Lost Souls...

I enjoyed crocheting the first Lost Souls shawl (free pattern by Maryetta Roy) that I decided to make another on and had the perfect yarn in my stash.  This has been crocheted using a cotton yarn that starts off dark greay and gradually lightens as you go along - creates a great effect in this shawl!

This is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

 In other news, the air plant in the bathroom has flowered!  I usually manage to kill off my airplants but this one has not only survived but put out this interesting bloom.  I have been told that once they flower they die...but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Taking It Slow...

Well, the beginning of 2016 was so awful that I haven't felt very inspired of late.  However, as things slowly quiet down it has been possible to gently get back into the swing of things. I've had this picture of a turaco in mind for months, probably since the summer, and have finally got a spare week to get on with it.  I am using Derwent Coloursoft pencils - a huge set of 72 that I was given on my birthday.  They are indeed quite soft and took a while to get used to, but I am now getting the hang of them and realising they need to be built up with many layers to get the depth of colour I want, but it is worth the extra effort.  The slow pace has been great for de-stressing!

With the January sales going on in our town, I have found several knitting books going very cheap.  One had this fab hat pattern in it, which justified the whole £3 I spent on the book!  Quite complicated when you are not feeling 100%, but it turned out well - a present for my boy!

It's been a tad chilly this week -this was the edge of the pond yesterday where the fountain had gone off centre and sprayed the rocks.  Pretty!

Back to Work.....

After a few days hiatus over Christmas, looks like the work is starting to trickle in once again.  This pair of girly skull wristwarmers are a custom order, knitted in some nice nubby cream wool with cerise skulls.  As I made a slight error with the sizing on the first wristwarmer I made (not shown here) there will be another pair in my Etsy shop later this month.

This whale isn't work, it was just me testing out another little crochet pattern from the 75 Shells, Corals & Seacreatures book. 

Once the Christmas tree is down and the house is back in some kind of order, it will be nice to get back into a routine once again.  It's been fun having some much needed time off but too much inactivity is starting to pall!

I'm Still Standing......

.......having survived the apocalypse that never was. Must admit there is a very tiny piece of me that is just a little disappointed - now I'll have to cook Christmas dinner!  We had a hilarious present-opening frenzy at work yesterday half an hour before the end of the world was due, just in case we were going to be obliterated before Christmas!  It's raining heavily again today - perhaps the end of the world will come about as we all just quietly float out to sea......

Anyway, due to life carrying on, last night I finished these cozy wristwarmers which are a present for someone special who moaned incessantly last year about the tightness of the thumb-hole in the last pair I made. Ingrate! What's wrong with your thumbs turning blue?  These are my own design, so should fit perfectly.

Very frustrating time of year for creativity - I have a painting I want to start and it is in the back of my mind constantly but due to prepping for Christmas, I have not had any time to sit at my desk.  Hopefully in a few days there will be plenty of spare moments in which to get it down on paper before withdrawal symptoms start to drive me totally crazy!

A Bit of Skullduggery......

Some more last minute pieces as I received some larger skull and bone beads in the post yesterday.


A bead and thong necklace........


....a handbag dangle.......


...my personal favourite, a skull and bones bracelet........


...and a mini-skull and bead bracelet. These are all for sale at the Christmas fairs today - not very Christmassy I know, but I like to fly in the face of convention. If you see anything here that you fancy, let me know as even if I sell the above pieces, I can replicate them for you.

It's taken a week of very hard work, but I have everything priced and packed and ready to go - wish me luck!

Drop Dead Gorgeous....

Whilst in Salem on holiday, I bought 2 cute little Day of the Dead ceramic beads from a tiny pot on a shop counter, one for me and one for Sybille over on Magpie Magic. I made mine into a bracelet which I wear all the time and the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to make more jewellery with these beads. But where to find them......

Well, it took me over a fortnight of trawling through various sites that Google threw up, and poring through every 'skull bead' listing on Etsy and e-Bay and being thoroughly disappointed by what was on offer, before I finally found a new listing on e-Bay with the exact same beads. So I ordered a selection which arrived today. I know I get obsessive about certain themes, and Day of the Dead is the current fixation, but aren't these just the cutest things? Just the thing for phone charms, dangles, earrings, bracelets........can't wait to get started!