Fresh as a daisy, guv'nor!

At last! Daylight! I finally managed to snap a couple of pictures of the new lavender bags - Frank flavour (above) and Ethel/Willy flavour (below). They are available in my shop along with Dot and Pat. Yay!

I had another very exciting couple of products to add that came back from the printer this week but, on closer inspection, they did not meet my stringent quality control expectations so I'm trying to get them printed again. I will resist blabbing about them here until they are actually available.

Graham and I went charity shopping yesterday (only because we were in the vicinity after visiting some friends and their gorgeous kitten) and I got more books than I could carry - a couple of novels as well as an EastEnders retrospective (I was kicking myself for leaving it behind last time and couldn't believe it was still there) and five Golden Hands books, which I didn't need but couldn't leave behind. I love a good Golden Hands book. I really must start sharing some of my vintage craft books on here. Graham got an arty looking Korean film, which we watched last night. It came with a heartfelt recommendation from the man in the charity shop... which was unfortunate, given the film turned out to be porn! Ha ha! We'll never be able to show our faces there again... Still, the same man gave me a heartfelt recommendation for my Golden Hands books so maybe that was just his brand of friendly customer service. We can but hope! The EastEnders book did not come with a warm recommendation - the two men behind the till in that shop chastised me for my terrible taste and told me I should watch Emmerdale instead. Oh, if only they knew the terrible depths...

I won't be around for the rest of this week as I am taking Graham on holiday to a mystery destination so we can commiserate celebrate his birthday. He is turning... officially very old. I am a bit worried as I am not very good at planning trips (especially when it comes to Graham's birthday - see the last paragraph of this post for some examples) but I am really looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll have a good time. One of the unexpectedly good things about going away is that we get to escape our super annoying neighbours and get a decent night's sleep. On Wednesday, they pressed our buzzer repeatedly at 3am. Last night, they went out and left one poor drunken moron locked in their flat by accident. He couldn't escape so he banged his fists on the door and screamed for about 30 minutes. I like to think it was the same moron who pressed our buzzer. Take that, you uber moron! Ha ha! Both these late night happenings really freaked out Lola. I was feeling sorry for her but I just heard one of our neighbours opening their door and Lola ran to our door and actually growled at them so I guess she can stand up for herself. She has impeccable taste!

Better believe it y'all!

It's funky reggae time!
My holidays - a whole nine or ten days - commence today.
Woo hoo! Here's some music to help you feel like me :)

Have a good weekend.

Top telly to watch - yippee!

Ah, it's been so good to have a bit of telly to look forward to and now episode one is a mere matter of minutes away. Since I used a picture of Donald Draper (swoon!) to get excited about series two, I will use a picture of Joan for series three. What a snappy dresser this lady is and absolutely drop dead blimmin' gorgeous. I have got to start holding my shoulders back... :) If you're watching it tonight, then enjoy! Right, I'm off to get comfy. Woo hoo!

Edit: Ten minutes later... Well, apparently I'm six days early! I'm nothing if not keen... Sorry if I made anyone panic - I know I did when Charlie Brooker came on. Hee hee! For a few awful minutes, I thought it must have started last night but according to the wonder of the internet, it starts on Wednesday 27th. We've had it written on the calender for today since hogmanay! By next week, I will be even more ready.

Real photos! Shocker!

It's 3.30 in the afternoon and I'm drinking a gin and bitter lemon. Woo! That's because it's my faux weekend. I knew working weekends would have its upside :) Still, as you can see from these photos (real photos and not merely pictures stolen from flickr) I have been busy, busy, busy, faux weekend or no faux weekend. No, I'm not making an EastEnders quilt (although... ha ha!) but am making muchos EastEnders lavender bags.

Most of these are destined for the Made in the Shade Maisonette but I have managed to make a few to put in my own shop too. I'm not sure I have enough stuffing for them all (aargh!) but keep your eyes peeled here/at my shop and you should see them appear in the next few days.

If you look really closely, you might just spot some new designs... Can you see who it is? I'm very excited!

Edit: they are in my shop now! Hooray! No photos of Frank or Ethel just yet but I listed them anyway as I just couldn't wait :) Photos to follow shortly...

word of the day

CPR Embroidery
Originally uploaded by badecca

Ensnogglement
"...there were disco moments of ensnogglement and bra-fumbling which came to very little."

As read in Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry on the way home from work tonight.

let's have a look at what you could still win

bow hair band
Originally uploaded by one good apple

Hello. Why not hop on over to one good apple to enter Emily's giveaway? You could win one of these super cute knitted hairbands along with other mystery goods, maybe a speedboat. That is all as I'm off to watch a film before bed (if I can stay awake) just to maximise that weird weekend-that's-not-a-weekend feeling.

I see a darkness...

Embracing Stochasticity

Originally uploaded by AJ Fosik

No, I'm not here to be morbid and I'm not even here to talk about Johnny Cash, I just felt I should apologise for my lazy blogging style, using flickr favourites just to pop in and say hello. (I hope this flickr favourite of mine doesn't give you nightmares!) I don't have much to photograph at the moment, to be honest, but even if I did I just don't see enough daylight to take half decent photos by. Roll on spring! I love winter (no more than any of the other seasons - I'm fickle and they all make me happy for as long as they are still a novelty) but I think I have had enough of it for this year. At work today (yes, I now work weekends - boo!) I watched it very slowly get light and then very slowly get dark again. I think it might have actually been light for all of ten minutes in the middle. Scottish winters are officially bad for blogging. Officially.

