aren't finished just yet, going to add a little something extra to make them more gorgeous. Hope to put them up for sale soon! 

Nayu's Craft Time #77 Busy with business cards!

Blank business card template

 Yesterday I was tired after seeing friends so didn't blog, today been busy sorting new business cards, which is very fun but highly time consuming. Proper post tomorrow!

Nayu's Craft Time #69 Find me on Social Media! + Updates

I made these sun-dried tomato & chilli rolls!

I'd fully intended to write a post yesterday but I ended up being busy with household tasks, errands, necessary resting. There's little I can do about the necessary things in life. I don't have telepathy, telekinesis, any kind of tele-skill - not in real life. In my head I can do so many things...

*Ahem* To get vaguely back on track, I also baked these delicious sun-dried tomato and chilli rolls which I'm having again  tonight They are a smidge overcooked but that's only the surface. I'd fail at the Great British Bake Off not just because of the darker colour, or the fact they are all different sizes, but because I used a packet mix! They are perfect for getting flavours I like without too much work (which expends more energy than I have most days). I simply pop it in the bread machine to be mixed and prove, turn it out, shape & bake!

  

Craft wise I've been on a secret project, (I've come to the realisation that I will almost always have a secret project going on), and after the success of completing a trial version of this cute cross over knitted baby bootie  I started another. 

I need to sew the straps down, that will be done on the for sale version

I got a bit too engrossed in the TV show I was catching up with (can't remember what it was as I watched several) that I managed to skip an entire row out so had to restart. Hopefully I'll make more progress tomorrow without the need for restarts. 

So many social media sites - for now I'm only on 3 ^o^

Enough side-tracking! The real main point of today's post is that I'd like to point out you to where you can find me on social media.

Send me a tweet!

Twitter: @Nayuleska

Connect with me on Facebook in 2 ways!

Facebook: Nayu's Crochet Dreams very own page as well as my ordinary account, Nayu Pitcairn:  which includes book reviews from my other blog Nayu's Reading Corner

Check out my varied boards!

Pinterest: Come see what craft, anime, book reviews and more on my boards: Nayuleska from my other blog Nayu's Reading Corner over at Pinterest! 

I'm still working on getting cute/funky little icons for social media sites, as there are so many to choose from that it's not as simple as I'd expected.

Now it's time for me to go write a bit on my novel, then spend an evening reading! And watching The Great British Bake-Off which I'm thoroughly enjoying getting inspired by. Planning to make a yummy frangipane tart next week! 

A delicious looking Cherry Frangipane Tart: picture source

Nayu's Craft Time #56 Needle sorting and blog designing.

Sadly not my needle roll, but a clever one with space for circular and ordinary needles

I've spent a lovely morning sorting my bamboo knitting needles and crochet hooks while chatting with a friend, who I had lunch with. The sort was required since I need to know what size needles I have since I'm going to be knitting baby booties and hats, some of which need circular and/or double pointed needles. I don't think I need to get any more just yet. I'll show you a picture soon. It didn't take that long to sort my needles, I worked some more on my current baby blanket too. 

What's going on isn't a blank canvas like here, but it's hidden for now.

Once I came home I only meant to be online for a short time, but I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out a few dimensions on my blog for my designer. As a very clueless blog user I resulted to searching Google for help, and I think I've got what's needed. 

I'm not giving anything away until the design process is sorted, but I've had a style board of all the images/colours to be used and they fit exactly what NCD is all about. That bit of brainwork has zapped both my thinking powers and my physical energy so I'm signing off now in favour of anime and reading. For me watching shows in another language isn't work, it's fun! 

French and Japanese are m other languages

Nayu's Craft Time #49 Out of juice

Super short post today, as I'm fairly tired since I slept badly Friday night and accidentally used up my typing energy catching up on book reviews for Nayu's Crochet Dreams - for full details click on the link. I did manage some crochet yesterday and have it planned for today too. I'm taking it easy! I recommend it from time to time, it's nicer when you aren't forced to do so by being overtired.

Nayu's Craft Time #45 Fairytales in future projects

Picture source

Fairytales are timeless and known all over the world. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast - there are countless variations of classic tales in both literature and film, some with castles, some without. I remember reading a story about Snow White and Rose Red when I was little - I've no idea where the book is now. I've been in love with Disney's version of fairytales for a long time...although it took other versions for me to truly enjoy Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - thank you must be said to Once Upon A Time series which had me finally fall in love with Snow as well as Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard who helped me like the original tale. 

At the moment I have extremely vague ideas about how I'll incorporate fairytales into my crochet projects. I'm sure various flowers and bows will be part of the item, maybe familiar colours too (yellow for Sleeping Beauty's ballgown along with some red roses for the beast's rose). All I really know is that it's a theme I want to explore at some point. 

I'd love to hear what your favourite tales are and if there's anything else you'd like to feature in my future projects.

Nayu's Craft Time #42 Crochet is a good medicine

Where have you been?

