What?! Craft stuff?! Don't be silly...

Can you stand it? Five posts in 2 days?... I ask you!

And this time it's even going to be vaguely crafty. First here's a little glimpse of the goodies I got at the car boot sale at the weekend. This is going to have to keep me going for 2 weeks as I can't see there being any on this weekend, what with all the glorious late English summer weather!

In honour of the Fairy Tale swap I bought the Brothers Grimm book. Then there's a proper book about papier mache, in case I get round to finishing off the Julie Arkell type creatures. The pincushion book has patterns for all different ones - cross stitched, tapestry, patchwork, you name it... The fairies book is maybe a little more complicated than I thought. It involves sculpting ready-made pom-poms and pipe cleaners to make teeny weeny fairies. They're very cute but VERY fiddly. The others 3 are all paper-based, with book making/binding techniques. I've always loved sketchbooks and did a workshop on making simple books back in my C&G days. These will be a great refresher so I can have a little experiment.
Next...

My hats for the Big Knit are all pom-pommed up. The pink one actually has a little tinkly bell on it's 'stalk' (I'm gradually using the goodies that Emma sent me - a little bit at a time). I felt the two bluey-greeny ones didn't need anything else adding to them as the variegated wool was enough 'interest'. Now I just have to send them off. One box on the "to do list" ticked. Yay!!!

This is a sneaky peak of what I have been consumed with recently. I was perusing one of my Patti Medaris Culea doll-making books and one of the mediums/media(?) she uses to create faces is coloured pencil (Karismacolour to be precise). Well it just so happens that I inherited a boxful of these beautiful pencils from my day so I thought I'd have a little play on a scrap of fabric. She is a bit rosey-cheeked but I'm quite pleased with the eyes.
I went into Lichfield this afternoon to get a few more of the pencils to get some subtler skin tones. I asked Peter in Tales Press if they stocked Karismacolour pencils and he laughed at me. Apparently they were discontinued about 3 years ago!!! Bum!! I bought a couple of pale skin coloured ones in the range that replaced Karisma to give them a go. Will have to go searching on eBay for the Karisma ones.

My lunch was gorgeous. We both had the goats cheese and onion marmalade to start with, then I had the Med veg risotto and Ann had spaghetti with crab and chilli - both of which were a little disappointing - but our desserts made up for it a hundred times over. I had the warm chocolate brownie with strawberries and ice cream and got 2 BIG wedges of scrummy brownie with chunks of pecan and chocolate in. Yum! Ann had the warm choccie pud with raspberries and it was all gooey and gorgeous in the middle. We even got a table overlooking Minster Pool so we could watch the ducks playing in the rain while we set the world to rights. Thanks mate for a fab feast xxxx

Right. I'm now going for a lie down (to recover from the shock of so much blogging) and to play my Waterboys and Amy MacDonald CDs. It's all I can do now as I'm not going to see them in the flesh next weekend....

ttfn

xx