A plaited handle bag for Ali

A Slouchy bag for Maisie

A Manu for me, I love and adore this cardigan and would wear it every day if I could…i do mostly lol

Spinning up 200g of my Seduce fibre

Two Multi Tasking Totes, one for my mum and one for a lovely customer..

Finished the back of my silk bolero…this has been put back in it’s project bag for now…

Sewed myself a dress to wear to London

Made some socks for my Aunty Sally

Dyed up the fibre club blend….lots of it!! (If you would like the details of my fibre club you can click the pink link)

Snow Outside the Globe Theatre in London, we went to see a play called voices off with our neighbours from Haddenham, Rob & Lyndsey, it was an hilarious farce, the play not the whole day although it was a lot of fun.  Sadly my knee joint decided to play up and going up and down lots of stairs for the tube trains was very painful, then my hip on the other leg started to join in. whinge whinge whinge…it’s all ok again now though

Barry tried on an armoured glove in the V&A museum…love that place and that man <3

I spun up the club fibre so that i could add a sample with each package

Did a shop update, I’m trying out dyeing some yarn, I’m not so confident with it as I am with tops though.  I might try some more …

I bought a pretty bobbin holder from Jaycott’s. Maisie arranged my bobbins, love how it looks. I need another bobbin holder though lol

Sewed a couple of my Dumpling bags for a customer

Knitted this tiny little jacket from the club handspun

Made these i-cord finger gloves because I found the pattern in one of my Meg Swanson Books and just had to make them!

Knitted Maisie a pair of cashmerino socks to wear under her ugg boots

Knitted these cute little bootees from some more of the club handspun (I have enough left to knit a tiny hat too)

Did another shop update, this time with some more of the club blend of SW Merino and Seacell and some beautiful Polwarth fibre

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In between all that activity, my sewing machine needed to go back to the shop for a repair and my Maisie has been here for the last week. I love having her in the house, she is such good company even if she does spend most of her time in her room studying I think…. 

We’re about to take her back to her Dad’s now….

It’s no wonder I’m knackered worn out!

I’m going to be doing lots of sewing next week so if you’ve requested a bag or a needle case from me, this could be the week you hear from me!

Where does the time go?

I’ve been mega busy with my shop , I had a little sale, did you miss it? I couldn’t believe the response, thank you for your support

Right now, I am doing my tax return, eugh, I hate doing it, but if I don’t get it done by the end of this month then I will be fined £100 by the Inland Revenue. I will do it, just waiting on one piece of information to arrive by post, it is nail biting waiting for it to come!! I knew I needed this information months ago, so why didn’t I request it sooner?

In between worrying about getting my tax return done I have been crafting, I just have to, I’d go bonkers if I didn’t create something most days

I made Ali, my eldest a Flutterby,

that’s me modelling it.  I wanted photos for my Ravelry projects page and as Ali lives about 150 miles away I thought I would see if it looked ok on me. I loved how it felt, so comfortable to wear, and nice and warm where you need it. Ali loves it too, she has asked if I could make a lighter weight one for when she has the baby as it would be a good cover-all for when she’s breastfeeding.  I think I need to get my knitting machine dusted off for it though, I’m sort of stocking stitched out ! Ali’s fourth baby is due in April, so exciting!! I love making little tiny cute things, such quick results and lots of smiles when they’re finished

One of my Christmas presents came in a very pretty tiny little bag with an interesting closure.  This bag fascinated me and made me start thinking about how I could use a similar closure on a small project bag, my first attempt is in the hands of my lovely friend Annie, she is road testing it for me. I showed the second one off at spinning guild on Saturday and it was well received and seeing Heather playing with the closure made me think about how to add a handle. my mind is buzzing with ideas

I also made myself a larger project bag to contain all I needed to make a Manu cardigan. The cardigan called for 8 balls of yarn, 400g. I must admit the bag I was calling the Jumper Dumper struggled to contain that much yarn. I realised it wanted to be a medium sized bag for 300g maximum and that I needed to make an even bigger project bag for up to 800g of yarn. Watch this space…

This is the original jumper dumper, it’s a lovely size, but more for a child’s jumper or cardigan, or a blanket which is growing in size

It measures about 30cm deep and 30cm wide and the handle is long enough to go over your shoulder

it has an inner and an outer pocket, the latter is buttoned, the bag also has a metal clip for attaching essentials like car keys!!

