WOYWW 528

MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE....

I've had a lovely few days - yep. it's been busy again but with lovely things like visiting both of my brothers and seeing family. Back to the grindstone this week!

This is the evidence of trying to do too many things at once! You'd think I'd learn, wouldn't you?! The ever present barn dance bunting is still being made a few metres at a time. I'm into a rhythm with that now - it's quite Zen doing it because it requires no thought whatsoever. The coloured flags have already been sorted out so it's simply a case of picking a few up and zig-zagging them onto the tape. 

The clear box at the back holds a multitude of sins...zips, elastic. pom pom makers etc etc - it's extremely useful but a bit of a mess. I've been making glasses cases out of the new doggy fabric and am making another couple. The cardboard templates are for an idea of something to make for the RNLI craft stall at the Raft Race on the 27th July.

I do like this fabric very much - I'd like to put a black with white spot lining in but don't have any. A trip out is in order possibly ;-)  These have sold well down at the harbour cafe.

My brother and SiL took G and I to visit Brockhampton House in Worcestershire. It's a small timbered manor house with an incredibly long history. It was a really marvellous place, very warm and welcoming in feel, very different to some stately homes. The front was covered in the most glorious red roses and also house martin nests. It was fun watching the parents swooping in with beaks full of bugs and hearing the chirpy cheeps of the babies in the nests!

One of those buildings where you can feel the weight of history.

It had a moat and a small gatehouse, which was used as a chicken coop by the last tenant in the 50s!! There were huge dragonflies and moorhen chicks, so pretty.

And some more crafting in the house:

Samplers always get me - feeling that connection down the years with another girl. This isn't the earliest I've seen but it was in amazing condition. I think young Alice caught the woodland animals perfectly. don't you? It made me smile especially the squirrels' tails!!

Have a great week xxxxxx

WOYWW 527

THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES...

I'm simply not going to comment on how quickly this last week has gone...so there!

The desk:

There's some new fabric nearest us - replacement sausage dog and then a new half metre of the Scottie dog...both off ebay. See that heap of yellow cotton tape? There's 25m of it but it doesn't look anything that much. I'm making a whole heap of bunting for the WI Barn dance in September, and thought I'd do it in odd moments.

Doggy related things seem to be the best sellers down in the cafe so I thought this was worth a shot. I've just remembered that I've got a grey with white hearts cotton somewhere, must dig it out as it'll be a great lining!

Another desk last week was the WI craft club:

A smaller group gathered to do decoupatch decoration on bottles..we had a good selection of wine/gin bottles of differing shapes. It was a hard job drinking the contents but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do ;-)  I only took two bottles for your information!! There was mod podge and napkins, so you chose what you liked and got gently ripping and sticking. This was Janet's example:

The 'cork' was attached to fairy lights in the bottle, it looked really sweet. I forgot to take a photo of mine, it's upstairs in the JanCave so will show you next week ) if I remember....!

I was out with different bands three times over the weekend, so instead of being a Brass Widower, G took himself off to the Wales Air Show in Swansea - he had a grand day, lots of amazing planes to watch but the favourites, as always, were the Red Arrows.

They always get such a great response..

Good pics huh? It's a happy coincidence that this week's topic in the 52 week photo challenge is Trains, Planes and Automobiles!!

Have a good week and keeeeeeep crafting :-)

WOYWW 526

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, A LITTLE BIT OF THAT....

Lots of crafting to share this week! It started off well when we made £100 on the craft fair last Wednesday - thanks to Annie (Wipso) and Debbie Rock for their contributions. The RNLI girls are doing another stall at the town carnival this Saturday, unfortunately I can't help as I'm elsewhere playing with my band. Let's hope we raise some more

This is going a way towards the total too:

Yet more specs cases and little purses as the Harbour Lights sold all the previous stock!  This is the last of the Sausage Dog fabric, I've got a lot of things made from the original metre. I thought this would be the last five cases but my mate Helen pointed me to an Ebay site selling it - woohoo!

With an appropriate lining!

And others in the fabric I bought in Shrewsbury while up for the Crop. I'm very pleased to tell you that the current total raised for the RNLI is £140. Not bad eh?

I was going to cut out some more bunting (am making metres of the stuff for a WI Barn Dance in September) and found this remnant of a tablecloth I got from a charity shop:

And decided that it was just too nice to use for its intended purpose...

