WOYWW 452

DID YOU EVER SEE A FLOWER GROW?

This is a photo heavy post today but there's quite a lot to share! It's been a fun week with visitors, lots of chatting, a nice meal out and some different crafting.

First, the desk:
There's a lot going on! The hare bag at the back was fun to make, I broke into some Virgin fabric and am determined that my stash is going to get some serious bashing this year. I found the fabric masterboards that were made a couple of months ago and am going to make a craft bag out of these two.

The bag turned out ok, the stripy fabric I bought from Dunelm went really well with it.

These need a good iron first! I've found a grey and white heart fabric for the lining and hopefully I have enough fusible fleece to iron on for extra oomph! I really do like the colours in this, it was a fun way to use up some odds and ends of fat quarters.

The generosity of deskers continues! Anesha (Crafting Queen) sent me these papers - they're brilliant and will cover a wide range of card topics. Thank you Anesha, I really appreciate you putting these my way - they'll be ever so useful!


But there was another desk this week! I'm making table decorations for the 1st Birthday party of my WI Group in February and Janet, the Treasurer said that she had some crafting bits and pieces and would like to help. So I tripped over to her place last week:

...and found that she has quite a lot of crafting stash too!! She likes scrapbooking and had a goodly supply of paper and equipment - we had a lovely afternoon drinking tea, chatting and making paper flowers!

Janet used her Cricut to make these flowers with some crinkled spotty tissue paper for the insides - they're so pretty!

Whereas I went for the concertina folding and then crinkling of tissue paper to make others - honestly, these were so simple to do but really effective (my sort of crafting!) There are many tutorials on Pinterest and Youtube if you fancy having a go. These were meant to be peonies....

..and these were smaller and looked like carnations.

Janet had a machine that you're probably all familiar with but was new to me - boy did I have fun making leaves!!
It's a bit like a tube of Pringles - once you pop, you can't stop :-D  I've bought florists wire and tape so these will be wired on together with a flower. We're using recycled tin cans with hessian wrap and ribbon to put the flowers in..I hope it works ok. I'll take a pic when we do them.

And that's why I have two boxes of pretty flowers on my sewing table. They make me smile!

Have a good week everyone xxxxx

WOYWW 451

THANK YOU JUST DOESN'T SEEM ENOUGH....

It's been a week of getting back to normal - well, as normal as is possible in this household!  When the weather has allowed, G and I have been walking more, trying to get our stamina back to pre-lurgy levels, I returned to both bands (and literally was all puffed out at the end of the rehearsal!) and we had a lovely family visit at the weekend. So, it's been a good seven days.

One of my WI friends became a great grandmother for the first time last week, so I thought I'd make some named bunting for her new GD. Anwen is a pretty Welsh name!

Pretty pastel colours make me smile :-D  It's all wrapped up now and ready to give to my friend Gwen at WI this afternoon.

Someone else on the desks was knitting with this yarn last week and it reminded me that I had a spare ball lurking in the stash so I've just started a new ribbed beanie. I always tend to make this style when the item is destined for charity as rib hats tend to fit most size heads. This is a win win project for me - I adore the bright colours and the chunky yarn knits up so quickly, which satisfies an impatient soul like myself!

I popped into the Range in Carmarthen a couple of days ago in order to buy some tissue paper for a project that I'll share next week. Of course, while I was there, a couple of 'essentials' also leapt into my basket :-D  The stripy box is to keep all my cardboard templates in order, the little bows get used a lot for personalised bunting and there is a roll of double sided sticky tape - my first ever - because I'll need it for the tissue project but also with these:

Some more crafty bits and pieces arrived through the post, courtesy of Annie C. I can't believe the amount she sent and am incredibly grateful. I know Annie was having a good clear out of her craftroom anyway but am still bowled over by her generosity. The WI will be having some amazing cards!! Janet, the Treasurer, is a scrapbooker so she is going to help me get started with making cards - we have a few crafty sessions to arrange!  Thank you Annie, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

WOYWWers are the BEST!! It's a fact.

Hope you all have a wonderful week xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 450 (150x3, 50x9, 90x5, 30x15, 45x10, 450x1, gosh, this is a good number to play with!!)

AN ACT OF KINDNESS IS WHAT YOU SHOW TO ME....

Sorry about breaking your heads with the WOYWW number in the title today!! Please feel free to add some more number calculations, I love 'em :-D

The song lyric today reflects the wonderful and generous nature of our lovely deskers! I became birthday card organiser for my WI recently (another thing I got 'volunteered' for...!) and wanted to cut down the cost of buying them. So Julia passed on some card blanks to me, then Shaz Silverwolf gave me some of the results of her clear-out and much much more:

Opening the jiffy bag was great fun but my goodness Shaz, you were generous, thank you so much for the thoughtful colour selections, something to please everybody. I'd better get some glue.....:-D  And the lovely Annie C said she'll post me some of her stash clearout too - wonderful and thank you so much. It will all be used!! Watch this space.....

