WOYWW 676 ( a nice palindrome for the Anniversary!)

 CONGRATULATIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

13 - unlucky for some but not us deskers! Who'd have thought this desky snooping would still be going after all this time - many congrats to Julia for keeping us all on the straight and narrow (mostly!!)  I don't know about you but my life would definitely be the poorer for not having you lovely lot around - I've made wonderful friendships and just learned so much from everyone. Long may it continue xxx

Julia's ATC theme of 'Connections' threw me a bit and a fabric or painty version didn't happen - but then I thought of words and the desks being connected and so this is what I came up with....

I feel I cheated doing it on the computer but these are the connections that are important to me every week so here it is anyway! You'll all be getting one (whether you like it or not, lol!!)

As for my desk, the sewing is still going strong:

Bags cut out, stuff waiting to have poppers put in etc etc.

I had to get more of this cat fabric as it proved very popular!

I've already cut into the new fabrics shown last week - these are two of my 'surprise' totes, one folded up to show the plain outside, the other showing the colourful bag inside!

Some more fabric turned up as well:

From Doughty's shop, I couldn't resist them!

They got cut into straight away as well! I have to say the poppy one is my absolute fav, I may have to keep one of those for myself. I'd recently bought some grey spotty for linings and it had a slightly olive tinge to it which goes perfectly with the poppy outer. Love it!

Thank you for all the support every week and for such lovely comments as well - I really appreciate it more than you could know, my life would be poorer for not having met you lovely folk. Thank you very much/ Diolch yn fawr iawn xxxxxxx

WOYWW 675

 BURN BABY BURN, DISCO INFERNO....

Hello lovely crafting folks, hope all is well this week - it's been a funny one for me with bursts of madness combined with some quiet hours. The weather has been lovely so there's been a fair bit of gardening done too, changing over of the pots and tidying up. No digging though, the ground is like concrete!

Here's a shot of my desk yesterday, I'm mid making fold up totes but shoved everything to the side when some new fabric from Abakhan arrived!

The pile at the back are waiting for poppers to be inserted whilst the ones at the front are ready for attaching handles.

A good old range of colours and all for £4.99 a metre...bargain!

My SiL Jill sent me some fabric a couple of weeks ago and I finally got round to making something with it, the floral fabric is the main bag folded up inside the spotty pocket cover - it'll be a nice surprise when someone unfolds it. The first one I did like this was Julia's Christmas Sprouts bag!

My mate Kim invited me over for a cuppa and some crafting and introduced me to pyrography!

All set up and ready for action!

I took some wood slices over and we had a go at different templates. Neither of us had done it before so it was interesting to see how hard/soft you had to press and how the different 'nibs' worked. It was enjoyable but I don't know if it's something I'd take up.

A little daffodil with an attempt at shading, lol! It was a bit like quilling for me, the process was fun but I wasn't sure about the outcome, hey ho, you have to try these things to find out!!

I have also made my ATCs ready for next week, I'll probably send them to everyone but don't worry about swapping back. 13 years eh? A proper achievement - see you all on the Anniversary Special xxxxxxx

WOYWW 674

 BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN....

It's been a lovely week, with trips out, lunches and a day at the local fair - be warned, this is a pic heavy post!

After my mad making session last week, there was a lot of tidying up to do - I brought my ribbons/trims downstairs and sat in the kitchen listening to the radio whilst sorting. It was a pleasant hour and resulted in:

A thing of beauty! I know it's sad but this gladdens my heart!

I had some very happy mail from two gorgeous blogging friends, Kelly and Neet xx

Kelly sent me the cat fabric and a lovely card and Neet sent the wooden piece, aren't they fab? The ribbons were some I bought in Carmarthen. Thank you so much lovely gals, I can't tell you how much I loved getting these. The sewing machine is on the JanCave shelves and the cat fabric got cut pretty much straightaway!

I thought they'd make good fold up totes with some contrasting fabric handles.

The blue one is folded up, the pink is ready to add poppers. Thanks Kelly, hope you approve!

I also sat and made rosettes out of the pom poms:

Ready for tying onto railings between my lengths of bunting come the Jubilee weekend!

The local fair last Saturday was great fun, lovely weather meant a good turn out of punters:

The stall looked colourful...

I always take string with me, it's an easy way to display the tote bags and peg bags..

I had a really lovely four hours chatting to all sorts of people - G was sitting opposite with the Men's Shed stall! I made £140 for the RNLI which was very pleasing.

Hope you've all had a good crafty week xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 673

 PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON LIVED BY THE SEA...

Hi there lovely gals who join in What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday every week, after all this time I still enjoy visiting the desks - you just never know what's going to be on show! It'll be WOYWW 13 soon, I know Julia will be blogging about that shortly, another year of fantastic friendship and crafting camaraderie (sorry, I went a bit alliterative there!!)

This week has seen a lot of action in the JanCave as I have to restock in the Harbour Lights cafe again plus I'm taking a stall at the local Makers & Growers market this Saturday - once again all proceeds to the RNLI. The stall is free to local residents so it's worth a try!

