(from the sublime) to the ridiculous...

ok, so there really was no sublime...but this is getting ridiculous...it's JANUARY!!! I posted last in OCTOBER...blimey, how did that happen?

well, stuff has been going on, as always. Big changes afoot chez Milkwood. Am sure I'll you all about them in due course.

The crafting has been hit as a result of the energy demanded by the changes, but I still have some things to show (as I should, I've had 3 bloody months!)

First up - my dear and darling friend Gail had herself a dear and darling third child, a beautiful little girl called Maya. So obviously it was an opportunity not to be missed to indulge my love of all things cute and cosy and rustle her up a baby quilt...


isn't she adorable? good god, I'll be coming over all broody next, and that would NEVER do, believe you me...

Then came Xmas (Happy Xmas all!) and I went a bit crazy making neck warmers for the ladies in my life. All from ultra gorgeous, warm and snuggley Noro Kureyon

One for Granny Margaret, another for Granny Una and a third for my lovely friend and colleague Mia, who much to my delight wears it every day in our chilly office (well, whenever I am there anyway, for all I know she rips it off with relief the minute I leave for the day - but I hope not)
Cute aren't they - I got the pattern from the woman down the wool shop, but apparantly you can get similar pattern on Marths Stewart's website - don't say I never tell you anything...

Oh, and I finally finished the Stolen Moments wrap, which I am very happy with...my one quibble with it is that it (the Big Wool I knit it from rather than the wrap per se) moults a lot all over my coat (one of the guys at work thought I was covered in cat hair - it's GREEN - huh? what kind of cats do they have in Sydenham then??...) and (oh, there appear to be two quibbles) it has gone very bobbley very quickly. Sigh.

Is very warm though and I LOVE the colour...(is a bit, um, greener, in real life)

Ok, I will make no promises about my return...but I hope to be back sooner rather than later...

Hope you are all doing ok out there in blogland and sorry again I've been so useless of late...

a robot...an oversized urchin...and some frogs

oops, that was a bit of a long and unintentional break. Real life seems to be interrupting my crafting'n'blogging existence more than I would like of late. It's the day job, and the kids, and the need to sometimes go out and do other stuff...it all mounts up and gets in the way. Apologies to everyone whose blog I haven't visited in a while. I miss you all! Am hoping to get back into blogger/crafter mode properly again soon. Or maybe it just has to be like this for a while. Hmm, anyway, I'll be popping by again as soon as I possibly can.

I've been reading a bit more than usual of late, and so knitting less on the bus. I seem to bring myself to kind of crisis point with too many knitting projects on the go at one time and then need to take a break and read myself back to some semblance of sanity. I have completed two knits recently though, one of which I'll show you here and one which has yet to be received by its recipient and so won't be unveiled just yet. I've also just ordered some rather lovely Noro Silk Garden Chunky for my next project (never mind the 4 WIPs that are currently hugging various sets of needles, just ignore those)

But before all that...feast your eyes on this...

incredible isn't it?

my swap received from Jan in the DQS5 swap. I mentioned that I liked robots and Jan is obviously psychic and just knew I love stars and put them all together to create this stunning mini quilt

it has gorgeous hand quilting too, which I hope you can make out

I LOVE it. Thanks so much Jan. I now have to tidy my craft room so it can look beautiful on the wall.

Other news...I visited my new nephew Isaac in Geneva recently

we (well, me'n'my sis, not the babe, obviously) drank lots of hot drinks by the lake, and did those sisterly things (like wandering around looking in craft shops and at christmas ornaments and interesting teabags for hours on end) that I miss so much (oh come to London Kate, you'd love it!)


I brought lil Isaac along a froggy baby quilt - this was a lot of fun to make, such joyful fabrics.

My two girls got involved in fabric and pattern choices and Isaac's mum seemed to like it.

unbound

Baby quilts really are lovely to make, especially when you get to work with frogs and polkadots!

bound
(forgive the awful colours in this photo - not sure what happened)

However on the way to Gatwick airport I managed to leave my Le Slouch from last year on the train (my sister says I must never travel on trains with anything connected with handknitting again, as I always suffer a loss. I say I should just start taking a bit more responsibility for my belongings and stop daydreaming so much!)