I need to take some photos of the new bag to show you, I love it’s simplicity

I have also been doing some of this

Spun on my Rose using some of my own hand dyed Twinkle fibre. A real joy to spin and I truly thought i was aiming for a sport weight but as usual my spinning defaulted to an Aran weight.  This was N-plied to preserve the lovely colour changes.

I have made a new Kindle cover too, an order from Rob, for his wife Lyndsey (previous neighbours of ours). She loved it Rob asked me to make him one too, he chose the fabric as they stayed over on new year’s Eve. We did a deal, he bought us some tickets for the pantomime that he was producing/writing and I made the cover. I love working like that, no money, just love exchanging hands. The panto was excellent, I have to add and Lyndsey was a wonderful Lady Marian, singing her heart out on occasions, that takes some nerve!!

I love the simplicity of this design and will be making one to fit my old style Kindle. I prefer it to the other cover I had been making. It uses less fabric, is so much easier to make and takes far less time to construct, we’re all winners!! Love how you can get at the doings without having to take it out of the cover too. There are some pockets included on the front flap.

Now, just to finish with a cute photo….these two came to visit us on Boxing day, we had a great time. I have to say that I had been dreading Christmas but it wasn’t so bad. We walked to the pub on Christmas day and Barry managed to be in the perfect spot on the pavement to get splashed by a passing car going over the only puddle along the road. Hilarious!! He wasn’t so happy though, don’t know why…..

I made a load of these hats too ^^^

Right, back to work I suppose….

The main thing that slowed me down was moving house….it became quite frustrating because I wanted to sew but I also wanted to play houses.  Loads has been done to the house, well loads considering we’ve not been in here that long. I still need to work on my routine but I’ll get there. The more I sort out the more I feel back in control.

A couple of weekends ago, Ali, my eldest came for a visit and we met her new man. Must have been as nerve wracking for him as it was for us, however my Mum helped me follow in the family tradition that she started when she met Barry for the first time.  Well the first thing Mum said to Barry when she met him was ‘Hold your hand out’ so he did and she put in his hand the little furry toy mouse that normally scuttles along the floor if you pull his tail. You can imagine that this broke the ice and Mum and Barry get on really well. So I asked Mum if she would send the mouse over so I could give Jamie the same treatment. I noticed Ali looking as bemused with me as I had been with my Mum…a very tense moment diffused by a vibrating mouse! Ha-ha! Love you Mum xXx

I’ve been doing loads of knitting, small items, using lots of my handspun yarn up.

Love these three very much…

I’ve been sewing

and sewing

and designing and sewing my new mini needle organiser for keeping all the tools needed for a project together in one place

and cooking

I made some of Nigella’s Cranberry Mincemeat at the weekend, I doubled up the recipe as it doesn’t seem to make enough for the amount of mince pies I have to make.  Barry takes them into work every year…I couldn’t help but use some of the mincemeat to top a steamed almond sponge

My Christmas holiday food (mostly ingredients Maisie ) was delivered this morning, nightmare putting it all away.  I was very pleased that there were only 3 substitutions out of a very big order which would make your eyes water if I told you how much it all cost. I totally enjoyed doing a food order online with my favourite Christmas Cookery Books by my side. This year I seem to be favouring Nigella…

I cleaned all the downstairs windows today, inside and out and tidied up the dining roomwhich was in a pretty bad way and had been irritating me all the time I was sewing

Before

After

The scene was worse in real life but I couldn’t be bothered to go and change my lens and even standing out by the front door this was as much as I could get in the frame lol

I had a lovely Christmas card from the best daughter ever, well it said so on the envelope so it must be true

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas, or holiday or whatever floats your boat

Marianne x

If you need me I’m in my sewing room…it’s safe and happy in there

I measured the door and the hole and told the man that dropped the door off that it was too big. he phoned the man that was doing the fitting. He phoned me and told me not to worry it would be fine. I stopped worrying but then Barry came home and measured it and he said, “It won’t fit”. So Barry phoned the fitter and told him it was too big. The fitter then drove miles to measure it himself and then he admitted that indeed it wouldn’t fit!!

