The craft fayre unfortuntely was a bit naff-it was held in a community centre in two rooms and I don't think it was well organised or well advertised as very few people showed up.  I had 120 decorations-managed to sell about 20...just about covered the cost of the table and some of my materials but nothing else!  Only one person wanted a tarot reading as well but it went well-good learning experience even if it was a massive let down :-(

On the plus side, I have lots of beautiful decorations that'll be making their way into this year's Yule gifts....

Now I'm desperately trying to make some presents for family for Yule-rapidly running out of time!

Reasons to be cheerful

I'll admit that this week it's been tough to come up with the positive.  Myf hasn't been very well (I had to leave work early today to go and collect her from school which caused all kinds of problems as there was no one to cover me-managed to get it sorted but it took over 2 hours to be able to get to my daughter which was awful)  She's fine, tired and probably growing again, that tends to leave her vulnerable to bugs.

So, back to being cheerful!

The awful flooding going on has had me very worried for my family-spoke to Mum today who reassured me that she and Dad are fine (the Thames river is well reinforced where they are)  My heart goes out to everyone affected but I hope I'm not being selfish in saying that I'm so glad that my family are safe and well.
I often moan about the hill I live on but it's at times like this, with the winds howling and the rains swelling the rivers to bursting, that I'm so grateful to live up a hill!

Despite her not feeling well, Myf has been wonderful in the mornings-I've had TWO cups of tea in bed this week!

I finished off the poncho the other day-sadly, with all the bad weather, photos are pretty dreadful!  I've worked up a flower as well to attach to the neck tie (as usual, I've way overdone the length of the cord and the size of the flower!).  This is a belated Yule gift for a dear friend who is coming to visit this weekend.

The other gift I've been making has been a rune pendant for her birthday (it's her 30th).  Runes are used in divination but they are also associated with different points of the year, a little similar to a star sign-my friend is a rune reader and we have spent many evenings reading runes and tarot together :-) so I felt making a pendant with her birth rune, 'Berkano', would make a lovely gift.

I wanted to use my wood burning pen, but despite tearing the house apart looking, I've had no luck!  So instead, I've used a small chisel to carve the rune and a little woodstain to bring it out...

Crafting always makes me happy :-D

Lastly, there's this photo of Artemis that Myf took-Arti loves boxes!

A Year of Crafting

I've had a marvellous Christmas back in London and hope you all have as well!  With the new job taking up a lot of time, my crochet projects dwindled a great deal this year-but I am really proud of the things I did manage to make :-)  So here are some highlights :-)

As ever, there have been a few blankets:

Mostly little blankets but still an impressive number!

I've done some little gifts:

I finally made some 'Nanny Bags'

I have tried my hand at making a few more Christmas decorations but couldn't get a decent photo of them-I'm borrowing one from mummycat as she's taken a lovely pic of hers

I'm hoping Jess can take one of hers for me as well...

It's been a fun crochet year-I'm already planning my first blanket of 2014 (because it seems like ages since I made a proper size blanket)


Happy New Year everyone!

Taking a walk down memory lane

Phew!  I'm mostly done where Christmas is concerned-I've been crocheting every spare second I get and today, amid piles of wrapping paper, all my family presents are finished, wrapped and posted, all Myf's stocking stuffers are wrapped and about 90% of my Christmas card list is done :-)  I will of course share what I've made but I want to avoid spoilers so it'll have to wait until after Christmas...

I'm finishing up a scarf for a local friend and I'm making a crocheted neck warmer for my Dad and I need to get Myf's main presents wrapped and at some point tidy this mess of a house up!

For my nieces crocheted presents, I wanted to go with something close to my heart.  My paternal grandmother died when I was very young, only around 6 years old and I have no real concrete memory of her.  I know she loved to sew and knit and when I was really tiny, she made three little bags-one for me and one for each of my sisters.

I had it safely tucked away for years as it's all I have from her but I came across it recently during a house sort out and realised that it wasn't knitted as I'd previously thought but crocheted!  And now that I have joined my sisters ranks in the crochet army, I wanted to attempt to figure out how she made them and replicate it to pass on to our next generation.  Turns out it was a very simple granny style she used that was easy to do, so with a couple of personal tweaks, here is what I came up with

I thought using buttons to make the initials would be cute-Myf didn't want any on hers but I'm so tempted to make myself an updated version of my Nanny bag (with buttons!) to carry around.  I've had so much fun making these-I think Nanny would love the fact that three of her grandchildren are avid crocheters-that's the best heirloom I could have :-)

2012 In Crafting and Crochet (lots of photos)

Last year I did only a handful of posts-most of which were blankets :-)  This year has been so crafty for me-there's been blankets-

There's been a new camera so much better pictures of more blankets!

There's been an attempt at an amigurumi bear

Crochet cosiness in the form of hats, scarves and hot water bottle covers

 Ponchos too!

There's been a little bit of pyrography

A few banners :-)

Games and gifts :-)

I wonder if I can top this in 2013!  It's going to be fun finding out :-)