Tag Archives: miniature dachshund

Mid November Cheerfulness

What do you think of that for an Autumnal photo? Albertine usually only does her stuff, very spectacularly, for three weeks in June! She’s a little confused!

It’s been a little hectic this week, and again I’ve had moments of ‘Humph, what is there to be cheerful about?’ but it’s always there when you look for it.

We had a bit of worry over my mum. She struggles heroically with all sorts of health issues and keeps amazingly positive but this week new pills rendered her a bit more wobbly than usual and for the first time she had to use her alarm necklace and we had a call to rescue her. She’s less than a mile away so we were there within minutes to find that she had gently capsized rather than fallen, and had only damaged her dignity. It was so fortunate that Tim was home though as I could never have got her off the floor single handedly and probably would have had to call the emergency services. Knowing my mum, she’d have said, ‘Ooh, lovely, firemen!’

So for a couple of days I’ve been going round every couple of hours but now the doctor has been and the pills sorted out we are back to normal for the moment. Such a worry though.

Any way, The sun’s been shining through the last remaining cherry leaves this morning…

I think over the next week the rest of the leaves will be down, but there’s been a lovely sparkly carpet for a small dog to rush about on!…

If you look in the top left hand corner of the first Higgins photo you’ll see my Drummer Boy rose which is still blooming too…

I rescued it from the ‘Nearly Dead’ bin at the local garden centre some years ago and it has been gratefully flowering every year since! And talking of buying plants, I was very happy to find hyacinths to buy at the Farmers Market last Saturday.

You might remember last winter I had these…

…and now I have these to look forward too…

This morning Selvedge arrived…

Which has gone into the pile with Country Living…

…and Country Homes and Interiors…

…to be read, sometime, when I’m not wielding a a red hot felting needle!

Which reminds me. Thank you for all the suggestions which were made about listing the Felty Balloons on Folksy. I’ve taken them all on board, but I think I will wait now until after the Pick’n’Mix Market which is in 10 days time. It would be rather lovely if I don’t have any left to list, wouldn’t it? We’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the studio with express intention of have a good tidy up, walked in, spotted a particular piece of fleece, had a brainwave and ended up needlefelting again! But it was very productive, because I made this little chap…

I thought if he had a couple of brothers, they could go carol singing, and here they are! This one has the music…

…this one rings the bell…

…and this one knows all the words!

They are quite wee, just over 2″ tall, and look SO cute on the mantlepiece. However, I will be sensible, and they ARE for sale! (Ed. to add: and were sold, the very next day! Another reason to be cheerful!)

I hope that you too have found some ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ even if you felt it’s been a tricky week so far. And I hope too that you’ll be able to join in with the ‘Linky’ so that we can spread a little happiness about. I’ve really enjoyed popping off to other blogs, and sharing the cheerfulness. I’ve decided to start the Linky slightly earlier, Wednesday afternoon rather than Thursday morning to give as much time as possible for people to find it and join in and so here it is!

See you soon xx

Name the Cow – The Results

Well first I’ve got to say I’ve been really let down. I know it’s a bit of a gloomy day, but honestly, I just can’t get my staff to get up these days…

So the draw with the hat just didn’t happen, I’ve had to resort to the Random Number Generator.

Still, I only had to do counting for the name vote, and ended up with a short list of seven, which were, in no particular order, Flora, Ermintrude, Petunia, Pamela, Miss Marple, Lucy and Gertrude. After an early lead, Ermintrude finally lost out to Petunia, which I think suits her very well.

Petunia the Cow

Thanks so much for your help, I now have a selection of names for the rest of the herd, and Petunia will be heading off to Folksy very soon to find a new home.

And now for the draw. Having given everyone a number, I set the RNG going and the winner was No. 14, who is….drumroll…..pregnant pause…. Tilly Mint Boutique!!! So congratulations, I shall put the Julie Arkell book and tiny sheep in the post very soon.

Thanks so much to everyone who took part, I shall look out for another occasion to celebrate in the near future.
See you soon x

Tiptoeing Round the Corner….

…waving a sock. Hello! Can I join in? I know it’s Handmade Monday and I know it’s a bit late and …I only have – a sock. Just the one. And yes, actually, it isn’t quite finished…. but I’ve been awfully busy and I really really want to join in…Is it ok? Hmmm?

It has been a busy weekend, so I hope you’ll forgive my lack of productivity! We headed off to London town in the white van, filled with all Aimee’s worldly goods…

No kitchen sink, but there was a bongo drum and a unicycle….

Her mother’s daughter, apparently…

We had things to deliver to the South Coast too, so more family was visited and I managed a visit to a favourite shop for curtain fabric where the lady of the shop had her own brand of fabulousness …

and a great blog too…Pop along and say hello!

Higgins didn’t want to be a White Van Dog, so he went to the Norfolk coast for a little break.

Oooh, these sand dunes are a bit steep...

...but this wet sand is nice and cool....

...and the sea is even cooler on the tum....

...and it's nice to have a sunny patch to dry off in...

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

More Hearts…More Pompoms…

Hello!!! Is it Thursday already? This week is galloping by. Firstly, because I know you’ll want to know, Henry is still doing nicely. The medication has been finished, and as I write he is snoring contentedly, in his bed. This is a relief, as when he first came back the only place he wanted to be if he couldn’t have a warm lap was a warm keyboard.

The only little cloud on the horizon is the visit to vet next Monday for the removal of the stitches. This will probably require the entire squad of nurses and maybe one or two brave volunteers from the waiting room as he will NOT be a happy bunny!

