WOYWW 401

THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND!

Thanks for all the lovely comments and support last week - I have to apologise because I didn't manage to return visit all the bloggers who commented. I just don't know where the time went.  Must do better this week........

There's been no change in the JanCave, so crafting has been taking place here:

I have a VERY fierce guard cat (yeah right!)  I've been using up my aran yarn to make beanies for a charity - maybe for the Knit&Natter group I joined last Thursday - crafters are lovely everywhere, these were no exception! They make items to fundraise for the local breast care unit and preemie babies too, so I suspect I'll be contributing a few things along the way (but won't be forgetting my other favourites)

We had our first set of visitors!! Yay :-D  This pic might give you a clue who it was....

From L-R, it's me, Mr LLJ, Julia and Mr Dunnit!! We went for a walk on 'my' beach.

Goodness the weather was amazing - not a breath of wind, blue skies and sunshine AND the tide was up. It was glorious. We ambled up and down, doing a bit of beachcombing....

Hermit crab shell with barnacles....

...and someone had been having fun with driftwood!

The land in the misty distance is the Gower Peninsula.

It really was a perfect day :-D  Julia and Mr D enjoyed it very much.

We also went to the local harbour where the RNLI crew were just setting out on an exercise - we waved, of course!

And then Lisa-Jane, a regular Crop attendee, popped in for a quick coffee on Monday morning as she was in the area. It was fun to see her!

But the wallpaper steamer stripper approaches...maybe next week, lol!!

Have fun and take care  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOW - WOYWW 400!!!

CONGRATULATIONS AND CELEBRATIONS!

Huge congrats and big hugs must surely go to Julia today - 400 not out, what an amazing achievement!  Keeping us all going week after week is a huge commitment and she handles it brilliantly - well done lovely gal, here's to the next 400 :-D

As you can tell, we have the Interwebs up and running at our new house - I can't believe we've been in for ten days already, it's gone so quickly!  We are unpacking slowly, the important rooms have been sorted but this is the state of the JanCave Mk2.....

It's a good size space but I'm itching to decorate as that poopy brown wallpaper is truly horrible...I'll show you some that are worse in a minute!!

People have been so kind sending New Home cards and there have been some gorgeous ones from deskers:

From L-R, Lynda, Twiglet & Wipso, Diana (Velvet Moth) and Shaz Silverwolf (who we must all send positive vibes towards as she's undergoing more surgery today)  I also got some mail art from Doone:

Completely wonderful, there is so much to look at (especially on the reverse, forgot to take a shot of that) and I adore these lyrics, so pertinent at the moment. Thanks Doone, I love it!

I stumbled across a craft group last week and so am joining them for a knit and natter session at a local cafe tomorrow, should be fun! They do a lot of stuff for charity, so that could be a useful outlet for some of my makes...when the sewing machine is back in action that is :-D

But there's so much to do in the house before then - although it's only 12 years old, the decor is very tired. Not only is that poopy brown wall in the Jan cave, there are these beauties to face too:

Gorgeous, huh? NOT! Actually the full horror doesn't really come across in the pics, the full awfulness hits you in reality. Needless to say, the industrial wallpaper steam stripper will be in frequent use. All in good time eh?!

Have a great week and enjoy this 400th anniversary desk snoop xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 398

A WHOLE NEW WORLD FOR YOU AND ME....

Well, it will be next Monday when we finally move into our new place in Wales!  The past two weeks have been a combination of picking up keys, checking the new place out, packing boxes and socialising quite a bit! And making sure that Julia knows where I'll be living. As she said, I can run but I can't hide...... :-D

My craft room is now all in boxes:

Well, actually it's the plastic boxes behind this lot - I really don't have that huge a stash. I know it's hard to believe :-D  I'm fortunate in that the smallest bedroom will be JanCave Mark2, it'll be great to have a space that I can just leave stuff out in once again.

There have also been a lot of goodbyes - I knew that leaving band would be one of the hardest things to do, but it was made more emotional when they presented me with this:

A painting of the Phoenix Logo, done by the DiL of David, the MD and everyone in band has signed around the mount. And the writing at the top?

Cleverly using some of my favourite tunes to say goodbye. I sobbed! Then I blubbed. I absolutely love it - great memories of wonderful friends in a fantastic band.  It's going to have pride of place in the new house and will be a reminder of some truly lovely people.

I shan't see you for a couple of weeks until we get the Interwebs up and running. So take care and keep crafting xxxxxxxx

WOYWW 396

IT'LL BE JUST LIKE STARTING OVER

Hi there - the first post of a brand new year! Hope it's going to be a good 'un....the year that is, though hopefully the blog will be ok too :-D

There's not much to show you so this is going to be quite short...

This really has to be a job for this week - putting Christmas stuff away, tidying up my ribbon box before it gets packed (sorry Shaz!) and generally getting ready for the move to Wales. We don't have a date yet but hopefully it won't be too long - I'm getting itchy feet now!

