WOYWW 899

 YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS....

Hi everyone, hope you're having a good week! Isn't it nicer now it's not so hot, I'm even enjoying the showers we're having as are the gardens. One more week to the Big 9.0.0., what a landmark that is, WOYWW must surely be one of the longest running blogs around and that definitely deserves celebrating! I hope that that old time deskers might consider returning for a week, it would be lovely to see some old friends back again.

I've been making gnomes...as you do...

Ready for stuffing and assembling! As well as sewn ones there are also knitted versions:

Just ready for a chocolate orange! But I'm not buying those yet, way too early.

The best thing about the past two days however is that Julia came to stay, we've not seen each other for a while so it's been like old times, we've laughed a lot! We've been down the beach and yesterday went to Aberglasney:

It was looking so good despite the recent high temps, the autumn planting is very much to the fore:

The dahlia bank was stunning, all bronze, orange, purple and burgundy colours - inspiration for next year!

There was a smart craft exhibition in the main house, lots of lovely art and jewellery. Julia and I were both taken by this display of small jugs and drinking vessels:

Fun huh? It would make a great jigsaw don't you think?! The same potter had done some seriously weird things as well:

The strangest teapots I've ever seen, you wouldn't get a decent sized brew out of them lol!!

And Julia had a good mosey around the JanCave:

My dear old mate! We have had a lot of fun xxx

Big hugs go out to Helen as well who's been in the wars this week, hope you're ok and your broken wrist isn't causing you too much aggro. Hope you're feeling as ok as you can be xx

Enjoy your week, I'm looking forward to seeing some vintage pics for the 900th edition, got to have a good search in my dusty old vault! xxxxxxx

WOYWW 898

 DON'T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME...

Hi there lovely gals, hope you've had a good week! I'm so much happier now the temps have dropped a bit, it's much more comfortable and more conducive to a bit of crafting.

The JanCave is still full of animal print!

I cut up the whole of the four metres I ordered so there's been a lot of sewing!  This has taken precedence over the strips squares for the quilt, that'll happen another time.

There might have been another fabric order...cough...

These were on offer on the PoundFabrics website, it would have been rude not to lol. The cat print isn't really my colourway preference but I know it'll sell, the dog print is a canvas as I'm low on ordinary tote bags. G's sister brought me this roll of snowflake printed Scandi linen:

I can see this being cut up to make hanging hearts with a snowflake in the middle of each heart, red gingham ribbon and a wooden button...you get the idea!

I have been on the receiving end of a lot of yarn and fabric, mostly from my RNLI friend whose wife passed away:

The electric yarn winder has worked overtime but we've condensed it all into two boxes, these are stacked three or four deep. There is a lot of yarn! Hopefully my RNLI crafting buddies will come with carrier bags and take most of it away!

I was also passed on some fabric (there's loads more to come), some silk went to my SiL Jill, who fancies making a jacket and I kept the bits that were large enough to do something with, there were an awful lot of teeny scraps which I haven't kept:

A sort of Cath Kidston vintagey vibe - maybe another quilt in the future....

We stayed in our back garden to view the eclipse, G rigged up a cereal box/binoculars which worked quite well but our favourite image was this, the eclipse filtered through next door's bamboo onto our garage wall...fun!

Only two weeks until the 900 anniversary, I'm looking out some old posts, it should be a good bit of reminiscing! Have a great week everyone xxx

WOYWW 897

 THERE'S A WHOLE LOTTA MESSIN' GOING ON!

Hi everyone, hope you've been having a good week! It's been a busy one here, with the first market for a while, a couple of commission makes and finishing off the strips squares as well. Oh and dodging the heat too lol!

I got a corner spot at the local market on Saturday, there were fewer traders this time (due to event clashes) so I spread out a bit. It was a quiet morning but I sold a few things and it was good to get back into the swing.

Meanwhile, my birthday fabrics arrived:

Which included some Chr*STmas ones (sorry!)  I'd had a commission for a cross body bag in the leopardskin fabric so got 4m of it, it's a popular design.

I chopped up all 4m of it, so there's a pile of things ready on the bed in the JanCave but I needed to get the bag finished quick:

The lady needs it for her holiday which is fast approaching! It's a smart combo eh?

I carried on sewing the strips squares and laid them out on the landing, firstly in a colour fade...

..but didn't like it one bit! So I swapped a few squares about...

...and didn't like that either! I know, fussy so and so... Third time lucky maybe?

A bit better? Anyhow I decided to stop overthinking things and this is how it's going to stay so I piled each row up and now have a pile ready to be sewn when I feel like it!

Another birthday present was a jigsaw puzzle (my boys know me so well lol!!) and, as usual, once it was out on the table I couldn't leave it alone so it got done pretty quickly.

The craft room! Good choice lads, I really enjoyed doing it and it made me realise that I don't actually have that much stash really *grin*  What comes in gets used pretty much immediately.

And that's my bitty old week, hope yours has been more serene than mine - stay safe in this next heatwave especially you folks in the south and south east, I think I'm going to have to do a rain dance, perhaps we could all join in together.

Only three more weeks until the 900th edition of WOYWW! I'll be searching out some vintage photos to share for that one, it's definitely worth celebrating xxxx

WOYWW 896

 AND I DON'T WANNA MISS A THING..

Hey everyone, sorry I was missing in action last week, I'd been really ill with biliary colic (gallbladder) and had been in bed for three days as it was a bad attack. I'm on the mend now and have felt like doing a bit of crafting again!