There's been lots of dragons around - I bought some more of this fabric because it was selling like crazy. I'd made peg bags and totes then wondered if doorstops would work out ok. I hadn't made one of these for ages:

They're quick to make, the only bit that takes time is handstitching the opening - these Clover clips are awesome and I still think of Janet Fairythoughts every time I use them.

The dragon is the just the right size and I like the randomness of the pattern too. One of these has already sold to a friend from band, so I'll have to replace it!

The leftovers are cut quite carefully to make keyrings:

They worked out quite well - Eva from Austria requested a pic, there you go Eva, hope you like them!

A box of fabric fabulousness!

I have done a couple of other things this week - the daughter of a band friend was christened last Sunday:

I enjoyed playing with pink!

And I've made sufficient pom poms (with G's help) to make 5 sets of rosettes to go between strings of fabric bunting for the town's Jubilee celebrations in June:

They're laid out like this just so I could check the numbers and sizes tallied - I'll put them together like the one at the bottom of the pic.

Phew, that was a marathon! Thanks for sticking with me til the end. Think you deserve a coffee/tea/gin/beverage of choice now - have a great week!!

WOYWW 672

 GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNIN'...

The above lyric is in reference to my sewing machine who has been in overdrive this week! A combo of events has meant that I needed to get some serious making under my belt.

Totes, peg bags, purses and cases cut out and ready to be ironed....

A basket of scraps - normally I don't keep much of this but I'm going to make keyrings from the leftovers.

Neet gifted me the lining fabric a good couple of years ago and it has been so useful for many things, I used the last final bits this week - thanks Neet!! This case is off to New Zealand.

I'd had a good old sort out and tidy and found the floral fabric that my friend Kim had passed on to me and thought I'd get that all cut out and finished too:

I couldn't decide which of the liners I liked best so it ended up being the top and bottom ones, three apiece.

Which do you prefer?

But it hasn't all been sewing in the JanCave over the Easter weekend, we decided we were happy staying at home pottering and so some gardening got done and coffee was drunk as well. Happy Days!

Hope you've had a good crafting week, sending hugs.

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WOYWW 671

 BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

Sorry I was missing in action last week, I was properly poorly with gastric trouble, not Covid thankfully. But that's all behind now so here's this week's offering!

I have been in the JanCave beavering away:

I've bought a fair bit of new fabric recently for the Jubilee and other things. When I saw this Welsh flag fabric on eBay, I just couldn't resist! It's no wonder it's been voted the Coolest Flag in the World...dragons make everything better *grin*

I was debating what to do with it, the pattern is too big for glasses cases and then inspiration struck:

Peg bags! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, I don't know if there's space in the cafe to display it but I might sweet talk Laura, the owner, to see if I can.

I'd had this conversation with Lynnecrafts about how you can get smart doggy print fabric but the cat ones seem to be cutesy and not my thing at all. Then I found this:

Fun huh? I really like the range of colours too and the pattern is good for quite a few of the things I make. This example is winging its way up to Scotland for Elizabeth Silver Scrapper.

There's been some more Jubilee stuff going on too - I know that pom poms are going to feature heavily in the town yarnbombing and so I got some Stylecraft acrylic in the appropriate colours and invited my mate Kim over for a cuppa and some wool winding!

We hadn't seen each other for a month so there was a lot to catch up on. The Clover pom pom makers make it so much easier than the circles of cardboard method.

And before you knew it:

It's a good start!

Hope you have a nice week, the weather for Easter looks pretty good so I see some beach walking and gardening on the horizon! Enjoy your crafting xxxxx

WOYWW 669

 YES YOU COULD SAY WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN

RED WHITE AND BLUE.

Hi there, hope you've had a good week! It has been the most glorious weather, the patio doors have been open, G has refreshed the garden furniture and I've even had to water my pots in the garden. However, I think all that is changing over the next 48 hours, we may even have snow! Spring in the UK eh? Always a good topic of conversation, lol.

I have done a fair bit of crafting as well:

Getting ahead of schedule with the Jubilee Bunting, some for the cafe, some to sell, some for the town decorating. I'm quite pleased with the results, you get the idea of red, white and blue even with the different patterns. You can see a tower of bias binding in the back plus new fabric that I spotted on ebay.

Lynne and I had agreed that it was very difficult to get a decent cat print fabric as opposed to the multitude of doggy stuff, but I thought this was fun. Worth a shot for the cafe stocks.

I crochet in the evenings and have two things on the go, the blanket squares:

I have to do 8 squares of the eleven colours, there's enough changing there to keep things interesting.

And I will be making pom poms for the town Jubilee yarnbombing:

Think my pom poms are a bit bushy and need a trim (Twiglet, I can hear you sniggering!!)

But there have been times to get out and just sit in the sunshine as well:

Bliss.......

Take care, lovely deskers, hope you have a good week xxxxx