WOYWW 503

IF THIS JOINT IS RAIDED

SOMEBODY GIVE ME SOME GIN

(by the marvellous Andy Fairweather Low, google it if you don't know it, brilliant track!)

I'm going for three in a row of short and sweet posts...there's been more time socialising than crafting this week!

I'm part way through making some more specs cases and tissue holders - I found out last Friday that the cafe down the harbour will sell these for me and put the money straight into the RNLI tin. Brilliant, I get to do the fun part of making and someone else does the selling - woohoo!

G and I were invited to a Burns Night last Saturday - a table of 11 were going, all mates from the WI plus partners. I knew there was some tartan fabric knocking about in my stash:

Aha - found it!  There was enough to cut into wide-ish strips to make me a sash. There was no finesse in the making, I'm afraid, just whizzing through turned over hems. As G is half Scottish, he was due something a little more special:

A Royal Stuart tartan waistcoat and very fine he looked too. I held my sash together with a pewter brooch that my friend Kate gave me years ago. It was a great evening with a proper pipe band, haggis and whisky. Oh and some dancing too - Dashing White Sergeant anyone?!      :-D

My niece visited this week as well and, good girl, brought me a little prezzy:

 Cute bottle, huh?! That's going to be upcycled into something soon.

Have a good week folks xx

WOYWW 502

YOU WILL FIND ME, TIME AFTER TIME...

After a sluggish start (craft-wise!) to the New Year, it's been all systems go this week. Archie's bunting was well received, which was rather nice and I was wondering what to do next when my knitting needles really ticked me off...as they do ;-)  They're in a gigantic bag where you have to get them all out to find a pair and this annoyed me, so I thought I'd make myself a knitting needle roll.

You might want to get yourself a coffee/tea/drink of choice...there's a few pics.

I searched around and found this pretty fabric featuring sewing machines and all things crafty (Wipso, did you give this to me?) and a pretty purple spotty for the lining.

Making things up as I go along....dum-di-dum...attaching the lace to the top of the needle holdery bit.

Attaching the purple to the back panel and sewing in the tubes to hold the needles.

After sewing that to the main outer fabric, you then have to turn it all out the right way. It's at this point that you seriously start to wonder if it's going to be ok!

And then you find it isn't and so the seam ripper has to come out. I'd put on the flap the wrong way round!! Sigh, even now, I should take time to stop and actually think what it is I'm supposed to be doing - luckily, it was easily remedied.

Et voila - needles all in order. No more rummaging and cursing for me :-D I know the tubes aren't all equal, but I don't care!

It's only me that's ever going to see it!

But that wasn't the only activity that's seen action on my desk this week...

G needed to take a photo of something to do with 'Time' for his weekly camera club competition. He'd had an idea of using my metronome and wanted the tuba and some music to add to the pic. So that's why there's my bass on a fabric covered chair on my workdesk...you don't see that very often huh?!  It all looks a bit random doesn't it?

This is the competition entry:

Beautiful - and with enough different times on that metronome to please the sternest contest judge. Photo judging is so incredibly subjective however, you just can't tell what'll please them....we shall see. It was fun creating the image anyway!

Have a great crafty week - I suspect I won't be showing you quite such a random desk next time but hey, you just never know!

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WOYWW 501

WORKING ON THE CHAIN GANG....

I very much enjoyed the 500 post celebration last week and it was nice to see a few more deskers joining in! Meeting up at Julia's Stamping Ground each week has become an important part of my life, Wednesdays will never be the same again :-D

Short and sweet this week but at least it does feature some makes!

A friend's grandson made his arrival on Christmas Day - so some bunting was needed. Archie is the the son of a bloke who I used to look after when he was a toddler and that has made me feel VERY OLD indeed #tempusfugit

So hopefully the new little family will like this little gift - I put in one of my drawstring bags as well.

The WI Craft club were around yesterday and it was Knit-a-square so that we can make blankets. I forgot to take any pics while they were here but this is the aftermath!

The leftover DK yarn, instructions and a few squares knitted by the lovely ladies. The chain gang lyrics at the top today refer to Dawn, who nobly volunteered to crochet the squares together - much to my relief as I detest sewing up! Garments, blankets, you name it, I hate sewing it up, lol!

Have a great week everyone and I look forward to visiting you over the next couple of days.

xxxx

WOYWW 500 - The Quincentenary

CONGRATULATIONS AND CELEBRATIONS...

What an achievement...500 posts! Congrats Julia on what must be one of the longest running blog-hops on the Interwebs. It's no mean feat keeping something going week after week for all this time and you have done it with humour, wit and the odd bit of procrastination ;-)  We've all said how wonderful it has been, this mad meeting of crafty minds - but my life has been enriched hugely by knowing these deskers, whose paths I otherwise wouldn't have crossed.