It's strips squares time again...

I'm chain piecing the squares through, doing the same thing ten at a time...

then back to the ironing board to add more on...

then more sewing!

And before you know it you have ten filled squares:

I know there are gaps top right of each square but I trim them down from 12.5" to 10.5" so it doesn't matter!

Et Voila! Only another 20 to do and I'll have enough for a smaller sized quilt. No matter how many strips I use however, they never seem to diminish...it's like The Magic Porridge Pot!

My bro needed a new peg bag:

With an especially deep bottom to get lots of pegs in as per his request.

Thank you to the lovely gals who sent me birthday cards for the 1st August, I really appreciate it! I had a lovely day, walks on the beach, fabric voucher prezzies (wahoo!) and the house looked like a florist's lol.

I had a quiet but really lovely day!

Hope you're all keeping well and happy, I hope the slightly lower temps are conducive to get some more crafting done, it's definitely better here thankfully. xxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 894

 SUMMERTIME BLUES....

Hi everyone, hope you've had a good week - lovely to see you all on the desks again. What have you been getting up to? I'm still picking and choosing my crafting according to what the temperatures are like, The JanCave gets pretty toasty in the afternoons so it's a no go zone!

I've been cutting out and ironing ready for some bags, decided to do the two lots of fishy fabrics:

Bags sides, pockets and straps - I used up two lots of blue spotty so that was pleasing.

I found a watercolour artist Kaye Parmenter on YouTube and had a splashy time:

Two different colourways, they were drying so quickly they weren't as abstract as the original....

So I did my own thing! The green one isn't finished yet, I'll get round to it sometime.

G and I swapped our car recently (for another electric Kia) and we decided to go on a road trip yesterday to put it through its paces. We went over the Western Black Mountains, part of the Brecon Beacons National Park, and my goodness, it was a very parched view of Carmarthenshire from the top...

It's usually lush and verdant greeny green!  We stopped for a quick break at Aberglasney, that was showing signs of wear and tear too:

There was more colour close up and humongous amounts of butterflies, we even spotted a Red Admiral, you don't often see them. 

The veg garden was colour coordinated! This quadrant was yellow and purple, others were red, orange and blues. It was really fun, even the chard stalks are yellow to tie in with the colour scheme.

We've been walking in the evenings when it's cooler and the main point of interest for the residents of our town has been this:

The harbour had got very silted up recently so it's being dug out - if those guys are entering the Great Sandcastle Contest 2026 then they're cheating lol!!

Hope you're keeping well and happy, have a great week and may your crafting be trouble free xxxxx

WOYWW 893

 RED AND YELLOW AND PINK AND GREEN...

Hi everyone, welcome to another week of desky snooping! I hope you're all keeping well and are coping with the high temperatures. I do really feel for folk who have to work outdoors, it must have been so hard, I've been keeping indoors a lot of the time.  Fingers crossed for a drop in temps this weekend!

The JanCave is quite nice in the early mornings so that's when I've been doing most of my sewing:

I found some squares I'd forgotten about and put them together with some pink and grey spotty from my stash...

It's backed with pale pink cotton and I'm just attaching the grey border here. I forgot to take a pic of the completed thing, doh!

A friend has a love affair with leopardskin (she's young and not at all like Bet Lynch!!) and asked if I'd do her a peg bag. I had to order some more fabric and oops, others just fell into my basket as well:

These were on sale, I thought they were a bit different!

The pegbag came out quite well, not too tarty! I ordered two metres and am using the rest up for my usual folding bags etc etc.

I did a craft stall yesterday after being invited by the RNLI Water Safety team who were giving a talk to a local group/captive audience! I'd have been pleased to make £50 but they were a generous bunch and £238 was raised! And I've got commissions for that leopardskin fabric above - it was a nice afternoon if very hot, the shower when I got home was marvellous!

I've also been commissioned to do wedding bunting and favours for the daughter of an old friend - it's not going to be a quiet affair and these are their mood board colour choices:

I love it! I'm researching fabrics for the bunting and have found mini disco balls to attach to the pennants, it's going to be so much fun! The wedding isn't until next year so I'll wait until choices have been finalised and then get cracking - it's certainly going to be different!

Have a great week everyone, keep cool and enjoy your crafting xxxxxxx

WOYWW 892

 MIND IF I SAY YOU'RE CUTE?

Hi there, hope you're all doing ok today - looks like we're ramping up for another week of heat so you'll find me mostly sitting in a cold tub lol!

It's been a busy old week. socially and crafting wise:

I've been quilting the squares of both projects, just simple stitch in the ditch - I've put the border on this one as well:

..and have cut the navy border for the second so this one should be completed by tomorrow. I've got a stall next Monday at a local group and am thinking about doing one this Saturday morning but we'll see...the last RNLI collecting box from the Harbour Lights Tearoom yielded £405 so that's taken me over the £15k mark, woohoo!!

My prickle of hedgehogs is growing! They're so easy and quick to do, very pleasing indeed, I've got three more balls of tinsel yarn to work through so that should be enough to be going on with for the moment.

I have some friends with significant birthdays and saw this fun card tutorial on Youtube, just for the basic chick design:

So the paints came out again and I did a few pinky/lilac splodges....

...and then gussied them up a bit, they're all slightly different!

I really had fun doing these, minimum input, max effect, just my sort of crafting lol!!

Have a great week and hope the heat doesn't get you down too much xxxxxxx