Anyway, this latest knitting/train fiasco lead me to make this little number



it's an urchin, intentionally oversized (so as to slouch) in Rowan Cocoon Bilberry.

It is soft and warm and I love the colour. I just need to make a felted corsage with which to adorn it next. I may even make a non-oversized urchin too, just for the heck of it!

Hope you are all well and enjoying the lead up to the festive season. Take it easy and have plenty of cups of tea. It's cold out there

on staying warm...or, I do like a cup of hot coffee on occasion too ...

Contrary to popular belief it is not all tea round here. From time to time (read that as every day at 10am) I like to make a cafetiere of coffee and indulge myself in a blast of hot strong caffeine but all too often my pursuit of this little indulgence gets interrupted (spouse/children/work/doorbell...you get the picture) and I get back only to be faced with the disappointment of a luke warm pot of coffee and a choice between throwing it away or microwaving it. Neither of which pleases me.

Obviously something needed to be done...enter the cafetiere cosy



I made this in less than twenty minutes while also watching Ms Bester do some drawing, so it really is a very quick and simple project (that may just revolutionise your life)

Here is how to make one:

From your collection of felted sweaters choose one whose colour fills your heart with joy.

For a small cafetiere (bodum one cup for example) you’ll get away with using a sleeve, for anything bigger you’ll need part of the body.

Measure the distance between the top and bottom of the handle (by eye, measuring tape, bit of string, holding a section of the felted sweater (whose colour makes your heart sing) up against it – these are all permissible techniques) and cut a long rectangle from the sweater. Make sure it is long enough to go all around the body of the jug and have a little bit (say two inches) to spare.

From your collection of beautiful wools and flosses select one whose addition to the felted sweater will enrich your warm coffee experience as much as you can bear. Use this to blanket stitch all around your rectangle.

Then choose a couple of nice buttons (from your extensive button collection) and cut slits in one end of the rectangle of a size generous enough to accommodate those buttons. Blanket stitch around the slits to make pretty buttonholes.

Attach buttons to opposite end of rectangle in the right places so that they meet the buttonholes when the rectangle is stretched snugly around your cafetiere.

Embellish the cosy to your hearts desire.

Put kettle on. Make pot of delicious hot coffee. Apply cosy to said pot using pretty buttons to secure.

Snuggle up with great book/the newspaper/a craft project/your darling/whoever was at the door (maybe omit the snuggling for this last one, unless you know them well of course) and forget about it for a while.

Remember the coffee, pour into your favourite cup (milk and sugar as you wish) and delight in the fact that is still toasty hot when you finally take a sip.

Enjoy!

Am off to Switzerland on Friday to check out my new nephew (and hopefully drink lots of nice hot coffee with my sister!).

the robot vanishes...or, how Apryl got two pincushions

I was doing this Robot swap with Apryl. I'd left it quite late, but so had Apryl so that was ok. We both knew what we were doing. I worked on my swap package over one weekend and was pretty happy with what I'd made. Apryl had requested a needlebook as she has just taken to the dark art of sewing and I was happy to oblige. Got some pretty fabric sent from Japan and rustled it up. Had a few other bits and pieces to throw in too and decided to make a little robot pincushion to accompany the set. That was fun. He was the tiniest creature I'd made but I loved him nonetheless. The girls adored him and played with him relentlessly. I worried about getting him out of their grasp long enough to parcel him up and send him off but they understood he was for Apryl so I knew it would be okay. I left him in Ms Bester's clutches and went gaily (well, you know what I mean) off to work. Returned that evening and no sign of Monsieur Le Robot. Searched high up and low down, still no sign. Interrogated poor Ms Bester almost to the brink of tears, still no clues. Ms Bester, being the mischievous minx that she is, kept saying she knew where he was but she wasn't going to tell us. This was her strategy for days 1 and 2 at least. After that she capitulated and confessed she had no idea but was really sorry anyway, cue many tears. I decided I could deal with the stress of the search, the tawdry accusations and the ripping apart of my family no longer and made Apryl another, far less interesting to my mind, pincushion.
Just as it was bundled up and ready to be sent what did I spy poking out from underneath the vegetable rack but a tiny (and I mean tiny!) polkadot foot. Oh we yelped with joy when it transpired to be attached to the rest of the errant haberdashery chappie. We whooped with glee and danced around the kitchen. Then we stuck pins in the blighter and took photos of his plight

before bundling him up

and despatching him to deepest Derbyshire.

