Another Sad Day

Today was another sad one here, our remaining cat Billy went to the vet for treatment for a sore on his back that would not heal any other way than surgery. Sadly he had blood work done and was found to have feline aids, so went to sleep.

Sleep well Billy, see you at the Rainbow Bridge.

Neeps and Beeps

Mr Tesco has a LOT to answer for!

The other day we were there for the clothes sale, I didn't get much in the way of clothes, but did get three trays of reduced price beetroots. Now I do like, beetroot, don't get me wrong, but three trays? What was I thinking of? So it was off to my trusty preserves book to see what was in there. Well lo and behold, there was a recipe for pickled turnip with beetroot, so this morning like the domestic goddess that I like to delude myself that I am, a pickling I decided to go (having acquired baby turnips yesterday).

I will report next week as to the success or failure of this project, if I don't get arrested for suspected mass murder in the meantime. Beetroot stained hands will be hidden in pockets in public for the next few days!

Oh, the title of this post? I was telling Dolly Traybake about this enterprise, and she misheard me!

Sleep well Jones.

Sad day today, after 14 years we had to have poor Jones put to sleep today. The list of what was wrong with her was longer than the list of what was right.

She came to us as a bedraggled scrap of nothing one day when M was at an auction in Belfast. Considering where this auction is, and her love of climbing into vans to be nosey, we were sure that if she could speak, she would have spoken with a Scottish accent. She had to have a lot of help from the vet to become a happier cat, and it took a long time for her to settle down, losing her family must have been a trauma for her and we didn't expect to have her for long, but eventually, settle in she did.

She was a funny animal, with believe it or not a sense of humour, she could be typically aloof one minute and your best friend the next, and of course as I was the one who was allergic to her, it was always me she chose to try to sit on!

Sleep well puddy cat, see you at the Rainbow Bridge.

Late WOYWW!

Not like me at all is it? Hey ho! Better later than never :)

This week I was not at home at all! In ever sense, I have been out in the glorious weather we have been having. Who knows how long it will last so best to make the most of it. Now anyone who knows me even slightly will know that my sewing skills are legendary, for their absence, so I went on an Introduction to Textiles workshop last Saturday and had a ball! Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks? I got a basic grounding in embroidery stitches, discovered the joys of dissolvable fabric, made Suffolk Puffs and watched some very talented ladies work on Crazy Patchwork style wall hangings. I have had a veil lifted from my eyes! So much so that I have been buying fabric and I even purchased an embroidery hoop, I didn't need to get embroidery thread as I have a lot of that already, (I use it for crocheting flowers with) so please feel free to be amazed. Now all I have to do is remember the things I learned and go from there :)

This is what I came home with. Not easy to see on this small picture, but the velvet ribbon is held in place with a variety of stitches, and the Suffolk Puff flower has been beaded in places.

So back to WOYWW. This week we were at a friends house where we swapped twinchies, papers, spiders web (?) not sure if that is the right name, and I was on the receiving end of a crochet gift set and some knitting that had been started but never finished :) We did actually make a project too, which of course I have not photographed as yet, but I will. Sort of serendipity with tissue and mulberry papers on a clear pyrex style plate, I even used pink and purple papers! Amazed? I am!

On a Cold and Frosty Morning..........

And then the sun came out and just look what happened!

Second post of the day!

Not because I forgot to add this picture, but I was getting all confused with adding extra pictures!

I mentioned a while ago about the crazy socks I made, and had forgotten to take a picture of, well L was a good girl and brought them with her when she came to play yesterday and even posed wearing them!

So drumroll please, da da! THE socks!

WOYWW 88

Another week has flown in, and here we are at WW time again. NO not THAT WW, I don't like 4 letter words, my Nan always said that using four letter words were bad, so Work Desk Wednesday is the only WW that I will recognise (weight Watchers and, dare I say it........diets, I refuse to acknowledge)

This is my work desk this week

and this is why!

Having friends round to craft on a Wednesday was I thought a good idea, at least I would have something to show and tell :) So the first picture just shows the mess that three people can make :) The second shows J perusing CPS, can you believe that she has never before come across this magical publication?

Last but not least, L is doing what L does best, reducing scraps of paper into cuttlebugged lovelies!

WOYWW 87!

Lordy I have missed so many of these, but better late than never!

OK, What can be seen today, I sound like the woman on Playschool, which window will it be today? lol Must be the rectangular window as that is the shape of the door to enter.

Tow projects on the go on that desk, Valentine-ish cupcake cards and a wedding album (no 3) from Nephews wedding, when I run out of ideas for one thing, I change seats and have a go at the other! Yes, I really do use both tables!

These are the cards that will be used in class tomorrow night, as you see, sorta Valentine-ish, but for anyone who either does not "do" Valentines Cards, it can just as easily be a sweet Birthday Card. Had to use the Moomin stamps as they are a bit like Marmite, either you love 'em, or you .......... don't! I am in the latter.

