Whats on my workdesk today?

Nothing to show in progress (box for Sherry is still under wraps) but these are my bargain buys down the local charity shop.



A flower press for 50p. (That's for me as I press a lot of flowers, usually under a heavy book. Look what I found inside though, a beautiful rose which I will put in Eliza Evans book along with the pansies already there.)
A wooden boat for 50p. This speaks of pirates and tresasure to me and will be transformed shortly.
Packet of 48 papers for £1.50 instead of £3.99. Sure to get used in the future for something as yet unknown.
2 sets of 3 little nibble dishes one red one gold 75p a set. Have in my minds eye to do a christmas table decoration using these as I have a long table runner in these colours.
A wooden gold coloured star for 20p and a wire spirral name place setting decoration for 50p. Now these I am going to use to showcase each day starting Dec 1st the little decorated countdown christmas boxes (a swap I entered into) I should be recieving any time now in the post. (I know they have left the USA.)
But finally my best buys the two wooden bambi's for 10p each. Repainted in brown with red noses they are going to be transformed into reindeer pulling a sleigh. (Now how difficult can it be to make a sleigh!!)

Oh yes I do like to keep busy.
The smocked material is still drapped over my sewing machine in the background as I just love looking at it and the christmas materials I showcased have now been made into the Mug Rug on my previous post.
If you want to see what everyone else has been up to this week then pop over to Julia's blog to find out.

Mug Rug!

So what is a Mug Rug you are asking. Well its really just a small cloth rug bigger than a coaster
so that there is room on it for your mug of tea/coffee and biscuits/cake.
I have joined a swap group for making these and the November swap was either for a holiday themed or a general theme. You could choose how you wanted yours made but had to go with your partners choice. After having sent off our details of likes and dislikes we were given our partners names and sent off to stalk their flickr pages and/or blog for inspiration. (This was to be a secret swap we knew our partner but not who was making ours.)

My partner said she would like a christmas theme, not fussy on the shape or whether it be traditional or modern. I found out from info supplied and her flickr page that she liked to spend a typical christmas, her home was mostly decorated pink/green and very much liked gifts that had been handmade. I decided on the design drew up a pattern and off I went. Here is a sneek peek of the front under construction.


Sneek peek of the back under construction using a pink and green fabric and showing the wadding attached.



The finished front. A Christmas theme looking out of your window at the snow outside. All stitched by hand.

The finished back. Quilted mostly by hand except for the two trees and the boot.

Here it is all finished and ready to be sent off to my partner along with a couple of extra goodies.

A hand crafted felt mug (a replica of one of hers posted on flickr) and a hand made piece of cake hiding under the servette cos I set a little teaser question on the swap page asking if my partner preferred lemon meringue pie, cheesecake or strawberry flan. Of the 64 replies I got ,

23 said lemon meringue, 3 strawberry, 30 cheesecake, 6 piggies said could they have all 3 and 2 said could they have chocolate!!! My partner was in one of the responses but which one? You will have to wait and see as I was in such a hurry to get off in the post I forgot to take a photo minus the servette! Der. Hope my partner will take a pic for me.

I am going to enter this mug rug into the following challenges.

Anything Goes: say Let it snow

Top tip Tuesday: Asking for piecing and layer upon layer.

The Creative CottAge: Asking for Someone special at Xmas. (My swap partner!!)

Creative Inspirations: Asking for anything christmassy/winter.

Pile it On : Asking what winter means to us.

One Stitch at a Time: Choose a season or event.

Lots to Do: Share your technique ( Hand applique)

Secret Crafter: Show your Handmade Christmas gifts.

Craft Your days Away: Asking for Christmas trees. ( well there are 3 on here.)

An Award. + A lovely e-mail.

I have been given this award by Fiona at Fi's Cards and Crafts .






Thankyou for my lovely award Fi.


Now the rules state that I must tell you 10 things you probably wouldn't know about me and I thought I would(tongue in cheek) link my list back to Fiona's so you can compare. Simples!

I had a lovely e-mail this morning from a lady called Maria in Las Vegas who has received my #17 christmas match box. I have taken part in the Countdown To Christmas matchbox swap where we make 25 altered boxes send them off and receive 25 back. The big reveal starts Dec 1st when we will showcase on our blogs each day the received one and the one sent. I wonder where the other 24 have ended up and more to the point where are my 25!!!!

What's not on my Workdesk Wednesday.

It's not so much what's on my workdesk Wednesday but more of a What's on my list to do today. A bit of a hectic week as Fluff, Daddy and Sweet cheeks are moving from Devon to Norfolk. 'The Doc' is down in Devon master minding the loading of the van today and then the van is going off tomorrow and Fluff and Sweet cheeks are coming to us en route to their new home. Hopefully 'Daddy' will have it all sorted by the time they arrive!!

So for me today it has been a busy day going through my list of jobs .

Make up spare beds. Yep

Set table. Yep

Defrost chicken Yep

Set up bread maker Yep

Now what else? Oh yes go shopping.

Flap jacks, cholate brownies and Choklit cake. Yep

Nearly forgot. Go wack up the central heating from the sub zero setting(The Doc keeps it on) to

normal. Yep

Lastly go pour a glass of wine from the bottle hiding in the fridge and drink. Yep

Nan's ready for you Sweet Cheeks.

How lucky am I!

We have just comeback from visiting our son and his family over the weekend and what do I find?
I have won Barabara's blog candy. I can't believe how lucky I am. Thankyou Barbara and also for show casing my blog.
Now if you want to be in for treat go see the dollies that she makes here. Have a look at her 3 Shirley Temple Wannabees. This lady is trying to convince us all that she will be 70yrs shortly! Give over Barbara.!!!!




