WOYWW - THE CROP!

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS...

Well, after all the waiting and preparation and secret guesting, the day arrived!  To be honest, the day was pretty much like any other Crop except that Julia wasn't there. We did miss you lovely gal but chatting and cake eating still seemed to dominate the day, lol!

We met again in the hall in Llandudno, it didn't take long for folk to get sat down and the chatting to commence - amazingly there seems to be a bit of crafting too, well done Shaz!

 Margaret played a blinder again this year with the catering and organisation being superb. Thanks lovely gal, you are amazing!

Shaz was doing some serious colouring - look at those glorious pencils....

A wonderful friend, it was sooo good to catch up again.

Doug Silverwolf and PJ (Mr Bishopsmate)  were enjoying the day too - PJ was making a wooden train, he did the most crafting of anybody on the day!

Christine (Bishopsmate) and Sarah were soon hard at work too...

Christine was printing fabric to make lavender bags...

And Sarah was colouring some beautiful stamped images...clever lady!

Two great friends, reunited for the day - Annie (Wipso) and Elizabeth (Silver Scrapper)...did they co-ordinate their outfits for the day? Lol

So lovely to see Chris (Mrs D) again, it was good to hear all about her big move recently...

...and here are two folk who had never attended a Crop before! Jo (Twiglet) was showing our very Special Guest how to Dumf.  I was so pleased to meet Jo after a gap again of three years.

But the prize for furthest travelled guest goes to....

Shaz in Oz!! Woohoo - how fantastic it was to meet this lovely lady after knowing her online for such a long time. Everyone was thrilled to meet her in person - I hope you have a wonderful time visiting in the UK Shaz!

And her dumfing was pretty good too!

Jo was doing well threading the needle without her glasses, lol! Much better than I could have done....

And here was another first time Cropper...but can you guess who?

Heather, that's who! I really enjoyed meeting you, lovely gal, and get to know a bit more about you. We're so pleased you came today :-D

It was so good to see Neet again too - she's still a funky babe!

And so wonderful to catch up with Chris (Pearshaped Chris) again!

Chris was quickly catching up with her ATCs to swap with everyone....

I LOVE this pic!! A Silverwolf and an Aussie :-D

Margaret was so busy behind the scenes - we couldn't thank her enough. Jo was such a help too, thank you mate.

I love these gals....

Look Julia - I actually did a tiny bit of crafting! Some Sashiko stitching - I didn't get very far though, lol!

This pic makes me smile - Jo and Elizabeth look very mischievous...

...but not half as mischievous as these two!!!

The usual swaps table was there filled with stash kindly donated....

And we had a sort-of raffle too....

But of course, these amazing women are the main reason for the day - I'm privileged to call them friends. They're so generous too - we made just shy of £170 for charity, which Margaret and I decided to split between two, the RNLI and the Ugandan charity supported so wonderfully by Margaret's church. Thank you so much everyone and how can we forget these fine folk?

Awesome, each and every one, who join in with the chat, crafting, cake eating but also clearing up and generally helping. Thanks gents!

It's been a very long day and I'm looking forward to snoozing but thought I'd get these pics up first. Hope you got a flavour of what the day was like - roll on the next one!!

WOYWW 483

IF THEY COULD SEE ME NOW,

THAT LITTLE GANG OF MINE....

Another mad week, two sets of planned visitors and one very big surprise, a reunion, producing a sketch for the WI County meeting amidst all the essential day to day stuff. I would say I've got a quieter week ahead but I'm afraid that all sorts of events will spring out of the woodwork!

Consequently my desk is a heap!  I have been making a few items when I can sneak into the JanCave. I made this to giveaway but I can't! Give it away, that is.......

Well, you know how much I adore this fabric and the pattern just fell right. My £1.99 reading glasses from Home Bargains are going to fit in here just fine :-D

Our visitors included:

My brother Steve and his mate Stuart getting ready to cycle down to the Grand Depart of the Tour of Britain! The TV coverage was great and there were some lovely aerial shots of Carmarthenshire.

These were the unexpected visitors! We met Rita and Fred at the Summer School in Canada - they were in the UK, I saw their pics on FB and. as they were in the area, invited them over for a meal and catch-up - so lovely to see them again!!

But the most wonderful get together was the reunion of a little gang of friends from my schooldays - I hadn't seen two of them for forty years!!

It was wonderful to see them again - we've all had interesting professional lives as well as raising families. Our professions encompassed a Midwife, Headteacher, Teacher, Gynae consultant, Professor of Physiotherapy and a retired Beach Bum (guess which one I was!!)  Not bad for a group who attended a small, slightly old fashioned Welsh Grammar for Girls in the 70's :-D

I've got lots to bring up to Llandudno for the Crop on Saturday - musn't forget any of it. I still haven't decided what to bring craft-wise - don't know why I'm bothering really, nothing will get done apart from chatting, eating, chatting, drinking, chatting.....it's going to be so tough to keep up, lol!!

Have a good week and see some of you dear friends VERY SOON - woohoo!

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