Delayed start to the year...

So it's been a delayed start to 2015 in blogland - though the malaise seems to have been fairly common.  January just seemed to be so busy - and the end of last year was much too busy.

I've been happily hooking - the multi stripe blanket that Jules featured here - I love the randomness of the stitches (it's a kind of 'do-your-own-thing' pattern.  Colourwise, I basically picked a mishmash of Drops Paris Cotton and got stuck in.  At first, I was sorry I'd gone with cotton - it didn't seem to have the warm draped thing I'd hoped for, but now things are steaming on and it's growing, the drape actually pleases me.  Hope to have it finished for autumn.

I snapped the yarns on my phone to help me remember the colours I wanted to pick up at the shop, but noticed they're very similar to the colours used in the dome mosaic of Clonard Monastery in Belfast!  I was there a few weeks ago with the choir and orchestra doing a performance of our World War 1 commemorative event as part of the Four Corners Festival.

Despite having grown up in Belfast just a few miles from the monastery, I'd never been in it.  The building is quite fascinating and historically of interest too as the place where the IRA were first coaxed into peace talks - the beginning of the end of what we call "the troubles".