Holi

Today, nine of us decided to go up to Belfast to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colours. The celebration took place in St George's Market and was free for everyone to participate or observe.


There was food, craft stalls, music and dancing, and even some audience-participation drumming led by The Gathering Drum. The highlight was the "paint party" whereby participants threw powder paint over each other.


We decided not to participate as we had a 75 mile drive home with no change of clothing, so we all came away with a conservative dot on the forehead:


Whilst others ended up looking like this:

image c/o bbc.co.uk

An enjoyable and colourful day was had by all!

Folksy Friday

Well as it's St David's Day on Monday I though it would be apt if this weeks Folksy Friday theme was Wales. Unfortunately I will not be at home this year but I shall be donning my daffodil and eating Welsh Cakes and Bara Brith none the less!

So here we go then:


This red dragon cushion is made by HELKATDESIGN who makes a whole host of British icon inspired textile items

This felted daffodil brooch made by Sue2 would be perfect for Monday. I wore a real daffodil last year but it wilted quite quickly so I may make one this year.

Now some people prefer to wear the national vegetable on St David's Day as an alternative to the daffodil. Personally I've never liked the taste of leeks very much (does that make me any less Welsh??) but this lovely little veggie is made by Maxine Veronica.

These beautiful earrings are made by Paisley Chainsaw. They'd make a great alternative to pinning a daffodil to your coat. Visit the shop for many a quirky jewelry idea.

And finally this Welsh translation of "Keep Calm and Carry On" Cushion is made by POBshop. How good would that look plumped on my sofa!

My St David's Day celebration starts tonight, when Wales take on France in the 3rd set of 6 nation matches. Go Wales! I've promised the Irish that we'll give the French a hiding for them so we better had or I'll be in trouble.

And before I go I'd just like to say a massive good luck to my cousin Megan who has reached the final round of the "Can I Gymru" competition. It's a Welsh song writing competition - the winner gets a prize of £10,000 and goes through to represent Wales in the Pan Celtic Music Festival, held in Ireland. The competition will be shown live on S4C on Sunday night, at 7:30 pm. Watch and vote for Gwen ar fy Wyneb!

Smile!

I thought I'd quickly share with you two things that have made me smile today:

Firstly my crocheted brooch that I left at home over Christmas and recently got back. It is now safely pinned to my coat. I made and sold a few of these late last year but this one was my favourite so I kept it! And of course I forgot to write the pattern down so I need to work it out all over again to make more.


And secondly my lovely spotty tea pot! I could spend all day looking at tea pots - my mum and Nanny used to collect all those strangely shaped ones, so I'm proud to have restrained myself to owning only one. I'm afraid that this one was not hand-decorated by a fellow creative type, but rather I bought it in the Woolworths closing down sale. However my childhood weekends were spent browsing the CD isles and eyeing up the pick and mix in Woolies, so I got this as a bit of nostalgia from my once favourite, now non-existent, shop.

My lovely tea pot usually resides on the kitchen windowsill, but today he was filled to the brim with lovely steaming tea. He is unfortunately now empty but I am full to the brim with caffeine!
He was complaining about being a bit cold so I've promised to make him a nice cozy to keep him snug and warm. I asked him whether he would like a crocheted, knitted, or sewn cozy but he says he has no preference - what do you guys think?

Quilt Top

So I woke up today and just had the urge to sew. I hopped out of bed and popped next door to the "sewing room" and was there for an hour before my belly started to grumble for blueberry porridge (which by the way does not taste too fantastic when made with water instead of milk!) and a cup of tea.

After breakfast I was back up for round 2 and I eventually finished my quilt top! Now I didn't start it from scratch - I had already cut the squares and sewn a little bit of it but it's been sitting waiting for me to get going for about two weeks.


I decided to go for a trip around the world pattern this time as I absolutely love symmetry (sometimes to the point of obsession) but I think next time I might add in a few plain colours .Now it is quite busy and it reminds me of one of those optical illusions where if I get closer to it I'm gonna see an elephant pop out or something. But it's so pretty and overall I'm very pleased with it.

And before I go I'll share with you one of my recently discovered favourite things:

Freesias smell absolutely divine. I can't get enough of them. Every time I walk past the vase (which is a lot) I can't help but stick my nose in the bouquet and take a sniff. BF gives me weird looks but I don't care!

Folksy Friday

I thought that for this week's Folksy Friday I'd feature some lovely buttons I've got my eye on. Buttons are so yummy - If only they were edible then they'd be perfect!! Anyways here they are:


These cute little fairytale buttons are listed by Mollimoo. She has so many cute little fabric covered buttons that it was really hard to choose which set to feature!


These Patchwork Clay buttons are by Carols Crafts. She also incorporates her clay beads into her handmade beaded jewelry.


These "jelly on a plate" buttons are so much fun! They're designed and made by She Draws who stocks all manner of fun things.

Julia Smith Ceramics makes beautiful ceramic crockery and also made this beautiful set of buttons.

And finally no Folksy Friday would be complete without Russian Dolls!! This sweet little button set is made by incy wincy stitches. So so cute!

