No piccies at the moment, one of my cameras (my favourite) is poorly, the other (work one) takes pretty crappy photos, not keen on it at all. Will pop mine into a shop and see if they know what's wrong with it, but I suspect it is dead.

Lots of knitting going on, I started Kim Hargreave's Ward on Christmas Day and am aiming to finish it tomorrow, its boooooorrrrrrrring as anything but it's not too far from being finito. And it's good infront of the telly knitting, no brain required.

And a lot of sewing to get on with, had a mini material buying spree with the plan of making up several project bags for etsy - and said material is still sitting on the table. The table that was tidy for one day ...

Mr Parcel Postie has just been with my New Lanark Mill wool, its nice but too many flecks of colour for me to be totally happy, but it should knit up OK, am planning on making Perfect Paula with it (a cabled cardi, wil find out how to add Ravelry links someday!).
But now it is time to slap some lippy on, do something with my hair (any ideas on how to grow out a fringe without getting cross and chopping the lot off anyone??) and brave M&S food hall. Again. I have my eye on their party food / fizz for a tenner offer, all for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Bye for now, keep warm, keep knitting, you know it makes sense!

Hurrah! I am pleased with these - originally knit whilst sitting on the beach at Scapa Bay in Orkney, after the Interview.From.Hell, then realised they were toooooo small, as I was using the wrong needles, Anyway, reknit, haven't blocked them as she has slim hands and I think they will be a hit. Very fast easy knit, might have to make myself a pair.

The squiggle photos are in the wrong order, thank you blogger.
Cheeky little thing was hanging on by his back legs and hugging the net of nuts to his chest to chomp off the top - the blurry photo was through my net curtains, when I went out and said 'Oi! They aren't for you!' he sat on the gatepost and laughed at me, Cheeky blighter.

Well.
One more sleep, lorra food, lorra plonk, lorra laughs, then relative normality should be resumed.


My daughter is due here in a couple of hours, not cooking anything for tea, we are hitting the cheese and assorted nibbles instead of holding off until tomorrow afternoon.
Lazy? Moi? Damned right.


Finished the last bit of the last present - is this a thing that crafters the world over do, finish assorted projects off last minute? I suspect so.All wrapped, all hidden in the bomsite that is my bedroom - all the crap from downstairs now seems to be in my room. Yippee. Three guesses what I am doing Boxing Day ...


I had also knit the owls jumper, but as a cardi, for a present, but it looks vile - have left it unwrapped, and she is going to try it on, see if it is salvageable, and if not will let her have a plough through patterns on Ravelry for something else. Sheesh.

Have a warm, lovely Christmas. Toodles
x

so ...

Flying visit - I took the plunge, deleted all the html code on my blog template, and added this one - I think it's ok? I wanted something really delicate and almost jewel like, and found one I liked, but couldn't work out how the hell to add it! This will do for now.

Tired, cold - very cold, and slumped infront of Midsomer repeats, and about to try and finish, or almost finish, a pair of mitts for a Christmas pressie.

I am surrounded by wool, oodles of wool, and - er - mess.

The photo - the view from my doorway a couple of evenings ago, and the snow is still there, brrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Brrrrrrrrr!

Work in progress - half a bag is better than none I suppose, I plan on finishing this one tomorrow, but I forgot to buy some material to make the strap, silly moo - I suspect I can find something in the mountains of material upstairs.
Gorgeous Laura Ashley materials, and a silk birdy, I have plans for embellisging it furtehr before sewing in the lining.

A bit of self indulgent knitting, despite having certain things to finish for Christmas ... great pattern, it grows really quickly and is easily memorised, will add a link when I get my act together. The wool was a gift (thank you Darlene!), and I like it - Karaoke, half silk, half soy, great colours. Not the softest in the world although it should soften after a wash, but it really shows the cable effect well!

Blimey! It's bloody freezing! And it started snowing here a couple of hours ago, brrrrrrrr - love how it looks, hate how it feels!


I spent a couple of hours - yes hours - putting four bags on my etsy shop, HOURS. I had to edit all the photos, then the editing wotsit I was using decided to sulk, so I had to find another way - I suspect it was a job that would take someone a bit more savvy than me minutes to do - anyway, they are finally on.


They were originally planned for a craft fair, but it feels wrong to do craft fairs when I am signed off work somehow ... I do like them though, the birdy one above is a favourite. The bird is silk, and a really yummy chocolatey brown - brown and pinks together are rarely a bad thing!

Tea smells good so I suppose I had better go and check it - roast veg, with mushrooms, chillies and garlic, yummy. Somehow salad didn't seem too bright a plan in this weather ...
Stay warm!

Right. A brief summary of the last few months, since last posting.

The owl - am trying a bit of art quilting, or something similar - the novel (?) I ended up with for NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) is made up of chapters (thats fascinating, nobody has thought of THAT before) and the dark owl is one of the main themes in one, then reappears a couple of times in others. So out of that came this little owly bloke, but hes meant to look malevolent, but to me he looks cute, which defeats the object somewhat.

I tried some oil sticks for the first time, imprted from America after reading lots of rave reviews, but am pretty disappointed in them.

Too chunky, they stink (of oil paint, well would you believe it...) and my machine didn't enjoy sewing on top of it. I think my good old Dylon dyes are better for what i tend to do (I have loads upstairs from ye olden dayes when I used to make and paint corsets).

So I will plod on with it and finish it before the weekend, because I have just painted my living room and want this up on the wall, it's been far to long since I put anything I made on display. Not that there's anyone here to see it ....

What else - LOTS of knitting going on, LOTS of sewing and a few ideas beetling about in my head for some paintings, will add piccies and things tomorrow.

I am off work at the moment, back at the Dr next week, see what she says. Very odd feeling to go from 100% to zero in a day, but not a lot I can do about it. I don't want to go into detail online, but I think the break is doing what it is meant to, time will tell.

Right, that's it for now - more to come, but I still cannot master these damned piccies, they load into one place and don't like being moved in between text, grrrr ....

december?

how did it get to november - no, december - without me writing a single post?



am going to play about with this one, i dont like the layout, and try to keep up with it
lots to report, nothing world shatteringly exciting, but i DID finish my novel!
so a flying scrap of a post today, then hopefully more regular witterings to come



thank you to those who stuck with this and left comments, thats lovely of you

the owl? will explain later, hes only half finished bless him ... toodles x