Oh, and some hair restorer…

His tummy was shaved for the ultrasound, his head was shaved for the spinal tap, patches were shaved on his legs for the drips, and his throat was shaved for the operation. Thank goodness it’s summer, I don’t think he’s be happy in a jumper, however beautifully knitted!

But pompoms, I hear you cry, you said there were pompoms!

There are SO many pompoms! I found this wonderful gadget…

Do you remember the Heart and Pompom bunting…

…which I made in January?

I still love it, but I made the pompoms with a little gadget which my mum had given me because she wasn’t very happy with her results. Well, I tried really hard with it, and made so many pompoms using up my leftovers…

but they were never as firm and fluffy as I wanted them to be.

Now I have found this gadget…

…and it is wonderful! The smallest sized one makes a beautifully firm pompom in just few minutes and it is so compulsive I had to pack the gadgets up and put them away as there was a danger that my entire stash would be used up!

The solution was to make a larger version of the Heart and Pompom Bunting – the tutorial for that is here. I just worked the last row in the pattern in the main colour and added an extra row in the contrast colour to make the hearts bigger and made the joining chain slightly longer between the hearts so I could use slightly bigger pompoms.

Would you like to see?

It was hard to find the best way to show you. When I hung it up inside I realised how much my house needs redecorating, and the light wasn’t right so here it is outside the studio…

There’s actually a bit too much light here, it rather bleaches the colours, but I’m not going to complain about sunshine! (If you can’t find the pompom maker locally I got mine from Clothkits thank you, Kaye!)

Now we have another sunshiny day I’d better get out into the garden. All the strong wind over the last couple of days has blown my little plastic greenhouse and flowerpots all over the garden. (Higgins has done his best to round things up but the toothmarks are a problem…)

Talking of Higgins, he’s rather had the spotlight taken off him with recent events but if you were wondering…he’s fine…

You see…?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Pick ‘n’ Mix Makers’ Market – The Event

After all the excitement of the last month I’ve suddenly skidded to a halt. And it’s a very good thing, as I can now spend a week sorting out and gathering my thoughts and making decisions about where I go from here. And, AND…I might have time to do something other than needle felting!!! Crochet, perhaps or some knitting! It’s been really hard to look at some blogs as I’ve been suffering from yarn envy, so I’m looking forward to a bit of a break! And I have to revamp the Folksy shop which has been closed because of the Market, so look out for new things appearing later on in the week.

But I promised to tell you about the market. Firstly, I have to confess that despite taking lots of photos, the one of the Planet Penny stall was too bad to use so this one…

is courtesy of Catherine Daniel, whose stall you can see further on in the post, thank Cathy!

But there were so many lovely stalls to look at…

I was next to Celia Hart, of Purple Podded Peas fame, with all her lovely prints and cards…

…and opposite Sasha, and her colourful menagerie of handmade toys…

On my other side was Suzanne of Heart of Glass with a sparkling array of stained glass…

At the far end of the hall was the lovely Emma of Emma Mitchell Designs. I can never resist buying something every time I see Emma, but this time I have a special commission which I will tell you about another time!

Then Lisa of Bobobun, to whom we are indebted for all the organisation for the event…

and Ruth, of Glory Days, one of my favourite shops in Norwich…

…and I’m terribly in love with that teapot!

There was fairy loveliness from Sara of Wildwood…

and then the twin temptations of Fiona’s High Fibre wool…

and Daisy Boo’s amazing Coffee Shop Corner…

Warm Stilton and Walnut Scones for breakfast…well, you’ve got to, haven’t you?

I also fell in love with a wonderful ceramic take on patchwork, as created by Catherine Daniel…

Kit bought a gorgeous piece…

And what did I buy?

Well, I tried to be sensible, but I will be going back to Catherine….Can you see that wonderful ceramic bunting above? But in the end I bought this heart…

…and this heart…

and two little books from Celia which seemed to have been made with me in mind…

Gosh, this is a long post! If you follow the links you’ll find some of the other lovelies I didn’t get time to photogragh are mentioned in other blogs if you want to get the full flavour of the day.

And it was a good day, for my first foray into the world of Makers Markets, it was fun, and successful…

…and now I’m very tired…

Must share the nest two pics though. Yesterday was quite bright and sunny to start with, sunbathing took place… But it clouded over, stared to rain and got SO cold..I had to light the wood burner…

As you can see, Higgins hasn’t managed to persuade Henry it’s possible to share the mat! Definitely hangdog…

Edited to add…The next Pick’n’Mix Makers Market is coming up on November 26th and you will find we have lots of lovely Christmas pressie ideas under one roof! Click on the poster on the side bar to find out more!

Hope to see you there x

Happy Friday

How lovely it’s been today to have nothing but happy smiling faces on the television! It’s been a miserable year in the world so far, with earthquakes, the tsunami, uprisings and war and sadness, so the happiness of William and Catherine and all the people in London celebrating with them has been so uplifting. I said I was just going to switch on to see the dress, but I watched the lot, and cried and still managed to carry on needle felting… there was only a little blood!

I hope you had a lovely Easter. We did, and Higgins had boys to stay and he loved that. I’ve had to eat rather a lot of hard boiled eggs over the last few days as the boys forgot to take them home, but they’ve all gone now. (I think I would have enjoyed the chocolate ones more, but strangely they remembered those!)

Higgins discovered the joys of a hammock…

…but I found it a little disconcerting to be hit by a low flying dachshund landing on my stomach when I was lying in it myself, quietly reading.

Now it’s time to get organised and think ahead.

So much is happening in the next few weeks that I need to get to grips with it all, make a list and tell you all about it…then it must be true!

Watch this space …