Also very busy making things to send to people in the PIF I have joined, one person so far has received their gift, and what a wally! I forgot to take pictures! As soon as I can get hold of her again, I will get her to model her crazy socks for public viewing :)

A Couple of Cards :)

Seeing as I have actually found my craft room again, I have been making it messy again lol. I forgot to take my camera out to take pictures for WOYWW, so the results of my days playing will have to do for now. I was messing about with embossing powder resist, and, even if I do say so myself, I like the results! The stamps are Creative Expressions Party and the swirls are from the set Fuschia. Then of course my beloved Distress Inks :)

Quite "girly" for me, so a bit of a shock when these lovelies sort of materialised on the desk!

Post Christmas Blues

We like a lot of other people here in good 'ole Norn Iron suffered burst pipes, power cuts and other niceties over the Christmas period, but we were luckier than some in that we do have a generator so we did have power, our water supply was only cut off for one day, though we did have reduced pressure for a lot of the time, but the worst for me was the burst pipe.

It could have been worse........I suppose, it was in the barn and not in the house like a lot of people had, but in the barn! My workroom is out there!

Craft stuff was brought into the house to be worked on, yep, crates filled, lugged into the kitchen to be disgorged onto the kitchen table, used then packed back into the crate, where of course it does not all fit back into! Then lugged back over to the workroom to be disgorged onto the table over there as it was too cold to stay there and put it all away again. Result, now the pipe has been fixed, I have spent this morning over there "tidying up".

The table looks worse than it did before I started! Too ashamed to post a picture.

Why, oh why did the powers that be make me such a messy pig!?

PIF

Pay it Forward 2011

I promise to send the first 5 people who comment on here, a handmade by me item.

All you have to do is comment then send me your address and sometime during 2011 I will send you an item made by me, just for you :)

I joined a PIF on Facebook and thought to myself, now what a nice idea that is! So decided to do it here too :)

Too long ......... again!

New Years resolutions are starting early, or late depending on how you look at it! Normally I don't "do" resolutions, I know I will only break them before January is out. A bit like going on a diet, when you know that you can't have something, even a something that you don't normally want, you want it! So my non New Years not a resolution this year is to be a better blogger and to keep in touch with distant friends better than I have in the past.

So no photograph this time, no funny story, no craft items to proudly show off, and not even a WOYWW, just a physical reminder to myself to get my act together!

Been a long time

I just do not know where the last lot of weeks have gone to! I seem to have been very busy, but have not a lot to show for all this activity.

This is going to be the cover of a holiday journal, that if, and it is a big if, I manage to get over to my craft room to play, I will be making for out holiday.

Getting There

I am happy to report that me weekend has not been wasted! This is what I have managed so far. The bottom pillowcases, quilt cover and curtains. I has a bit of a panic today when I could not remember what I had been told about doing the Oxford pillowcases and had to go trundling up to Dolly Traybake's house to get personal tuition this evening, but all worked out well and I am now back on track, and she got into the action too by cutting out and doing most of the sewing of a runner and two velvet pillows for decoration. A bit of finishing off to do and i will be able to show the room in most of it's glory. I am not going to have time to do the painting, so the bright blue walls are going to have to stay for now. There are just not enough hours in the day!

WOYWW

Anyone who knows me will know that this is the MOST unlikely WOYWW for me. Yes that is a sewing machine, and yes, those are two HUGE bolts of fabric. I am hoping to turn them into bedding and curtains for one of the spare bedrooms.

It is all Dolly Traybakes fault. She is the fabric Queen, and when she was here last week I made the fatal mistake of showing her the fabric stash that I have hidden in the barn. Totally fatal!

The idea had been that she would fall in love with some of it, take it home and turn it into something fabulous dahling. Sorta didn't quite happen like that! She knows that I have been itching to do something about the furnishings and decoration of said bedroom and what evented was that I would make bed linen, bolsters and curtains.

So far I am amazed at myself, I have made two pillowcases, and they look like pillowcases! (they are the striped material) The patterned fabric sitting waiting for me to continue, is the curtains, apparently they are going to be box lined (whatever that is) with the blue fabric still all nicely wrapped up. This has to be taken into the sitting room to be unrolled, measured and cut, hopefully this time without managing to slice my finger open with the metal measure! I have my notes, I understand them and I am ready to carry on. Wish me luck!

Be careful what you say ...................

Because you might just get what you ask for and more!

When the Dollies were coming over, I had a look at the long range forecast, as you do, and was disappointed to see that we were likely to be in for a wet weekend. Not a problem as being crafters, I knew we would be able to find something to do, so when the first morning dawned clear and fine, I was happy. When the second day dawned, also clear and sunny I began to hope that it would stay fine till they had to go home, and thought to myself, if it will just hang on it can rain all it likes on Monday. Now here's the rub, be very careful what you ask for, hail, strong winds and driving rain was not exactly what I was thinking of when I said it could rain all it liked!

What a Weekend!

4 Dollies, a car, good weather and good food, what more can a girl want or need? Dolly OCD arrived first, collected and nearly missed by Dolly Traybake's husband and delivered to LSS (Local Scrap Shop), closely followed the next day, by Dolly Dunnit and Dolly Traybake. Now let the fun commence :)

A lot of talking, well we did have a lot to catch up with! Followed by a token amount of crafting in The Cat House with a LOT more talking and catching up, so far, so good.

