Lovely surprises!!!

I know I've been neglecting my blog again! I've actually been rather busy as I had an order for a large quantity of knitting needle ends from Kerry at Pennydog and wanted to get them finished for her as quickly as possible. They are all ready now apart from the varnish drying on the glittery ones so I will be able to get those out to her soon.

Anyway I was really lucky this week as not only did I receive my parcel from my Secret Easter Chick (who turned out to be Sam at Incy Wincy Stitches!!!) but I also received some beautiful hand-dyed yarn from Vonnie at Adventures of a Lady in Training!!! She even put in some of her beautiful stitch markers with owl charms on.

Now I need to think of something to knit. I was thinking socks as I've never knitted socks before but I'm not sure now - I'd want to go around with no shoes on to show off the lovely colours! The parcel also included a beautiful card which had been handmade by the very talented Sue aka Chickadee!
Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you what I received from my Secret Easter Chick!!

Lampwork beads and knitting

I've finally got round to lighting the torch and making some more lampwork beads! It's been a while as I've been distracted with other things. Mainly playing with polymer clay and making buttons as you may have noticed! Anyway, here are 2 sets of beads, one made in pandora glass which strikes in the kiln to all sorts of colours and it's a case of waiting to see what comes out. These ones were great... lots of purple, blue and soft green! I've put some black spacers with them to make them even smarter.

The other set are a lovely, deep ruby red heavily encased in clear with white spots. These are fun to make and I think I could get addicted to making them.

The other thing that was distracting me from my beadmaking was that I actually started doing some knitting! Having bought my lovely new knitting needles from Pennydog I just had to have a go and see if I could actually remember how it was done...it have been at least 15 years after all. Well, apparently it's like riding a bike! So, I found some soft, fluffy mohair that I have had sitting waiting all that time to be turned into something. I have several colours but when I saw the purple it matches the needles so well I just had to play with that. Of course, in retrospect, the colour matches the needles so well that I can hardly see the stitches! Well, I thought a scarf would be an easy thing to start with and decided to add a second colour in random stripes. I think I'm also going to add some beads and buttons, after the knitting part is finished, to jazz it up some more. Here's how it looks so far...

Don't forget to add a comment to the bead giveaway post as I will be drawing a winner in 2 days time!!

Yet more buttons!!

Still playing with the polymer clay and have a couple of new sets that will be going up for sale in the Crafteroo Folksy shop for Comic relief as all the other sets have now sold!

I'm also hoping to make a pendant and earring set with these 3 pieces below. If they still look ok after baking then I will sand and polish them and then add findings to make the pendant earring set.

Polymer clay buttons

I spent all day yesterday making more buttons to put in the Crafteroo Folksy Shop for Comic Relief. I ended up with 3 sets so not bad! 2 of the sets I sanded and polished to a lovely shiny finish so they look extra smart. They'll all be on sale here later today!

Owl Swap, parcel received!! And Buttons for Comic Relief!

Wow, what a fantastic parcel full of goodies I received in the post this morning! Meridian organised an owl swap and my swap partner was Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey fame . Katy's parcel to me contained all these owly goodies!!...
Actually to take this picture I had to gather everything up together again as I was wearing the owl brooch, had already hung the quilted wallhanging up on the wall, the eggs were chilling in the fridge for this evening's treat and I was using the notepad and pen at my desk. So, a big thank you!! to Katy - I love all my owl goodies!! I really hope she likes all the things I am sending her but I will have to wait to find out as Katy is away on her hols now for 2 weeks!!

As well as playing with my owly things I've also been having another go with my polymer clay. I made some buttons this time and have donated them to the Crafteroo folksy shop to help raise money for Comic Relief. These were the first ones I made - special red nose buttons - and they have already sold to Incywincy!
Then I made some purple gingham buttons...Hmm now what should I make next...?

Knitting Needles!!

I think it might have something to do with all these chilly winter days...I used to have some lovely big chunky jumpers that I knitted for myself which were great to put on as an extra layer when trying to keep warm about the house. Also, I've been seeing a lot of lovely knitted things about recently (probably all that looking around Etsy) and it's all got me thinking that it's way too long since I did any knitting! Well actually it must be about 15 years!! I really used to enjoy it even though I probably started twice as many projects as I finished, but I suppose I stopped when we were travelling around as all my needles and wool supply got left at home.

So, I was just thinking of taking up the needles again when Pennydog at Crafteroo showed us her latest resin (or are they polyester?) project... and it turned out to be gorgeous sparkly knitting needles!! Well I had to have a pair of those - they were just the thing to get me started again! So I ordered a pair from her Folksy shop yesterday and they arrived this morning!! (How's that for service!!) They're a lovely sparkly purple...

So, now I have the needles... next I have to decide what to knit... something simple maybe to start with?