knock knock...some festive wishes for ya...

festives wishes to you in whatever flavour you'd like them...I can offer Yule and Christmas this year...so whatever you are celebrating I hope you enjoy some quality downtime with friends and family, wherever you are, and can face into 2008 refreshed and re-invigorated. In real terms, what I am trying to say is "here's to making it through another season of festive cheer alive"!

I'll be back from Switzerland in early January, hopefully with some nice pictures of snow (and not TOO many memories of frozen, wailing, teeth chattering, tiny people)

Until then I leave you with some images of a festive flavour...

some angels/fairies on my mantelpiece...


Covent Garden Market - near where I work in the day job (photo courtesy of my colleague Mike who had his camera yesterday when I had forgotten mine) have been meaning to get a picture of the lights for weeks now as they really are quite something. They are a little less than impressive in this shot as the light outside encroached but if they are still in situ when I get back to the office in January I promise I'll try to get a shot in the morning gloom when they look truly stunning...

A la prochaine, mes amies!

cosier tea...a random act of kindness...birds in the tree...a friend for mitzy...those little bags...and one final thing...

love this time of year, lots of excuses to be creative, especially since I took the handmade pledge and am trying to make as many of my gifts as I can...

here are a few of the latest (hope I don't spoil any surprises along the way)...

Lovely Jane lent me her wool and I made another teacosy (can't disclose the recipient as I think they might just read this)


in a random and beautiful act of kindness Erqsome sent me this BeeeYoootIful yarn and now I can do another one - hurrah (will I ever tire of knitting these little cosies? I doubt it)


(I stumbled across Erqsome on Ravelry when I was ambling about looking for Blue Faced Leicester (this yarn) and I noticed she had some in her stash that she didn't appear to have plans for. She had swapped her other BFL so I thought there might be a chance I could coerce this out of her... and there was. It arrived yesterday with a lovely Xmas card. Now I have to track her down in RL (and give her a fiver!) January iKnit club here I come...I hear she is to be found there on occasion...)

meanwhile, life at the back of the wood continues...


I finally managed to persuade some birds to show an interest in those monkey nut garlands me'n'the girls made a week or so ago...


the nuts obviously weren't enough, as the birds shortly began to perch menacingly on Orlando's chair, doesn't that cat look worried though? Luckily for Orlando, baby Eli came to his rescue and took him off to the (relative) safety of the countryside this afternoon, phew! (UPDATE - remembered just before I fell asleep last night that one of the birds headed off to the countryside in the car with Orlando - suddenly he seems imperilled again...yikes! it was hard to get to sleep after that I can tell you)


These little bags didn't get finished in time for Miss Reva's craft'n'movie shindig in the end, soooo they've been filled with crafting goodies and are winging their way around the globe to my various nieces and nephews scattered round and about (Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, the US...) Saved on the need for wrapping paper at least!


And finally...those kids of mine and their buddies got up to high jinks with the coloured icing and stuff again last Friday. I think Miss Reva is mastering her medium in a big way though, isn't this fab?


right, think that's it for now...readying myself for the most manic week of the year which will culminate in an escape to Switzerland next Sunday and an enforced break from crafting and blogging...I guess the snow might just about compensate...

critters of the tree and a winning streak...

more tree critters

Eva Reva designed the heart one herself and chose all the fixings, cool huh? The birdie was a joint effort with me indulging my rampant love of gingham (which really should be contained before I turn into Doris Day) and her indulging her overwhelming love of the colour yellow, looks more like a spring chick than an Xmas decoration thanks to our combined passions but there ya go...

meanwhile, I hear from my yarn junkie friend Shirley that the name I suggested for her etsy shop has been chosen and I am in line to receive a prize. Woo Hoo! Glad to be of assistance Shirley, and good luck with the shop when it opens! (not sure this is public news as I don't see it on her blog yet so I'm not revealing the name here)

I am obviously on a winning streak having come 19th (19th?!) in Eva's school raffle ...better go and find an online poker game to capitalise on this, pronto...

that craft'n'movie shindig...

they came, they crafted, they watched movies, they ate a lot of sugar, they left...




I had a helper, we oscillated between dealing with the demands of 7 craftin' children ("MORE STARS NOW....please" - oh what lovely manners they have!) and making mulled wine...("I think it needs something else" said Clare "more wine?" said I - amazing the improvement another bottle can make)
it wasn't as traumatic as I had expected, and the kids had a lot of fun...

