Wound up

Pay attention .
Today we are making cords.

I like to help but she won't let me.
I keep a close eye on proceedings.

She keeps them in a jar so I can't chew them.

But they are so deliciously chewable and shiny.

She's got this machine with hooks on.

And because I don't have opposable thumbs and couldn't hold it even if she wanted me to, she made a wooden thingy. (She think she's so clever)

The other end has to be fixed to the other side of the room.

She picks up a few threads and ties them to a hook on the board...

then she walks back and forth back and forth until all the four hooks have a double thickness of threads on each and I've gone dizzy watching her.

She leaves the stopper in and picks up the machine and turns the handle....

until the threads are tightly twisted in 4 rows.

Then she pulls out the stopper

and carries on winding in the same direction.
The threads all twist together and she takes them off the hooks and ties the ends.












Here they are..out of my way.



















OOOOOhhhh!



















It drives me mad.

Then she does it all again with different colours.

Mugshot. Giveaway. NOW CLOSED.

Great excitement in the Dogdaisy household.

I have been asked if

I would like to hold a
giveaway of a set
of 4 TG Green
Cornishware mugs,
worth £40, and the

best thing is, I get to

keep a set .

I already have a small collection of the Blue Domino pattern and a couple of stripey items too so as you can see I am a big fan. They were a part of my childhood and have been given a new lease of life and re launched recently.



They are standing in front of some of my lovely old old never-used-at-the-table-for-fear-of-being-broken blue and white collection. I have noticed one or two blue and white posts cropping up lately here and there so I thought I'd join in and show a bit of mine.

The Cornishware is used often. The lidded pot is for butter and the jugs for milk or custard.
I had to open the back door to shed enough light on these, and was taking a photograph just as the window cleaner arrived.
I think it confirmed his suspicions that I am mad.



Now, if you would like the opportunity to win a set of four either His or Hers mugs pictured below, from TG Green all you have to do is leave a comment here and in two weeks time, on 4th February, I will announce the winner. The winner will get a promotional code and order the mugs yourself using the code. I'll give you details.
The competition is open to anyone, new readers, lurkers, at home or abroad, so come on leave a comment.
Please make sure I have a way to get in touch with you.
Do visit the TG Green website. There's a gift shop and lots of lovely new things and a chance to win a holiday in Cornwall.


And because I am the mistress of indecision YOU, the winner, can choose which set you would like, and I will have the other. (Of course as soon as you decide, I will want that one because thats how I am)

I love the pastels of the 'Hers' set but the smart retro colours of the 'His' set are also speaking to me.
Maybe I'll just have to go and buy the 'other' set.

I must make a space in that cupboard.

Snow business

Its been a strange week.
But never mind..too boring to explain.

I decided to take advantage of the last vestige of snow before it went, to take some photos of my work.
Valentines day looms so I have made some hearts in felt as requested for Fibre+Clay

I thought the snow would be a nice backdrop but the brightness means the flash won't 'do' so the pics are bright but fuzzy. I had to fiddle about like mad with brightness and contrast.
But how do you see it?
My husband has bought a laptop.
Not any old c***top like mine but a superb soooooper dooper Macbook pro.
I am so peeved.
But hey guess what?
The ever so wonderful ambient light detector thingy makes the photos look vey dull indeed. Maybe thats how you are looking at them ?
When I brought them inside they looked better. Still in 'snowlight' through the window.


Pink....


This is my favourite colour combination


This is a leaf brooch with gold metallic thread for a change.


But the snow was good wasn't it?



Even though we are all a bit sick of it?

Midwinter Magic

Regular readers will have seen this picture before on my blog but bear with me ..


Just LOOK what happened between myself and Emma of Silverpebble!
We had arranged to meet but rain stopped play...well actually snow..deep deep snow so we posted each other the gifts we made for our meeting......



Both seedheads.
I had been experimenting with the shape in embroidery and thought I'd try a brooch.
We hadn't discussed it, and hadn't even said we would be sending them but both received them today. In fact as I was e mailing to thank her the postman knocked on my door with her parcel.
Emma has made me an exquisite silver seedhead brooch.
SILVER!
Its gorgeously delicate and the silver is so white and somehow soft. I sent her a felt and velvet brooch on the same theme.
I used her pictures for this and couldn't get them the right way up until I pinned them together in a collage. To see her original photos and her much better version look at her blog.
I feel so lucky. Thank you so much Emma.

I thought I'd share this photograph..its a lamp post outside a house in the woods.
Covered in snow like that reminded me of Narnia and I expected to see Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy in their furs coming towards me.
Maybe I did.


If you click on the next picture and look very closely, you might see little pinpoints of light...

they are the eyes of the poor sheep in the snowy fields.

I am getting a bit fed up of the bleak midwinter now, enough of the prettiness, too much cancelling of the felt group, but at least when I've been out walking in sub zero temperatures I can justify eating leek and potato soup and crumpets with melted Stilton cheese.

Yum.

White out....white in.

(This is a post for me to remember the most snow we've ever had.)



The road out of the village

the road in

the means of getting in or out

garden

front view

front path

Milkmen rule!

Touching the void?

Oh my goodness..I went for a walk today.
Did I say a walk?
I really mean a slide..a totter... a slip.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. My husband went off with a friend to the Irish music session 30 miles away and I went out with his wife.
Up the road then down a public footpath which goes through the grounds of a beautiful house. Well I just hope they weren't in because I was clinging to the ivy just outside their window,grimacing with the effort, then when the ivy ran out I was hanging onto their laurel, then their extremely posh car, and instead of using the correct route we took a shortcut through the shrubbery which was too thick for the snow therefore too thick really for a shortcut.
We attained the canal bridge but had to use our backsides to slip down on to the canal towpath all the time wondering if we would end up in the ice, or under it and clinging to the wall, the stile, the barbed wire, the prickly bushes ...each other..the dog..
Of course all this was accompanied by hysterical laughter...and fear..
There was no going back .
Two hours later we sat and drank tea and congratulated ourselves.

Janus

Looking backwards and forwards like the two faced Roman god.
On New Years Eve the last pictures of 2009 were taken in that most detested place 'The Trafford Centre' where we had to go to look at something. On the way to John Lewis we spotted this....*


Popped inside and I'm sure you'll agree its a spectacular window display. This is only a fraction.



I'm sorry the photo is blurred..my camera doesn't have a 'Shopping Mall' setting.
(Neither do I for that matter and was glad to get home)

*I have just been reminded that I had seen a photo of these machines before on Pats Blog Altering Thoughts. Hers is a much better photograph, and she did some great things with it. I even commented .It didn't sink in though. Must eat more fish.

Today, 2nd January, after a heavy snow storm and what looked like a bit of a thaw we went for a late afternoon walk in the woods.The soft looking snowy covering had frozen solid. It was very pretty but pretty skiddy too. We just about kept our feet.

When do you take your Christmas decorations down?
I suppose that depends on when you put them up.
I do the traditional thing and won't be taking mine down until 12th Night, 6th January. I put them up after the last Sunday in Advent and take them down at the Epiphany.
I don't have time to get fed up of them.
And finally what do YOU call it?
Two-thousand-and-ten or Twenty ten?