The crochet blanket is coming along ok, I spread it out for you to see. The pile of fabric in front of the sewing machine was an impulse buy in the sales during an impromptu hour in Salisbury with Julia.

The rose and leaves fabric were £5 a metre but the grey hearts was £3, so I bought two metres of it! It was really wide too so I'll get lots out of that (I might even make a tablecloth for my very wide dining table instead...watch this space!)

But nothing is going to get sewn in the next couple of weeks, that's for sure. I'll let you know when I'm going to disappear for a month or so - packing, moving, swapping interwebs etc etc means I'll be out of your hair for a while :-D

Have a great week everyone, I may be late returning comments as I'm out visiting today.

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WOYWW 395

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin, 

Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas - it was a time of happiness tinged with sadness for me, truth be told, but we saw friends and family, ate some gorgeous food and sank a few bevvies too. And now the New Year comes galloping swiftly towards us - it's going to be a time of great change for me and my family. A new home in a new area will be the first challenge - feel the fear and do it anyway :-D

The desk is still a dumping ground!

The only crafting I've done is some crochet...but I've done a lot of craft magazine reading. My hubby and I signed up for Readly, an online mag subscription service. £7.99 a month for all sorts of mags from crafting to photography to lifestyle to tv pages to celeb stuff. It's excellent, we've both enjoyed it very much and seeing that most mags cost about £4 each, you only have to read two and the monthly sub is paid for!

I'm using up some Stylecraft Aran weight yarn for another charity blanket - it's mindless crafting but it increases quite quickly while tv watching/radio listening!

That's it really - I'd like to thank you all again for the support throughout this year. I wish you peace, joy, fun and friendship through the brand new year!

May....

...be a wonderful year for us all.

And lastly, thank you to my wonderful hubby - a new chapter in Wales awaits us both...

See you all next year!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 394

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS....

Well, it's the final run up to Christmas - only two more jobs left to do with band and then the coast is clear!  The desk is covered but not in crafting....

You may be wondering who's going to receive that sledgehammer? Well, that would be telling - suffice to say it's not one of the adults :-D

A little alteration took place though not involving fabric:

I found these sticky on bling letters whilst being dragged around The Range by Herself...they're not stuck on very straight but I don't care, they're on the end of the machine so not in my line of vision!

And that's it for today - I'll leave you with some Christmassy shots! My lovely table decoration sent to me by my niece Emma a few years back. It makes me smile each time it resurfaces every December.

And my little Christmas forest with some very precious handmade items that remind me of deskers old and new.

Thank you for being mad enough to have read my blog throughout the year (it's been 12 months of ups and downs, that's for sure), I really appreciate your support and friendship more than I can say. I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and peace, health and happiness for 2017.

By the way - that isn't a sledgehammer for the youngest member of our family but of course, I can't reveal it yet!!  And that banana sign from last week? Of course I knew what it was all about, I just wanted to tease and bamboozle you (it worked, lol!!)  The Bananas in question are small banana-shaped boats in which you sit your toddler before taking to the ice rink at the Winchester Christmas Fair!  It just made me and G laugh ouR socks off, hopefully you did too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

WOYWW 393

I BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS...

(RIP Greg Lake, listen here)

Gosh I love this song - we play it all the time with band and the main tune is taken by the euphoniums. It's so gorgeous I end up listening to them and not paying attention to where I should be ;-)

Band has been bonkers so not a huge amount of crafting has been done...in fact the desk is bare!

I did buy a couple of fat quarters though, someone wanted a doggy bandana in blue and I had every colour but! Well, it's a good excuse eh?

Funnily enough, there's very little blue Christmassy fabric around this year, mostly Scandi and traditional.  So when I spotted these, I thought I'd replenish my stocks.

But these were looking gorgeous too and it wouldn't have been fair to leave them on the shelf now, would it?!

And that's it craft wise because of the following - dip out now if you're here for the crafty stuff!

I was out playing with the the band a few times:

We were at the Christmas tree fair in the village where I used to live...it was damp. I had to dry my music out when I got home afterwards and then iron it flat again!

And on Sunday, G and I met up with our boys in Winchester for G's birthday lunch. The Christmas market was on and we had a quick mooch but the crowds were too crazy to really shop in earnest:

There were Hogwarts-esque cauldrons of mulled wine..mmmm, the smell was delicious.

This steampunky machine was making spanish churros doughnuts..that kept us entertained for ages.

You could smell this stall way before you arrived there....

...and this lady was doing a grand job building up the mountain of chocolatey goodness.

I fell in love with this window display - I want it all!

I don't normally do kitsch (ask Julia) but oh my goodness, these are so pretty!  I'd love a little twinkling village of the houses :-D

But the most incongruous sight of all was this:

Verily. the mind boggles!!! 

And on that happy note, I shall bid thee adieu. Have a great week!