WOYWW 482

RIDING ALONG ON MY PUSHBIKE HONEY.....

Well, that was a crazy week, two separate lots of visitors within 6 days...the guest room bedding has never been so well washed!! But some crafting did get done, woohoo :-D

Here's the desk in the crafty aftermath:
Tangled cords and scraps of fabric waiting to be put away - my box file full of cardboard templates is on the left. They're supposedly sorted out into groups but that system doesn't last long....

I made some drawstring PE Bags to sell for the RNLI - 
I love this nautical fabric, it was part of a fat quarter bundle from Hobbycraft - my brother Steve saw it and thought it would be great for his dancing shoes. Old Twinkletoes does Ballroom and Jive dancing so it'll get used a lot. 

A demo shot with Steve's trainers sticking out - they do fit in, this was for artistic effect, lol!!

Then I used some of the Marvel Superheroes fabric:
This worked really well - I'm looking out for a craft show now.....or maybe Steve fancies another shoe bag!!

And another, using up some contrasting fabric:

My nephew, his wife and my 8 week old great-nephew came to stay as well and I thought the Marvel fabric would make a great bandanna bib:

Fun huh?! I used some towelling for the lining and another of those colourful poppers to fasten. This was so easy to make, I did another in the fishy fabric but forgot to take a pic of that. I also made Leo some bunting:

He's got a lot of lion stuff so I thought a seaside theme would be a bit different!

If you're interested, the Cycle Tour of Britain starts on Sunday at the Pembrey Country Park which is just down the road. TV coverage is on ITV4 at 10.45 - there should be some great shots of 'my' beach and the lovely countryside around. The council are pulling out all the stops to make the route look good, there are lots of green painted bikes around the villages at the moment with this outside the County Hall in Carmarthen itself:

It must be 10 metres tall! Perfect for the Jolly Green Giant, I should think :-D  So please don't call me on Sunday morning, I shall be glued to the screen!!

Have a great week!


WOYWW 481

I GET AROUND TO SINGING ABOUT
THAT GANG OF GIN I'M IN...

Hello lovely crafters - another mad whirlwind around the globe meeting up at Stamping Ground, where desks of all sorts are on display.

I was very late replying to comments last week as I'd been out for the whole day on my WI Trip....more of which later!

There's been quite a bit of crafting this week!

Oh it's so lovely to have my space back in action - just popping in for five minutes now and then (which always turns into half an hour, but that's another story!!) I've been making a few more small items for the RNLI....

Some more little purses - I may have to keep that hungry caterpillar fabric one on the right, it's just so cute!

...and some dog bandannas out of this very cute fabric which was given to me.....

plus these beauties.....

by my mate Helen! She is an old friend from Phoenix Brass band, who I used to play with in Wiltshire - she and hubby Simon and kids Samuel and Chloe came to stay for a couple of days. We managed to get a couple of hours crafting in when the weather was a bit inclement - Helen did a great job cutting out while I sewed. It was wonderful to catch up again as we hadn't seem each other for 18 months.

The kids had been crafting too and had made me these out of Hama beads:

Aren't they fab? They're in pride of place on the JanCave bookshelves now :-D

And what about the WI Trip I alluded to earlier? Well, it was classed as an 'Educational' trip and the first port of call was the Penderyn distillery tour...cough...

This makes me smile! It was 11.30am - well, it would have been rude not to have tried out some of the produce, don't you think?!

The rowdies at the back of the bus! Lol...I may have bought some whisky and gin.....after this we sobered up with some lunch and then went on the Brecon canal...there may have been some singing!! It was a fun day but I needed a rest after it....can't take the pace anymore......lol

Have a great week everybody, hope you enjoy your crafting!

WOYWW 480

WE WERE SAILING, SAILING, HEADED WHO KNOWS WHERE
AND NOW THOUGH WE'RE ALL HERE, WE'RE NOT ALL THERE....
(Muppet Treasure Island, suggestion courtesy of Rhys!)

Do you realise the WOYWW Crop 2018 is three weeks this Saturday? Blimey, that's come around quickly, I'd better get my act in order and sort a few things out!  I'm really looking forward to meeting up with some of you lovely folks and catching up on all the goss. G has been updating our photos on t'computer and only yesterday showed me the first ever crop in Burbage...quite a lot has happened since then. I still miss Janet Fairythoughts but wouldn't she be thrilled that we're all still friends and joining up to this bloggy-desky madness.

I've been pottering in the JanCave again this week:

Having bought some fat quarters from Hobbycraft recently (they were on a good offer) I had a go at making little coin purses. The instructions with the new snap popper kits were useless so a quick tutorial on YouTube got me sorted.

