Elvis is watching...

When I was a little girl, this time of year was very special, just like it is for most little girls these days. We had a lovely time at school rehearsing for the Christmas concert, making decorations, and making presents for parents. And then on the last day we had the party! In those days we took our own food to share, my mum always made a jelly, and this was carried to school very carefully in a glass dish with my name sellotaped to it.

At home my grandma bought me an Advent calendar, I remember it was a picture of the Nativity. I pinned it to my bedroom wall right next to my bed so that I could open it first thing in the morning. I loved that calendar, it had glitter on it, and it sparkled in the moonlight. The little pictures behind the doors were lovely Christmassy things, parcels, puddings, crackers, various toys. I used it year after year always closing the doors firmly and putting it away very carefully.

Also this is the time when Norman is out and about and watching all the children, taking notes on who is being good....or not. I think Norman the gnome was my dad's invention for my older brother, and of 'course it got passed down. All through December we would hear "Norman's watching, he'll be peeking through the windows and listening at the door."

I suppose these days if you said that to a child you would be told you are scaring them! But don't let me get on to that topic..

Anyway I have reason to believe that Norman has retired and his protoge is Elvis, has taken over. So here he is, ready to be needle punched.

This is my Cameo Ultra punch, a really great needle. I am going to do Elvis with the smallest needle and on gauge number 1.



And here are his boots, partly done in emerald green and they will have red tips with silver bells on them.

Watch out for more Elvis in the next post.

Oh the other night I was asking Daniel to make sure his room was tidy as the boiler men were coming the next day and would need to get into his room. He just said "yeah yeah I know"
obviously not taking a blind bit of interest in what I had said. And somewhere in the recess of my mind I came out with "Norman's watching" Oh you should have seen his face, for just a second there was recognition that he should be good. And then my 6'2" 15 yr old burst in to laughter.
But for just a second it was really good!

PS, you can click on the pics to make them bigger.

More Winter Friends

Here they are, Miss Matryoshka, Cyrus and Sylvester the snowmen. Cyrus has obviously been out looking for a tree, and now I expect that they are going to take it home and decorate it.

Cyrus was made with DMC thread and a Cameo Ultra Punch needle with the smallest needle on number 1. I am going to put Cyrus up as a doodle tomorrow, so you can have a go for yourselves.

Miss Matryoshka was made with a Clover Punch needle and DMC thread I used the smallest needle and the shortest gauge.

She isn't stuffed like the others, but just backed with felt. I may tie a loop to her so that she can hang on the tree.

Getting things finished.

I have been sorting through bags and boxes looking for things that I still haven't found yet. However I did come across this piece of needle punch. I did this last year when I was a complete beginner at this work, and I thought it was the bees knees when it was done. I always intended to mount it on a box, and although I had painted and grunged the box it didn't happen.
So here it is in all it's glory.
The pattern was one that I copied from a coaster, some of you may even have the same set.

Not sure what I shall use the box for, but maybe it might be a place to store the spare bulbs for the Christmas tree lights. Now where are those bulbs...

I

I also finished the little needle punch snowman off, he just needed slip stitiching at the bottom to keep all the snow/filling inside him.

The background is a bit of fun with some felt, a very naive picture of a snowman in a forest. Does look like a 5 year old has had a go at it, but apparently naive pictures are in. Aren't they?

Felting

I played with paper for over 20 years, using quilling I made cards, pictures and free standing ornaments. I adored paper - I still do. But in my new life, I don't have a seperate studio and place to lay out my papers. I still have my papers, but they are all packed away in the attic along with my stamps and punches.

It has been really difficult finding something small enough to do in the space that I have. I love crocheting, but its not something that I can do all the time, it doesn't give me the joy that paper did. I enjoy embroidery and sewing, but again it doesn't give me that special feeling of making something special.

I have been playing with felt, as in the house in the previous post. Felt is such a fabulous material to work with, it doesn't fray, it comes in fabulous colours, and you can make things pretty quickly out of it, like this little heart. I hope to make more to hang in the kitchen at Christmas time.

Now although sewing these hearts isn't going to give me the joy I felt with paper, this might;

Sorry about the crappy photo, but needle felting might just be the thing to make my 'crafty' part feel alive again.

You can make just about anything out of wool roving or sliver, the two above are made of merino.
The Snowpals below were quick to make, not too brilliant, but I am only learning and I promise you I will get better.I went to Wingham Wool Works in Wentworth a few weeks ago and spent a small fortune. However needle felting is pretty cheap really most of the wool is about £1.80 for 100gms and you can make an awful lot out of that. I did try to put Wingham in a link but it kept coming up with some daft shopping thing, so I am afraid you will have to look it up yourself. It is a fabulous place and Wentworth - the village it is in, is beautiful there are some nice walks around there, a garden center in the grounds of Wentworth Hall and a fab tea shop on the high street.

Anyway I hope you like my little friends, would love to hear your comments.

Looking for a new house?

Well here are two that may suit your requirements. The first house is a cottage with gable windows, it has a real fire judging by the chimney pot, two pretty bedrooms and a flowers in the garden.

I made a huge mistake when I made this house in not making it bigger, it measures 2.5 inches from top to bottom and 3" wide. When I came to turn it inside out to stuff it, it was quite difficult, especially with the chimney pot. Of course the backing material frayed as I was doing this, just a tiny bit on one side. Still I will hang it on my tree when the time comes and will make the next one a little bigger.

The next house is made from all wool felt, and it was such a joy to work with. You can see all four sides of this cottage below.