Apryl also received some chocolates, a robot bookmark and a bundle of fabric scraps to play with during her indulgence in her new found vice.
I believe she liked them (although I suspect she may have questioned my sanity as she received ever more frantic emails from me accusing my entire family and all the neighbours of dastardly deceit and kidnapping of soft toy/pincushions during the height of robotgate)

melancholic robots...they may be sad but hey do they rock...

thanks Apryl. What a joy to receive this parcel last Saturday morning. Mr Robot may look sad but he is actually extremely happy really he just doesn't want to let anyone know...Robots are weird like that you know. Ms Reva claimed the cushion and set up the shots for photographing

Ms Bester claimed the painting and marvelled at the fact that such lovely teas were included too (she knows how much her mammy loves her tea).

They claimed a button each but happily left me with the rest. I LOVE these buttons. I also got to hang onto the gorgeous wool. Mmmm hmmm.

Thanks again Apryl - I am almost finished my parcel to you and it will be winging its way real soon now.

Oh, thanks to Claire for organising this swap too. It's been fun (although I know we've been tardy!!!)
I'll post what I've made once I know Apryl has received it. Once I've finally sent it that is!

russian doll fabulousness...ness...ness...

imagine my amazement when I opened my Russian Doll Swap package from Jenny to find not one, not two, but THREE handcrafted items of total loveliness. Overwhelmed was I, and that is not an overstatement.

lookie here...
a rabbit, with fabulous russian doll fabric dress...so beautiful that I have told the kids they needn't even think about waging a whinge campaign to get her for themselves...this little beauty is mine, all mine. I'm not a woman much given to hoarding toys for myself, indeed the only other one I have is the doll my mum knit for me when I was tiny...but I am hoarding this rabbit and no mistake. It is so beautifully made, from soft soft white towelling, the dress is just gorgeous too, and the face is so delicately done. It's wonderful. THANK YOU SO MUCH JENNY!!!

as if that wasn't enough there Jenny also sent me this gorgeous lavender scented doll...


which you can see nestling on a wonderful apron, here ably modelled by Ms Bester, who insisted the lavender doll should live in the very handy pocket...


The whole package was accompanied by many chocolate goodies from Thorntons. In other words...I was totally spoiled...and I loved it!

My little parcel seemed quite meagre in comparison, but Jenny assures me she was thrilled with it. Kind woman.

Some hand embroidered nesting dolls...



were accompanied by russian doll buttons from creamrose picked up at wemakelondon...

along with Helen's tissue cover which also followed the russian doll theme...


I also sent some sweets and some of my favourite teas, which I hope Jenny will enjoy.

Thanks again Katy for organising this swap - as you can tell I've really enjoyed it.

I'll be back soon with news of my artclub end of year exhibition, and an Arty Party I did for the birthday of one of my pupils recently...we had a lot of fun.

just what do you do when the kids grow out of their clothes?...

there are the obvious options, to pass on to friends or family or send off to the charity shop...the brave few might even ebay them...but you know those little bits of clothing that have a special resonance...the ones that you absolutely adored on them...or that remind you of a special occasion,...or were given by a special someone...what do you do with those? I just can't bear to let them go...I'm pretty good at moving things on and looking forward rather than back...but some things I just can't say goodbye to...

they've been hiding away in a special box until recently...when I took them out, gave them a freshen-up wash and did this...

trousers Ms Reva wore to Florence aged 3 months (and a felted cashmere sweater of her dad's - the moths got it so it had to be...) the back has the smock you see below...

from my favourite smock of Ms Reva's, back when the girl would still wear anything floral ...before she moved on to robots and spacepeople and living in t-shirts...


