We've spent five whole weeks indoors as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were playing on the swings at the park and building sandcastles at the beach! Still, we've managed to fill our time incredibly well with crochet, crafts, soapmaking, reading, painting, cooking, canning and baking.

I'm trying to stay busy and stay positive, but being indoors for this long is really taking its toll. Still, we've made a point of dancing along to GoNoodle, we have worked hard at assembling lego sculptures of awesomness, and have fingerpainted a gallery of magnificent artwork that we've stuck to every available door/wall/surface. It's pretty awful to be stuck indoors for this long, but I think if I'm going to be stuck anywhere, I'm pretty sure that I'd want to be stuck with this crazy bunch of humans.

A few weeks ago I started crocheting a small blanket for the couch to keep myself busy and productive. I pulled together some really nice colours from the Scheepjes Stone Washed range, and made up a bunch of African Flower Hexagons. I used this pattern tutorial: here - it was quick and easy to work up a bunch of these in random colour combinations. I really like the colours I had on hand, they're tonal and have a lot of rustic charm with their tweedy colour blending.

Happy African Flower Hexies

I joined the African Flower hexagons together with the crochet-as-you-go method and added a final border when I ran out of yarn. I've still got some ends to sew in, but I'll get there. Eventually.  I am especially pleased with the way it makes me smile whenever I see the finished blanket draped over the back of the couch.

Of course, when the children saw my blanket they wanted one each too - and I thought it was a good idea to let them come up with their own designs. Rookie mistake. Isla's design is a smorgasbord of unicorn glitter, with granny squares, flowers, hearts and a unicorn hood. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing with this one but I hope it works out.

Unicorn Granny Squares, with Added Glitter

The design also includes a hood, a horn, ears and a spiral mane. Of course.

Finnlay chose some really strong primary colours and a vehicles theme. It more or less matches absolutely everything in his room. He has chosen a few pictures out of his most favourite book (A 101 Vehicles) and I'm attempting to copy them and make them out of yarn. Wish me luck.

"But mom, this grey stripe should be a road." Obviously.

I have a feeling that we're going to be in lockdown for a lot longer than the four days that are left. I've still got a long list of fun (messy) things to attempt with the kids to keep them busy, thank goodness, but I am starting to wonder how on earth we're ever going to get all of these crafty makes back home with us when we make our trek back to the UK! We will have to get a container full just for the artistic masterpieces (finger paintings and scribbles) alone - nevermind the leftover yarn!