Anyway, I have actually been working away behind the scenes here - despite appearances - replenishing some sold out items (lavender bags coming soon!) and coming up with some brand new stuff, which has had me hooting away this evening. I will share all soon but not until they are ready.

In other news, I spent both my days off this week charity shopping. It was kind of slim pickings (lots of unwanted Christmas tat) but I did get travel Trivial Pursuit (just days after speculating whether it existed or not and really hoping it did) a vintage make your own giant macrame owl kit (just after deciding I was going to sit down and trawl the internet for the definitive instructions and make macrame my first new/revisited old craft of 2010) and a pair of cowboy boots for £5 (after a few months of looking). We also saw what may be the best charity shop find ever ever ever but it was just in and not yet priced. It still has not been priced (we even phoned the shop today just to remind them not to be selling it to anyone else) but we have first refusal on it once they decide how much it is worth. I won't say any more for fear of jinxing it but I'll tell you all about it once we joyfully own it or have eyes red from crying at the fact we don't own it. I say "we" but it is Graham who's buying it really. Still, we are a committed couple and what's his is mine. Hee hee!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and spare a thought for poor souls like me who are working... I know I'll spare a thought for you when I'm off mid-week and raiding the charity shops before all the Monday to Friday suckers get to them - har har! ;)

tea and no sympathy (sympathy's for wimps!)

Originally uploaded by Ibsen Lab

How totally cool (man) is this Mexican wrestler tea cosy?! Apparently it was available on etsy but it looks like they're all sold out now. Make more, please, Ibsen Lab! While we're on the subject of wrestlers, don't you think that the people of Britain (or people of a certain age in Britain i.e. nearly 30 or older) should be showing some love to our own national wrestlers instead of giving it ALL to Mexican and American wrestlers? Much as I love a bit of lucha-related crafting, I also have much love for Big Daddy (and Giant Haystacks - divided loyalty's no issue for me!). However, looking at the sales of 2009, it seems that next to no one out there shares that love and I just know that cannot be true! If you want to demonstrate your love for our native wrestlers ***shameless plug*** then go and buy yourself a very reasonably priced Big Daddy lino print or lavender hanger from my shop, if only to prove to me that I shouldn't give up on poor old Shirley Crabtree, rest his soul :(

toot toot!

Originally uploaded by blancucha

I am aiming (in no particularly practical way) to do more printing this year and this clever lady's work is getting me all excited at the prospect. Her etsy shop is just beautiful. I want most of the things she has made - prints and notebooks alike.

Famous without knowing it

Thanks to one of my twitter spies, I found out that my Dot and Pat lavender bags were apparently featured in The Scotsman this Saturday - hooray!

And didn't I just tell you that I was going to be awesome this year? Uh-huh!

I wish I could have seen it! If anybody reading this happens to have a copy of Saturday's Scotsman then please wing it my way :)

I was meant to be going to London tomorrow for 'work' (that's just the glamorous pace of life in the media, darling...!) but my flight got cancelled this morning. I guess I can use the unexpectedly free evenings to make more lavender bags now.

Is anybody still out there?

What with all the Christmas hoo-ha etc. I never got around to sharing this amazing book of knitting patterns that my sister bought for me on Ebay. Wait for it...

Just when you thought my obsession could sink no lower...

The baby with the elephant jumper is none other than Martin Fowler. He was so young - who could have known what fate had in store for him?

I really like this picture of the Square. It's quite funny to notice how much the bushes have grown since this picture was taken. Julia Smith (the producer and the lady in the photo there) introduces this book as "the first EastEnders knitting collection". I wonder if there have been any others since! She claims that Kathy's stall has made all the cast and crew "very knitting conscious" and thinks the patterns will go down well with the cast. I'm not so sure - do you think they expected to be modelling knitwear when they were cast in a soap opera? She was planning to knit Lou's cardigan for her mother... allegedly.

Much as I love the book, I'm not sure I'll be knitting anything from it. I do feel a bit bad about that, though, so I may make Sue Osman's jumper (above) one day. I rather like it.

I love the Beales' double page spread - Pete's cardigan to keep him warm while he sells fruit and veg, Kathy's racy V-back (just made that term up...) and Ian's fresh faced pre-tyrant innocence... Those were the days, my friend.

I would love to see another EastEnders knitting collection brought out. It's the show's 25th anniversary this year (have you seen the classic doof doof moment trailers? brilliant!) and a new knitting collection would surely be the perfect way to celebrate. What would you knit for who? How about a George Michael intarsia sweater for Heather? Or a pair of bootees for the ill-fated offspring of Stacey and Bradley Archie? A tasteful twin-set for Dot maybe? Or a hat for Phil and his poor bald head? Don't let the red face fool you - he does feel the cold! If only somebody had thought to knit a cosy for the Queen Vic bust - that might have softened the Christmas blow... I would love to hear your ideas!

Happy new year, by the way, and apologies for being nearly a third of the way through the month before I got around to saying it. I think I must have been busy... Either that, or I have just become a very bad blogger. I seem to recall getting new year's bloggers block last year. This year, I was actually looking forward to a 2009 retrospective post as well as a 2010 whoop whoop type post but it all seems a bit late in the day/year for that now. Rest assured that I plan to be totally awesome this year!