Blimey.

Family pickledweasel got back from a lovely holiday today, having spent a week with good company, good weather, alcohol and a large amount of cheese. We walked, boated, shopped, read, practiced crawling and looked at cows. It was fab.

After bunging a load of washing on and putting munchkin to bed, I started sifting through my emails. Ooh, there's one from Etsy. Hold on. SOMEBODY'S BOUGHT SOMETHING!!! Wooooooo!

Ages ago I put some little brooches I'd made up on Etsy, but very quickly realised they were a very small drop in a very big ocean, and that no-one would probably ever find them, let alone buy them. Anyhoo, a nice lady has bought not one, but 2! They'll be winging their way to California on Monday morning.


I'm very pleased :) I might just make some more - it's been ages since I did some wire knitting, and the little wooden shape brooches are very easy to whip up. Now, what shall I spend my profit on?

Arm Trousers

Remember I used an old shirt of mr pickledweasels to make part of munchkin's cushion cover? I had quite a bit of shirt left over, and thought it would be a shame to waste it. So with the power of the interwebs I found this tute from luvinthemommyhood (who has an excellent blog) and made munchkin a little pair of trousers with mr pickledweasel's sleeves.

It was quite an easy make, and I'd say it took about 2 hours in total - and a lot of that was faffing around trying to get munchkin's measurements. I was really worried about making them too short, and of course, they ended up being too long!

Mr pickledweasel says they look a bit like pyjamas :( But I said that was his fault for having a pale blue shirt :) The shirt I used had a double cuff, as mr p likes his cufflinks. I did think about making little cufflinks with the pink buttons I had, but thought the backs might be a bit scratchy on her legs. So instead I sewed the cuffs together, and then stitched the button on top.

As the trousers were a bit big I thought they would sit nicely on top of the cuff and go a bit pouffy, but munchkin's foot is too small! Never mind. She'll grow into them :)

This'll be my last post for at least a week, as family pickledweasel is off on holibob to lovely Cunbria. Have a lovely half term week! xxx

Button Booty Call

I've never been a button freak, although I can see why people are. But today when I went to the market to get some elastic and safety pins and other haberdashery type bits and bobs, I saw a bag of buttons for £1, and couldn't resist.

And what gems were hidden inside!

Now, I just need to find projects so I can use them all.....

Knitted memories

Late last night I was faffing about transferring photos from my camera for my mom - she's started making glass jewellery and wants to sell it. I found a memory stick to put the pics on, and discovered a file of old photos I'd scanned when I was at my uncle's last year.

This must be me aged about 8 maybe? I'm not sure, I'm a bit rubbish with ages. The jumper I'm wearing was knitted by my mom, and I loved it very much. It was called a Sloppy Joe - I don't know whether that was the name of the pattern, or what my mom decided to call it. It was raspberry pink, and had pockets at the front. Looking at the photo made me feel all warm inside :)

Fiiiiinished!

You know when your mom asked you to do something, like dust the sideboard, or tidy your room, and you did it in superfast time and then shouted 'Fiiiiiiiiiiinished'? That's what I've just done.


To my delight I have discovered I can sew when munchkin has gone to bed - I'd tried a few months ago and she'd woken up when I started pressing on the foot of my old, noisy (but very reliable and much loved) Bernina. Anyhoo, I tried again last night, with mr pickledweasel stood outside her bedroom to look for signs of stirring, and not a peep! So I finished her cushion. I'm very pleased with it, as a) the stripes are all straight, b) it fits the cushion pad, and c) it was really cheap, made from an old shirt of mr pickled weasel's and some red cotton sheeting that cost £1.25 for half a metre. A veritable success!

Mmmmmm, fabric....*drool*

Munchkin, grandma pickled weasel and I went to Manchester today, to do various bits and bobs of shopping. We just happened to be passing Abakhan's, as you do, and had a bit of a browse. And look what we managed to find!

Mmmm, yummy! The photo doesn't quite do it justice, it's a lovely soft cord, quite light and perfect for items of munchkin clothing.


This is a bit more heavyweight, perfect for cushions. Although I'm thinking maybe a nice big tote bag? Or maybe even a winter coat for munchkin, although I think the leaf pattern might be a little bit big.

