New Bags and Buttons and Tim Minchin

Website Additions

I have been very busy this last few days making some more lovely bags. These new bags are made from linen and the fabric comes from Germany and has a marvellous texture as well as print.

There are 3 of them, and here they are!

I have also been busy providing artistic advice (though my husband just called it unnecessary interference). Husband is a carpenter by trade and I asked him if he would turn some buttons using some of the exotic woods he hordes away in his workshop. I must have caught him in a good mood because he made me a really good selection - and they are GORGEOUS!

What do you think?

So these too are now available on my website.

Ginger

Now it is my belief that most people either love or hate gingers. I love gingers but then I am biased because most of my family (including myself) have one shade or another of this colour. I'm auburn, my husband a lighter shade, my son has a rich ginger not auburn but not red topped with bright green. Yes, bright green which provides a very colourful style. But at least the green part of the hair matches all green earings.

Anyway, he showed me a very amusing performance on YouTube by Tim Minchin, an Australian comedic singer/songwriter. Even if you aren't ginger you might find this quite entertaining.

Tim Minchin - Taboo

I also like this Tim Minchin - If I didn't have you - but I know he's not every one's cup of tea but I think his work is great fun.

New Knitting Bags

Just thought I'd show you my latest bags. I have made knitting bags and sock project bags from two lovely new fabrics. Cosy Cats for cat lovers and Ferns a gorgeous new fabric all the way from New Zealand.

These bags are now on my website Roseland Bags if you want t know more about them,

London Break

London Break

Usually we go walking and camping with occasional cottage holidays - and keep as far as way as possible from cities, but a few weeks ago we went to London to visit some of our national museums.

We camped at a marvelous site at Abbey Wood not far from Greenwich, which I would thoroughly recommend. The locals were very friendly and gave us lots of help and advice. The train station was a 5 minute walk away and took about 25 minutes to central London - and 5 nights cost £114 - which gave husband enormous satisfaction.

We managed to visit The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, The National Maritime Museum, The Royal Observatory, The National Portrait Gallery and Kew Gardens and fit in a trip down the Thames .

My personal favourite was the Natural History Museum, specifically the building itself.

No snaps of the Portrait Gallery, but it was wonderful experience.

We spent many hours a Kew and enjoyed it thoroughly -I loved this eucalyptus tree.

This was the view from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

We had a great meal in The Spice of Life, a pub in theatreland, great value - tasty and inexpensive.

We ate in Greenwich a couple of times, we had a great tapas at Mambo Latino, the food was delicious and the staff friendly and attentive.

For daytime snacks, coffee and bread- Rhodes Bakery, thank goodness I don't live round the corner from it.

New Bags

I have just finished making some knitting bags and sock bags in two gorgeous new fabrics and will be uploading photos on my website tomorrow.

Blankets and Beads

Knitted Blanket

My current project is a blanket, I'm using patterns from Jan Eatons 'Knitted Blocks'. I pulled back a cardigan that I had almost finished knitting in Rohan Calmer because I found a couple of mistakes way back. I had knitted/pulled back so many times that I couldn't face knitting it up again.

The yarn is cream coloured and I thought it wouldn't make a blanked on it's own but being cream could easily be the main colour.

Here are 3 block patterns I've been using.

My friend Paula has a hotel in Blackpool where she runs regular knitting holidays. Last week was a knitting holiday week, there were 5 ladies there, all of whom had come on their own and didn't know each other at all. The holiday ran from Monday to Friday. I went along on the Tuesday evening to tell them a little about my bags and to provide them with an opportunity to have look at and buy if they wanted. They certainly liked my bags - I sold 7 sock bags and one Cool Cats Knitting Bag!

Paula also arranges for the Wild Fire Fibre lady to to visit with bags of hand dyed wool some of which is handspun too. Absolutely gorgeous yarn - too gorgeous for me to resist, I bought two skeins of organic merino - so soft you just want to snuggle up to it. I bought it to make some squares for my blanket.

What struck me about the knitters on holiday was that by the time I arrived on Tuesday - you would have thought they had all known each other for years, there was a super atmosphere.

There is a Knitting Holiday 'Finishing Techniques' in October - already booked up - I may take some photos to show just what they get up to.

Information about Paula's Knitting holidays at Westcliffe Hotel

Beads by Laura

Laura recently bought a bag from me and at the bottom of her email was a website address - being very nosy I had to take a look. Laura makes glass beads and as you can see, they are breathtakingly exquisite. Laura's website is Beads by Laura

Laura explains how she started in making glass beads and and even offers a 10 page guide to getting started in lampwork for only £2.99.

Back Again

What's Been Happening

When I signed off last time I never realised just how long it would be before I came back!

During the time I've been away, my son Ben, broke down in Germany and it took me two days of constant phone calls to him and to recovery people to bring both him and the bike home (separately). When he came home he decided to stay with us for the rest of the summer holidays. Why would he want to stay with his parents? Well, I think it may have had something to do with a young lady round the corner!

On top of that, my husband Paul, came home from a sailing weekend (about 6 weeks ago) with a sore knee and not feeling very well - within days he was in hospital with a massively inflamed leg, raging temperature, hooked up to an intravenous drip of antibiotics - not well at all. It didn't help that the Doctors had no idea what caused it and no idea how to put it right.

