Witney Carnival

Time for the annual Carnival!!

Cue plenty of excitement, ice-creams and book stalls! (my personal favourite, even though it means lots of grief from Mr G!)
Oh and the fabulous Mr Alexander:

He has the most lovely set and is very British and entertaining! We were very lucky with the weather and there was a lovely sense of community and people having a good time. Some bits of the main arena entertainment are unbelievably naff, but it all seems very old school and eccentrically British!

Hurrah for bric-a-brac too...

Now I just NEED more buttons! (any excuse!)

On Sunday, I then popped to Woodstock to The Oxfordshire Museum, to finally catch (on the last day) the Annabelinda exhibition. Soo glad I did, it was wonderful, basically Oxford's couture house since the Seventies had a retrospective with lots of original designer outfits all displayed, it showed fashion through the decades too, but the dresses, the handiwork, the Liberty fabrics, it was all so beautiful and sumptous. It was a real effort to not reach out and touch all the fabrics as they were all so stunning! The skill and craft put lovingly into all the creations was very evident and I loved the 70's pinafores, so much so I wondered if you could get away with wearing/making one now?! Even my girls liked it and were heard gushing over the lovely dresses and colours! Although after 10 minutes they were desperate to escape to the garden (which is lovely, as is the cafe, highly recommended!).

Inspiration board

Quiet day of cutting today, with my newly three year old being trusted with the big girl scissors!
I finally managed to put together my inspiration/mood board that I've wanted by my dining table for while.

I got the pin board from my Mum's garage during the car boot sort out and painted it with a lilac tester pot which was also uncovered!

I then cut all the images I'd saved in my 'To Print' folder. Basically I'd been saving images from sites I've visited to serve as inspiration.
And now it looks great, couldn't stop looking at all through dinner!
The bottom 'artwork' board is also pretty funky!

Knitty Nora and podcasts

Knitty Nora has been alleviating my boredom at work! It's a podcast I found on iTunes, there's not many of them but I really like the approach and humour. It is proving hard to concentrate on podcasts AND get work done, but hey!

My other favourite podcast is Yarncraft, again available free from iTunes, it's American but the presenters are down to earth and it has a blog that links to all the items they talk about. It's from the Lion Brand Yarn and if you register on the site you can get access to free patterns.

I've also signed up to Ravelry (HoldMyHand) but I'm still trying to work it out!

I'm hoping to find some help for DPN, as I STILL can't get the tension right, even after numerous tries and different approaches!!

niggly knitting

DOUBLE POINTED NEEDLES!!
AGGHHHH!

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I desperately want to knit a pattern I have found for a knitted doughnut!

So after much putting off (after reading and re-reading 'Ultimate Knitting Bible' : I love this book, I keep it handy for reference) I have started but I can't hold the needles so it's easy to knit with and I'm lost about what round I'm on and the tension is baggy at the ends!

But, it has also reminded me about why I like knitting, it's addictive and the rhythm is like a mantra, once in the groove I'm calm and at peace (usually!) so I will persevere.

This weekend I have cleaned and fired up the heirloom Singer:

It's a Futura model from the late 1970's which has an electronic 'brain' according to the manual!

Hi-tech indeed!

It does have a dazzling array of stitches and feet, which makes it better than my current newer budget model which is a Viscount.











The stitches look a little crude and the straight stitch has a bit of a uneven line, but it works so I will give it a test run, probably on the Oliver + S Lazy Days Skirt I keep meaning to start!
Getting started has always been my problem!

I am also currently trying to make my blog look better, but I am struggling to get Blogger to work how I want and I still haven't got a good photo for my header, so I'm trying to do homework on what I can achieve.

Hope to be doing a car boot this weekend, I'm desperate to clear away some clutter but I think the biggest challenge will be not bringing anything new home!!

Sew Mag

I found this new mag in my local Sainsbury's before holiday last week, it's a new magazine, this is issue one and at first glance I thought it was jumping on the 'Sew Hip' bandwagon, but after reading I was pleasantly surprised.

It comes with a proper tissue paper pattern (with every issue it promises) and covers a wide range of sewing makes from dressmaking to homewares to a kid's project. It is also a lot more professionally put together than Sew Hip, the photos are a lot glossier, the research and information is accurate there are not so many typos! I am a subscriber to Sew Hip and I loved the first 3 issues but the content and feel of the magazine has been slowly dwindling, the content is thinner on things I want to make, the design and layout is too sparse and it feels lacking in direction, which coincided with the loss of the first editor maybe?!

So I have read 'Sew' from cover to cover and I'm hungry for more, the cover price of £5.99 is a sticking point though, slightly over my usual budget so I shall wait and see what issue 2 offers from the shelf before parting with hard earned pennies!

Back Home...

Back from the Forest, back to real life and plenty of washing!
Had a lovely mid-week break at Center Parcs, second time round it's still as relaxing and homely as I remembered. There's something about living in all those trees that resonates with me and feels so right, I overheard other people commenting on this is how we should live, within nature, sympathetically living side by side. Forget foreign holidays (no aeroplanes for me thank you!) this is my kind of treat. Trees, sunshine, bike-riding, swimming, rollerskating (yes, me!), badminton, kayaking and eating pancakes, this is surely the life!
I did take my knitting in the vain hope I might feel chilled out enough to re-start my second knitted monkey (in blue this time) but no, after a full days activity I couldn't muster up the will.
The coming home (to bills and reminders!) is the horrible bit though, so until work on Tuesday I'll keep looking at the holiday snaps and smiling!

Shaak MonkTi

Introducing Shaak MonkTi!!

Look at this fabulous sock monkey commissioned for me as a present by my other half for my Birthday, It's by the wonderful Sian of Siansburys (http://siansburys.blogspot.com)

She's my fav Star Wars character (bit of a SW geek!) and she looks absolutely fabulous, I've been dying for a sock monkey for ages so can't wait for Monday when she arrives!

Off on hols to Center Parcs on Monday too so she'll be coming with us!