I made it myself...

I made a couple of these little guys for some people I know - one for my lovely friend GMcD, whose birthday it was the other week:

And one for Jo, at Diary of a Sad Housewife; I feel for her, she's in a crappy situation & sometimes the small things can help to cheer you up:

I love that each one of these guys has their own personality, their own life, and even though I cut them all from the same pattern, they all come out differently (and so cute!!!) - but how creepy is it that their eyes follow you round the room?  Just kidding.  Although the day they start talking back, I'm in trouble. 

I also got these in the mail:

 

& I'm trying to decide if it's okay to make frogs with fabric with owls on it - I guess it is - who's going to tell on me?  Aren't these gorgeous?  Suggestions please!

Oh the pain, the pain of it all...

So, yesterday with our friends K & O (you know who you are), we went out to lunch here, it was really nice, and they bought along their photos of their holiday to Paris, Moscow & St Petersburg.  Nice, very nice.


Today I was given the somewhat rare treat of complete peace in the house, MWH going off to the football & leaving me alone with the sewing machine, my MP3 player and several loads of washing.  Generous to a fault... so I cut out & made the black silk clutch, and broke five, yes five needles in the process.  Apparently size 70 Schmetz needles do not like encountering beads.  Unsurprisingly, they break.  Wouldn't you think after the first two I would have figured out to put something a bit firmer in the machine?  But no, I persisted with the 70s, and that has now joined the list of things to get on Saturday at the haberdashery store...


Anyway, cleverly remembering to add two tags for a strap of some kind, I finished the clutch.  It's tiny.  I might offer it to MWH's niece, Alex, (she's 11) & see if she would like to have it for the wedding (or whatever) - but it's no good to me apart from a lipstick, a car key & maybe a comb?  Oh well.  Another trap for young players there - check out the finished sizes before you start...


Oh, you want a photo?  Next week.  I've also managed, in the middle of busily knitting a cardigan for my friends S & T, who've just had a baby, and also a hat for my friend Karol's niece who's pregnant, to acquire tennis elbow.  I had it once before about 4 years ago & it is such a nuisance - I can't straighten my arm, and I certainly can't hold anything with my arm straight - even taking clothes off over my head is problematic - and it's all down to the knitting... so although I probably could go & get the camera &  take the photos, I'm going to rest my elbow for a week.  Or two.


I am also considering one of these, from Rowena at Red Ruby Rose - I bought one to go with the outfit I wore to Arthur's 60th birthday - they are so beautiful, in every sense - beautifully marketed, made and packaged - if I had a zillion dollars I'd buy every one in her shop!

Anyway, 10.52pm Sunday means sleep.  More, later.  Dismissed.

Fame, remember my name(2)

Just wanted to say how excited I am about getting 'pinged' as we computer geeks say (what's the difference between a geek and a nerd, in computer terms anyway?) by Jo at Diary of a Sad Housewife - I made her list of her favourite 9 blogs - wow (this is me rendered speechless here).

Sometimes I wonder about the impact of the stuff I write, because I have been known to rant a bit about the injustices of life, you know, where corporate giants exploit people because they can, where people are selfish and thoughtless, where scumbag lawyers make bad situations even worse by not caring, that kind of thing... and then I'm glad I blog, because even though most days this is a brain dump for me, and nothing more, occasionally I do want to make a point (even though most days I have no idea if anybody even reads this stuff) and I want to make the world and the people in it, better. And today, Jo made me feel like I might have. Nice.

It's a bit like LA Law this week.

It's a bit like LA Law this week.

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Read this and weep. In the words of Pete Seeger, "oh when will they ever learn?"

Decisions, decisions...

So, I'm about to make the Wedding Clutch (see, the relative importance is noted by the presence of Capital Letters...) & I can't decide which pattern to use. I have three, all from Keyka Lou, and they're all great - and if anybody knows anything about me, they'll know I can't make decisions about the small stuff! New beds are easy, new cars (well, it was easy 5 years ago), sure, trade-in the husband? Sure... that's a decision I make all the time (not that I've done anything about it yet, the prospect of moving 16.5 years of accumulated junk puts me off everytime I get close [and maybe that's not the only reason, hmmm?])... but which handbag to make for the wedding? Phew. Too hard.

Don't get me wrong, the patterns are great, easy to follow, well written, good pictures, very logical, so there's no issue there. Just me.

Here's the possibilities:

Journal Clutch: I've made this & it's nice, a good size & it would be very useful... also it's a great shape for the black silk, because it's 'boxy'...

Easy Curvy Clutch - haven't made this yet, but can't see that it would be any harder than the other patterns in Michele's range...

Garden Party Wristlet - this is very cute, and it would be super useful with the strap, but it's hard to imagine it in any other colour and the pink is very girlie...

I do think the black silk would look better as a clutch rather than the Garden Party Wristlet, just because the fabric is quite 'firm', but it is a very useful style...maybe without the bow? I'm not much of a bow person anyway, (on me, anyway - on a victorian tea gown, or an afternoon dress they look spectacular)... but it would need some 'focus' object to finish it... hmmm.

Much thinking required here, methinks... oh well, off for breakfast. Then we'll see.

A little world surfing

Well, I just finished making a birthday gift for my good friend GMcD, aka Hanna Sutherland, who has a birthday on Tuesday, and something else I can't talk about just now, but will post about it when I know it's hit the other end.


So I thought I'd share some pictures I took a couple of years back, on our first trip to the UK together.  They were the last shots I took with my trusty Nikon film camera, before I converted to digital.  They have a certain something, don't they?

Chihuly glass at the V&A - magnificent

This is holding up the roof in a church somewhere - gorgeous...

Fantasy land - hard to believe this was taken in St James' Park, isn't it?

My all-time favourite.  The staircase in Queen Mary's House, at Greenwich.  Some days you just get lucky!

And on a slightly more cheery note...

I have to share this with you people out there! Sorry Kaz, if you didn't want it out there - it's too beautiful to leave unposted somewhere on the fancy young people's internet (thanks, Tony Squires...)


This is the label my lovely friends Kaz & Az are going to put on their wine this year - they normally sell all their grapes to these people, and have a few bottles kept aside for themselves prior to it being blended in with other quality grapes - and they've had a label in the past, but nothing as spectacular as this:

How could anybody resist? And it has two of my four favourite dogs in the whole wide world on it - just beautiful. It is slight, ever so slightly not quite but nearly geographically correct, but who's going to quibble? Everybody will be so taken by the gorgeous doggies that they won't even twig that the water is not really there... and who cares?

And, do I hear you say, what about the other two favourite dogs in the whole wide world? Well, seeing as I haven't done any sewing since Sunday (shame on me), and no material arrived in the mail (and what's that about?), it's down to the dogs - or is that "we've gone to the dogs"? Sorry. Couldn't help it, you know how I love a good pun...

This is Gus. He's a boy. Anybody who didn't notice needs to have their eyes checked very very soon. He was a pound puppy, can you believe it?

And this is Jarrah:

She has the sweetest nature, and puts up with all sorts of crap from Gus, who constantly teases her, chews her legs, flicks her ears, worries her tail... and she just happily sits there, until Gus goes just that little bit too far. Then she growls at him, he runs away and peace is restored. For about 10 minutes.


Love it. Love those dogs.