WOYWW 495

A SPACE ODDITY....

That's because there's lots of oddities filling the space this week!! You can't say my life is boring......

I finished off the little Christmas trees that were in pieces last week....

I stuck on lots of raffle tickets ending in 5 and 0 for the bottle stall I'm running in aid of the RNLI on Friday evening at the Christmas fair......

...and made 15 little wellies to hang on the RNLI decorated Christmas tree that will be in the window of the pharmacy in town. I couldn't find felt so this foam made a good second option!

And then Julia came to stay!  The weather was atrocious this morning so our planned visit to Ali had to be postponed...it brightened up later and we managed to fit in an hour's browsing in a funny little shop that I'd seen previously but not ventured inside:

It was idiosyncratic to say the least and some of the stock was ancient (!) but it was fun to have a poke around....

I just loved the labels on the drawers....

Odd eyes and noses anyone?! lol, that made us laugh!

These boxes reminded me of Ollivander's Wand shop in Harry Potter! I'd have loved to have had time for a more in-depth furtle. And then there was the range of vintage hat moulds on the top that you could hire out. Didn't expect to see that either!!

I feel some millinery making coming on :-D

And of course, it's been great to have my bestie staying....



Have a great week! xxx


WOYWW 494

THE FOG ON THE TYNE....

This week has been great fun - G and I went up to Newcastle for five days as a mini break. More on that later!

The desk:
This is what the desk looks like at the moment, I've been cutting out some linen triangles to make Christmas tree decorations.

You get the idea - Scandi inspired, using up some of my ribbon/trim stash. However, I'm not in the mood for sewing today so it's still looking like that right now!

Before we left for the weekend, I made this with the fabric shown last week:
It worked quite well, I may make some more!

We did enjoy our trip up North. G and I lived in Northumberland for 11 years so it was a trip of reminiscing and catching up with old friends. We visited Penny, whom we last saw about 25 years ago and met up with her daughter Charlie, who was 11 last time we met and is now 36!!! Anyway, Charlie is a crafter and this was her desk:
Quite compact but nicely laid out with everything to hand!  Stupidly I didn't get a pic of us all, we were too busy talking. Penny had I had lost touch through multiple changes of address on both sides but were reunited through FB, just marvellous!

The main reason we were in Newcastle though was to attend the Brass in Concert competition where 12 of the top bands play an entertainment programme, it's a full day event and was held at The Sage.
Which is the big curved glass building, a beautiful place. In fact the quayside was looking extremely lovely all floodlit like that!

We stayed right by this bridge which is the newest of all the bridges over the Tyne. It tips up to allow boats to sail through and is beautifully lit at night.


Our favourite band Cory won the event by a country mile (hooray!) but the real icing on the cake was this:

Meeting up with some lovely folk from the Summer School in Nova Scotia earlier this year! Bona (far left) is from Detroit and incredibly involved with music making and teaching at all levels. Scott (far right) was my tuba tutor on the course and the loveliest, most laid back person you could wish to meet. He's also Professor of Low Brass at Kansas University and an astonishing player. His band, Fountains City, were taking part in the competition and came fifth with an entertaining programme. I hadn't met Scott's wife Mary before but she was a lovely lady who was great to chat with (and was also one of the percussionists). A very unexpected and happy reunion!!

Back to earth with a bump now with lots of practising to do before a band contest in Cardiff on Saturday, Life is picking up speed again!


WOYWW 493

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS....

Another week has whooshed by with so many different things going on - but the weather here in Wales has been foul for a lot of that so my downtime has mostly been spent in the JanCave. I'm trying to get as many things made and put by for the various things I'm doing.

*WARNING* this is a photo heavy post (sorry Julia!)

I've been having fun with some fabrics that were gifted to me recently - Debbie Rock passed on about 4m worth of the paw print fabric out of which I've made shopping totes, specs cases and little coin purses. It was great getting those coloured pop fastenings out again, I love them, they're so bright and cheerful.

Now doesn't that pic just make you smile?

A dear friend from Wiltshire, Helen, sent me a surprise parcel of fabric out of the blue - they are brilliant and I've dived in already:

Those bright colours are FQs that I got from Hobbycraft a couple of weeks ago and they are perfect as linings for the various projects! The colours couldn't match better if they tried.

See? What a great combo!

We got some new bedside cabinets recently and I didn't want to throw the old rattan ones away so they're being recycled in the JanCave as fabric storage - and jolly handy they are too!

Now then you may remember that I was hosting the WI Craft club here last week - everybody was surprisingly well behaved (!) but it made me smile as, true to form, just like the Crop attenders, there was more chatting and eating of cake than crafting, lol!!

Everyone's very studious here - it's only cos I was taking their photo! Some were in the kitchen and others were in the dining room:

Well done Jean and Kathleen, you did crack on.

I'd set up all my fabrics, beads, buttons and ribbons on the worktop so people could pick what they wanted...

There were various templates to choose from, most went for Christmas trees.

And everyone managed to thread the needles ok (with the help of reading glasses, lol)

Some chose traditional colours...

I do love a bit of tartan ribbon....

While others went down the Boho route...

Rightly pleased with their efforts!

Well done girls! It was great fun and a good morning. The December one is going to be Tags and Toppers, led by Janet who is a far more experienced paper crafter than me!

But the girls weren't the only ones creating - you remember G in the garage last week? Well, this is the result:

A two tier set of shelves made from decking cutoffs and other bits of wood, painted with left over white emulsion and cream and grey chalk paint testers. I like it so much I'm going to use it as part of my Christmas decorations later. And G made the marmalade too - he's a keeper :-D

Have a great crafty week - see you soon! xxx

WOYWW 492

IF I HAD A HAMMER.....

A short and sweet post today - that'll make up for all the photo heavy posts I've been doing recently!

The weather has been so gorgeous, I have been out walking (and suffering the consequences afterwards but the sea and blue skies were calling....)  I have been dragging out more fabric to make items for the WI Christmas craft stall:

I have about a bag's worth of these colourful fabrics plus a bit left over for glasses cases. The doggy print in the background was gifted to me by Debbie Rock via Shaz at the Crop.

Those beauties brightened up the afternoon for sure :-D

I've had this hearts/check fabric for ages...a good few years in fact - and these were the absolute last items to be squeezed out of the original couple of metres. I shall miss it, it's been a good do-er!

There's been lots of prep work going on as tomorrow is the first WI Craft Club, we're making the felt ornaments and it's going to be at my house. The last time I had the WI entertainment group here for rehearsals, I offered teas or coffees and stupidly mentioned gin. OOOh yes, was the reply - not making that mistake tomorrow, well, not at 10am anyway.....we might have to wait until 11. *grin*

The JanCave is doing sterling service at the moment but then, so is the original ManCave:

The light's on, so something is afoot.......

I happened to mention to G that I could do with a small display set of shelves for the WI stall and a short while later:

A man happily pottering! It's amazing what you can do with decking cut-offs and some gash bits of wood :-D  A couple of coats of white then some cream and grey chalk paint and Bob is your Upcycled Uncle, lol!!  Extra brownie points for G this week, please :-D

Hopefully I'll have a few pics of the WI felty carnage to share next week - it'll be like herding cats.....

xxxxx


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...