That was last week

So today, the door went back to be resized and hopefully on Saturday, this door will be fitted…

that bit at the top really annoys me….!

I have finally found the time to upload this montage of my lovely friends that came to visit us last Sunday. They brought with them their spinning wheels and knitting and we sat and knitted and nattered and ate lots of food and drank buckets of tea! It was the most lovely day and it warmed my heart having these friends here in our new home. 

The only person missing from the photos was Michaela, I think she must have gone to collect her son and his girlfriend as they had gone out for a meal to celebrate their one year anniversary of being together, aww, young love…

So I just want to say thank you to Heather, Annie, Michaela, Anna, Jill and Dianne for driving all those miles last week to spend the day with me and Barry in our new home. Hope you’re feeling better now Heather

Happy days

My Hexipuffing friend Kai, was my swap partner in a little swap we took part in, on the Facebook Beekeeper’s Quilt KAL.

I wound her some little balls of yarn and added in her parcel the Hexibag that she ordered. Kai has written a lovely review of her really gorgeous bag, it makes me so happy when my work is loved by the recipients

I have cut out loads of Hexibags and am starting on the embroidery, next will be the sewing of them. so if you’ve ordered one I’ll probably be getting in touch soon as I seem to be nearing the end of my Hexibag order list

Mostly, the time has been spent unpacking, decluttering and generally finding homes for everything. Barry has put up an Ikea curtain track in our bedroom so we could at least sleep in a bit longer in the mornings. He was impressed with the quality of the track thank goodness, so we’ll be getting more of those I expect…it does run smoothly. There are 3  4 rooms in the house that don’t need too much attention, the kitchen, downstairs loo, the bathroom and our bedroom. We just love the bathroom, we chose some lovely stripey fluffy bath and shower mats and matching brightly coloured towels, it looks very cheerful in there now and less like a spa room.

Barry has filled all the many screw holes and sanded and started painting my workroom, which is in fact a spare bedroom too. We have a curtain pole and funky lights to fit. I have bought curtain lining & heading tape and intend to find the time to sew some patchwork curtains from my fabric scraps. You might see your fabric in my curtains if you’ve bought one of my bags! haha

Today our gardener from the other place came and spent 7 hours cutting back our jungle, the front is amazingly bigger and the back is starting to grow in size too. It is scary how 14months of neglect can turn into a jungle, really really overgrown. Trouble is, we are left with massive piles of garden waste to dispose of..hmmmm…. The gardener is coming to do more work in a couple of weeks. I expect he needs that time to recover  especially as he fell into the water feature that was under all the overgrowth..oops sorry Ray! He only got a wet leg, no damage done haha, hope the fish tank he discovered will come in useful for his guppies

This is a before picture…the after one is quite dramatic but I’ve not taken it yet….

I have been sewing, lots…and have made good headway with my orders…if you’ve ordered from me, I hope to be in contact soon, do message me if you feel I may have forgotten you, you never know, I might have! You can see the Hexibags made to date here, I am adding them as I make them..

I have taken photos of the back garden before work started on it but forgot to take a photo of the front. I can probably dig one out from somewhere though

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Since starting to write this we have cleared away a lot of the garden waste, Barry has been working so hard to get this place presentable….

I have made even more bags and organisers, and I’ve ordered the fabric for the curtains in the craft/spare room. Just need to find the time to make them!

