WOYWW 220

FAR AWAY, AS IN A TRANCE,

I HEARD THE SOUND OF THE FLORAL DANCE.

It's been a funny old week...full of ups and downs... but there have been many things that made me smile...

Making a dap bag for the son of a friend from band who is starting Big School this September. He needed a bag in which to keep his PE kit and when I saw this fabric, I couldn't resist, as Samuel might possibly be The World's Greatest Digger Fan!

The fabric is called 'Dig It Up Dave' Love it :-)

This little row of clips on my work desk drawers. Janet (Fairythoughts) MADE me buy these when I was last in Winchester. I haven't used them once yet.. like the Pin Rebellion all over again. But I love them perched there in a row and for that, I shall keep them!

Learning how to crochet a flower! I followed my nose on a tutorial trail around t'Interwebs and arrived at this lovely blog. I was a bit scared of the pattern at first but stuck with it..et voila! No idea what I'm going to do with it but it made me happy.

As did these yarns. They are 100% cotton by Drops and these juicy colours are GORGEOUS!  They were very reasonably priced too - I got them from The Wool Warehouse. An excellent choice, free delivery and they arrived within 36 hours of me clicking the order button. Fantastic service!

Another reason for a great big grin:

A get together of Di (Pixie), LLJ, Annie (Wipso) and Mrs Dunnit herself. Great fun all round..for more pics, see here. It was a lovely meet up of some WOYWWers...I don't think Marlborough has recovered yet... ;-)

And can you think of a caption for this shot? The one that tickles me the most will win a small prize!

Have a great week!

WOYWW 219 - part deux

They could hear us before they saw us apparently.....I'm talking about Annie (Wipso) and her husband, Doddy!!  I was just trying to purloin a shop fitting on the pavement in Marlborough that I thought was being chucked out, but was in fact, just waiting before being carried into the shop!!  Julia and Di were trying to ignore me at this point.....

Anyhoo, much chortling went on and it was this that announced our arrival at the meeting point...grin!

We adjourned to our local ASK and proceeded to have a very lovely couple of hours chatting, laughing and scoffing!

Annie and Doddy...a really lovely, chatty, happy couple - we got on like a house on fire!

The waitress (who clearly thought we were bonkers!) took this pic for us!

Annie (naughty girl) had brought us all a fab goodie bag with these treasures in. Thank you, they are really lovely..the poppies are definitely going in a frame and the little Ted has got a magnet in and came with a sweet poem.

But Di had brought a little something for Annie too!! 

Ok..this pic needs a caption! The one that tickles me the most will win a small prize!!! I'll start the ball rolling....

Oo-er, nice cups, Mrs ;-)

It was a fab day and makes you realise that there are some wonderful people out there!

WOYWW 219

THAT'S NEAT, THAT'S NEAT, THAT'S NEAT, THAT'S NEAT,

I REALLY LOVE YOUR TIGER FEET.....

(Mud...my 70's heroes. Have a listen!)

I have been accused of having a very neat desk (!!) which may be true as I need a clear space for cutting out fabric and I can't bear searching for stuff....but just take a 90 degree spin to the right....

A bed piled high with detritus, a cat supervising, a husband ironing (HIS work shirts, so that's fair...and no, you can't have him..he's mine) but my table is still tidy!! Grin.... Actually, the pile on the bed is 6 welsh wool blankets that I brought back from clearing out my parents' airing cupboard. They are old but still beautiful. But in this age of duvets, what on earth do I do with them?

These are the fabrics on the table....can't tell you what they are for though..sorry... Cute owls though!

Here's the finished baby blanket..I'm quite pleased with it.

I found a tutorial for scalloped edges and then did my own thing anyway..that's typical me (ask Julia!!)

Here's some colours lined up for the next project..it needs some reds, oranges and brighter greens though..I fancy doing something 'rainbowy'....dunno what yet...a stripey blanket or runner perhaps.

And finally...

Some birthday cards arrived from near and far...thank you so much Julia, Hettie, Karen, Gashead Zoe and Janet (Fairythoughts) who also sent me the MOST gorgeous handmade cherry wood buttons with designs on...including hares! Yum!  They are fab, Janet, absolutely gorgeous and I love them. I'm going to have to sit and stroke them for a while though, before I can bring myself to use any!!

Have a great, crafty week :-)

WOYWW 218

MATHS IS A WONDERFUL THING,

MATHS IS A REALLY COOL THING.

SO GET OFF YOUR ACT, LET'S DO SOME MATHS.....

(Jack Black - School of Rock)

I love maths..numbers, patterns..the whole shebang..it floats my boat. So here, for your delectation and amusement is today's maths calculation.

Pick an even number.....

Multiply by..oh, let's see...a thousand!

Add a little ricrac here....

Double the embellishments...

Tessellate some Isosceles triangles......

And what does this equal??

Some bunting for a baby girl......grin!!  I couldn't manage to fit in equivalent fractions and chunking (that's a new form of long division)...next week's challenge maybe!

It was my 32nd (with 20 years' experience) birthday last week. I was a very lucky girl, receiving some fab prezzies..but I had to show you this....

It's a glass bowl made by a local artist and sold in a local gallery. It is like an up-splash of sea water frozen in time. Bought for me by my wonderful menfolk....my favourite colours in my favourite medium..I can't stop looking at it....

It is astonishing when the sun shines through..like stained glass windows in a cathedral. I adore it.  I am a VERY lucky gal indeed....

Have a great week :-)

WOYWW 217

 IF WE TOOK A HOLIDAY,

TOOK SOME TIME TO CELEBRATE.

JUST ONE DAY OUT OF LIFE,

IT WOULD BE, IT WOULD BE SO NICE!

(Madonna)

Actually, we took seven....and it was fantastic! 

