Easter cactus plant renamed

I don’t know if you remember my Doctor Sue posting in 2015 about a Christmas cactus which I bought cheap as a casualty. This is it today, flowering its heart out on my kitchen window cill. 

The fuchsias I bought at the same time also survive as cuttings taken every year and overwintered in the greenhouse. The original standards snapped off in some windy weather. Entirely my fault, I didn’t secure them properly but it’s great that from that original investment, I get plants for free which repays the cost of heating the greenhouse at night during the colder weather. 

I’ve renamed the cactus as it seems to prefer flowering at Easter, I haven’t told it that it’s late ... again! 

New CAL Stylecraft Frida's Flowers

I've decided to take part in another Crochet-a-long. This time it's Jane Crawfoot's Frida's Flowers using Stylecraft's Classique Cotton yarn. I've never made a cotton blanket before so I'm really looking forward to it.

It doesn't start for a few days yet but I've already purchased my yarn pack from the Wool Zone in Oakham. There's a nice project bag that's been designed for people to get on with making in the meantime but I've been wanting to have a go at a ropey rainbow basket designed by Little Bee on her brilliant blog. I used two strands  of double knitting cotton from my stash to make the bottom which is a plain colour but for the sides, I bought extra balls of all the most rainbowy colours from the Frida's Flowers yarn pack. 

When I was photographing the finished basket containing the yarn for the blanket along with these daffodils, I felt so much in the Easter spirit, I opened a pack of mini-eggs to celebrate (no you can't have any!)

This is the 6mm sisal rope I used as the basket's base. Amazing how a little bit of simple crochet transforms it! Sisal is a bit scratchy to work with, if I had to do it again, I'd find something a bit softer like nylon or maybe hemp? Perhaps someone who's worked with hemp before can let me know if it's less scratchy. 

The design uses far more yarn than I would've thought, I've gone through 40-odd grams of all these colours. It's so nice to work with, I can't wait to get on with the CAL, in the meantime, there's always another bag of mini eggs!

. Happy Easter everyone!