I've had loads of enquiries from people wanting to make my pebble rug.
It's been a while since the pattern was published, so I thought I'd release it on ravelry to download.
you can buy the pattern here for just £3.50
If you're not on ravelry, you can contact me by the button top right and I'll email it to you - but you'll need a paypal account.
I'll be making my laptop pouch available too if you're stuck for a pressie for your bloke.....
6th of June 2009: Coventry: Bucketing Down: Best Fun I've Had in Ages One ball of 'normous yarn behind block-printed English Cookies cautionary tape.
One fibre activist in a Curious Tales corset and bustle.
7 hours of Cor Blimey! Crochet.
A bit of hanging with Bevboot's sock monkey.
A little Medicine sans Frontiers added to my new chair design prototypes....(the proper chairs go on sale in August. Watch this space.)
And all that's left to do is rest my tired feet and pull Betty Page poses.
The after party? Well those pics are under lock and key.....
Credit crunch? Pah! We crafty crafters are better than that!
Who needs expensive florists when little posies spring forth in our gardens at this time of year?
And it needs a press, but my 6ft show banner began life as vintage doilies, lace tray cloths and bra straps!
And what will Cinders wear to Ravelry Day?
Well, whilst digging about in a charity shop recently, I came across a load of lovely handmade silk ties. They triggered a misty memory of a wartime dress pattern I'd seen in a 'make do' article.
So being a lady of hour-glass proportions and liking bias-cut hip skimmers that slim. I've embarked upon a dress.
I'll let you know how it goes....
Have a colour-filled day of joy.
It's coming up soon, people.......
Are your fibery fingers twitching? They should be.....
I'll be there doing my Cor Blimey Crochet! exhibiting a few micro-organisms with Ildi, and selling my batts.......
And eating cake of course....oh cake.....
Make sure you come by my stand. I'll be downstairs. Probably eating cake....
Get your tickets HERE.
p.s don't forget to enter my May competition. Click on WIN MY FIBRE! in the right hand column over there.
I'm squeezing into my stretchy hot pants, twirling my golden lasso and twizzling all the way to WonderWool.
My pink reef will be exhibiting with Prudence Mapstone.
And my batts will be stocking a corner of the Artisan Yarn stand. Colourways include 'ketchup and mayo', 'lilac and peach sugared easter eggs', 'blue pebbles'
'violet beauregard', 'easter chick', 'snowdrops', 'verdigris','cowgirls love the blues', 'yellow sugared easter eggs', 'woodnymph dreaming' and many, many more.
So if you want something a little different to spin, say a blend of soya, milk protein, silk and many wools, then get on over to Artisan Yarns' stand.
I'll be out and about, wearing a big ravelry badge, so feel free to rockpool candy spot and say hi. I love meeting my blog readers, preferably over coffee, cake and a gossip.
See y'all there!
I'm dyeing and carding up all my springtime batts ready for sale on our Guild stand at the Belfast Stitch and Creative Craft show 16th- 18th April.
This wensleydale is making me feel like a real Easter Chick!
I've just about exhausted my fleece stash in my dyeing frenzy, because the week after, I'm off to WONDERWOOL!
Hopefully there will be skies as blue as this white-faced woodland.
I've never been before, but the lovely Prudence Mapstone has invited me to show one of my reefs and the equally lovely Anne of Artisan Yarns is stocking up on my batts to sell, so I'm there with bells on!
Believe me - this lilac and peach sugared-egg mix will look GORGEOUS when it's blended (even if I do say so myself).
And, oh, if only the camera really caught this soft apple-green, blue and opal mix.
Then there's the soft-stone dye bath of Swale Dale fleece.
A grey, marled shetland having a few bluey highlights added.
Tapestry blends - and also the softest alpacas (not pictured here).
So the only question is..... what colour are you going to be taking home to spin?
There are a few days left to enter the St Patrick's Day Celebration competition over on Ravelry.
Knit or crochet something 'Irish' themed (you may have something you've already made that's appropriate), upload your pic and you could win a massive hall.
I've donated just one of the prizes, but there's an embarrassing amount to win.
This is the 'Northern Irish Landscape' yarn that I donated.
It’s a blend of all the colours that I saw on my beach walk the other
day; blues of the sky, browns of the earth, rust of metal, mossy grass,
greys of petrified wood and slate, you get the idea.
It’s merino,
blue-faced leicester, texel, banana, silk, silk waste and a few other
bits for good measure. The skein is about 180g in weight.
Go on, you still have time to enter...
To all my readers, feeders, ravelry mates and fellow bloggers, I want to send a fibery, festive howdy doody.
I hope that the season brings you and yours health and happiness in buckets - or yarn baskets if you prefer.
Take care.
Enjoy Yourselves.
xx
I may be only 37, but boy, I feel 370 lately! I've been laid up on the sofa with a wonderful mixture of phlebitis, (the drugs for which, in turn, triggered my angioedema) and now a liberal dose of the killer flu. If I were a horse, the knackers yard would have been called weeks ago. But I am part of the wonderful world of fibre and I may be falling to bits, but life is great.
Surprise packages have been arriving thick and fast.
1st came Jimbo's chophook. 
Jimbo is a guy living in the States, by Deadman's Crick, carving crochet hooks from the wood in his orchard and old chopsticks and selling them to fund the building of his cabin.
I came across Jimbo through ravelry and instantly fell in love with his handiwork, but on reading his blog, was also struck by this man's gentleness and generosity.
His friend's daughter has Friedreich's Ataxia, and wanting to raise awareness of the condition and the need for research into a cure, Jimbo decided to set up charitable auctions of his hooks online. Jimbo has also donated a travelling hook to the cause that will pass from fibre fiddler to fibre fiddler, creating crocheted wonders to auction and raise cash, whilst all the time being blogged about.
I've added my name to the list and eagerly await the travelling hook's arrival. Meantime, Jimbo sent me my very own chophook, with which I'm crocheting away. It's beautifully smooth and incredibly easy on the hands, as it's easy to hold. I'd also recommend it to people who maybe have problems holding smaller hooks. Go on! Get involved!
2nd came a bag of soda ash, from her Royal Highness, The Skein Queen.
She'd read about my dismal forays into banana fibre dyeing and suggested that I was using the wrong mordant. If this little bag enables me to create the sort of colourways she's selling on Etsy then I shall eternally grovel at her royally-slippered pieds.
3rd to arrive was a package all the way from Geneva.
Stuffed to the gills with squidgy balls of lurid and spangly acrylics perfect for the Coral Collective Hospital Project. Thank you Seamus!
Another day, another package. 4th came Ilidko's wonderful corals and their patterns. This woman is like yarn on acid! I asked her if she could see her way to helping me with a pattern or two for the Coral Collective Hospital Project.
She sent six! And they're SO beautiful. I'm indebted to her for her help. Visitors are going to love crocheting her designs.
And then there's Debi's package. Debi is over here in Norn Iron for a while and we're loving having her. She's always surrounded by a gaggle of women at the Guild meetings as she pulls Oak Hammock Farm fleece after fleece from her bags for us to ooh and ahh over.
I've dyed up some in luscious greens.
But as well as her lovely natural fleeces, she's like my cheap yarn pimp, bringing bulk buys of acrylic back from the States for me. This stuff is so nasty it could power a small town with its static. PERFECT for mad coral creations.
So now, all I have to do is clear the backlog of work that's sitting awaiting me after my desktop absence. Argh! There's never enough time to take in all the fabulousness of our fibre community. I need to duplicate myself.
Thanks to EVERYONE!