from the dress Ms Bester wore to the Venice Biennale aged 2 months...and a pretty vintage button

now I just need to score me a billion pins...

what do you do with those special somethings?

swaps and general wonderfulness...

sorry I have been absent even longer than usual...putting my back out a couple of weeks ago has wrecked havoc with my normal fairly sedentary, fairly hunched over, happy existence. Apparently (or so the osteopath and physiotherapist tell me) in order to avoid more of the same excruciating indisposition, a body has got to exercise. Which really is not compatible with spending all one's free time crafting or blogging. Is downright inconvenient to be frank. But I'm doing it (through gritted teeth) I may now seriously have to consider giving up the day job (sitting in front of a computer is very bad for me you know) ...there simply isn't enough time in the week to do it all, work, craft and exercise too. Bah!

anyway...there has been much wonderfulness since I reported last...

doll swaps received...(swoon!)


a beautiful bag, containing my doll from from Emily at Ravenhill


Gorgeous isn't she? I have never seen a more charming tea lady in my life. She is currently guarding my precious tea stash and administering to my beverage requirements beautifully.

She was accompanied by a selection of vintage buttons and a doily...which just had to be put in one of my vintage china saucers as that is what you do with vintage buttons in the overmilkwood house (Ms. Reva's latest edict)



so now I can show you what I sent Emily too...most of these pictures are from Emily's blog as she takes a far meaner photo than yours truly. Her little daughter Lilly (isn't she the cutest?) seems to really like Ms Myrtle (yes, Ms M really does spell it like that, no-one knows why) which makes me very happy indeed


What fun I had making this, my first doll. I have plans for many more

The dress was made to be easily put-on-take- offable by a three year old, the cardi was a variation on the kimono cardi I knit a while back, and the books were made by Ms Reva and Ms Bester

In further swap extraordinariness I was the lucky recipient of these pieces of functional felted perfection...

made by Lisa at lilfishstudios who actually made the felt herself...I kid you not...you just wouldn't believe how beautiful, soft and tactile it is in the flesh (so to speak)...these came wrapped in tissue pattern pieces which was a small touch I loved...

finally, this weekend was the Reva Girl's 6th birthday (nope, I have no idea how that happened, seems like only yesterday I was marvelling at her tiny starfish like hands and skinny little jaundiced legs) and here is a taster of the sewing kit I put together for her

which was inspired by her recently developed passion for vintage buttons and the ilk (oh what a proud, proud moment that was for me, when I walked into our craftroom to find her marvelling at old glass buttons and rushing to the kitchen to find a vintage saucer in which to place them to best advantage)...I'll get the other photos of the little kit up during the week I hope...watch this space...

what a busy week that was...postal goodies and some flowers...

I can't believe it is over a week since I last posted...no matter how good my intentions I don't seem to manage more than 1 post a week, if that...still, I have a good excuse...it was a busy busy week.

Postal goodies came and were ooohed over...

from Marie as part of the lucy locket quilt swap I received this little beauty...



I oohed (and aahed) over the amazing stitching and will be contacting Marie for hints and tips (I dream of doing such beautiful stitches)




as well as a ball of deliciously soft cashmere mix yarn (I feel so spoiled - I love cashmere, how did you know Marie? did a little quilt fairy tell you?)

and last but not least, ooooh noooo, this delicious and delightful extra strong Lancashire tea, it comes in square teabags (it says so on the box).

No-one in the house is allowed this tea, except ME!!!

Thank you so much Marie...

I also received these two amazing photos in the Scent of Water photo swap. The theme this time was reflections...beautifully captured by Christine (for whom I have no blog address unfortunately).

Thanks Christine...

so, what else have I been up to...

why Chelsea Flower Show, of course...








all those lovely gardens inspired me to revamp our own the minute I got home...

Mr G (photographed here with his lovely helper Ms B) was simply thrilled, as I am sure you can imagine, especially when the rains began to fall

but I did make up for it with a proper afternoon tea...I even let him have a cup of Lancashire's finest...just that once...

(no sweet treats put out until tea was poured, otherwise the gannets swoop)