A summer project

Tomorrow will be the last day of this school year and I am so extraordinarily happy about it. The last weeks have been filled with a lot of school work - not only for the kids, appointments and events. Life has been hectic, busy and demanding. We all are in desperate need of a break. But I am sure that from next week on we will slow down, take it a little more easy and hopefully we'll be able to enjoy summer. Summer?

This summer is a 'to be or not to be' summer here in North Germany. One day we have lots of rain and it is cold, next day the sun is shining and you throw off the jeans and the jacket you have worn the day before. We have a big rain barrel in our garden that can save 1000 litres of  rainwater and it is loaded to the gunwales! Usually we don't have any rainwater anymore in July and our lawn looks like a beginning steppe. But this year everything is different.

Nonetheless I still feel summery. I want it to be summery. I long for summery days. And if the weather doesn't cooperate, I have to make my surroundings summery. That why I started a small little summery crochet project, using cotton yarn from my stash. 

I had a loooong look into my cotton yarn basket to decide which colours to choose. Which ones are my summer colours? Finally I chose these ones:

Turquoise, light blue, mimosa, citron, jade, sky, forest and royal. 

All the colours of the ocean and the beach - summer for me.  

I wanted to make a mandala for the kitchen table with matching coasters which we use daily for our teacups.

Have you seen the mandalas by Ayda Algin in Mollie Makes issue 54? I totally fell in love with her design and this was the perfect pattern for my summer project.

This is my version of her design:

 It's so pretty, isn't it? I immediately went into the garden to pick some wonderful white hydrangeas to brighten up my kitchen table. They match so nicely, don't they?

 Here is a bunch of photos, sorry, I just can't help it:

 And here are my coasters. I made 6 of them, because the children often bring some friends home who will need a coaster as well when joining us for lunch or dinner. 

 I didn't follow any pattern making them, I was to lazy to search for a nice pattern in the net. I just made some granny clusters, not forgetting to increase each round so that they lie flat on the table. The edge is simple picots.

 And as I am writing this post, the sun is coming out. I will make use of these rare sunny moments to work a bit in the garden, my raised bed need a thorough weeding. 

I hope that you are able to savour the sun, as well. If not today, maybe tomorrow. 

Happy summer for all of you!

Viola