Eggciting Times!

Sorry for the 'cheesy' blog post title, hehe! But things have been getting a little eggciting lately :D

A little flurry of interest in my laptop/gadget sleeves has kept me busy since the start of the school hols, hence my blog has possibly been a little quieter than usual (apologies!). Making my little egg-cosy the other night has got me very excited about all the design possibilities - I really enjoyed making it and started to think about designs both for children and adults/boys, girls, etc.

This little tractor version (and, yes, it could be mistaken for Postman Pat's van too, hehe!) is the first of many, I hope. I won't be listing this one yet as I've closed my online shops now until I come back from my hols in the middle of August. I'm giving myself plenty of leeway to prepare for our exciting break and also to finish off a couple of last minute orders. I'll be trying to keep my blog updated however until I actually leave at the beginning of August. Who knows, I might squeeze in some relaxing crafting time before I go!

Hope you're enjoying a lovely boiled egg for your Sunday breakfast :)

Life on the Croft

A busy week, sewing laptop sleeves, decorating ice-cream cones, going to the 'office job' (2 days), leaving lots of time for . . . . very little else! Life on the croft continues apace - some blustery weather . . .

. . . next-door's 'lambs' getting big and fat (ready for the pot - kidding, hehe!)

. . . and a corner of my slightly bedraggled/neglected garden (something had to go!), but I love the colours and shapes/textures of the mish-mash of foliage . . .

. . . and a detail of one of my newer 'tweedie' sleeve designs, now added to my website and hopefully some 'one-of-a-kind' ones will appear on my Etsy shop later in the Summer . . .

Apologies as I've not had much time to catch up on blog-reading this week - I hope to see what everyone has been up to over the weekend.

Cheerio an Drasda :)

our creative space . . . or Part 2 in how to Get some Crafting Done!

If your child is allergic to 'E' numbers, look away now! This week I have some 'tweedie' orders to make up and have to juggle keeping the kiddo amused, while getting the work done. Mostly this seems to be involving food, sweets, ice-cream, chooclate, etc - oooops! Some exercise will be required afterwards to balance out all this unhealthy eating of course :)

Decorating ice-cream cones - this one looks like something from a 'Mad Max' movie I think! Well, it's creative innit???!!*

The School summer holidays are posing some interesting and demanding challenges :)

Family Portraits

'Little S' kept himself amused yesterday by making 'packet-mix' Smartie cakes - I'm not beyond a bit of bribery to get some of my own work done during the summer holidays! After he'd iced them he told me he'd made 4 of them to look like members of the family - the mind boggles! It was quite easy to guess though, hehe!

I'll have to think of something else today - hmmmm! :D

And the winner is . . . .

A very prompt announcement to my Giveaway today! I got 'Little S' to pull the winning entry out of a tweed bonnet (sssshhhhh, don't tell anyone but it's not Harris Tweed, ooops!!!)

We folded up the pieces of paper . . .

He practically did a somersault trying to pull a piece of paper out . . .

Pulled out the winning entry . . .

. . . which was Commenter No. 2, Karin who has a beautiful blog called: the Mrs! Many congrats Karin - if you can send me your address details via the Contact Page on my website, that would be great! Thanks to everyone who took part in my Summer Giveaway - I'm off to sweep up some of the crumbs I can see in my second photo, don't look too closely now, hehe! :D

Back later in the week with some more 'tweedieness'! Byeee :)

Pheeeew! Back Again :)

Well, three days without an internet connection was quite strange, a bit scary too when you can't respond to e-mails and such, but hey, we survived and it gave me some free time to browse some craft books.

I came across this lovely local publication about a very famous Harris Tweed weaver called Marion Campbell, in my local book shop. This amazing lady was famous for her beautiful tweeds (she won several awards for the design and quality of her work), and for the fact that she made the cloth from start to finish, entirely on the croft (except for carding the wool, which was done in a local mill). She hand-dyed the wool fleece using locally sourced, natural plant dyes and pigments, spun the wool, warped the yarn, wove the cloth, waulked the finished tweed, washed and dried it by hand, finishing the cloth ready for sale.

How inspiring! I love the fact that she completed all the stages herself - must have been a really rewarding experience to see the finished tweed. It was worth being without my internet connection to browse through this little book - it's a cracker! It's called 'A Harris Way of Life' by Gisela Vogler - sorry, I'm not sure if it's available online but you can always Google it though and find out! Back on Monday to announce the Giveaway winner :)

Cheerio an Drasda!

Apologies!

Oooops, many apologies! We have been without our Internet connection for the last 3 days - a fault with the phoneline company, so sorry!!!

Back as soon as possible with details of the Giveaway winner - hopefully by the beginning of the week.

I'll extend the Giveaway deadline till Monday midday - pleeeease let me have my internet connection back by then!!!! :) Byeeee!