Christmas card re-uses

I do like Christmas cards - probably more so after Christmas than before!

I find it very satisfying to re-use them by making them into gift tags.

This time I've done them in a Mini-Moo-inspired style. The back is left blank to write on.

Love 'em!

Chilled out

TWO whole days off school because of snow? Unheard of here in Cornwall! But when fingers and toes need to warm up, out come the face paints..

New Year, New Sale section

As part of my New Year etsy shop update, I've created a brand new SALE section!

It includes various different handcrafted items from my older stock at bargain prices - take a peek!

The old and the new

So... 2010! Another year whizzed past again. A quick round up..

I did manage to grow my nails this year - and after 33 years of biting them I'm rather pleased with my achievement. Heaven only knows why it took me this long to get around to it.

We did get the extension started - and continued much further than anticipated, despite several major problems unearthed (literally!) and rectified along the way. Our daughters moved into their new bedrooms in August, and we are really happy with it all. The main lesson learned - expect the unexpected!

My etsy shop had the best year of sales so far - mainly because I dedicated much of my crafting time to it. It has a long way to go, but at least it's heading in the right direction.

I seem to have knitted quite a few pairs of socks last year-  mainly for my daughters. 2009 also saw the rebranding of my hand-dyed yarns to Perran Yarns, and the start of my knitting and crocheting necklaces.

On the family front, I gained a new niece - Sophie May, and we have another male family member due this March - my husband's cousin's baby.

I also managed to go down the death slide - a major achievement for somebody so scared of falling as me!

This blog was fairly consistently neglected throughout 2009! I really should try to do better this year. Really.

So what am I expecting from 2010?

Well I really do want to change the shape of my midriff. I don't really care what the numbers on the scales say. I just want to be more happy with my shape. That means one thing - exercise!

I would also like to cope with our hectic daily life with a little more ease and less stress. This may in turn improve the dyshidrotic eczema on my fingers - hopefully.

And this year, definately, we are going to spend more time on the beach - after all it's only 2 miles away!

AWOL

Oops, I seem to have gone missing for a while. Been busy dealing with winter bugs, celebrating eldest DD's 11th birthday and preparing for a lovely family Christmas. Should quieten down a little just before New Year - maybe.. Merry Christmas everyone!

This week made me say...

Pardon? Our local chemist now delivers prescriptions to our village pub for us to collect if we want! Very useful - the pub is less than 2 minutes walk from us.

Eeek! The high winds this week were scary - they whipped up our gas barbecue which broke two of our roof ridge tiles! Thankfully the tiles were spares, on the floor - and the barbecue and gas bottle weren't damaged.

Mmm... I bought some mini fizzing bath melts from Etsy seller
mmmmhandmadesoap - so cute - a fab and affordable gift!

A day at the Fair

Last Saturday I had a stall at a local Craft Fair, and we had a great day!

It's a well-established event - well organised and attended, with over 100 stalls.

My eldest DD came along to help, and was very keen to run the stall by herself whilst I went off to browse the other stalls. She did very well too! We made quite a few sales, which is really encouraging.

The necklace display stands from Boo's Jewellery templates worked really well. I learned a few more lessons too:

• My items need more labels - a pull-on cowl is obvious to me as I made it but I had lots of people asking what it was
• I need to get a better-looking piece of fabric to cover the table with - I may invest in a length of black velvet for the next fair
• My own invention of the hand display stands for my fingerless gloves worked well
• Using our bathroom cabinet without the drawers worked well to add height
• Some kind of backdrop would help to focus attention on the items on the table rather than whatever is behind it.

More thinking to do for the next one then...

Winter weddings

Tada! Here's my latest addition to my Etsy shop - and it made me very happy to make them!

Not that I'm going to a winter wedding or even know any winter brides to give them to. I just really enjoyed making them.

The Sublime Angora Merino yarn is just that - sublime to touch. I adore this stitch pattern and they are a quick knit.

I spent quite a while handsewing on the 130 glass seed beads but, strangely enough for me, I enjoyed doing that too!

I even liked staging the photographs as I had remembered that I still have my own wedding outfit pieces. I found them out, fondly looked through them, and decided to use my veil as the background. Quite romantic I think!

Alison from AMIDesigns must have been thinking along the same lines as she has just listed this beautiful bracelet too.

Gorgeous!

A November Sunset

I was very happy to receive a message on Etsy from Caitlin tonight saying that she has included me in her treasury - A November Sunset - yay!

It is a beautiful selection; those colours are gorgeous and perfect for this time of year. Dark, rich, warm, and comforting.

Caitlin has very kindly included my Regal Bounty hand-dyed laceweight merino yarn.

You may want to take a look at Caitlin's shop too - she has some absolutely gorgeous crochet snowflakes for sale.

Thanks Caitlin!

The high..

The last few days have been quite a rollercoaster, starting with a high on Saturday - literally, terrifyingly high!

We went out to a huge local indoor play area as the weather wasn't very good and the kids needed to burn off some energy. Whilst there I was being nagged by our daughters (as usual) to try out the death drop slide (a vertical drop to start with, then a curve to slow you down at the bottom) which they go on regularly. I decided I would give it a go - despite being absolutely terrified of falling from heights all my life.

I went to the top of the lowest slide - about 36 feet up with a bump in the middle so it's not so bad - with my two DDs. That may not seem much for most people but I get electric shocks through my hands and feet even thinking of going up high or looking at high-up scenes on the TV!

I sat at the top and could barely get my legs over as I was so terrified. Youngest DD went down the slide and waited at the bottom with DH, and eldest DD sat with me at the top. My whole body was shaking with fear and according to DH I was hyperventilating - visible to him on the ground!

Eventually I forced my body to work, started babbling to myself about it being safe etc, and lurched forward.

