Buy of the Month - Vintage Tea Set

I have to confess, I absolutely adore eBay. At times, I can feel I hate it too, but too often I buy certain things that I wouldn't find anywhere else, and that brighten up my day.

I'm not quite a hoarder - don't get me wrong, I have more 'things' than I need, but I sell as often as I buy, so I think it balances things out okay!  Last week, I purchased an exercise bike - a model still in the shops at the moment, used 'once or twice' and looking essentially brand new - but I saved almost £100 on the retail value of the brand new ones. Having used it several times since, it was definitely a great buy. That was the second time I'd ever bought something from eBay that was from a seller in my current town, and picked up rather than having posted to me. The first was a chest of drawers, which was another great buy, and this afternoon was my third.

I'm planning a tea party for later in the year, and last week was just browsing pages on eBay, when I happened upon a Bone China tea set, not too far from where I'm living. A lovely, 21 piece set of Royal Osborne, Pink Floral goodness. Six cups, saucers, tea plates, sugar bowl, milk jug and bread & butter plate. For an astounding £2. What a bargain! In fact, so much so, it's almost better than my beloved new exercise bike, and is my 'Buy of the Month'.

Seeing as there's rarely a month that goes by where I don't buy something that makes me go 'Oooh', this will most likely become a regular thing!

Granny Square Blanket - My First Crochet Project

There's two firsts here. My first blog post, and the topic - my first crochet project.

My Mum taught me how to knit when I was around 7, and I've knitted on and off most of my teenage & adult life, but I'd never taken the time to learn to crochet. Three weeks ago I decided I wanted to learn, bought a 4mm hook and followed some You Tube tutorials on granny squares. Soon, I was buying yarn with the intentions of making a whole blanket's worth of squares.

They might not be perfect, but either way, I'm pretty pleased. I'm planning on making 180 squares, and have done 104 in around two weeks.

 

My biggest mistake has been not sewing the ends in as I go along. I've seen the method of crocheting in ends as you go, but I prefer to sew ends in. I really should make the effort to get sewing now before I'm faced with doing all 180 at once! I have started with a few...

...but there's still a lot to go!


Once I've finished them all I plan to do one round in cream on each square, then sew them together. Again, I've watched various tutorials on You Tube showing methods of crocheting the squares together, but sewing gives the finish I prefer.

Hopefully it won't be too many more weeks until I finish this project, but I'm still taking time to do other things I love, like a cross stitch piece that is so close to being finished, and yet more (endless!) cushion covers I want to make. I'll get there in the end!