A Happy New Year to you all....

Firstly, I hope all of you out there in Blogland have a happy, healthy and productive New Year - may you get all that you are hoping for.

The above is a necklace that has been in my mind for weeks now, since first seeing these fabulous vintage zebra charms from My Vintage Charms and since being given the very special hand-made zebra patterned glass bead by Laura Sparling. Check out Laura's work, she is one very talented lady! It's a very simple piece as I feel the bead and charm should be left to speak for themselves, so I have hung them on gold-plated wire with black seed beads and the whole thing is just below choker length. If you feel you would like this for yourself, please contact me.


I was just playing with some of my new Greek beads after finishing the zebra necklace and came up with a little suede thong and ribbon necklace, using porcelain birds and soft blue wooden beads. These little birds are so cute and I can think of all sorts of ways to use them - earrings, I think next! This one is £12 + p&p

Have a good New Year's Eve - don't drink too, too much!

...He's not stopping....

Just a quick little felt cat (who just will not be photographed well because he's black) that I whizzed up last night as a last minute birthday gift for one of my son's friends. Don't you just love being given these things to do with less than 24 hours to spare? Hope she likes him!

Still not got to do any beading - aaargh! I'm very concious of having less than a week left of the school holiday until I go back to work and while I am achieving some things (the painting is flying along thank goodness!) the rest of it has had to take a back seat due to the season and unexpected events - who else has managed to break the oven two days after Christmas? We did find a local spares shop open - lucky,lucky - and my partner spent nearly an hour last night fitting the new element and then not understanding why it kept blowing the fuses again.....well, it helps if you re-wire the main cable wires in the correct order! Poor chap, it was late and he was tired - and it did give me a chance to be smug for a short while when I noticed the problem, which doesn't often happen with anything technical!

Little Felt Bugs!

The above are two little felt bugs made with patterns from my new Japanese Nuigurumi book. I started with the little winged ant/glow worm as it is one of my favourite of the designs, and followed with the simple little worm. Using my new daylight lamp, it makes sewing on the sofa so much easier - and quicker! I don't know which creature to make next, especially as there are also a lot of new beads to be played with.....choices, choices!

It's Boxing Day - Hooray!

Thank goodness that's all over for another year! Am I the only person that prefers Boxing Day to Christmas Day? Although yesterday was actually very nice indeed, I like today when I don't have to cook, I don't have to worry about what's been forgotten and best of all, I can sit and play with my new presents!
I was given some excellent gifts, a selection of which is above (no, not the tatty-looking sleepy dog, he's been mine for a very long time...) and I can't wait to get cracking on 'making stuff'! Somehow, my family all got it right this year for which I'm really grateful - no soap or candles, hooray!! The beads and fabric flowers are from my sister in Athens; my son unwittingly bought me the very book I have been hankering after for months from Japan; and my eldest brother, bless him, bought me Mr. Funky's Super Crochet Wonderful - if he went in a shop and asked for that, I wish I'd been there! My super-wonderful partner gave me a clip on daylight lamp so I don't have to go blind while crafting in the evenings, and my other brother gave me a double Led Zep album - excellent!
After three hours in the kitchen and half an hour on the table, this is what's left - sorry to those of you suffering from weak stomachs today! Foolishly, I watched this year's Jamie Oliver Christmas special and felt really inspired to try a lot of his tips for the Christmas lunch. Well, one and a half hours in to the cooking, I was regretting this decision with a vengeance! The chestnuts I bought for the sprouts were mainly rotten and most were thrown away, I overboiled the damn potatoes and parsnips 'cos I got sidetracked , didn't have enough rings on which to cook the veg, cranberry sauce (yes, I make my own - what an idiot...), bread sauce (packet!), gravy; it took two of us to manhandle the turkey on to a platter to be carved - at one point my son was hanging on to it for dear life as it slipped floorwards....
But it was all ready at the same time, was delicious and we staggered round a token dog walk afterwards encased in a rosy glow from the beer, bottle of Merlot and over-brandied Christmas pudding - we like to see it flame, so my partner set fire to it twice!

Today it is Bubble and Squeak for lunch - for those of you uninitiated, that means mashing all the leftover vegetables and stuffing in a large bowl, adding some caramelised onions and frying the lot til it's crispy (and bubbling and squeaking) - yum!

And finally - I don't normally do this - here is the half-finished painting I have been working on over the past few weeks. As the prospective owners have had their preview, I feel I can give the rest of you a peek too. This is such FUN to paint and my only gripe is that with getting ready for Christmas I didn't get as much time to do it as I'd have liked. So I repeat, it's Boxing Day - hooray!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Here's a very little monkey who appeared yesterday - got a new Amigurumi booklet from E-Bay last week and this is the first chance I've had to try out one of the patterns. They are not authentic Japanese, but there are some cute ideas in there anyway.

So who is ready for Christmas? Well, me pretty much! All I have left to do is buy one more present, wrap everything and defrost the turkey. Before you jeer and throw sprouts at me, this is a first in our household - I'm usually panicking round about now and getting in a right old strop at everyone and everything. I'm not too sure how it happened this year, especially with working and various other art'n'craft commitments at the moment - maybe I'm just getting better organised in my old age! (Or my standards are slipping....)

This is probably the last post (sound of a bugle??) until after Christmas, so I'd like to wish all of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a bright and fulfilling New Year. Thank you to all of you who pop by here with your kind and encouraging comments, and a double thank you to those of you who buy what I make!

Giraffes & Zebras

At last, the giraffes and zebras I keep on about! After clearing up my huge pile of crafting supplies, which have been cluttering up the kitchen for months, in order for us to be able to sit down to eat our Christmas dinner next week, I then got half of it out again to get started on these. To start with, as the charms come in left and right sets, it seemed a good idea to make earrings. As the charms are quite large, a lot of the beads I had set aside to be used with them are too much, so these are quite small and simple. The giraffes have a little amber lampwork bead each and are on gold wire. The zebras have three faceted black glass beads, and are also on gold findings. Each pair is £10 + P&P

Anyone who loves these charms as much as I do should visit My Vintage Charms - Emma has a huge selection of vintage and kitsch charms.

Chunky Waistcoat

On my birthday we went to Eastleigh for shopping (got a great full length waterproof coat with hood for walking the hounds - thus guaranteeing that we won't have any more rain this winter...) and whilst there we popped into Lydll. Now you wouldn't think in a grocery-centred store you would find yarn, but I did - a pack of six balls of chunky navy wool and a No.8 circular needle for £6.99 - woohoo! Never one to pass up a bargain, bought it, knitted it and the above is the result.
It's an asymmetrical waistcoat with a large side trimmed with a tassel to be flung over one's shoulder in a rakish manner and thus covering your front; a patterned smaller side, and the back has an inverted v shape hemline and a chunky cable up the centre. I am so pleased with this - it was a pattern hidden away in an old magazine and didn't look like much in the yarn they used. The added bonus is that when I ironed and shaped it, I discovered (by the smell of old sheep!) that it was also pure wool - what a bonus!

So I'm off to swan around at work (last day of term - thank the Lord!) in my new knitting....