The purses are lined with a contrasting fabric and took less than ten minutes to make. I'm trying to think of small items to sell for the RNLI. The local group have to raise £40,000 this year as their contribution to the new boathouse/shop/offices down the harbour - every little helps as they say. The little lighthouse (top right) is a wooden lightpull, someone made it for the shop team to sell but as it's not official merchandise, they have to be by donation instead. So I got one for the Crop Raffle!

The fat quarter selection is rather lovely:


The patterns aren't too big so the fabrics are useful for smaller projects:

And I just HAD to get this combo - I'm thinking dog bandannas, bibs, PE bags - anything nautical goes well around here!

For example:


This quilt was made and donated to the RNLI station by Jean, the lady in the striped top on the RH side holding the quilt - she and other ladies from the North Curry Quilting Group in Somerset completed it together with the express aim of raising funds for the station. Jean's family were from the area and the RNLI had helped them in the past. The lady with the very cropped blonde hair (behind the quilt) is from Liverpool - she has raised £14,000 over the past few years after the Burry Port crew helped save her teenage son from drowning. 

It's an inspirational group to be part of and you can see why I'm making items for the fundraising. There were 26 call outs in July alone - it's the third busiest station in Wales - and all run by volunteers from the boat crew to the cake makers.

Have a great week everyone!


WOYWW 479

SILVER BELLS, SILVER BELLS....


Hi everyone, thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes last week - I had a fab day, with lots of beautiful cards and some awesome prezzies!

These two lovely pieces of glass are now on the JanCave windowsill - the beach huts are from Rhys and the little vase from my mate Helen, they're in the perfect spot to catch the light coming through the window.

My dear friend Lynne sent me these sashiko samplers and I treated myself to a snap popper kit with tools as I intend to make some little coin purses for the Stitch n Bitch fundraiser soon. The book is full of lined/gridded pages for you to design your own sashiko pattern and was from Lynne too. I started having a go:

and am enjoying it - it's like having a stitchy meander through fabric, there's no right or wrong way, just whatever you decide at the time. I'm glad I'm having a practise on this first before attacking the jacket (I'm not as brave as Marit, who did just that!)

I've done some other crafting too this week as being back in the JanCave is wonderful!

I had a long strip of the cute elephant fabric which was eked out with some linen from my stash to make two little drawstring bags....

...and I used some of the toppers that Elizabeth sent me to run up a few cards for the WI - they're very basic but I enjoyed making them!

Hopefully they'll raise a bit of cash!

But the thing that dominated the week was taking part in the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Cardiff. The brass band competition was held in the Millennium Centre, a magnificent building - I didn't get a pic of the outside but here's the auditorium:




What a venue to play at!! It was a great experience. We didn't win, our programme was very contemporary, maybe too much for the adjudicator but that doesn't matter, it was taking part with my brilliant bandmates that counted.

The ladies of Crwbin Silver Band, all lovely and great friends - we're a good team :-D

Have a great week everyone!

WOYWW 478

STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE....

Greetings, lovely crafters around the world - hope you're all well! It seems like no time at all since last week's post, I know we say it week after week, but where is all the time going -is there a crafting black hole in the time/space continuum?


The good news is that I'm back in the JanCave properly - woohoo! I know it doesn't look much different to before but there used to be a door where the bookshelves are, so quite a lot of plastering/painting/new skirting board attaching has been carried out! I tried various room layouts but felt that the old one worked the best. There are some paintings leaning against the wall ready to go up and I put my stained glass dolmen pic on the windowsill so the light can shine through.  On the desk is another doorstop...


Funky fabric huh?! I made this quickly on Sunday afternoon for the door at my bandroom - it gets very tropical in there with 26 people all blowing hot air, so we needed to keep the doors open and this did the job ok!  The fabric is quite tough and would make an excellent beach bag, don't you think?.


I got a couple more items for the sashiko from a small but perfectly formed website - Japan Crafts (go here for the link)  A lovely selection of fabrics, not too expensive that arrived really quickly, I was impressed with the service!  The charm pack is just right for some embellishing of the jacket sleeves and hem and the threads will add a bit of happiness too!  

I also got these - 0.5 metre of each:


No idea what I'll use these for but hopefully inspiration will strike!  It was good to use a small business too, I popped into Deb's Wool Shop in Llandeilo on Monday and she was saying how tough it is in retail at the moment. I've always tried to support independent businesses but it's even more important in these days of the Interwebs.

Both my lads are at home at the moment (lovely!) as it's my birthday today so not too much has got made but I will be getting down to sewing with a vengeance this week as I've offered to run a craft stall at the RNLI open day on 11th August and there's not much done as yet - so there may be a bit more to see next week..... fingers crossed :-D

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...