A gift of gloves...

Oh, tomorrow I'll post a picture of the finished fingerless gloves and thought I'd give then away to the first person who would like to leave a comment on the blog...

Sunny Southwold..

Hello!

We met mum's sister in Southwold on Monday for breakfast at the cafe near the pier, a special 2-4-1 offer. They both had the full works which looked 'proper' nice and I went for eggs on toast.

The sun was out and shining like a gud'un at 10 am and after a stroll along the pier we walked along the front (wish I owned some sunglasses at times like that!) and saw these great beach huts in candy colours. A lot were having renovations and many were still in the car park after the inclement weather we had in Suffolk not so long ago. Wouldn't it be lovely to own a 'hut'? Wonder what the going rate is these days?! Then we headed into town walking past some beautiful looking houses and holiday apartments.

It's got a nice feel about it has Southwold, expect that's why it's so popular (and expensive) as a place to live. Never mind...you can dream...or stay in a B&B!

Siobhan, one of the hens died on Tuesday morning, she'd not been herself for a few days and we brought her inside but alas.... Maeve doesn't appear to be pining, but is always looking about perhaps for her old friend. It's quite sad...RIP Siobhan...

Buttons galore!

Hello again, I seem to have been lagging behind with this blogging lark the last week..still feeling a bit out of sorts but that's life..

Well, I've had to curb my ebay time after going a bit overboard on bids for mother of pearl buttons, but came away with 2 lovely packets of buttons and some found in Diss Oxfam last week, so a nice little stash to be going on with. My main use for them has been for the middle of these felt brooches. I came across some fantastic cards of vintage MOP buttons that Sue (propieter of Purl & Co) had been collecting to sell in our yarn shop in town, but think they've all gone now...so needed to find some more!

It's been beautiful weather here the last few days and have enjoyed some nice meandering walks with the dog. This time last year it was snowing up in Sheffield, as we made our way through it to get our dissertations bound before the shop closed. Did a bit of sorting out yesterday of 'leaving uni' boxes and bags that have still been hanging around in case of moves back up north. Sadly, in some respects, it looks like I'll be settling here for a while and so tried to put things away and make a bit more space. Brought back a few memories. It's silly that even looking at clothes can remind you of things and looking at my occupational therapy uniforms of white tunics and bottle green trousers inevitably made me remember my final work placement which would have started soon this time last year for 3 months. Things just feel very unsettled in my head just now, when you have to make lots of decisions and you're never sure if theyr'e the right ones...usually in my case they never are..

Doing the clear up yesterday also made me remember that it's a year on Wednesday that Nellie and me first got in touch, all because of a 'Po', a tiny little creature made out of polymer clay that Tomoko makes. These are incredibly tiny, you can't quite believe that it's possible to create something so detailed and small with your fingers, but then she is very talented.

Dad has actually had a spring in his step this week which has been lacking for a while. His new job 'doing his hobby', fixing motorbikes at his friend's garage is obviously much better suited to him than the school run driving job which he was not enjoying to say the least.

Mum attended an Intarsia workshop at Purl & Co yesterday, her Christmas present from Dad. Was very impressed by the results, a heart design. She said it wasn't as complicated as she had anticipated.

Am still quite perplexed about the complexities of blogging, I'd like to be able to add links in the text, for example to Tomoko's site and also to write between adding pictures but am baffled as to how to go about this. If anyone has any tips please let me know!

Out of sorts....

Yes, these bags have been on my mind since yesterday afternoon. Something momentous occurred! Davey at the craft group patiently showed me how to use a sewing machine. It feels like a whole new world of possibilities has opened up. Of course, it is going to take much practice to conjure up something like the above but maybe someday! Thanks Davey...

It's been a funny few days... hopefully the gloom will lift soon.

Tea cosy!...cosy tea...

As promised, the finished, felted tea cosy made at Gill's workshop! I hadn't realised that the inside would be visible also so it was nice to put some spots inside too.

We've found some Japanese leather bag handles on Kitty-Craft for mum's bag which should go well with the orange and brown colours of her bag.

Mum joined gwen for her dentist's appointment today to have her troublesome tooth removed, she's now back here recovering, bless her.

yay...

It's my future brother in law's birthday tomorrow (hopefully!) and this is the picture I used to make him a card. It's a seriously beautiful bike seen in Osaka, Japan.

guess what?..I've been offered the support worker job. It was after 5pm when I received the call so was expecting the worst after being used to late in the day 'sorry but..' calls. So, very pleased and relieved and have a good feeling about this one. Unfortunately, will be waiting several weeks for crb to come through before starting.

Nellie said it was upsetting but also moving and he was surprised at the amount of people who came.

Saw on the news about the cuts to arts council funding for arts projects today, seems really unfair that some are losing total funding while others double, why can't it just continue as before? Similarly, the news showed how brass bands will potentially lose out while the opera gets considerably more in comparison. I'm all for variety but where's the support shown for grassroots, small, community projects? Who goes to the opera? sorry, have had a few too many glasses of wine and on a downer.

On a better note, saw a brilliant dvd last night, 'Tell no one' , but please tell everyone about this film as you won't be disappointed! It's french, a murder mystery, a doctor whose wife was murdered suddenly receives an e-mail from her 8 years later. Fantastique!

Have a great weekend folks.

rain, rain, go away....

What a miserable day it's turned out to be. Nas and me went on a very blustery walk this morning and nearly got blown away, I gave up trying to peel back the hair from out of my eyes!

Nas usually enjoys being out in all the elements but wind is not his thing..he tends to assume a mournful face throughout a windy walk but it also helps to exacerbate his crazy running off in zig-zags all over the meadow, ripping up clumps of grass phases...which are pretty hilarious.

Here he is in a butter-wouldn't-melt pose, and on a much nicer day than today.

It's stitch 'n' bitch tonight although I'm not sure if I'll go along yet..in one of those stay at home moods after looking forward to it all week. In preparation, I'd started on another pair of Louisa Harding's gardening mittens in Kidsilk aura (lovely, it's got a bit of a sheen to it) as my main wip at the moment is a 'parisienne shawl', the pattern of which was kindly emailed to me by the lovely owner of 'Norfolk Yarns' in Norwich after I saw it in the window on a visit. It's coming along well and am using a cone of light blue mohair found at a charity shop. The only problem is it needs my full attention with the stitches and I'm always fearful of forgetting where I am with it...so, not the best project for a group night!

The gardening mitts are addictive, and came in really handy for Christmas presents. I found some lovely velvet ribbon in a shop at Covent Garden and used this to go through the eyelets of the glove at the wrist.

Spoke to Nellie last night while he was preparing to iron his shirt for today, he was wondering if he could just get away with ironing the bit of shirt that would be on show! We agreed that was probably okay, and it is cold inside churches so he shouldn't need to take his jacket off..men and ironing eh?! It's going to be a hard day for him...