Thank you and here's to the next 500!!

The only crafty things on my desk this week, lol!  But i had fun doing it and that's the important thing!

It was a proper challenge but the Terry Pratchett jigsaw is completed (it took me six days). The poster of the picture was blutacked to a recent purchase, an artists' slope or easel as I intend to get back to some more art this year - I love drawing and painting and haven't done enough recently.

It's an important wish of mine for 2019 that I don't waste time on screen stuff (apart from the blog obvs!) there's a big long list (hah, Julia!!) in my mind of things I want to do.

Enjoying real life stuff - it's important. The stand and stare moments. And making the most of family and friends.

Wishing you all a Happy, healthy and fun filled 2019! xxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 499

TAKE TIME TO THANK, TO SHARE, TO LOVE....

Happy Christmas to you all, lovely WOYWWers and others who read but don't comment - thanks for stopping by this blog each week and reading my nonsense. It's week 499 of WOYWW! Congrats to Julia on a momentous 500th bloggyversary next week.

There is very little to share this week:

Yesterday morning before the unwrapping started! I did make those two stockings though as both boys are home, I had great fun using up some spare fleecy fabric - all the daft little knick knack presents went in them and I think the boys liked them!

Those who are in the know are aware that I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan - you can see a lot of his books on the bookshelves there - well, one of my presents was:

I'm a jigsaw fan too!

But this, I think, is going to take some time!!  Ah well, it'll keep me quiet (maybe that's why Gordon got it for me, lol!!)

And I shall leave you with one of the prezzies I got from Julia:

Love it!! That's going up on the JanCave wall straightaway :-D

And so, to all my dear digital/analogue friends, may I wish you a happy, healthy and fun-filled 2019. Here's to another year of desky shenanigans and wonderful friendship.

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WOYWW 498

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS.....

The last Wednesday before the main event! Thanks for all the wonderful support, comments and feedback this past twelve months - I can't believe how quickly it's gone and how much has been packed in :-D  Let's hope 2019 is a kinder, happier and healthy time for us all.

The desk hasn't seen much crafting:

but has been the wrapping station.

I bought some teeny prezzies for my WI mates, can't tell you what they are as I know some of the girls read this blog!  I enjoyed myself a lot playing with pretty tissue paper, twine and buttons.

One crafting achievement to show you though is:

I came second in all the points total for competitions in the group last year! It's a nice thing to have especially with the banner roundel at the top, which I was part of creating.

I shall leave you with a bit of retail therapy that I indulged in last week:

Isn't it gorgeous? I love Whitby and 50's style posters and the work of this artist, Georgina Westley, really floats my boat. Brilliant designs for a very reasonable cost. Check out her work. I'm pretty sure I shall have to get a couple more!!

Only four more playing events with my bands and then I shall be putting my feet up and indulging in a gin or two. Merry Christmas you lovely lot, hope you have a wonderful time xx

WOYWW 497

ON THE SECOND WEEK OF CHRISTMAS

MY CRAFTING WENT LIKE THIS......

(Many people asked if I was going to carry on the carol so it seemed a shame not to!)

On the sixth day of Christmas:

Pretty snow cones made by my WI buddy Gisela

On the seventh day of Christmas:

There HAD been seven biscuits on the plate at the WI craft club but two have been eaten by the girls!!

On the eighth day....

Two eight inch strips of red dotty fabric. But what am I making?? You'd never guess in a million years! All will be revealed later :-D

On the 9th day.....

A little forest of trees in our dining room (I'm counting the white ones as a unit so I can cheat the numbers, lol!!)

On the tenth of Christmas:

I made a couple of these tags in the WI group and put them onto cardstock - I enjoyed it so much I made some more and there's 10 of them - convenient huh?! Julia had donated some card blanks to me and I've used up a few.

On the 11th day of Christmas, up in the cave of Jan:

11 things necessary to make some bunting (the flags are counted as one unit of stash)

ON THE 12TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEE:

12 baubles on the wreath I made which is now gracing the front door!

And a son helping with the jigsaw-aw-aw-aw:

Owen popped home for the weekend as it was G's birthday - so good to see him!

Now then, you've forgotten about those red 8" strips, haven't you? Well, they became:

*DRUM ROLL*

An eye patch for a dog!!

Poor little Seren (Welsh for Star) had to have an eye removed because of glaucoma and while the wound has healed, her mum and dad (who are in band with me) asked if I could help. D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Back to a normal post next week! Well, as normal as it can be.......... ;-)