Happy New Year

Hello to everyone who visits me here and Happy New Year to each and every one of you! I hope you have had a wonderful holiday, and are ready to greet the world again after the 'bit inbetween'. For me the New Year always has to have some flowering bulbs - as many as possible, and then I feel like spring is almost here..

Little cross stitch plant pokes designed for my earlier books come in very handy for decorating my pots of flowering bulbs...so do tags produced for magazine commissions (time I got on with some of those now that the holiday is almost over - I had a peek at my commissions board where I list everything  work-wise and realised it was high time I stopped lazing around eating chocolate and got on with some work again!)

I got this mat free with the lovely new making magazine and decided it summed up my attitude to each new year rather well so I decided to include it here. Making things is what makes me happy and keeps me happy come what may! The baboushka tape measure was a stitchy gift and the new fabrics will soon be cut out and sewn up...I can hardly wait!
I send you all the warmest of wishes for a happy, healthy, creative, fulfilling and generally wonderful 2011! Thank you for all your kind wishes and comments - and here's to another lovely year of blogging!! xxx

Just the One

Hello - just popping by to say there is a technical hitch on my blog today and I can only put on one picture at a time. After one pic it freezes up...So, in the spirit of the old sampler saying -'if life gives you lemons, make lemonade' I am posting just the one picture. This is a sweet little bundle of fabric that arived this week and I can't wait to begin sewing with it. It came from the gorgeous Fabric Rehab, such a lovely site.
I hope to bring you the post I'd planned yesterday as soon as my blog is fixed by whoever fixes these things out there in cyber land. It will be filled with retro pictures from my Golden Hands books, they are waiting here rather forlornly........ x

Flowers On The Window Sill

My last post was a week ago - not because I'm a lazy blogger but because our computer network router broke and we had to wait for a new one to be sent out to us! Today it was finally fixed and I'm dealing with the unanswered emails and work related matters, but also just had to make time to post on my little blog which I couldn't do anything about till this moment.

I didn't want to just rant about the stress/frustration of my internet- denied week in this happy little place, so I'm turning to things I HAVE enjoyed while other things were not so great - and one of them is flowers on the window sill (words from a Carole King song I think). Lots of window sills in this house, lots of flowers in the garden, plus alternating summer showers and bright sunshine that are constantly changing the light effects.

Back soon, with a yummy recipe, some reminiscence and a lot of crafting.

Memory Keeping

Now that I've started my own blog I realise what is so special about blogging. It makes you mindful of all the little things you look at and have around you, it gives you a reason to record them both for yourself and others to enjoy. So the sweet flowers in a jug, the beautiful berries in a bowl, the one gorgeous rose in a thrifted tea cup all have a new significance and meaning. It raises your awareness of all the interest and beauty around you which I thought, as a designer I was fully aware of already, but this has made me enjoy everything more.

I loved reading other people's blogs for a long time, and I love that each person's is different as their own character shines through. I wanted to share my love of crafts with others, and to have a place to add my own visual thoughts, but I'm truly surprised how it has enriched my view of my little world and the things that surround me. How it heightens the beauty I see each day as I take photos. Amazing.