Frolicking in the snow

Our granddaughter Paige was spending the day with us today, so we decided to take her and the doggies to the Firehills for a bit of fun in the snow. I may have gotten a bit carried away with the photos, lolol, but they were having sooooo much fun, I just kept clicking away. And then of course I couldn't decide which ones to delete so I ended up with a biiiiiiiig bunch of them on here. Ooops. Perhaps if you flick through really quickly, then looking at them won't seem quite so daunting a task, lol. Or you can ignore them completely, of course ;-). But as the blog is a kind of record of our days for me, I want them all on here!


These French shopping bags ( 1 Euro ) are indestructible and work rather well on snow -
The dogs thought it was great fun knocking DS off the bag -

Poppy meeting a friend


The dogs went completely loopy in the snow, chasing each other -


This is Bowser, their bestest friend, whom we have known since he was a little pup many years ago and living next door to us -

Not sure whether Poppy is trying to rescue Paige or delighting in knocking her off the bag -

Hector flying over the snow -

Doggie convention -

Nick found what looked like half a huge plastic container, which was excellent for sliding down the hills -
Poppygirl -



My gorgeous handsome Hector -


DS pretending to be 10 again -

And this is DH pretending to be 10 again. He is rather good at that, and not just in the snow -

Anybody who doesn't know Ridgebacks would think they are having a seriously scary, vivious fight here........ nope, thats how they play, lol, they love their boxing games and chewing each others' faces off. Somehow they never hurt each other -


My gorgeous Poppy girl -


If you have made it this far down, you are a STAR!!!!

xxx

Aaahhhh, wonderful yarns!

I was such a good girl before Christmas. Despite finding the most fabulous wool shop fairly locally, I resisted, I didn't buy any of the yummy yarns for myself, just got some for a scarf ( must remember to post pics of the scarf I made for mother-in-law ). But I certainly did a lot of drooling. And fondling. And a fair amount of stroking. And I did promise myself to pay another visit in January, when hopefully there would be a sale.

So we braved the snow yesterday and took a little drive over to the wool shop. It was open. It had a big SALE sign outside. And I had a big grin on my face! Not an acrylic yarn in sight, instead there was Debbie Bliss, Noro, Manos del Uruguay, Araucania and other equally lovely yarns.

Before Christmas, I had fallen in love with the Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend yarns, and promised myself to get some in the sale to make into a lovely scarf for me. This yarn is just soooo gorgeous! It is a blend of 70% extra fine merino wool and 30% silk, and feels incredibly soft and snuggly against the skin. And the colours, well, they are just WOW WOW WOW. The kettle dyed multi yarns have the most fabulous soft and subtle colour changes, they blend incredibly well. You can tell by now that I am truly smitten with this yarn, can't you, lol?

Now normally I am into muted colours, beiges, browns, greens and all their different shades and hues, but this time I went for colour, glorious colour! I bought one solid and two multi Manos Silk Blends with a purple theme, hows about that then -


I get all excited just looking at the pics right now, how ridiculous is that?

And then I went really OTT with colours, but somehow this yarn really appealed to me. It reminded me ever so much of the beautiful sunsets we get in France, so it was a must have. It is an Araucania wool mix -


Perfect for a cool summer evening throw I think.

And for another summery project I chose this absolutely gorgeous yarn, made from 100% sugar cane !! Aren't those just the prettiest soft blue and green watery colours? This yarn has a really beautiful sheen -


Look, colour!Not beige, not cream, not muted green, but COLOUR -

And here they all are together, looking so so pretty -

Now I am going back to stroking and fondling. The yarns, that is.
xx

And out came the knitting needles

The last year or two I have been renewing my relationship with yarns, crochet and VERY occasionally knitting. It seems I get more and more into snuggling up with yarns and a crochet hook or needles these days. Crocheting is getting better, gee, I get adventurous and make up my own granny squares, lolol, but my knitting is still absolutely basic, shame on me.

I am also a huge cricket fan. And of course its test match season, England is in South Africa at the mo. However, I just cannot sit in front of the telly for any length of time without having something to do with my hands. So the hunt for a teeny weeny project, which wouldn't require much in the way of concentration and attention, was on. On was also a trip to the nearest wool shop. I really had no definite project in mind, whatever yarn took my fancy would sort of dictate what I would make.

And I found this -

Just look at the colours, they are so delicious! The yarn is a very thick boucle sort of yarn, pure merino wool, from New Zealand. The name? Mount Pisa. When I saw those mouthwatering colours, I thought this would make a lovely little scarf for our darling granddaughter Grace.

It was really too thick and knobbly to crochet comfortably, so out came the knitting needles! This yarn is brilliant for basic knitters like me, it is so forgiving! Because of the knobbly boucle texture, it doesn't matter if your stitches are uneven and because of the swiftly changing colours, it looks fab even with the most basic of knitting stitches, don't you think?

I took me all of day three of the test match to knit it and crochet the flowers, and it was the perfect easy project. I finished it about 30 seconds before my DS and my almost-daugher-in-law came to visit with Grace. She looks so cute wrapped up in the scarf!


Thats it for today, but there might just be another woolly post tomorrow. Not with any finished project, but with some exciting buys....

xx

A little angel

I so wanted to share these pictures of a little gift I made ages ago, but I had to be patient ( not something I am terribly good at, lol ) because the recipients of this little gift do read my blog. I need to explain, I think.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know that after many years our dear friends Will and Theresa were finally able to adopt and bring home their daughter Mae last year.

This beautiful little girl has finally made their lives complete and I wanted to make a little something for them as a reminder of their first Christmas together as a family. I have to thank Dawn from The Feathered Nest for the fabulous idea. Her fairies in a jar inspired me to make a Christmas Angel in a Jar for them. I had a gorgeous old picture of an angel and a lovely old French jar, which I thought would be perfect for what I had in mind. I think I had a smile on my face the whole time I was putting it all together.

Then came the bad news - Mae had chicken pox and they couldn't come and visit as arranged. But this turned out to be quite fortunate, because W & T just happened to post some photos of Mae on their blog and I thought that Mae as the Christmas Angel would be so much more personal. YAY! I nicked a pic off their blog and printed it out. The wings were made from parts of the Christmas Carol, which the very generous Graphics Fairy Karen had posted only a little while earlier ( I also used it on the bag, see last photo ). I removed the original angel and replaced it with Mae, and she looked just gorgeous. So everything turned out for the best in the end, lol.

And this is it -


I am pleased with the way it turned out, and I am so glad that T & W loved it as well. It was a real pleasure to make, especially the second time round with the photograph of Mae, lol.

xxx

Happy New Year!

I wish you all a very happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2010! I hope the year will be everything you want it to be and that all your hopes and wishes will become reality.

2009 has been an interesting year. I got off my butt and did quite a lot of fairs, which were surprisingly successful. I also started this blog, as a joke to begin with, but somehow it kinda grew, and I have met some really wonderful people through blogging. Some of the blogs I visit regularly have been so full of inspiration that I have been encouraged to do some crafting again. AND... my DH finally retired at the end of the year. So 2010 will be a VERY challenging year, but something we are so very much looking forward to. We will be spending a lot of time doing up this big house and garden over the next 12 months. It is going to be tough as so much work is needed, but then we will finally be able to sell it and buy a small flat as our base here in England and move to our beautiful little cottage in France full time!!! I will always have slightly mixed feelings about that, as this has been our family home for so many years and I do love this home, but our cottage in France is our little bit of paradise and we are so happy there.

Enjoy the last couple of days of the Christmas/New Year break! xxx