I have no recollection of going down as it was so fast, but when I got to the bottom I lay there and started to cry! I had done it! I never in my life thought I would be able to do that.

My family were so happy for me, hugging, laughing etc, whilst I wiped away my tears. I had to wait for a few minutes to calm down - I was still shaking so much I couldn't hold my coffee without spilling it!

The other adults in the place must have thought I was insane, but I don't care. I did it!

Sock disaster

Warning sock knitters....

If you are of a nervous disposition, avert your eyes now - graphic scenes of sock disaster coming up...

There - I told you it was nasty didn't I?

The most enormous hole in my beloved Tidal Wave cashmere socks in place of where the heel was when I put them on - and the same in the other one too!

This calls for some serious investigation into repairs.. watch this space..

Wedgewood Blue

I love wedgewood blue plates. They remind me of being at my grandmother's house when I was a child. The colours of my latest Etsy listing remind me of that plate!

I handknitted this scarf from 3 balls of variegated blue cotton yarn. That's all I had of it in my stash and I wanted to make something special with it.

I chose a lovely eyelet ripple pattern which highlighted the colour changes without giving solid stripes.

The eyelets meant I could thread ribbons through easily too. I took the scarf with me to my local haberdashery and got the perfect matching shades.

It took me ages to get around to threading the ribbons! I never quite felt like doing it, but once I did it hardly took any time at all.

I love the finished look. What do you think?

Oh yes.. knitting!

Yes, that is what I used to blog about isn't it - knitting and crochet projects?!

Well I think it's about time I showed some more progress..

A few days ago I sold the gorgeous cranberry  hand/wristwarmers which were one of my absolute favourite knits.

The yarn is Sublime Angora Merino DK - so very luxurious, like melted butter on the skin!

I love the Sublime yarns and therefore I happen to have more of this yarn - in a very pale cream shade (linen) and a rich deep purple (berry).

Of course I had to make more fabulous wristies with it.

They are a quick knit, with enough interest in the lace hand-covering part to keep them interesting. I'm modifying the edging slightly on this pair - the last one was good but a little longer than I wanted.

A current crochet project (note "a" not "the" - I like to have choices!) is a set of coasters for a family member for Christmas.

They are in her favourite colours of Rowan Linen Drape - lilac and purple.

The yarn is giving a lovely crisp stitch texture but should have the absorbancy I like of these coasters.

I seem to be almost following a colour scheme through my projects for now!

Halloween happenings

The first of the Falmouth Craft Fairs is now done, and unfortunately only resulted in one small sale so the day ended as a financial loss.

However it wasn't all well as I did learn something - the necklace stands from Boo Jewellery certainly created interest, so I'd like to come up with display stands for my cowls and gloves too. I have a few ideas to play with - more soon!

I also bought my first Christmas present for this year! It's a really lovely felt flower mobile made by the fair's organiser Amanda from her stand Lemon Sherbet. I love it and intend to give it to my adorable newest for Christmas.

After the fair we went to a Halloween Party at my in-laws' house - great fun!

We played mummy wrapping and marshamallow bobbing, and had lots of great food.

I think the preparation for Halloween parties is as good as the evening itself - pumpkin carving and baking. Now I really must use a pumpkin for soup!

Boo!

I have struggled to find an inexpensive but effective way to display my crochet necklaces for a while. I purchased some bust displays from ebay only to find they are tiny and not at all useful for my long necklaces.

During my Etsy wanders, I stumbled across Boo Jewellery and her blog, where there are several very useful tutorials. One of them is a tried and tested necklace display stand template has been developed and is freely available for all to use.

I first tried it on thick mounting card and found that it didn't work (the bottom flaps to stand it up broke off as the card was too thick to be flexible). Then I read the note about not needing thick card!

This time I've used a pack of A4 240gsm silver card - 99p for 4 sheets. I enlarged the template a little to get one stand instead of two from a sheet of A4, to accommodate the length of my crochet necklaces.


Here's the result in very little time - great! I'll be using these at the Local Crafts and Gift Market I'm doing in Falmouth on Halloween.


Thanks Boo for sharing your experience and template - I can recommend it.

Moo!

I recently received my order of Mini Moo cards and I'm really pleased with them!

The pictures have turned out really well, and the design is clean and modern, as I hoped.

I'm busy hole-punching lots of them to use as tags on my items for the upcoming Craft Market in Falmouth.

We may be well into autumn, but today has been stunning.

After a very blustery night, the clouds left us with a beautiful blue sky and brilliant sunshine to show off the seasonal plants.

Gorgeous!

October treasury

I made it to another treasury on Etsy - yay! See my Red Heart Handknit Handwarmers at the bottom left. :)

I'm busy preparing for the Halloween Craft Market, although not getting too much time as youngest DD is not well - flu-ey symptoms, lots of inhaler needed as she's asthmatic, etc... Hopefully she'll fight it off quickly.

Free worldwide shipping

..this weekend on all items in my Etsy shop!

Oh and here's the other hand-dyed wool/silk/bamboo I did last weekend - Denim Daze:

Mmmm, sheeeny... 

Some news too - I'm doing a craft market in Falmouth on 31st October - woohoo! It's in the WI Hall in Webber Street (behind Tesco's) - come and see me if you can!

Groovin'

My youngest daughter and I had some "us" time together at the weekend, and she decided that we should dye yarn! Not a bad choice for an 8yo...

This was the result - the fabulous Groover superwash wool/silk/bamboo fingering/4ply/sock yarn which I just listed in my Etsy shop. Those colours sure do groove!

Makeover time

Time for a blog makeover! I'm not 100% satisfied with it yet but it's a start. I still don't seem to be able to get away from the pink yet though.

Now time for bed. Late. Tired. Poorly little finger. Ow!