So I made a tote bag as a shed warming present for Mary, a friend! It's a very high end shed, got wallpaper and everything but it's at the top of a very steep garden. I thought she could put things in the bag to carry up the 45 degree slope!

The climb is worth it though, this is her view:

Looking over the town and harbour to the Gower peninsula. Good eh?

Hope you have a marvellous week, whether it involves crafting or not!! xxxxxxxx

WOYWW 525

WILLING TO BE A SHELTER IN A STORM

YOUR WILLOW, OH WILLOW, WHEN THE SUN IS OUT

Goodness but I've got a lot to share this week - apologies for that and also for being terrible at replying to comments last week. Sorry, I'm usually really good but life just happened, if ya know what I mean! I promise to be better.....

The desk (No 1)

I'm doing a school summer fair this afternoon in selling crafts in aid of the RNLI - I'm taking that huge box of items that you gave me, Wipso, and am adding a few odds and sods of my own. 

Yesterday was Yarn Day at the WI meeting with a talk on Fleece to Shop and a knitted/crocheted item for the competition. I had an idea inspired by Twiglet's little dragon, so here's Desk No 2:

Obvious what it's going to be eh?! I didn't have a pattern for the tea cosy so got my pot and made it up. There was a cross stitch chart for the Welsh flag online so I copied that onto paper....

With the addition of three pom poms and a crocheted edge to the flag. Ta -da!!

OK desk stuff finishes here but craft stuff continues...sort of. The boys and I went on a road trip last Friday to Cardigan. We stopped at Cilgerran Castle (NT) which was amazing. There was a fantastic figure of Sir William Marshal made out of willow, so clever.

The maker had used different colours of willow with different weaves to create the effect of armour etc.

Here's a 6'3 son for scale! 

You can see a face and emblem on the chest - so clever!

Then we carried on to Cardigan - it's a very old market town on the coast with a really interesting history. I'm going to go back because we didn't cover half the ground we wanted to...

The market was a real surprise - talking to the fabric stall lady, it's the only purpose built historical market in Wales. It reminded me of the mosque/church in Cordoba with all the arches. You could see where the original cattle stalls would have been.

The lady in blue was very interesting to talk to and explained that the market group are trying to get funding to repair the fabric of the building.

Oooh, there was lots to see....

And many different shops to tempt me!! I was restrained.......

It's a two storey building, the upstairs wasn't as good as downstairs but there were more sculptures made of willow....

Aren't they wonderful? Cardigan Bay is a brilliant place to see dolphins, basking sharks, the odd whale, sunfish...all sorts come across the Atlantic. You don't even have to go out in a boat. At Newquay (Cardiganshire rather than Cornwall) you can stand on the harbour and watch the dolphins off the coast.  

I'd have liked the willow dolphins for my home or garden but couldn't fit them in my back pack!!

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WOYWW 524

BLUE, BLUE HEART, YELLOW GINGHAM DRESS

YOU PLEDGED TO ME YOUR TRUE HEART, FORSAKING ALL THE REST.

I was determined not to start off with 'where did the time go?' or 'Who stole the week?' but honestly, where did it go and who stole it?? It's been a time of getting back into the normal swing of things after the holidays and visitors - we haven't had as much rain as many of you have (I know, amazing for Wales, huh?) but even so, we came back to this:

Everything's just gone whoosh and shot up - all you can hear is buzzing from the bees on all the plants. I'm really pleased with it, now all we need is some nicer weather to sit out in it!

The desk has seen a fair bit of action too:

Lots and lots of bunting flags ready to sew onto tape for a barn dance that I'm helping to organise for the WI in Sept. I know it's only June but there's metres and metres to sew, so I shall do it bit by bit.

I bought a metre each of 7 different colourways and cut cannily in order to maximise the triangle-osity of it!

I've also dived into the fabric brought in Shrewsbury - the Harbour Lights cafe had sold out of everything I'd put down there, so I'm having a quick make and restock. I like both these fabrics, they're fun! In the background is an ATC from Kelly that arrived a couple of days ago, thank you, Kelly, it's great fun! I've got a feeling that I promised to swap with someone and have forgotten who - if it's you, please remind me, pretty please!