(The Reva Girl is already asking when she can have her next Christmas party, don't think she quite gets the "[insert annual celebration here] comes but once a year" concept, yet)

After we'd cleared up from that me and Mr G went out to a party of our own - the annual Pink Christmas party thrown by our friends Wolf and Ms D. We had delicious food and far too much pink champagne and pink russians (my god they are easy to tuck away) danced and chatted until the wee small hours. There were two rather large hangovers in our house on Sunday (that hangover preventing milk thistle must have been watered down) which caused the kids much delight as we ignored all domestic chores (too hard!) and any need to go outside the front door (too bright! too cold!) in favour of lego building, rocket driving, camp making (great for a sneaky lie down), card creating and sewing machine driving...I don't think Ms Reva got out of her pyjamas all day. Will have some photos of the results of the sewing tomorrow...they are funny

something nice for the wall...

I have nothing new of my own to show (having been ill and mired in tediousness) but while trying to set up my "blogs'u' like" section I've been going through my (large and very rambling) bookmark list and came across a link to this print which I bought from etsy way back in June for Ms E Reva's 5th birthday. Something I have to tell you about that daughter of mine is that she is a self-confessed superhero whose greatest aim in life is to resist sleep at every given moment of night and day. Indeed the recollection which gives her most pleasure is of the camping trip we did last summer one night of which she managed to sleep not one wink. Oh yes, she rejoices in the telling of the tale every single time (I still claim she did drift off for, oooh, ten minutes or so around 4.30am but she disputes this hotly). Anyway, this print sits by her bed in order to remind her that even superheroes have to sleep, sometimes...


I also fell in love with this one which now resides in my own bedroom to remind me that, well, am not quite sure what it is reminding me but I do love it (maybe that sometimes you can be yellow and sometimes grey, sometimes float in one direction, sometimes another? sums me up pretty perfectly actually)

I notice that AshleyG has a seasonal print this month on finding the perfect tree...

which is kind of appropriate as yesterday evening we did just that and the aforementioned Ms Reva declared this morning that she thought we had "made a very good choice". Phew!

And the final image for today is one that I have just seen on Ashley's etsy shop and which I like a lot, must be the scarves calling to me...reminding me of those promises I made to knit scarves for the ladies of the bog...


back soon with something from my own hands I hope...though I have the "craft'n'movie" extravaganza looming tomorrow afternoon so it may be some time before I am fit to communicate in anything but a low groan again...

(ps all photos belong to Ashley - not sure what blogging etiquette is here as I haven't been doing this for long but I HOPE she wouldn't mind)

UPDATE - I emailed Ashley to check it was ok and she said yes. Well, what she actually said was "And thank you so much for sharing my work! I have no problem at all with you sharing photos of my work! Wishing you a wonderful holiday season : )

Truly, I don't know the etiquette either. I know some people may mind but I certainly don't. If you're ever worried about it I think you did the exact right thing."

Ashley had trouble leaving an anonymous (ie non Google account holder) comment on here which seems a shame - I've checked my settings and they look ok. If anyone knows anything about this that I don't let me know (assuming you are a google account holder and so can communicate with me that is!!!)

anyway, enjoy Ashley's great prints...

some kind of lonely... a xmas tree...

well, as predicted, on Monday night I did sew my fingers together...but I also managed this little tree...


which is in fact a bag...


I had been planning to do lots of them for a little "craft'n'movie" shindig Ms. E Reva is having with some schoolfriends on Saturday (I thought it would be nice for each child to take their crafty bits'n'pieces home in one) but I am rapidly running out of time so I guess it'll have to stay lonely. I'll have to think of someone who might appreciate such a thing in the singular...

for completeness I feel I must show a rough of the forest it was once a part of...



this was the most fun I've had on a Monday night in a loooooong time!

Just a shame I started with my least favourite fabric combo as it was a bit of a trial run and I didn't want to waste one of my favs, you know how that is...

Maybe I will have to do another after all...

Going Nutty...

Very little crafting happened this weekend but I had a lovely time with my father who visited from Ireland, was great to see you Dad!!!

Unfortunately I seem to have caught some kind of virus in the last day or two and am currently feeling very under the weather, I reckon if I picked up a needle and thread I'd only sew both my hands together, that's how groggy I am today...

BUT, I did set the kids on an early morning monkey nut painting and threading exercise yesterday, while they were waiting impatiently for their granpa to appear. They painted the nuts VERY carefully, and then equally carefully immediately dried them on tissue with the end result that the effect of the paint is very, erm, subtle, indeed.


You can just about see it. They enjoyed themselves though and Ms E Reva managed to thread and put a bead on each "necklace" too. I was impressed. We put them out to tempt the poor hungry birds we saw circling the bird table in a very dispirited fashion early yesterday morning.

I disobeyed Dad's instructions to "stay in and stay warm" by going out in the garden to photograph the nut necklaces after he left today, isn't that blue sky just amazing? You would never believe how grey and wet and downright miserable the weather was in London yesterday when you look at that gorgeous sky...


Right, I'm off back to bed now...Dad's orders!