After 7 days in hospital the infection had continued to spread - down towards the ankle and up to - well you know where Eventually, they managed to find the right antibiotic to start working and the inflamation stopped spreading. Although he's on the mend, it' will be months before it will be back to normal (was he ever).

Last week was spent getting Ben back to college in Nottingham (last year of classical guitar building), sorting accommodation, crockery, food etc etc and then actually taking all the stuff there. Ben of course had to go on his motorbike.

New Toy

We bought a couple of kayaks 3 years ago and enjoyed the odd trip up to the Lake District paddling accross the lakes, thenI was persuaded to try moving water ie fast running river. Well, the upshot was I had a bit of a near death experience (well that's what I think it was) and have been reluctant ever since to get in it. So we decided to sell them and get a open canoe. We particularly fancied one of these so we could take the tent and have a multi-day trip. So we bought one last week and took it up to Coniston this Monday for it's maiden voyage.

It may not look like it but I really enjoyed our trip.

Roseland Bags

Whilst I've been having all this fun, I confess I did find time to sew and knit.

I'd been thinking about making some sock project bags. I started by looking at the what people seemed to like. Most bags available were the circular sort with either a drawer string or elasticated cord at the neck. I decided to make one, but I didn't really enjoy making it and thought I could come up with a a more functional design.

So I thought I would like one that could stand up on it's own, that had a nice handle to carry it around by, somewhere to keep the needles and also act as a yarn keeper to keep yarn untangled and i the bag while knitting.

So these are some of what I came up with.

I've had great feedback and I now have them in other fabrics and after this week even more.

You can take a look at them here (shameless plug).

I have started a new knitting project - I pulled back my Rohan Calmer cardigan I was knitting - had made a couple of mistakes way down and couldn't face re-knitting all over again and because I tend to knit in short spurts I wanted a bit of quick gratification (as you do sometimes) so I decided to make a blanket from knitted squares. So my friend Paula who has the Westcliffe Hotel and does knitting holidays (another shameless plug) let me borrow her ''Jan Eatons Knitting Blocks" and I'm hooked. Of course I had to buy the book off Amazon and failed again to stick to my 'economy drive'.

Well I'm off to make a sausage sandwich now because I have as much success with diets as I do with economy drives.

Craft Fairs One of my favourite pastimes is trundling round craft fairs. I love the colours, textures and sheer diversity of items for sale. But it's not always easy to find them and when you do it was held the week before!

These are some of the sites that I use to find craft fairs: -

http://www.craft-fair.co.uk/index.cfm

This is a marvelous site, you can find fairs by month, publications, materials for crafting, tuition all by county- worth a look.








http://www.creativecrafts-online.co.uk/html/events_.html
for craft fairs in the North West of England.

As it suggests a website for craft fairs accross Yorkshire, worth mentioning is that apart from a couple of places admission is completely FREE.

http://www.yorkshirefairs.co.uk/



Click to Give Free Mammograms

The Breast cancer Site is having a problem getting enough people to click on their site to meet their daily quota of donating at least one mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman.

It takes less than a minute to go on their site and click 'donating a mammogram' and it doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate a mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the website, please pass it along to the people you know. Thank you.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

Wild Fire Fibres

I've added a link to the side menu for Wild Fire Fibres . I first saw this producer at I was completely mesmerised by the range of colours and fibres.


All hand dyed and some actually hand spun as well. I told the lady at the stand what I was looking for and she couldn't have been more helpful.

If you knit or crochet and you want something a little bit different then I recommend you take a look at the yarns at Wild Fire Fibres and just to wet you appetite.







Pink Rose Bag (2)
If you take a look at my website, you will sea that I have sold out of quite a few of my bags this weekend/week so I won't have time for blogging until next week I would think - because I will be working hard to make more bags to re-stock - and I've been out buying the most fantastic material - but that's all I'm going to say for now!

Holidays and Trips

Knit and Natter

Now ladies (and Gentlemen knitters too) how do you fancy staying at this award winning, family-run hotel situated in the select area of Blackpool’s North Shore, close to Gynn Gardens, Queen’s Promenade and the spectacular Coastal Cliff Walk.

These holidays are ideal for singles who wish to combine their hobby with making friends and meeting like-minded people.

Places are limited as all guests have their own rooms and no supplements are charged. A discount is available to anyone wishing to share. Larger groups can be accommodated at other

dates and tailor-made packages are arranged to suit their requirements.

All levels of experience are welcome, and if you are having problems with a particular piece of knitting, bring it along and I will do my best to help you out.
There will be all the latest knitting titles and magazines to browse throughout your
stay.

Most important of all - BRING YOUR KNITTING!

Still some vacancies for these dates: -

August 10th -14th

September 7th - 11th

October 5th - 9th

Find out more at www.westcliffehotel.com

Bens Trip

I've just had an email from my son, Ben, laying out his proposed itinery, which is: -

Portsmouth,

France: Barentin, Reims, Nancy, Waldshut;

Germany: Ingolstadt ;

Czech republic, Slovakia, Ukraine border;

Ukraine: Lviv, Kiev, Odessa

and possibly back through Austria, Hungary, Italy, France etc, or around the Coast of the Black Sea to Istanbul, then back up through Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary etc.

Well I don' know about you but I'm exhausted just reading about it.

I had hoped to continue with 'bag making' but somethings cropped up, so I'll continue with that tomorrow,