Sunday best

Best photo
The world’s first 14-loop rollercoaster, from @earth_p0rn. This is opening at Alton Towers soon. It’s been about 10 years since I last went to Alton Towers. Time for another visit methinks.

Best pin
This is Milan Cathedral, Italy. This church, or duomo in Italian, apparently took nearly six centuries to complete. The architecture is quite simply fantastic.

Best pattern
Ripple blanket. This is more of tutorial than an actual pattern - a how-to guide to creating a ripple pattern. But if you do enough you’ll end up with a blanket.

Best product
Vintage Royal Albert tea trio. I’ve got a collection of tea sets. It’s still only very small, but I’m planning on adding to it, and I absolutely adore this gorgeous little trio.

The inaugural new Sunday Best

So here it is. The new-style Sunday Best. Enjoy.

Best photo
This was a difficult one. I follow a few accounts on Twitter that post the most amazing photos from around the world and it was hard choosing just one great image. This one of the Blue Dragon Odeleite river in Portugal, from @earthposts, won out because I love dragons. I’ve even got a Japanese one tattooed on my shoulder blade.

Best Pin
A four-layer cake with vanilla, caramel, chocolate-caramel and chocolate, complete with chocolate ganache topping. What’s not to like?

Best pattern
This Shimmering Shoulders shawl in Kidsilk Haze Glamour is gorgeous. The perfect summer evening cover-up for a posh garden party. The pattern is available free; just fill in the form for a copy.

Best product
The Utopa sofa. I suspect this is way, way out of my price range, but I love it anyway. It just looks so cosy. Who wouldn’t want to curl up right at the back with knitting and nice glass of wine?

Sunday Best - a new direction

Just a short post today. When I first started doing Sunday Best posts the idea was to find cool stuff from around the interwebz, but I’ve realised it’s very quickly turned into a list of stuff that you can buy from Folksy or Etsy, which isn’t the point at all.

To fix this I’m introducing a new, more structured approach. Each week I’ll have a series of ‘Bests’ which I’ll have found over the internet, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. These will be Best Picture, Best Pattern, Best Pin and Best Product. Hopefully this will make these posts altogether more interesting and useful.

The new approach will begin a week on Sunday, as this weekend I shall be in Scotland looking for Black Grouse and Osprey.

Sunday Best - Pretty and practical

"Never have anything in your house that you do not know to useful or believe to be beautiful," said William Morris. Well, this Sunday Best is all about things that are both.

Pink Polka Dot passport cover
Passports are such dull things. They should all be given a makeover with one of these.

Fabric-covered boxes
This is a great idea - a tutorial on how to cover boring cardboard boxes with gorgeous fabrics.

Madeline handmade bag
This is ultra-cute and would make a great evening bag.

Applique Pastel Rainbow on Linen purse
A lovely little coin purse that would surely match perfectly with the Madeline bag!

Just a short one this month. The photos all remain the property of the original photographers; please click the links for more information. And if anyone attempts the box-covering tutorial, do let me know!

Sunday best - throws and afghans

Granny square bed throw
I have big plans to make a throw like this. In fact I’ve saved hundreds of odds and ends of yarn so that I can make them all into a massive granny square throw. Buying one would be easier.

Granny square bed throw by Janice Anita Bullen, from Folksy.

Daisy meadow blanket
This daisy blanket is adorable and would make a lovely present for a baby girl.

Daisy meadow blanket by Claire Davenport, from Folksy.

Blackberry salad striped afghan
For obvious reasons I prefer blankets I can make to blankets I can buy. This textured crochet afghan is lovely.

Blackberry salad striped afghan by Tamara Kelly, from Ravelry.

Octagon and Squares throw
I first saw this on The Crochet Crowd Facebook page. Take a look at the photos to see how changing colours can make a huge difference to the same pattern.

Octagon and squares throw by Red Heart.

Circles and squares throw No pic of this one, and no link either. This is a blanket I’m planning to design, based on a pattern I saw on a TV show – watch this space!

Sunday best - presents for mum

It’s my mum’s birthday in the week, and celebration of this very exciting event this week’s Sunday best is all about presents for mum.

Sehaliah earrings
I don’t know about you, but my mum loves fairies and I think she’d really like these.

Sehaliah earrings.

Nature pocket mirror
This would make a lovely little gift; shame it’s from the US as I suspect shipping would make it something of a nightmare to get hold of.

Leaf-design nature pocket mirror.

Purple amethyst and green fluorite necklace
This is so pretty and delicate – ideal for summer. If we ever have one.

Purple amethyst and green fluorite necklace.