This was my workdesk last week! It's taken on the patio of the cottage we stayed at, right by the side of Offa's Dyke. For the non-UK readers, that was an earthwork built by King Offa in the 8th century and runs between England and Wales. It runs along the side of the garden and up the other side of the valley - as delineated by that diagonal tree line. Good, huh?

The cottage was on a National Trust estate, Chirk Castle to be exact...

An early 14th century castle which was converted into a house from the 17th C onwards. This was about 100 metres from our cottage and after all the tourists had gone home, we could wander around freely, pretending it was ours!! Fab :-)  

The only thing is, as a true Welshwoman, I'd have been on the attacking side in times gone by......*grin*

While we were there, I met up with Rachel (Mike's Gal) a lovely WOYWWer. Rachel is running a craft stall in aid of the RNLI on the 10th August and I had made some things for her to sell. So, it was an ideal opportunity to meet up and have a chat - we got on like a house on fire! In fact, the girl in the Tearooms came over to have a nose at what I'd made and bought a pair of earrings!! So, that was the first sale for the great cause that the RNLI is!

Rachel, naughty girl, bought me these as a thank you:

I was really touched...as you know, I adore hares, so this was a really thoughtful gift, Rachel....I love it :-)

On arriving back at LLJ Towers, there was a parcel waiting for me with an Alaskan postmark....oooh, I love surprises.....

Inside were these funky fabrics featuring Alaskan dog teams! Sara (Jansen) had been sorting out her stash and thought of me when she came across these! I must be the only person in Wiltshire, possibly the UK, to have this fabric...yay, thanks Sara!! I knew immediately what I shall do with it - make the usual pegbags, carrier bag tubes etc etc and send them to Karen, who raises funds for animal shelters. That pleases me!

As did this........

You might have to click on this to read it, but it's a thank you for the money raised at the crop together with other items that were sent to the Salisbury Womens Refuge....I can only reiterate the thanks from Julia and I to those who supported us. We made a difference through crafting.

And finally, when we were in Ludlow church on our holidays, we spotted these fine carved misericords under the choir seats...and I found my doppelganger!!

Just what I look like if I don't get my beauty sleep!! Though the guy on the left looks a bit legless to me...must have been one heck of a party!!

See y'all next week xxxxx

WOYWW 215

IT WAS A HOT AFTERNOON, LAST DAY OF JUNE,

AND THE SUN WAS A DEMON.

THE CLOUDS WERE AFRAID, ONE-TEN IN THE SHADE, 

AND THE PAVEMENT WAS STEAMING....

(Summer, the First Time...Bobby Goldsboro)

Wow, Scorchio! It's been way too hot to spend much time in my craftroom this week, but I have done some makes as I will be meeting up with Rachel (Mike's Gal) whilst on holiday...and I DID promise to make a few items for her RNLI fund raising stall. I'm looking forward to that coffee, Rachel!!

Setting out the pattern of bunts for two lengths of bunting...these are leftover flags from my mate Sue's wedding last autumn. That white circle is a reel of 25 metres of white bias binding.. I get through quite a lot...3m per length of bunting... so it's easier to buy in bulk. Fabricland are great for that.

You may (or may not!) remember a while back when I showed you two massive reels of thread...well, I've just got to the end of the first kilometre. It took longer than I thought but then again, I haven't done as much sewing as I normally do in the past couple of months.... But never mind, onto the next 1,000 metres!!

I've also been making handbag charms -  outside, where it was cooler! These are for fundraising too. I like the Juicy Fruit colours :-)

And I KNOW I said that my granny squares were going to be linked by turquoise....but I changed my mind! I found this lovely soft cashmerino wool in an Ivory colour and it's so much better...fresher somehow. So, this basket will be coming away with me on my jollies next week and hopefully, I'll get a few more squares finished!

Yep, you can all breathe a sigh of relief....you get a respite from the weird and wacky stuff that I post up every week (sorry, Julia.....grin...)

Now, where's my bucket and spade.....?

WOYWW 214

THOUGH THE DAYS COME AND GO,

THERE IS ONE THING I KNOW,

I'VE STILL GOT THE BLUES FOR YOU.....

(Gary Moore, gone but not forgotten....)

These are why those particular lyrics came to mind...

Ok, so it's not just blues but greens, yellows and lilacs as well! They are the basis for a new crochet blanket that's going to be for a baby boy. Each granny square will be bordered by a linking colour, which I have yet to choose. My favourite is the bright turquoise...yum!

The upstairs desk (as opposed to ping pong table!) looks like this:

Tote bag pieces to be sewn together for Rachel's RNLI fund raising stall, the very scraggy bottom leg bits that were cut off from G3's jeans, so he could have a pair of cut offs, a bag full of colourful cottons to make another quilt...but what's missing? Ah yes, the time to actually do any of this crafting - I have been very remiss this week and done b***er all! I'm hoping to catch up slightly in the summer holidays.

I've had some fab things sent again this week.....

Bottom left is a hare tag from a Wiltshire friend, bottom right is the lovely flower card I won in Annie from France's competition (I'd forgotten how much I love dried flowers..you don't see them much these days!) and all the rest are a wonderful stash of ATCs, cards, envelopes and a fab Kookaburra tag from the lovely Ros C in Australia..Thank You so much, I love them all!

And finally, at Morti's recent wedding, Mr LLJ used me for some exposure test shots before he took the final pics of the happy couple. They were taken outside about 11pm when the supermoon was in the sky. I was a bit grumpy at first...but look....

Great pic, huh? I really like it....no Photoshop jiggery pokery, just careful light exposure and an incredibly talented husband. I think this photo captures what I am all about....thanks, Gordon....I love it...and YOU!

Awwwwwwwwwww.............................. :-)