When I was laying out items for the bunting, I put the two reels of tape on the table and:

Well, it's just gotta be done, lol! Hope it made you smile too - have a great week! I may be late in returning comments as I have a friend staying for a couple of days, but I will be back!

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WOYWW 523

YOU'VE GOT TO FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED...

The Crop and week away in Shropshire seems almost like a distant memory now!

I unpacked all the stuff that had been given to me (huge thanks to Wipso, Neet and Shaz) and had a sort out before putting it away. The fabrics that I bought are already on the desk as I know the cafe is running low on the stuff I make to sell there.

No stroking of new stash for me, straight in there with the scissors!

I picked the yellow lining in the end....

All the ATCs and little gifts from everyone are now on the Shelves of Shame! I did have a lovely time really admiring them before sticking them up.

And this was seen in person by a surprise visitor!

Catriona and Norrie had bought their camper van and were staying in the local park, it was lovely to see them again and have a proper chat. They'd been down the RNLI shop beforehand and Catriona very kindly bought some glasses cases off me with all the money going to the charity. Hope you had a safe journey back Catriona xx

The crafting-on-the-sofa project is the crochet that I took with me to the Crop (and didn't do a stitch...)  Well, it has grown a bit since then...

Now I've learned to crochet a bit looser, I'm actually enjoying working with this Caron yarn, the seaside colours are quite relaxing. I did think about doing a waves pattern but you have to count stitches all the time and this version is mindless - if ya know what I mean. Empty head space, don't have to think crafting!

To end with (I feel I can't say And Finally now, as that's Shaz's line, lol!!) here is a lovely pic that G took of a busy bee on the laburnham arch at the cottage we were staying at:

Hard at work gathering lots of pollen!  I hear that there have been murmurs about a Shrewsbury crop next year - if so, we may well book the cottage again, it was fantastic and we had a good rest there as well as doing some touristy stuff. The drive back through mid-Wales was stunning, it's a beautiful part of the world.

Hope you have a good crafty week, enjoy whatever it is you're getting up to!

WOYWW 522

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS....

Hello everyone! If you are wanting to see the photos from the Crop, then scroll on down to the previous post. Be warned, there's quite a few so have a coffee/tea/beverage of your choice to hand!

It was such a wonderful day but I sort of knew that I wouldn't get a chance to really sit and chat to Wipso and Twiglet, as they'd be busy running the day. So I contacted them previously and invited them over for lunch and crafting on the following Monday, while G took himself off to Ironbridge.

So here are the two wonderful ladies, without whom the Crop wouldn't have been such a huge success!

Yay, happily having a furtle through the bags of stash that Neet and Shaz had donated to us. (We took quite a lot between us!)  Cups of coffee, lots of chatting, we had a really good catch up that didn't happen on the Saturday. Julia even joined us for a video call, she was drinking coffee too and wearing her tiara, lol!!!

We did a bit of crafting too - I got out the crochet that I took to the Crop but didn't touch!

The 3 Musketeers!! We had a lovely few hours, true friends xxx

Here are the ATCs and gifts that I garnered on the day, with a lovely embroidered book and bottle of gin from Jo and Annie. Caro had brought these rather lovely little badges, mine's at the front - it's definitely going on my jacket. It was so lovely to meet Caro and Catriona for the first time as well and completely wonderful to sit and chat with so many friends.

G and I are staying in the area all week - the weather wasn't too clever yesterday, so we headed into Shrewsbury for a wander through the gorgeous streets and indulge in a little shopping....

Oh dear.....

The first fabric shop had obviously heard I was in town and put the barriers up before I got there....

But Abakhan was open :-D Yay!

So much fabric.....

...so little time......

I spent a happy half hour having a really good browse and ended up buying different fabrics that will be good for linings and inners, I've still got a fair bit of furnishing fabric for the outers. 

I got a metre of each because they'll last for ages.  I need to polish my halo because I kept out of the haberdashery section, having picked a lot of ribbons etc from Neet and Shaz's donation. I'm looking forward to getting home and having a play.

And G is an understanding soul, he even held the fabric rolls for me in the shop. We did have a lovely time!

As I'm away until the weekend (thanks for house and cat-sitting Rhys!) I may be late returning comments. Don't forget, the Crop photos are down below! 

Have a great week everyone xxxxx