Christmas is coming, the pickledweasel's getting fat...

I need to stop eating honeyed salted cashew nuts, or I'll not fit into my nice new Christmas skirt tomorrow :( Things are Christmas a-go-go here in the pickledweasel household, despite me having a throat infection and munchkin getting over a stinking cold. We've been making Christmas decorations:

And cards:

And hair slides for Christmas parties:

And the icing on the cake, a man-bag for mr pickledweasel:

We decided to just spend £10 on each other this year (excluding presents for munchkin), as we're a bit short after the loft conversion. The bag came in at about £7.50, although that's kind of cheating because I calculated the cost based on the material used, so the whole yard of the amaaaaaaazing coffee cup fabric cost £6.60, but I've calculated it as £3.30 because I used half a yard. And I'm not including the £8.00 postage because it came from America :D Any ideas what I can make from the leftover half yard?

The denim was an offcut from Abakhan. The slider and the d-ring were actually a bargain - I've yet to find reasonably priced ones online, especially sliders, does anyone have a secret magic website that does bag making haberdashery at sensible prices? Anyway, I found this bag for £1.25 from our local Winners:

And cannibalised it. I'll use the zips and the canvas for a pouch I'm making for my sister-in-law, so it won't have died in vain :) I've not done much more Christmas making, just a hat and snood set for my neice - photos of her modelling it to follow - and I've made a mountain of gingerbread to give to friends and family using this recipe.

So here's wishing you all a very happy Christmas, and hoping you have a lovely day with family and friends. I'll just be on this big comfy chair over here, with a scarf round my neck, a hot toddy and this family sized bag of cashews :) x x x

Who says romance is dead?

I've just picked up my sewing stuff to carry on with a summer hoodie I'm making for munchkin (from this pattern - I'll do a full review when it's finished), and this is what I saw on my pincushion.



No, I'm not crying, I've just got a bit of sewing machine fluff in my eye :) I proposed to mr pickledweasel at Easter nine years ago, and luckily he said yes after he'd picked his jaw up off the floor. Happy days :)

Crafting for mr pickledweasel

I don't get many opportunities to craft for my man. He let me knit him a hat for Christmas (using this pattern, which was nice and easy and helped me lose my double pointed needle virginity. Oo-er), and he even wears it! But I haven't been able to make anything else for him.

Until the other day, when he put in a custom order. Do you know what this is?

No, it's not a 70's replica denim and sheepskin wallet. No, it's not a covered note-book to write down brilliant ideas that will revolutionise the world and end our financial woes (which he has on a regular basis. The last one was something about putting algae in the sea to end global warming, and the one before that was to open a chocolatiers. Fortunately they are never pursued :)

It's a fly wallet, of course! He's still tying flies to catch fishies with, and this is a little wallet he can store them in when he goes out fishing. The inside is fleece, although really it should be sheepskin but my budget doesn't quite stretch that far :) The outside is recycled denim jacket backed with interfacing to make it nice and sturdy. My sewing machine cried a bit when it had to sew through the seams with lots of layers, but I promised I'd only sew using quilting weight cotton for the next week and it forgave me.

I really had to resist the impulse to applique / stamp / embroider the front :)

Mr Pickledweasel's Crafty Corner

Mr pickledweasel has recently been spending his evening hunched over squinting at a needle and thread and a pile of feathers rather than blowing people's legs off on his PS3.

No, I haven't got him making bizarre feathery bibs for me, he's been tying tiny weeny flies in an attempt to catch big fat fishes. He's been a bit of an armchair fisherman for years, regaling me of tales of the ones that got away in his youth. Recently he's decided to put his rod where his mouth is (that sounds wrong in so many different ways), and he's actually been doing proper real fishing. And he's caught some fish! I have two lovely plump rainbow trout in the freezer, and I'll be oven baking one of the blighters tomorrow night.

I have no idea how fishing works. Or rather I do have an idea - take stick with string on, put hook on, put worm on hook, dip in water, catch fish - but apparently it's a bit more complicated. My only fishing experience was one sunny afternoon when were camping a few years ago. Mr pickledweasel couldn't find a bait shop open, so used tinned sweetcorn and spam on his hook, and caught two lovely fish which looked very nice but we were apparently not allowed to eat.

Anyhoo, this time round he's doing fly fishing, which doesn't involve any spam (much to my disappointment, as I quite like spam), but does involve eating what you catch. And lots of funny little pretend flies which are works of art in themselves.

Mr pickledweasel has bought all the kit for tying them himself (and stolen half my reels of cotton AND my embroidery scissors), and today went and picked up a lovely handmade chest to store all his gubbins in. Isn't it nifty? I might just stash a few packets of sequins in there, he'll never notice :)