So I hope everyone has a great weekend. With no visitors anymore and no Six Nations on this week it will be a lovely quiet one for me. I might crack on with a quilt I started last week. Or maybe I'll crochet some flowers. Either way I'll be enjoying myself - I hope you will too!

Custom Order

I thought I'd put up a few snaps of the custom order I've just finished off. It is currently making it's way over to Wales to be hand delivered by my Mum!


Now I haven't opened the shop yet but the little lady arrived a couple of weeks ago so I was asked to make a bunting to match the one I'd made for her brother last year. It's nice to get a repeat order!

And I thought I'd share with you the lovely goodies that came through my door yesterday. I opened up the parcel to find all of these:


Gosh it felt like Christmas all over again! I so wasn't expecting so many goodies!! They were all Valentine themed and made my week. Massive thanks again to Jane.

Valentine's Day

So our valentine's day didn't exactly go to plan yesterday. BF and I decided on a whim to drive up to Belfast a few hours early to go to the cinema that we always went to when I lived there. A sort of trip down memory lane if you will. We booked our tickets online and hopped in the car - away we went.

Well first of all the water jets on the wipers weren't working so we had to stop several times to throw water over the windscreen so that we could see again. Then we got onto the motorway and that's where the fun began. Complete and utter gridlock. We sat for half an hour having moved about a mile the entire time before being diverted down winding roads to god knows where. In the end it took us 2 hours 45 to make the hour and a half journey to Belfast and needless to say the film had long started without us.

So we went and grabbed something to eat, sat around for an hour before leaving to collect my mother for the airport. As we were walking back to the car however I got a text from my mum saying that they were stuck, something was wrong with the plane and they might have to get off. Great! We ended up driving to the street that I used to live on and parking up outside my old house and sleeping in the car!

Mums 22:00 flight got in at 23:40 and we eventually crawled in through the front door at 1am. Needless to say the day did not go according to plan!

But there is a happy ending - I've just logged into my email to discover that I've won a Valentine Giveaway! I featured a brooch by Applique Originals in one of my Folksy Fridays a few weeks ago, and thought I'd enter a giveaway to win one of her lovely brooches. And win I did! This beautiful little heart will be starting it's journey towards my letterbox tomorrow morning:

I'm so thrilled! I'll be smiling for the rest of the day now. Thank you Jane!

Folksy Friday

Well no surprise that today's folksy Friday's theme is Love! I do like Valentine's day - not the whole commercial rip off aspect of it, but I do like the excuse to do something a bit special together. Lately I haven't been much of a social being, I think I've only socialised 4 times since my op, so BF has been going out without me quite a bit. It will be nice to have him to myself this weekend.

Well having said that on Valentine's day itself my mother is arriving for a stay, so we're going to be spending Valentine's night doing the 150 mile round trip to pick her up from the airport. I'm not allowed behind the wheel yet so BF will have to do all of the driving - the things you do for love!

Anyhoo here we are, my favourite Folksy love themed items:

This beauty of a heart is by Gillian Chapman Felts. Her Folksy shop is full of beautiful felted items

"French Kisses" is a handmade Valentine's card by Konnie Kapow! You'll find cards for all occasion in her shop. Go take a look!

This lovely heart brooch is handmade by Polka. Her shop is full of lots of heart themed items including bags and ornaments.

I always struggle buying Valentine's cards as I find them disgustingly slushy, but this one is perfect - to the point without all that gushing nonsense! It's made by PookieSu.

Finally this lovely little heart brooch is by TamsynG. I've featured her before in a previous Folksy Friday and I'd definitely recommend a wee trip over to her shop.

So I hope that everyone has a great weekend, be it romantic or otherwise, and I'll be back next week for more crafty talk!

Folksy Friday

So I thought it was fitting if today's Folksy Friday was all about stitches! I went to get mine out today and after much prodding and pulling (ouch!) was told that they were nowhere near ready to come out - Boo! Anyway at least I got a theme for Folksy Friday hey?

So here they are - my fave stitched or stitch themed items of the week:

This pretty pretty hand stitched brooch is by Tamsyn G

This lovely heart shaped brooch is attached to a card and doubles as a valentine's card. It's by Petal Textiles

These colourful hand stitched hearts are by Cloudberryskies. I also love her skull brooches but I'm afraid that I rather look like one at the mo with not being able to sleep well recently!

Look at the symmetry of this little beauty! It was embroidered by Applique Originals. Go visit her blog too as there are some beautiful cuffs there that she hasn't listed yet.

And finally for something a bit different. I'm sure BF would agree that I've been somewhat of a stitch bitch at the minute! These lovely badges are by Badge the Badger.

Oh and just a quick note of thanks to the lovely Jo Anglezarke for nominating me for my second Sunshine Blog Award. How lovely!! Now I'm not up to nominating another 12 people, so for those of you who haven't yet seen it, check out my original Sunshine Blog Award post. And please take a look at Jo's Sewing is for Girls blog.

So I hope everyone has a great weekend - I certainly will with the 6 nations starting tomorrow. What on earth is better than muscly men in shorts?? Go Wales!!

Knitting Cheers Us Up - Vodafone Says So!