Heeeeeere's Mitzy...

remember this old tablecloth I picked up in a charity shop for a quid or so?



well, with the aid of Amy Butler's free Birdie pattern it's now turned into ...


... Mitzy the cat...

what a pleasure it was to make Mitzy and a great chance to mess around with fabrics that just don't go...in any traditional sense at least... obviously I love how they look together...


now, must hide her away as I have a suspicion she'll be visiting one of the kids for Christmas...(if I manage to make another to avoid the inevitable fallout should ONLY ONE arrive that is!)

p.s. I visited my friend Jane last night to help her with some casting on and, as well as allowing me to polish off her totally scrumptious cranberry and white chocolate cookies (and giving me the recipe, mmmm mmmmm) she sent me home with some gorgeous hand dyed wool felt from 21st century yarn and a mouse pattern from this book. So we might have some interesting games of cat and mouse going on around Christmas time...

waiting for the light...

I have made a softie...my first...and I love it...but it is so dark and grey in London and I work hours like a mole during the week (into work out of work in pitch blackness) so can't photograph it yet as the light is so awful...I will be home tomorrow so will post it then...watch this space...(her name is Mitzy, oh yes Lisa and Alan, in memory of the furkid that nearly was!)

In the meantime, I was going through my photos and found this one of the bunnies I made for the kids Easter Egg hunt last year. They sit on eggs to keep them warm you know. It made me laugh so I thought I'd pop it up here, while waiting for the light...


and here, similarly out of season but just spotted as I found the other pic, is the Easter/Birthday cake...


amazing what you can achieve with some chocolate and a couple of shredded wheat!

have I gone quite mad posting about Easter less than a month before Christmas, or am I just in severe denial? it's an interesting question...one I couldn't possibly answer...

Finally - something to show...

It's been a frustrating week, too much work on, not enough time to make anything...(although we did have my in-laws over to stay and that was lovely as always)
Finally, last night, I gave up on the Ms Mc C project for a bit (very slow progress it has to be said) and ventured up the stairs to the spare room where I keep my "stuff" in what I have to admit is horrible disarray. So horrible I can never bring myself to do anything in that room and always beat a hasty retreat. I grabbed as many bits and pieces as I could and set up camp in the kitchen again. Phew! It was strewn with fabric, felt, ribbon, stuffing, threads, buttons (I could go on) and it felt like heaven...
I messed about for a bit and came up with this little critter for our festive tree/branch/twig (whatever it will be)...




It was fun! It was so much fun!
I want to do it all again right now
unfortunately the day job calls...

I think I need to just mess about a bit more with my "stuff" on some shorter length projects. What with my time to devote to crafting being very short these days (practically full time job in an unrelated industry, two kids etc etc etc) it is rewarding to finish a making stint with a finished object rather than another WIP. Instant gratification, that's obviously doing it for me at the moment!

5 go wild on a bog, or, very random witterings about the week...

I spent a wonderful weekend with my four oldest friends (we won't go into HOW long we've known each other but, gulp, it is now over the quarter century mark) and we reminded ourselves of how much fun it is possible to have by barricading 5 women up in a country cottage with plenty of fine food and wine and nothing to do for two nights and two days other than reminisce and act silly

there were many toasts...


oh no, we weren't inebriated, not at all...



that's Siobhan doing her peig sayers in my blue scarf for those of you who missed the obvious cultural reference!!!



see the resemblance?

Orders for 4 scarves flew in after this performance (and I haven't forgotten the teacosy request Siobhan eile)


AND I met up with Marion and got my LRPC back...thanks sis!


(complete with 33 year old sweet wrapper still inside - Trebor something or other)

all in all, the BEST weekend!

Then I got home from the airport (via a long day at work) on Monday night, exhausted, to find the following waiting for me...

the kids had missed me so much they made a model of me to sit on top of the fridge and oversee kitchen activities. I just love my hairdo and the vintage style empire line dress...VERY now

they also made a footballing version of me, now this I just don't get...


also waiting were a couple of ebay deliveries to add to my (ever lengthening) list of Things To Do Someday



and here is something I forgot to show off last week, a little pinny I picked up in a charity shop for 80p...wearing this I will surely be a Domestic Goddess, even if all I have cooked recently is "fish puddle" (believe me, you DON'T want the recipe)...


really must do some crafting this week...

Eli's blanket - v2.0

phew, it's done!

I can stop lying awake at night agonising over how it it might be managed...oooh, a nights sleep, what a treat...


I made it all up in the end - some kind of mangled reverse treble stitch that I hope will hold

it ain't pretty in close up I'm afraid, but at least it can be given back to the lovely Eli before he freezes...



meanwhile the ever brave Ms McC remains smiling, even on the operating table one amputation later...what a trooper...


I promise she'll be back shortly with some new fangled footwear, it'll be stripey... that's all I'll say...

ps I've been accused tonight of transforming our kitchen into Knitting'n'Stitching Hospital by the editors of dynamostaropremiumafc who have just returned from their weekly outing. They find me here with various different fixing projects on a nightly basis. These poorly creatures get retired to the kitchen shelves to enable regular life to resume in the morning, I've found a bed for Ms McC above the cookery books tonight... someday I WILL move onto a brand new project, I just know it...still, at least Eli's blanket can be discharged tomorrow and hopefully that'll be the last I see of that particular patient...