So Much To Do and Sew Little Time!

Hello Lovely Readers, welcome back.  Do come in as it is so nice to see you all again.  Well what a week!  When I set off on my journey into the wonderful world of blogging I had such high hopes of what a wonder woman I would be and how connected I would be to my blog.  This week everything seems to go to the wall timewise and I was left exhausted with very little time or energy to write up my posts.  I am sure that this is part and parcel of learning about how to integrate something new and important into your daily life. My day job is all encompassing and is particularly busy at the moment and, together with the daily hassles we all have to live with such as housework, appointments and food shopping (you notice I say 'food' lovely readers, not fabric or yarn shopping which is never a hassle) time seems to run out very quickly indeed.  I am very interested in how all you lovely bloggers out there cope with everything and still write such wonderful posts. 

However, I do have to say that I have not been completely idle as I decided last week that, instead of ploughing on with all the new and exciting projects I have in mind I must, must try and make a start on all the unfinished projects lying around in my sewing room.  There are many of these I am ashamed to say lovely readers and so I pulled out some last week and finished them.  I have to say that the majority of them only needed little tweeks in order to finish them and goodness knows why I didn't do this at the time when I was making them.  It is my new resolution now - and it is public - that I will try to finish things as I go along and not just stick them in a box somewhere.  One of the boxes I unpacked contained these bags which all needed some degree of finishing.

The furthest way to the camera, at the back, is a felted bag and the other two are knitted. All three only had handles left to put on which I did this week and so am proud to say that these have now been finished.  I was really interested in felting for a long time and did try the wet felting but have little time/patience sometimes so found the whole process quite stressful.  However I did love the idea of knitting up the bags and felting them in the washing machine and have make a number of these over the years.  I think the part of this for me is the excitement of not really knowing how they will turn out until they are completely felted.  The one in the photograph is a little dinky one and I thought the handles were quite fab, hopefully this will make a nice gift for someone later this year. 

The other two bags were Debbie Abraham knits which I started a good while ago.  I am a massive fan of Debbie as she introduced me to knitting with beads many years ago and I have made quite a few of her cushions which are just fabulous.  I just love these two little bags as they are so 'Debbie' and again, all I needed to do was put some handles on them.  I like to line all of my bags as I think they sit so much better but again, this all takes time.  Although I love knitted bags I must admit that the felted ones do seem to have so much more structure to them and sit better.  I would be interested to hear your views on this lovely readers.

My final little bag which I finished with a swish flower on the front is my favourite.  It has been hanging up in my sewing room waiting for something to bring it to life.  I visited John Lewis a while ago and had fallen in love with this flower and decided that this might be the thing to make it special.  I do hope you like it - I might keep this for myself........



One more thing to show you lovely readers - this is a little swimsuit which I bought and I had a go at attaching some fabric and nettings to it to make it into a fancy dress for my granddaughters.  I had visited Abakhan at the start of the year and had fallen in love with this fabric and netting which were both on sale so, as usual, I had bought it home and started to make it up and then (half finished) had put it into one of my many 'to do' boxes and forgotten all about it so out it had to come this week to be completed.  All I had to do was to attach some ribbons and tidy it up generally - many apologies for the photograph as I was trying to take a picture quickly and had hung it on the central heating switch! 

Photographs are something I need to really think more carefully about as I am very aware that the many blogs I read all have wonderfully arranged pictures of everything.  These images really bring the blog to life and make really great 'eye candy' as our American friends would say.  The  finished fancy dress will make a cute 'dressing up outfit' for some lovely little girls I know when they come to stay with me.

Well everyone, I hope that you can see that I have tried hard this week to be productive and I have realised that I have to get myself more organised with my blog so that I have enough time to do it justice.  I did take some time out yesterday to visit a lovely town in North Wales called Llanwrst.  We visit there often as it is a friendly little place and has two attractions for me personally.  

One is a  gorgeous shop called Ar Y Gweill which has so many things to offer - yarn, fabric, haberdashery and patterns just to name a few things.  The lovely lady and her partner who run the shop are just setting up their website so I will put this on once it has been launched.  I am trying to encourage her to offer some workshops and start her blog so watch this space.  She has very kindly invited me to a crochet day in the town next week and I am really looking forward to this as I will be hopefully able to extend my crochet skills beyond granny squares!  Oh, I did forget, I have just nearly completed the crochet cushion which I was working on and should finish putting on the buttons today so will post some pictures of this - I can then cross of another of my 'to do' list -only.................many more to do. 

Nearly forgot to say that my other attraction in Llanwrst is Graham's Cafe - Graham and his lovely wife cook great food on the spot - my favourite I have to say is egg and chips with milky coffee - wonderful!

I always have to buy something from Ar Y Gweill as there is always something new to see so yesterday I  boutght some lovely fabric and other fancies which you can see below.  I have lots of ideas about what to make but any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome everyone.  In my mind I am already thinking about Christmas as time will move on quickly once our 'summer' is over (I use the term summer lightly!).  I particularly like the blue fabric because, if you can see it on the photograph, there are some little lines traced over the roses which could have some little beads or sequins attached - I have lots of ideas floating around my head folks after the course last week!  I must say that there are thousands of these ideas stuffed in my head but the trouble is getting them out of there and into reality!!

Well lovely readers just a couple more things to go.  Whilst near the North Wales coast we took time out to visit our special beach in Llanfairfechan which is a gorgeous spot overlooking Puffin Island on Anglesey.  It is such a fabulous beach and always seems to be empty.  There is a big cafe right on the front which overlooks the beach and I always feel as if I am abroad when I am there looking out of the window at the wonderful colours of the sea and sky.  The colours on any beach are so vibrant and always make me want to try and recreate this in my craft work. I am always drawn to these colours when I am knitting and beach huts and ocean scenes are always a particular favourite of mine.  What are yours??

  

Two new books arrived yesterday which I found recently.  One you may have noticed in Mollie Makes and called Feathered Friends.  It has a good range of projects in it for all types of crafting so is bound to appeal to everyone. I have already picked out something in it I would love to make called Home Tweet Home.  Not sure why but I am really into bird boxes this year.......

The other book is by a lady called Nekoyama who comes from Tokyo and has a life long love of cats.  Amineko follows the journey of the crochet cat and his friends and gives step by step instructions using photographs which I find so much easier to follow than written ones.  There are lots of different cats to crochet and they all look so fab so I really want to have a go at one.  Hopefully I can make a start on one this week and then take it with me on my crocheting day in Llanwrst net week - I will keep you all posted on this.

  

Well lovely readers, I have really missed speaking with you all this week and promise to do better with my posts - I am learning as I am going along.  I noticed on Tilly's blog this week that she has been invited to an event in Sheffield later in the summer at the Folksy Summer School (10 -11th August) during which she will talk about her blog.  I would really love to go and hear her speak, might pick up some extra tips dear readers but equally would welcome feedback from all you out there who are already so talented in writing your blogs. 

I will leave you all now and hope that you are all enjoying a little sun, a little rest and some time for all your wonderful crafts.  I will speak to you all very soon but please leave some messages if you wish as I do love to hear from all you, please don't be shy.  You are always welcome here.