And the grand total of my shopping spree? The cord was £2.99 a metre and the leaf fabric was £2.20 a metre. So I went and bought a lipstick from Estee Lauder because I'd saved so much money :D

Craft Drizzle and Twelve Months of Munchkin

I have been crafting an eensy weensy bit. I've just finished this embroidery, which will be the centre panel in a cushion for Munchkin's room. I can't take credit for the horse, that's a little iron-on motif, but I'm very pleased with my nice straight letters. They were transfers from a 1970s book of letters for embroidery that I bought on eBay a few weeks back, and I've been itching to do something with them. Hopefully my trickle of craft won't dry up, and I'll get to finish the cushion soon.

In other news, Munchkin is ONE today. Where did the last 12 months go? It felt like last week there was this:

and then yesterday there was this:

and now there's this!

The photo above was taken on saturday, when we went to Chester zoo with assorted Grandmas, an aunty and an uncle. We had a lovely day, and munchkin was decided the best things about the zoo were the man with the huge bunch of helium balloons, and the monorail :)

Farewell Folksy

So, I've shut my Folksy shop down. Or at least I've de-listed all of my items and taken my Folksy button off this blog, I can't actually work out how to get rid of the shop - presumably it just hangs in the ether, all empty and sad until a server somewhere runs out of space.

I never sold anything, my stuff wasn't that good, and it was just annoying me. Folksy has a wonderful community of sellers, but the site itself is slow, looks dated, and has a squillion bugs that annoy the hell out of me. I think it was initially aimed at trendy young arts graduates who wanted to revolutionise the design world, but it's found itself populated by stay at home mums who love craft and want to make a little bit of money, and it doesn't quite know what to do with us all. Ho hum.

Onwards and upwards then? Sort of. I'm still thinking about making things to sell, but I haven't got much further than thinking. I've been dabbling with some more hand printed t-shirts for kids, but the results weren't satisfactory so I've really shelved the idea.

I need to get organised, sort my cupboard under the stairs 'studio' out, and start planning things properly. Although at the minute I feel like I need about 12 extra hours in the day in order to do that. I'm doing extra days at work most weeks, and Munchkin takes up a huge amount of time (although I love it that she does). Family pickled weasel goes on holiday in a couple of weeks time, so maybe I'll aim to start when we get back.


Anyhoo, to cheer myself up, I've bought this:

It's from A Cuppa Jewels over at Coriandr, which is where I'll set up shop when I get round to selling again. See, I'm still contributing to the British craft scene, albeit in a small way :)

In praise of libraries

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So, I've still not done anything crafty. Unless you count the very creative process of making my hair look normal before I went to work this morning. I have crafty things planned, honest, I just haven't got round to starting them yet.

So I thought I'd blog on a subject dear to my heart - libraries and how wonderful they are. I've always known libraries were fantastic, but I didn't realise quite how fantastic until I started working in a public one.

You can get anything from a library. This week I have borrowed books on cooking for a family on a budget, how to put on make-up and look vaguely nice, a book of short stories based on operas edited by Jeanette Winterson, and as many picture board books as my fickle daughter can look at, discard, and go 'eeah' at.

I have also looked at an online map of my neighbourhood that shows where all the street lights are, searched census entries for free using the library subscription to Ancestry.com, and done some photocopying. Had I been a bit more organised and not prone to falling asleep as soon as I collapse on the sofa after putting munchkin to bed, I might even have rented a dvd. For £2 for a whole 7 days!

And when I do get crafty again, and I want a book on, say, knitting with animal hair, or weaving plastic bags into clothing, or pipecleaner arranging, I can search the countywide catalogue online, and reserve any book of my choice from any library in Lancashire, and they'll send me a text when it's ready to pick up from my local library. How cool is that?

Munchkin is also excellently catered for. As well as being able to borrow 20 items of her choosing, she is does the Bookstart Bookcrawl and gets a little sticker on a card every time she takes books out. It's a bit like that loyalty card thing you get at coffee places. Except when her card is full she doesn't get a skinny mochalatte, she gets a jazzy certificate with some lovely pictures and her name on, that she can stick on her wardrobe door and go 'Eeeah' at. She also goes to a fantastic thing called 'Bounce and Rhyme' every week, where she gets to clap along to songs and shout at other like-minded munchkins.

And it's all freeeeeeee!

So, if you haven't been into your library for a bit, or you use it loads but just for getting out the latest Peppa Pig for your munchkin, take another look. Stop spending hours browsing all those shiny craft books on Amazon that you can't afford, go and borrow them!