the nuisance tagger

I feel a bit of a nuisance tagging fellow blogsters, but I have been very polite and hope the 'tagged' will reciprocate - but if you are reading this please feel free to reply 'not today missus!'

5 new meme things not mentioned on your blog...
slippedstitch
misocrafty
castoncastoff

the rules, take em or leave em...
1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about.

6 weird things...
sadieandlance
brownpants
impressionknits

take em or leave um...
THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

double tagged

blimey I have been tagged twice

1) cfknits, the one and only princess of purple has tagged me for 6 weird things about me
2) sadieandlance tagged me yesterday for 5 things meme

first up WEIRDNESS:
1 - cheese with holes in it gives me the shivers - I start thinking about magnified skin cells yuck - even thinking about it makes me feel sick! stop stop stop....
2 - I have a tendency to look at digital displays just as they turn to 33 minutes past - no joke, I had a phase of waking up in the middle of the night just as my alarm clock turned to 3.33am - spooky! The clock now faces the wall at night so I can't see it - weird weird weird.....
3 - I collect the printed patterns from the inside of envelopes - its not a compulsive disorder!
4 - I lovvvveeeee stationery and have a stash of well kept note pads just waiting to be used - but I can never decide which one to use.
5 - I don't like baked beans - everyone else seems to so it must be weird!
6 - my younger brother is forever telling me I am weird (he is a cheeky blighter) my sisters wedding for example, he was convinced I had based my outfit on Mary Poppins.

second up MEME
1 - cakes - things tend to go wrong when I bake cakes - oh the stories my family could tell you!
2 - patience - I don't have any
3 - I haven't started my BIG project yet, though I do have the yarn ready and waiting but have been looking around for something else to knit with it - I am just not convinced by the retro jacket, this jacket looks much more like my style.
4 - I am moving to Istanbul, Turkey for 6 months on Saturday.
5 - I should have gone bed ages ago....

night night... I will blog my tags tomorrow...

Replenishing sewing stash 2007

It's sale time again and I just can't pass by those bargains on the high street.
From the top:
1) Liberty of London; wool-silk in mustard - most expensive of my sale purchases - but well worth it - I have plans to use this to make a fabric scarf complemented by the fabric donated by my mum, see below.
2) Liberty of London; Tana Lawn cotton - I already have the really cute red watering-can motif and just had to have it in navy and turquoise too.
3) John Lewis, Oxford Street, London; pure silk; nearly bought this in the summer but resisted, glad I did as I purchased 2.5m at half price!
4) Liberty of London; Tana Lawn.
5) Liberty of London; Tana Lawn; pencils pencil everywhere - how could I resist this - it will make a fab shirt.
6) donation from my mum's stash; mum made a dress out of this when she was a teenager, I have about 1 m sq and plan to make a fabric scarf.
7) Liberty of London; stretch jersey; how cute is this and I have 2 metres, yipee, summer t -shirt or pyjama top perhaps.

Unfortunately I don't have individual names for the designs - I thought I might find references on the internet for Tana Lawn from Liberty, but no luck, I will have to go back to Liberty to check.

A family of scarves

During a couple of trips to Cheshire at Christmas to see my family my mum and dad had the opportunity to chart the progess of my GEDIFRA scarf kint on the diagonal. I finally finished it on new years day, it has come out quite nicely and the GEDIFRA holds it's shape really well and keeps me toasty warm ;-) though to be honest it really isn't that cold here considering it's January.



My dad has always been immensely proud of his knitting skills, although there is actually only one piece of evidence. This has been carefully stored away longside one of my mums' childhood knits. So first up, here is my dad's little green and yellow number. My dad thinks he was about nine when he knit this at school. His mum, my late nanny Beat (Beatrice) I knew for her sewing skills, and I am sure she must have helped my dad with the equally spaced stripes.



My mum's piece of school knitting is proof that she has always been keen on football. Her scarf carries the colours of Manchester City FC that she mum supported as a child, though now her team of passion is the infamous Manchester United. My nanny Vera, my mum's mother has over the years knit me loads of scarves, hats and cardies, but none in football colours I should add. Nan only recently gave up knitting and in fact I rescued a number of her needles from various plant pots around the house. Just under half of my knitting needles have been gleaned from my nan.



My mum and dad are far to busy to take up knitting again now, though I will make it my mission to find a way to test their crafty knitting skills sometime during the year.

Happy New Year

Hello, I am back again. I have been busy over the last few months... more on that soon... but I have been making stuff... honest...

I crafted a couple Christmas presents for my niece... not as many as I would have liked to, but my plans are a little unrealistic at times. Santa brought my niece a lovely pink kitchen, complete with a singing kettle and bubbling pots... so of course every little cook should have a frilly apron and matching oven gloves.





I really enjoyed making the oven gloves, they are so cute. I made the pattern up for both the apron and gloves as I went along. The gloves were my first go at quilting, I would like to do some more quilting projects as I really like the firmness it gives to the fabric. A plan for cushions I think.

This year I visited IKEA for Christmas present inspiration and couldn't resist these fishy finger puppets - I made a little bag for my niece to keep her fishy friends in, the red starfish has a piece of velcro at the centre so that you can stick a crab or mini jaws to it if you like.





more blogging coming soon, I promise...