Going to be busy busy busy over the next few weeks as I have received commissions for 2 Can Can scarves, a patchwork 'carry all bag 'and another "Bobby" doll (done in Liverpool strip this time) + I have just put my name down to enter the next Mini QT Swap for Dec/Jan.
Just putting the finishing touches to Sherry's embroidered box (It will be on its way shortly Sherry) and the scrappy mug rug swap which needs to be mailed out by 22nd Nov. Photos on blog as soon as received.

What's on my Wordesk Wk 75.

Well this is my workdesk taken at 9pm tonight.

Lots of christmas material as I'm about to start making a christmas rug mug for a quilt group swap I am doing. It's a secret swap so we only know who we are making one for but not who is making ours.

Wev'e all been given info and clues and sent off to stalk our partners on their flickr pages and to post pics on the group page as we go along to see it we can guess who is getting which one. My partner has asked for a christmas theme so I have drawn a design and plan to applique all the pieces by hand onto the background.

I'm linking up to Julias' blog Stamping Ground Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday.

Appologies for not having been round everyones desk last week. I had computer troubles (See previous post) but I'm off now for a wee sneak.

P.S. (If you look very closely Sherry you may just see something to your advantage!!!!!)

Back and fully functioning!

Traumas R us is all I can say.
Sunday, I switched my pc on to hear only what I can describe as the mouse runing around inside sharpening his claws on a cheese grater! Not good at all. Various messages kept appearing and crashing the computer down every few moments so I gave up and had a drink instead!
Monday morning saw me crying down the phone pleading for the local IT company to do something, anything just fix me up. Must have sounded very convincing cos a very nice man came round in the afternoon to have a look. 'Not good ' he said. Your hard drive is knackered, the ball bearings have gone.
(You know they always say a dying person sees their life flash in front of them, well I'm telling you my hard drive flashed before me!! Over 10yrs of genealogy, pdf files, photos, downloads,
templates, exel files , you name it , it was flashing. So much so I thought I was having a migraine attack and would need to lie down in a dark room.)
By this time I'm practically on my knees pleading 'Can you do anything?'
The very nice man said he could take the hard drive away and try to clone it onto a new hard drive but this was not a guarentee fix. At the worst I would loose my files but he could re install all of the programes for me. So off went my hard drive and I went off to drink my sorrows in a bottle of wine with The Doc.
24 nail biting hrs later a phone call confirmed that the cloning had worked and he could try to install back into pc. As you can see it did work and I'm now back fighting fit with brand new memory space and loads more Gs.

Whilst all that was going yesterday' Muver 'phoned on her new mobile. (We have just recently managed to get her to have a large button mobile to use and this is now an on going saga of mishaps and funnies.) This time it was ' Did you just phone me?'
'No Mum I'm like busy having a nervous breakdown why?
'Well someone did and hung up and it didn't show who'. Also a Graham phoned 3 times but didn't leave a message. Do you know who Graham is?
'Erm! No Mum I don't know who Graham is.' Sudden thought. No it wouldn't be, couldn't be could it, he wouldn't know her number would he? Why would "Graham Norton "be ringing my Muver!!!!!!!

Watch out for more tales of life with muver and a mobile phone coming your way soon.

Pooter's a Goner!

Hi all.

Just wanted to let you know that my computer is currently what the Doc would call 'A Goner'!

Normal services will resume as soon as possible...

Iv'e been Featured and Blog Award.

Wow, the little Japanese bag "Dragonfly Cache" that I made for Sandra has been featured on Top Tip Tuesday!


Iv'e won 3 digi images of my choice by Sunshine & Giggles. Decisions, Decisions. Thankyou so much Leanne.





Fluff has very kindly sent me this award.




Thankyou Faye. Attitude! What attitude!!
Now I have to tell you 3 things about myself that make me different to everyone else.

1. I get sayings muddled up. Like my latest one. 'It's as white as a Snail'. Don't ask! I'm still living that one down.


2. I'm left handed and when given instructions regarding turn left or right have to check down at my hands to see which one is which. I have been known to go into the wrong public toilets cos 'The Doc' has said 'It's down there on the right' Yer right!!

3. I stay up till all hours. I'ts actualy 3.35am at this very moment.

Next I have to nominate 5 other blogs so here goes.

Terry. Margreet. Sherry. Lindsey. Ceeyra.

Lastly I need to show The blog award badge in my side bar and link it back to Digi's with Attitude challenge blog. Done that.

Whats on my Workdesk Wednesday.

The Doc has brought all my stash of material boxes down from the loft now and I have been going through each box of colours. Whilst revisiting my stash I realised that the saying 'Every picture tells a story ' applies equally as well to my materials so I thought I would share some of my memories with you on 'Whats on my Workdesk Wednesday'.





This piece of material is 55yrs old and is the bodice part of a dress my sister had. Mine was in (wait for it) Pink with identical smocking. Can anyone else remember the seersucker with a bobble thread woven through it. We loved those dresses. They had little peter pan collars to them. Our Nanna was a seamstress and made nearly all of our clothes when we were children. She had an old manual treadle singer sewing machine in the wrought iron . Our other Nan in Australia would send over a bolt of material as it was actually cheaper to be sent from there than bought in UK.



Here is a close up of the smocking . The colours are just as vivid even now all these yrs later.

For my needlework exams I remember that I had to work a sample of smocking along with showing how to do bound buttons holes as well as having to make a fully lined suit.


I am entering this into

Whats on my Workdesk Wedenesday