Sorry for being silent the last few days - it wasn't intentional. I slept badly Tuesday night, ended up with a minor headache on Wednesday night, which turned into a low grade migraine on Thursday. I tried to nap the migraine away but that didn't work. I thankfully wasn't feeling too sick, but I do get rather sensitive to noise so I couldn't listen to audiobooks (watching anime was a no-go). I read a lot, but I did do crochet too! More on that in a moment - need to finish explaining my absence. While I was headache free Friday I had the usual post migraine fatigue, regardless that it wasn't a major migraine. Saturday I did a bit of blog work but felt too peaky so stopped before I got to finish this post. 

I have been doing a lot of crochet because it's quiet and not too complicated. I worked on a summer blanket which I'm close to finishing.

I've since added a cream border, and currently making a lot of flowers to put around the edge. This will take a while so I'm making 5 flowers a day

I got to the stage where I wanted something a bit challenging, so I learnt how to make a granny (square) hexagon.

Ta-da!

To start with I didn't want to use the above pattern because it started with a flower in the middle. I've made the flower before, but I wasn't confident enough to attempt the pattern without the flower (which is what I wanted to do). However, all the patterns I stumbled across online used decreasing stitches, which I haven't come across before now, and didn't really want to start learning just yet. Or the patterns weren't like this one.

So I thought if I learnt how to make the hexagon with the flower in the centre, I could figure out how to do it without the flower. And I did!

 

It wasn't too tricky to figure out, since the flower had 6 loops before carrying on with the pattern, so  I translated that as meaning 6 clusters in the middle, et voila!

Since I want to make some baby blankets using hexagons, I thought I'd go for smaller ones, with just 2 rows. It is cute but could take a bit of time, so I'll opt for 3 rows or even the larger size which I originally used.

Today I'm working on a mixture of projects which I'll hopefully be chatting about tomorrow. I'm trialing doing blog work in 3 x 40min slots, rather than 2 hours straight, which for now seems to be working.  See you soon!

Nayu's Craft Time #41 The Tale of the Travelling Yarn

This is no ordinary yarn...

Today this ball of yarn (before it got used) went on a little journey. First stop was a doctor's waiting room. Because I prefer to re-roll yarn into a ball, I sat and did just that while waiting for my routine appointment. I nearly rolled it all up, but, as often is the case when I get to the end of a ball (while winding) it got a little muddled up. It sort of looked like a string game called Cat's Cradle which I played when I was young.

A fun game for 2

I got called in before I could untangle it, so I popped it back in my bag and there it sat for over an hour. Appointment was fine :) The next time I got my yarn out was when I popped in to see my old work colleagues. It's a bit weird to think that I finished work a week ago. It both feels much longer and much shorter than that. I fully enjoyed catching up with my colleagues, who are my friends.

Out came the yarn when I had to wait for my manager to finish seeing someone. I managed to detangle it – whoohoo! I did 3 sides of the first row (which creates the square), then popped the yarn back in my bag since my manager was then free.

The yarn popped back out once I'd got home, and I crocheted one and a half squares for fingerless gloves which will be for me ^o^ Now I've had my post lunch rest I'll be back to working on a summery blanket, as soon as I've blogged, written a little, and done some reading.

I hope you like the tale of my travelling yarn. Small crochet projects are super portable. I do need to keep a pair of scissors permanently in my bag, as I didn't have any to cut the yarn if I got far enough ahead that I made 1 glove (I didn't), but want to be sure that won't be an issue in the future.

I actually have this cute bunny ear scissors with paperclips, although they don't stand look quite like the tip of this carrot!

There will be no travelling yarn tomorrow or Thursday, as they are planned days at home, but yarn will be travelling on Friday to visit a friend, so I may have another short tale for you then!

Nayu's Craft Time #39 Dishcloth Mission

 

As promised in yesterday's post today I'm chatting about my dishcloths.

Tuesday night I'd started making a dishcloth from a ball of Lily's sugar and cream 100% cotton yarn. I wanted to make 2 from the same ball as I know it can be done. So after winding it into a ball (I always do this with yarn as the original ball sometimes tangles or isn't like a sphere) I then unwound it and started a new dishcloth at the other end.

I haven't got a picture showing this process. Once I got to the point of having a little yarn left, I began figuring out what type of border I could do that would make the yarn last for both dishcloths. I undid the last row & tried a new border definitely over 5 times. I was determined to make it work! It's nice having enough time to be able to experiment - here's what I came up with! 

It's roughly 7 inches/18 cm, and this time I've added a handy loop so you can hang them up - they aren't just practical, they look pretty too! All dishcloths made from now will have a loop. These will be on sale soon, along with other colour combinations. 

Tomorrow's post will be all about circles...

Nayu's Craft Time #37 Life!

Will things look better this way up?

I'd planned to make this a progress report post, but life has been a bit hectic and I've needed more rest time than crochet time. I can honestly say I didn't expect my week and a bit of week to be so crazy, but perhaps I should I have known better than to expect it to be smooth. 

If you can bear with me until 1st July (or maybe the 2nd, if I need to take a day to adjust to my new life), I promise there will be lots of exciting posts for you to read as I dive into new crochet techniques and create plenty of crochet dreams to fill your life with!