My stash clearout continues too:

It's no good having fabric sit in the wardrobe huh? So I've got some out to have a little play with and see if I can pass some RAK love on into the universe.

Soft tones but nice to work with.

The knitting has continued too:

I've had this wool for AGES but never knew what to make with it. Then I found a Half Fisherman's Rib pattern (though which half I'll leave to your imagination!) It's easy to do, the perfect TV crafting.

Hope you have a wonderful week everyone and enjoy your crafting xxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 449

IF A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS....

FINALLY! I actually feel better today after nearly three weeks of being poorly - hooray! Even though the symptoms did go a bit last week, it's been the lack of energy that's been a b*&^%r. The only thing I felt like doing was a little light crafting!

Do you remember I'd been 'volunteered' onto the WI Banner committee? Well, one day, I just had the feeling that I should crack on with it.

Look at the state of that desk! I'd just pulled out various bits of fabric to see what was needed for the panel - the floor was even worse! And armed with interfacing and bondaweb, I just set to, thanking Wipso and Twiglet for their great lesson on 'how to' a couple of years ago. And it just all came together, nothing went awry - isn't it odd how some projects go swimmingly and others are like drawing teeth? This was the former.

The name of my WI (Womens' Institute) is Pembrey & Burry Port, encompassing the two communities that are situated side by side. The lighthouse is THE feature of Burry Port, it's quite a cute little building on the harbour.

The other building is St Illtyd's Church in Pembrey - it's an early 12th century building which has certainly seen some history, including me singing in the choir as a youngster, Gordon and I getting married there and both our boys being christened.

I left the church quite plain as the panel will be passed on to Belinda, who is going to do embroidered details and beading.

I added the black metalwork railings though!

Ta Dah!!

After embroidering etc, the panel will be sewn onto a blue banner and have coloured braid or cord sewn on to hide the raw edges. This is the first project I've ever attempted like this - I hope the ladies like it. 

I needed a little zippy bag in which to keep some of my banding stuff:

Love these colours - fresh and zingy - just what's needed to make me happy in these dull grey days.

Just a quick little make but it'll be very useful and save me rummaging around the bottom of my backpack to find important stuff! The pegs and magnets are for holding down music on my stand (believe me, the merest breath of wind will see your sheet music soar into the sky!), the Vaseline keeps my slides lubricated (Twiglet, I can hear you sniggering from here!) and the valve oil is brilliant for keeping everything working as it should. If only there was something similar for humans :-D

Sorry I've gone on a bit today but I enjoyed making the two items and wanted to share!

Have a good week xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 448

THE YEAR TURNS ANEW, 
ON THE SPINDLE OF YOUR LIFE.

I was genuinely sorry to miss posting in last week's WOYWW but I had the flu and wasn't well at all, The whole family had it over Christmas so it has been an enforced period of calm (apart from the coughing!)  Anyhow, it's the New Year's Edition this week and so I'd like to wish all the Deskers and any other readers the happiest and healthiest 2018 - may you have fun and adventures :-D

Believe it or not, I have done some crafting in the past couple of days, once I started to feel less grim.
I've added to the pile of beanies that are destined for my cousin's work with homeless people in Swansea, I've used my brand new Fiskars fabric scissors which were a prezzy (and awesome!!)  The Land Rover fabric is going to be a drawstring bag for my great-nephew Felix - I know, I don't look old enough to have a great-anything, do I? Lol!

Just thinking about the placement of a pocket - the same stripy fabric will be the lining of the bag as well.

I've had a little tidy of the shelves - wonder how long they'll stay that way?!

And had a first go at colouring with my Spectrum Noirs, another crafty prezzy! I've enjoyed using them a lot, such a difference from the normal felt tip pens I've had in the past. I always feel as if I'm wasting time when I sit down to colour, ridiculous really, but it's something I'm going to factor in more over the next year.

We bought some new bird feeders before Christmas, ones with cages so the jackdaws and magpies can't get at the middle. It's been a great success, we've enjoyed sitting in the kitchen watching the birds tuck in. I love all the little birds....
..but these long-tailed tits are adorable. Always in gangs, they chatter away as they attack the fat balls - so sweet!

And the robin is always around to hoover up the bits that fall to the ground! Honestly, it's better than watching tv :-)

Hope you've had a great festive season! May 2018 be a wonderful year xxxxxxx


WOYWW 769

 WE'LL MEET AGAIN.... I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while - please don't worry, all is ok! - think I just need a...