Crown, heart and flower statement necklace
There’s something a bit gothic, a bit steampunk, about this that I really love and I’m sure my mum would agree.

Crown, heart and flower statement necklace.

Cream antique bronze sari silk ribbon watch
This is another one that wouldn’t look out of place in the imaginary steampunk world in which I live, if only in my head.

Cream antique bronze sari silk ribbon watch.

Sunday best - Easter special

So next weekend is Easter. I’m not religious so for me this means an excuse to eat lots of chocolate (like I need one of those!) and a lovely long weekend. It’s also a reason to look at – and buy – cute Easter-themed crafty things.

Egg cosies must be incredibly easy to make, but also incredibly fiddly. So why not just buy them? These Easter Bunny ones are super cute.

Easter Bunny egg cosies

And these Pom Pom cosies from Georgiana May are lovely

Pom Pom egg cosies

Brooches aren’t really my thing, but I do like the Easter Bunny on this one.

Easter Bunny brooch

And, of course, it wouldn’t be Easter without chocolate eggs. I couldn’t decide which I like best out of these two Hotel Chocolat eggs, so have both.

You Crack Me Up extra thick egg

Cow Beastie egg. The cow print on this is great.

 (All images are taken from relevant sources. Click the links to see the originals.)

Sunday best - dressing up

I realised today that I missed a trick with last week’s Sunday best - I should have gone for green-themed one in honour to St Patrick’s Day today. Never mind, next week will be a bunny, chick and chocolate-filled affair to celebrate Easter. But back to this week, which is all about dressing up.

1 Gothic Little Red Riding Hood dress
I absolutely adore this costume! I have no idea when or where I’d wear it, and it’s from the US anyway, so probably not available over here, but I want one. Maybe I could wear it to do the vacuuming?

2 Mad Hatter top hat
Love love love this steampunk-style Victorian top hat, but it’s way out of my price range.

3 Strawberry print tea dress
I really admire anyone who goes in for the full vintage look. I just don’t have that kind of dedication. This 50s-style dress is so pretty, but without the hair, the shoes and so on, it just wouldn’t work.

4 Zombie Girl Cameo bracelet
This would be the perfect accessory for Gothic Little Red Riding Hood, or a way of dressing up a little bit for those of us too scared to go the whole hog!

5 Silk red and black masquerade ball mask 
I’ve wanted one of these ever since I first saw Labyrinth many years ago. I also want to be the kind of person who goes to masquerade balls.

I'm Pinning all these, so click to check them out. Feel free to follow me while you're there.

(All images taken from relevant pages; click the links to see the originals.)

Sunday best - a round-up of things I love

1 Free granny square pattern
There are people out there who hate granny squares. Can you believe that? I love them. There are some really inventive ones out there that would make great cushion covers or blankets. This one, I think, is really pretty.

2 Paradise Lost necklace
This looks like a whole ton of work went into all the beading. It was worth it - the finished product is gorgeous.

3 Apple and Wisdom charm bracelet
Simple and elegant. Love this.

4 Catherine Carr crochet glass
I’m not entirely sure how this works - crochet turned into glass - but I like it!

5 Shabby chic mirror
I’d love to have this piece of pretty in my craft room.

Sunday best

This is going to be my new weekly Sunday posting - a round-up of pretty/cool/funny/interesting things I find on the interwebz. At certain times of the year it’ll be themed (did someone say ‘Easter’?), but this week it’s just a random selection.

Animal prints are everywhere at the moment and I love this squirrel. This Kindle Fire cover is by the very talented and lovely Annie Sparkles. Check her Folksy shop for more covers, as well as waterbottle covers and draft excluders.

Super Squirrel Kindle cover. Photo by Annie Sparkles.

I really want to make this - the combination of chickpea and chocolate absolutely fascinates me. I've had beetroot and chocolate before and it was lovely. This cake looks like it would be really rich, dark and chocolatey - just like a chocolate cake should. I've used the word chocolate quite a few times in this paragraph. I should probably use it again, just to be sure. Chocolate.

Chocolate chickpea cake. Photo from The Cake Hunter.

I absolutely adore steampunk, so this pocket mirror really appeals to me.

Clocks and Gears Pocket Mirror. Photo from Sunnie's Gift Shop.

These wristies are unbelieveably cute and would be a great, quick project to use up some leftover yarn.

Take a Picot crochet mitt. Photo from Crochet Spot.

If you ever need reminding what a wonderful world we live in - and you happen to be on Facebook - then you should 'like' this page, Amazing Things in the World. There were loads of photos I could have chosen from, but I went for this one.

Asperatus clouds over New Zealand. Photo from Amazing Things in the World.