It is stabilised with plastic canvas inside and then stuffed with polyester stuffing and lavender. it's just a little doodad to sit on a shelf.

A nice espaliered pear tree growing up the back wall.

And a pot full of lavender.

Roses round the door.

Hello anyone home?

Yoooo hooooo it's meeee!

I hope you all had a lovely summer, I thought the 1st of September was a good day to start back, bit like starting school again! Shall we compare our new pencil cases and bags, oh and shoes of course. I hated comparing shoes in secondary school, my mother was a nasty woman who made me wear Clarks flat shoes while all my mates had platforms! Crickey the rows we used to have, usually in the shop! Still, I bet not much has changed in that issue. Oh and waiting 90 minutes with a pager from John Lewis for the childrens dept shoes! What a waste of a day, glad I don't have to do that anymore!

Well onto other things, crafting things... I tend not to do crafts in the summer,or at least I change my crafts in the summer. When I was quilling, I used to do patchwork in the summer, it was just right to sit in the sun sewing bits of paper to hexagons. This year I just faffed, bit of crochet, and a couple of needlepunches. Oh and these little hedgerow folk. Mr and Mrs Hedgerow and

their children Peach Hedgerow, Oaky Hedgerow, Petal Hedgerow in her buggy and not forgetting Badger the dog. They would be great in a dolls house, would put them in one of mine, but they are all packed away. If anyone is interested I will put them in the shop, got a bit of a fairy queen on the go at the moment, so watch out for her.

This is the cat needlepunch I made, took me a long time this one, kept picking it up and putting it down, never sure whether I liked it or not. But in the end I thought it turned out ok. The pattern was a doodle from Primitive Betty's blog - in the sidebar.
This little heart is a depicts a gardening angel - she has leaves for wings... The colours look dreadful on this picture, not sure what I was playing at there. The colours are a bit darker, lavender colours for the dress and leaves are a bit darker too. This is my own pattern.

Also during the summer, I have finally, at last after 15 years, thought myself good enough to be a Tarot consultant. I have spent most of the summer studying tarot catching up on new ideas and spreads. I have had my business cards made by a very talented friend, who took pictures of the cards I use.

I put these cards in hair salons, nail salons, cafes and as many places as I could find, and already I have been asked to do several readings.

I absolutely love doing this, the buzz that you get from knowing that you are helping people, reassuring them that what they thought they were going to do is right for them.

People come to have their cards read for any number of reasons, and usually they know the answer to their problems deep inside themselves, but somehow they just can't make this important decision on their own. It is quite amazing when say the cards say this or that, and the querant says thats exactly what they were thinking. It is a great feeling.

I may lose some readers of my blog for putting this down today, I have already been shouted at in the street for putting my business cards out. But so be it, tarot is non denominational and really no religious connotation at all, just archetypes of personality. These silly devil's picture book ideas of the tarot seem to come from people in the Victorian era, who, lets face it were a bit odd, I mean they put covers on piano legs as they thought they were obscene.... DUH

Anyway, thats what I do these days, crafting comes and goes but tarot is here to stay. I don't want to be touting for business on here but if you fancy a reading, email me, we can do this by email, post, msn, yahoo, or skype ( well at least once i get skype installed again!).

Love to hear your comments as always.

Rosie x

We apologise for the break in transmission....

Hey folks, how's things? Yeah I know the grass needs cutting, but I seemed to have found a new passion. Now I know you can't see very much, that's just my crappy photo. But let me tell you, this is going to be a wonderful garden

There is my mum admiring the three lone tulips that managed to grow on that side of the garden, amongst a ridiculous amount of forget-me-not, and dandelions.

However, I have been digging the borders bought some new shrubs, some lavender bushes and various other plants like stocks, and primula, and a ton of pansies. I love pansies! To the right hand side of my mum I am waiting for the daffodils to dry up and turn brown before I can start digging there and round the back.

The next job is to get rid of the forget-me-nots and get some trellis up against the wall, so they can't see us and we can't see them... Before we came to live here, my mum had this side of the garden done with pebbles, and with having 5 kitties in the household they do tend to use it as a giant litter tray, so thats going too!

I know it looks a mess at the moment, but I just want it nice for my mum, she would love to have a nice garden and I am determined that she will have one. At 90 and having progressive dementia it's the one thing I can do to make her happy.

This is a wonderful clematis, called Josephine, it unwraps all those petals in the middle to show a golden center. It has two flowers on it at the moment and mum and I both rush out in the morning to see if some more have opened. I just want to stand there all day telling it to grow!

Since I last posted, my 50th birthday came and went, I got the one of the best presents ever, the original Pride and Prejudice with Jenifer Ehle and Colin Firth. We managed to watch the whole thing in two nights and we so enjoyed it. On May the 1st it was Dan's 15th birthday, he is now surgically attached to his ipod touch till death us do part.

One of the things we like to do for my mum is to make her laugh, she sometimes gets so upset and frustrated when she can't remember things that keeping a crazy sense of humour really saves the day. On Saturday a parcel came from play.com, a dvd that John had found of Laurel and Hardy's film The Music Box, so we all downed tools - laundry baskets, hoover, etc and sat down to the most excruciatingly funny hour I have ever spent! We had tears streaming down our faces, and even now if I mention them, my mum starts giggling. Oh I am sure she would want me to tell you that when she was a child she had her name put in the punshiment book at school for giggling, once she starts she simply cannot stop.

It's nice to be back, if you have any gardening tips please don't keep them to yourselves I need all the help I can get!

Rosie xx