The weather forecast had not looked at all promising, so we had no plans set in concrete, in fact we did not even have any set in mildly damp sand! So the great outdoors was peered at with trepidation, but YEAH! sun was shining and all was was well, a trip up the Antrim Coast was a must, ending with a visit to a ..........wait for it .......... you will never guess ............. a ........ craft shop! I will never tire of showing of the beautiful scenery here, seems the English contingent were quite impressed too!

Food was provided courtesy of Dolly Traybake and the local Thai. That went down well too :) Everyone holding up well.

Then came the Ulster Fry, oooops, that on top of sea air, shopping, chatting, giggling and generally misbehaving like schoolchildren was just toooooo much for some :)

This was the best weekend for a long time girlies, thank you all so much for making it easy, fun and even Mr Froggie says he will will welcome you with open arms next time (note NEXT time!) He is proud to be a survivor of a Dolly get together :)

W(N)OYWW

This is more a what's NOT on your workdesk Wednesday than what's on it!

I have been shamed into tidying up. No other reason. It has been so cold here that I have been grabbing stuff and bringing it into the house to play with, then shoving it into a crate to take it back, emptying it onto the workdesk and running away again. Time came that I had to do something about it, so for probably the one and only time this year, ta ta! A tidyish workdesk.

Yes, I was watching a dvd while doing this Reach for the Sky if you really want to know.

The dinky little drawers were so cute I could not resist them. I thought they would be good for my little ink pads, but I am now thinking that the previous arrangement of the metal bucket was the better option.

I have done a swing around too, my not so tidy bits storage. Yes, I do have a few books, and yes, my ribbon storage (?) is being sick. Can't resist a nice bit of ribbon :)

The red and pink boxes hold things like metal embellishments, bling, ephemera, kajinker tool and bits (so infrequently used it is unreal), rub ons and paper patterns, the sewing ones. My Cuttlebug folders and dies are in the boxes with the patterned lids, and Promarkers live in the clear tub.

The beige boxes hold large flowers (you know the VERY expensive Dunelm ones) and crocheted ones, and I think one of them has chipboard words and phrases and shhhhhhh don't tell anyone, but a couple of them are empty!

The ink storage rack was a found item that OH gave me a while ago, I think it must have been for cassettes, but ink pads fit in it perfectly, well not the LLB ones, but they dried up so quickly I will not be getting any more of them!

I did find a couple of things that I had forgotten about, a naked perpetual calendar, might be time to do something with that, and some wooden cogs (why did I want those?)

Harrogate

I have had a fantastic couple of days in Harrogate at Art from the Heart. Two workshops with

Claudine Hellmuth

Mad Friend phoned and asked me if I wanted to go, silly question me thinks, and after she got her hearing back from me squealing in her ear, she managed to book us two places, quite a feat as places were sold out in about 6 minutes!

We were held up for two hours on the tarmac at Belfast due to fog in Leeds/Bradford airport, so a long wait with nothing to read did not improve my humour, especially as on the way through baggage control, you know the bit where you have to remove everything that is protecting you from the elements only to be told that they do not know why the darned machine is STILL bleeping when you go through it and would you mind having a full body search? STILL not to find anything and being allowed to get on the plane anyway! Those people, yes, I am NOT impressed with them, they managed to give my handmade brooch away to someone else, who apparently looked at it, said it was not hers and walk off with it anyway! May plagues fall on her head!

Anyway, arrive we did and headed off to stash our cases and troll off into Harrogate. What a town! Architecture, shops, people and Betty's!

I cheated and had coffee, but it is great in there, someone every tourist should go to ........ once lol

Dyan did us all proud, tea/coffee and crumpets/pikelets in the morning, a gorgeous pasta dish for lunch and again later, coffee/tea and homemade cake courtesy of Pat (I think) in the afternoon. How scrummy is that!

Hmmmmmmm enough of the food :) The first day's workshop was the Collage Discovery workshop, background techniques and transfer methods. Brilliant! Messing with paints has to be THE most fun. There was a lot of laughter too over English v American words, especially popsicle/lolly sticks, the others were just a tad too risqué for blog land, I know how sensitive you all are ;)

What is it about button baskets that has us all, even Claudia, grubbing around in them like children? Perhaps that is exactly what it is, remembrances of childhood, and Granny's button tin?

Snowing ..... again

Not a lot admittedly, but enough to make it not a nice day to go out. This is what we woke up to this morning. A nice sprinkling that has frozen overnight :(

I had been wanting to go into town today, but the effort it will take just is not worth the effort of clearing, so I am going to put the heating on, grab the lap top and a dvd and go out to my workroom and probably sulk. When I have done that, about 2.5 minutes (I don't do sulking very well!) I am going to have a Valentine's card making session.

It is No 1 Son's Birthday today, so Happy Birthday Son x x. Of course he will not read this, and I cannot say it to him personally as he is away with his Girlfriend, what newly 30 year old wants his Mother along for the ride? Well, not yet 30 as officially he is not 30 until 4.40 this afternoon.