On Friday I received my copy of The Knitter magazine, I felt so proud seeing my Needle Tip Organiser on their review page. It was this beautiful organiser which features Kaffe Fassett designer fabric

I can’t tell you how proud it made me feel to see my organiser in that special magazine, they got the info a bit wrong though, saying it had 16 pockets for needle tips, it has in fact, double that amount as there is room for 2 sets of each size, apart from the 2 largest sizes..

What along way I’ve come since my first thoughts on making one of these organisers….

I have been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, mostly the kitchen

Every journey to the house, I take a car full of stuff, most of the cupboards in my old kitchen are empty now and I have filled the newly cleaned cupboards

I will take you on a tour…

Dining room, which has a radiator under the window but it is not attached to the central heating system, grrr, another job!

Sitting room

and the bit which needs lots of work

The whole of the sitting room needs lots of love and attention but it will be lovely when it is all done. Oh and almost none of the doors fit into their frames…soooo annoying!

There is a little gangway between the kitchen and the sitting room which has loads of room for books, a small room leading off the gangway is the downstairs loo which has a purple bubbly sparkly loo seat but it doesn’t show up in the photos, the paint used on the walls is sparkly too…

view from the front door, sorry about the over exposure

and upstairs we have

the main bedroom

The guest room

My workroom which is going to be decorated first so I can get on and do my sewing

The bathroom, with a Jacuzzi bath which Barry fixed and a walk in shower

Everywhere is very grubby, the house was abandoned over a year ago, I’ll soon get it spick and span but it’s hard when you have 2 houses to make good

Our furniture gets moved over to the new house a week tomorrow, I am looking forward to just having one home to sort out.  Right now, I am just chipping away at everything and I just hope that it all comes together in the end..

We found this note on the windowsill of my workroom, made us both feel a bit sad but happy that the little girl that used to live there loved this house, shame her Daddy wasn’t such a nice man to deal with!

And while all that is going on I managed to sew a pile of hexibags

all of them were posted to their new owners yesterday…

I also designed a new little sister to the Hexibag, The Little Dumpling

it’s just a bit smaller than the hexibag but has all of the same features including the clip but this little cutie has a shapely bottom, just like me! haha This small project bag is being tested at the moment and adjustments will be made if necessary before they hit my shop. I can’t wait to do some more sewing as  loads of lovely new fabric has arrived for me to play with

I have also got a layer of hexipuffs in my basket

and I discovered Amanda Perkins amazing Lily Blanket

so pretty…I am imagining this on the back of one of our sofas

I moustache…I want to do another star before I hit the sack!

I am so proud of this design and worked hard on choosing the name too…It was going to be called the Hexipuff Project Bag to be used for The hexipuffs’ knitted for The Beekeeper’s Quilt, but I considered that to be too limiting as it is just simply a perfect project bag for any WIP!  A friend of mine suggested The Teabag, which made me laugh and I did give it good consideration but then I decided to keep it simple and call it…. The Hexibag…because it is after all a Hexagonally shaped bag. It has had some embroidery and an internal pocket added since I first showed off this bag on the 8th August Thank you to my testers for helping me perfect it.

I have been inundated with orders for it which tells me that you think it’s a good design too

It has been fun choosing fabrics and putting these bags together with my customers and the process has been keeping me sane whilst simultaneously buying a house! nightmare of the highest order and I recommend that nobody goes through it, I am wrecked after yesterdays debacle!

Yesterday was meant to be completion day but it never happened…you see our solicitor, who up to that point had been brilliant, sent our money to the wrong bank account, she was one digit out. Well she insisted she’ll take the blame for this even though it was her secretary that caused the blunder

You know what? All the way through, since putting in our offer in April we have been messed about. Wish we could be less like us and more like the nasty people that want to control everything, but that simply wouldn’t be us, we don’t work like that and would do all we could to be kind and understanding towards others

So instead of getting our keys yesterday and spending the weekend assessing our new home, we are stuck back at our rented home, thank goodness we have this place for a while longer, feeling altogether in limbo land!

I’m going to do some more sewing, got to keep busy and got to keep sane although I think I may have lost a few marbles yesterday

So, let’s see what Monday brings….