Moments of colourful calm
A few weeks ago, I showed you the cushion cover I was making, do you remember? Well, I’ve finished it and here it is!
I’m very pleased with it, and particularly with the square shell buttons which came free with a magazine some months ago and now have a use. My cushion matches perfectly with my blanket:
I learned to meditate last year and a lovely part of the process is to wrap yourself up in a blanket whilst you empty your mind and prepare for the day ahead. I wanted to make a blanket for myself rather than buy one and I knew as soon as I saw this pattern that this was the one I wanted to make. It’s like wrapping myself up in a rainbow!
Both the blanket and the cushion cover are crocheted in Stylecraft DK (I used 17 different colours in their colour pack)on a 4mm hook and the pattern is the neat ripple pattern by Lucy of Attic24. It’s such an easy pattern to do and looks very effective. There’s no set number of chains that you make to get started, although you do work in blocks of fourteen, so it’s just a question of making a chain as long as you need it to be. There’s a fantastic tutorial on Lucy’s site with step-by-step pictures so you can’t get it wrong. I simply measured my cushion pad and started rippling! With the blanket, I wanted to make sure it was big enough to wrap it completely around myself (you can’t meditate with draughty feet!) so it’s about the size of a single bed fleece blanket but a bit longer. You just keep going until you’re happy with it!
Both my husband and I have learned to meditate with Art of Living which is a non-profitmaking, non-religious organisation whose mission is to free the world of stress. It’s a noble cause and not an easy one; the thing about stress is that it creeps up on you and you don’t even notice how stressed you are until you take the stress away. It’s why people look forward so much to their holidays! I don’t manage to meditate every day, but I have found that’s it’s worth getting out of bed half an hour earlier to have some quiet time to myself before the demands of the day begin. If you’d asked me before I did the course, I’d have said I didn’t need it, I wasn’t stressed and anyway, a bit of pressure’s good for you. Now, I know that I am a much calmer, nicer Mummy if I have meditated and that’s incentive enough to get me up in the mornings!
I thought you might like to see this nifty little gadget as well:
It’s a folding meditation stool which I bought my husband for his birthday. I’d been looking for one for him for a while and this is a really nice quality one which folds flat so it doesn’t get in the way when it’s not in use. He takes it to the group meditation session which he goes to and it saves his feet going to sleep as the beginning of the session always starts with yoga breathing which you have to kneel up for. It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of those sessions with one thing and another going on, but they’re the reason I made my cushion as at the end you lie down, snuggle up cosily under your blanket and shut out the world. Bliss!