Being Good!

I've been good and knuckled down to some work over the last ten days or so - hence my absence last week!

Firstly I had two more sets of teachers' notes to write.. the first on Cliffhanger

the usual thoughtful and fun read from Jacqueline Wilson and then a great book - The Bog Baby.

It's a really good story about two sisters who find a Bog Baby and take him home to keep in the shed, but he starts to get sick and has to released back into the wild...

Then I had to pop into Wales to go to a school in the Rhondda where I'll be supporting literacy. The drive up was foul with driving rain and horrid conditions, but the following morning driving over the top of the mountain was breathtaking and the staff were lovely. I'm going to enjoy going over there - I'm back again at the end of the month!

Then I got on with some finishing off - the grey scarf I posted about last time and some bracelets that I promised to a friend for her to give as Christmas pressies.. I also found these lovely sparkly bags in the loft for them to go in.

Then there's the purple bag that I spun and then knitted up. It went into the washing machine on a nice hot wash and came out like this...

I've just got to add a button and a length of yarn for fastening - I'll do it later while I'm sitting at a craft fair in my mum's village - my sister and I have a stall there this morning - Mum is on sales pitch!

It's really nice to do this fair as it means coming up to see my Mum, sister, nieces and 'nephew-in-law' and we can relax and chat aplenty..

Oh - and I really was soooo good on Wednesday as I parted with a Jacob's fleece that was stashed in the attic. I decided to be sensible as I still have two alpaca and two shetland fleeces up there and it could take a while to get to the Jacob. (It'll probably take a while to get to the others too.) So a friend at spinning took it ready for her husband to weave it into a rug. Win-win I say!


Oh, Thrift collection Number 4 - this one occured to me ten minutes ago as I was stitching the hem of my niece's skirt and battling with a hole in one of her favoured cardis... Spend an evening learning how to hem, darn and stitch a button - it'll save you a mint in clothes that might otherwise need professional sorting or (horror) be thrown away before their time. There's plenty of stuff on the internet to show you how to do it and it just needs a bit of practice. I'm not saying I go round darning cheap socks or that sort of thing, but just think of how much you can save when it comes to buying something off the peg or from the charity shop that just needs a bit of mending or button changing or curtains that simply need altering!

Well, that's me done - just off to Handmade Monday to see what everyone's up to - although comments might have to wait till I'm home tomorrow as we need to pack our bits for the fair!

Chat soon.....