Three days left of Giveaway and a sad alarm clock!

 Exactly three days left of my  Two year blogiversary giveaway !

Response has been good ... no not just good but very good. I am so pleased about that. However you still have time to enter as I do not close the giveaway until 24th August at midnight!!!!


Talking about TIME  I have to admit that I do not have a great relationship with my alarm clock.

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I'm going to be quite frank with you and admit to treating the AC quite horrendously!

 In my own defense I have to say I am a night bird and not an early morning chick at all. I do find it extremely difficult to get up in the morning.
Mother used to give me the cold wet flannel treatment when I was a child which is fine if you live in Spain but I didn't then of course but in the freezing cold wilds of Somerset! I have to say as I recall this grossly brutal treatment did get me out of bed in a jiffy and more so if I saw my mother looming towards me for a second swipe.
This flannel abuse most certainly affected me psychologically as I have always faced early morning awakenings in a very aggressive manner and the AC being quite the nearest thing (which cannot hit me back) receives the rough edge of my temper and turning off the alarm can be a rather heavy-handed activity.
This being so another AC gave up the ghost yesterday and I had to resort to Sr P waking me this morning in time for my early morning class.
 I feel I need to add that having to result to the the latter is a most unpleasant experience and something we decided in the first years of our marriage to never repeat unless in an emergency.
Such was the case this morning.
Perhaps you are wondering why I consider such an unpleasant experience having to rely on Sr P to wake me. First of all it irritates me excessively that Sr Ps ability to wake at the precise hour he sets his mind to without an alarm clock is totally alien and unfair practice! Then worst still his exaggerated bawling and shouting in my ear and aggressive shaking to wake me is totally over the top! This treatment naturally produces the very worst reaction in a body and a negative verbal response. It leaves one totally out of sorts for the rest of the day. 
As I do not wish to have to go through that drama again I shall be off to buy myself another alarm clock as soon as I finish this post . I do have a variety of redundant alarm clocks scattered around the house but the alarm parts do not work. I can't think why!

I'd now like to give out a few mentions for fellow bloggers who I'm sure you will enjoy visiting and perhaps even follow. It seems a shame to me that these delightful people aren't in contact with more craft bloggers.

• Tami at Consistently and Inconsistent who has a sweet new addition to her family
• Ellie at Wellies,Crochet and Cows  who I have been in contact with for just a little time but find her posts very interesting . Yesterday's was about her felling trees!!!   There is also a wonderful post about her little sweety-pies?????
• Joanita at Creative Graphics Workshop Has the most exciting array of patterns and some of them free!  

And now I have to show you my very first MANDALA !

I've been hearing about overlay crochet for awhile now and wondering about it. It did actually look familiar so I finally decided to buy Carola's Mandala pattern Nº 1 which is a good example of overlay crochet,from CAROcreate on Ravelry.
It was an exciting make and a great pattern which is relatively easy to follow thanks to the illustrations. It also confirmed the familiar feeling I had when seeing projects using overlay crochet. I have used it before on Beanies but I just didn't know it was called overlay crochet. Never-the-less this pattern has given me much more practice and it has most certainly been a learning curve . I am pleased with the result and I am thinking of framing it on wood.
I used my favourite cotton Coats SMC Catania throughout and a Nº 2 Hook

Something wrong with the light when I took this photo I think! It hasn't brought the colours out very well.

 Happy days!!!!

 

Amanda :-)