Happy New Year

Happy New Year and welcome to 2011.

Christmas gifts



Needle felted dog pin

 This is a present I bought for someone as a Christmas gift.  It is a needle felted dog pin and looks so sweet.  The blue scarf is such a good addition.  I would like to learn how to make such nice felted items.  Some fun activities for my days off during January 2011.

Nadolig Llawen ....

... Merry Christmas.  It's that time of year again, with lots of people on holiday.  It has been quiet in the town because of the snow and ice, but I have a feeling that tomorrow everyone will dash out at the last minute for the present and food purchases.

Last night I went out with colleagues and had a fun Christmas party.  My Secret Santa present was yummy!

Holiday time will mean plenty of eating, drinking and a few walks, then it will be time to get those knitting pins back out.

Christmas time

It is the time for partying and last week was the Guild's Christmas lunch, held at Bosherston this year.  We had a raffle to raise funds and there was a sack full of Secret Santas.  This photo shows a selection of distaff bags, sent from our sister Guild in Canda.  They were well received - thank you to them for such a nice present.

What will we do?

Snow is here again and everything has come to a standstill.  As things are right now, I am not sure that we are going to be able to get to the shops to buy our Christmas food to see us through the holidays.  Still haven't finished gift shopping either, so someone is going to have a gift free Christmas Day.  Sorry!

Football is cancelled!  Will I get to the shop Christmas party on Wednesday?  Only sausages in the freezer.  Will my veg box arrive on Thursday?  Royal Mail stopped delivering post on Friday, yet I haven't sent out all my post.  Sorry Australian crowd.  What am I going to do?

Amser parti ...

 ..... party time.  It is the Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Christmas Lunch this week.  So it is Secreta Santas, raffle, eating, talking and laughing all the way.  We are all looking forward to meeting up and celebrating another good year.

Christmas knitting

This vintage knitting pattern was just what I was looking for as I intend to knit a tea cosy for someone's Christmas gift.  The cosy with the pompom looks like a hat, but I am told that pompoms are just the thing to have at the moment.

Thankfully the weather is supposed to be getting a bit mild at the week-end.

Pamela's yarn

Warming up slightly outside - well it was -3C this morning when I toddled off to work.

This yarn was bought from the wonderful Pamela - she dyed it her self with natural dyes, including logwood (the purple), madder (the red/orange) and dock leaves (mid brown).   The other pieces are natural sheep colours and still just as fabulous.

There are lots of Ffair Nadoligs (Christmas fairs) on this week-end, so I might pop along to one or two .....

Vintage wares summary

It has been just over a month since I started my retail venture at Jane's lovely vintage store.  My vintage.destash.recycled.new section has gone quite slowly, despite making a number of sales.  At least I have sold something, rather than nothing. The messages are that recycling and vintage are popular with a niche, but perhaps handmade goods and vintage haberdashery are not really appealing to the mainstream shoppper. Questioning whether we should continue to purchase mass produced products has perhaps not reached everyone's thinking just yet.  There is a campaign going right now to ask Mary Portas to get the message to the mainstream public and I hope this will be a success.

In the meantime I looke forward to continuing to trade at Jane's vintage store and will keep on searching for those vintage finds.  As a customer I am always guaranteed to find items of clothing at a really good price.

 

Winter

First of December and first day of Winter.  We still have snow and ice and although it is slightly warmer, everywhere is still slippery under foot.  Glad that I don't have to go to work today and can stay at home with the crafting.