A public service announcement: Winter is here

For those of you in the north of Britain, indeed throughout the northern hemisphere, who were under the impression that winter arrived weeks ago with the fall of the first snow, I am sorry to disappoint you.





Winter did not arrive until Tuesday of this week, when snow fell on southern England.


There were murmurings on the national TV news for several weeks, that mentioned bits of snow in Scotland and northern England. It's only now, that we've had a full three inches down here, that the powers that be have deemed it worthy of prolonged news coverage.


I mean, so what if that poor chap in Scotland hasn't seen his wife for 19 days, since she popped out to buy a Christmas turkey and couldn't get back to their remote home? That's not hardship! No, hardship is when the Co-op has no milk for a day. Hardship is when you can't wear your Jimmy Choo's for the school run. Hardship is when you have to clear two inches of snow off your driveway!


See, we know ALL about winter down here!




Me, I'm hibernating.


I have some delicious new yarn to snuggle up to, thanks to Michaela's inspired Big Diet Raffle.



Mmm.




Not only that but a fab bundle of fabric too!

I feel it's only right to thank the postman too, as he had to slip and slide his way here on ice-rink pavements, to bring me my goodies.

With school closed for two days, all the schools I work with closed, and children happily occupied bickering and arguing with each other, I had one or two opportunities to snuggle up with my knitting.

Big and bulky wristwarmers to match my big and bulky beanie.

Progress made on a new pair of socks for Monster.

A new start made, after frogging one frustrating project, I moved onto a simpler pattern to use some very pretty, soft and squooshy alpaca yarn.

In the midst of the 'BIG FREEZE' the lovely City Link man also managed to make it through , with the result of a shopping spree on Amazon with my money from Father Christmas.

Take a look at that delicious pile of books. No prizes for guessing what knitting projects I may have in mind this year.

We're in for a weekend of snuggling up - well I am, as they're all off to the cinema later (with hot flasks and sleeping bags) - a bit of baking, plenty of reading, a spattering of knitting and readying ourselves for the next deluge of snow that's due to hit tomorrow.

In the meantime, please spare a thought for all those poor folk who've had to suspend their plans to hit the January sales for a new pair of heels. My heart bleeds.

Keep warm.

Keep safe.

Keep smiling :)

xxx

From sand castles to snowmen

This is a very very quick post. I just wanted to show you what we were doing on the same weekend last year - click here and then scroll down a bit.....

....and today?

Staying indoors making a big casserole 'cos it's ffffrrreeeezzzzing!!!!!!!!!

More snow on the way - maybe we can make another one of these

....except the next one will not have an edible nose - did you hear that, Moog?

xxx

And about time too!

There have been more than a few mornings like this of late...

....and this morning we finally woke up to a fresh crisp blanket of snow. Children were dressed and breakfasted in record time so they could fit in some fun before school....

After slipping and sliding up and down the hill to school - with me carrying Minx's cello! - we arrived to discover the children could go home again.

School wasn't officially closed but so few staff had made it in that they would not be doing much today and told us they would close early anyway. We opted to do what 95% of the parents had done and go home to enjoy the snow. Luckily my work meetings were also cancelled today!!

This is the first time we have had anything near 'proper' snow in the seven and a half years we've lived here and it was too good to miss.

Minx's friend came home with us and Moog and I took them for a lovely snowy walk :-)

Moog went cracker-dog in the snow. Who would believe this nutter is nearly 14?!

Brrr....chillin' out!!

As many of you in the UK will know - 2 to 5cm of snow constitutes 'severe weather'.......thank goodness I whipped these babies up last night then!

Why the clenched fist? 'Cos I saw how old and haggard my hands were looking and couldn't inflict them on you!!

My demanding friend Locket told me I have to tell you how to make these. How can I refuse?

I used Sublime merino wool and a size 4.5mm crochet hook. They are made as a flat piece of crochet and then sewn together into a tube.
Here's how to do them:

With main colour - chain 34 stitches, turn and treble crochet (US double crochet) into 4th chain from hook. Treble crochet into every stitch to end of chain. Turn and chain 2, then treble crochet in every stitch to end. Repeat this for every row until wristwarmer is desired length. Fasten off main colour.

Place the two edges together and stitch together to form a tube. Now attach a contrast yarn to the top edge. *Slip stitch into 2 stitches, chain 3, slip stitch into next stitch** repeat from * to ** around top of tube - this gives a picot edge to the wristwarmer.

If you want to you can do a row of contrasting colour around the bottom of the wristwarmer too - I did but forgot to photograph this bit!

I did these in just over two hours last night. Let me know if you have a go too and if you have any problems understanding my rather vague 'pattern'!!

In other crafty news, last week's brief foray into recycled crafts (for work ;-) ) led to me having a go at making some envelopes. We always use loads of envelopes for school notes and I was about to buy some more but decided to opt for a bit of repurposing instead.

I used old envelopes opened up to make a template and then chose some pretty pages from my stockpile of old Country Living magazines, added a white address label and hey presto!

Once started I just couldn't stop......I made fifty!!!....and these are a few examples...

I have no idea if we'll be 'snowed in' again tomorrow. What would we ever do in this funny little country if we had real weather?

Have a good week :-)

Love xxxxx

Management material!!

Sausage Monster had a great idea today - he wanted to do some sewing and, more to the point, he wanted to put what he made into my etsy shop to earn himself some extra pocket money!!

Well, I'm of the opinion that such enterprise is to be encouraged.

We discussed what he wanted to make.

Aliens.

Why, of course.

Why not.

We discussed how to go about it.

First off, designs are required.

So, he happily designed a batch of aliens.

Then we rifled through ten tonnes of fabric to choose the necessary materials.

He really got into making his first alien - TZ220 or Terence, as he's known to his friends. Sausage was very involved in the actual construction, doing some sewing, turning and stuffing, and drawing Terence's face on with fabric pen.

I was required to stitch the trickier bits and do a bit of stitchery on the alien's face.

Once finished, he went into the shop to meet a pre-order from Mrs Locket, for Fred Locket's birthday :)

Here's TZ220:



Right then, one down....several more to go.

Just as we were choosing the fabric for 'Jib Jib', Moogsdad suggested a boys' trip to the park to play football.

Sausage was off in a cloud of smoke, faster than you could say 'Hey, I thought you wanted to sew with Mummy!!' - and I was left to make alien MKII!!!

Jib Jib:



That boy has great 'management potential'!!! I was given a very detailed brief and strict instructions to get the shelves stacked in Sausage Monster's new section of the shop, before he returned from the park!!

Of course, I did!!!

Tomorrow, the beasties and I are off up to Brum for a couple of days to see my Dad. We'll be back on Wednesday, in readiness for the Minx's birthday on Thursday!!

Oooh, it's all go , isn't it?!!!

xxxx

By the way .... go here and do this!!!! Go on - you know you want to :)

No lie in but worth it!

I was planning a nice lie-in this morning as Moogsdad was the only one who had to be up this morning - for a 10k road race!!!!

I was going to have a lazy morning.

Maybe blog yesterday's photos:




However, some very excited little people thundered into the bedroom just before 8 am, shouting IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!

Well.....they were right.......at last.......after waiting eagerly all Winter long......it finally snowed (snew?) on April 6th!!!!!

Only about an inch of the stuff


but so much fun :)

The last time we made a snowman - albeit just 8 inches high! - Monster was one year old and Minx was still cooking :)

Needless to say, we made the most of it.

Four snowmen were made in total - two at 8 inches, one at 18 inches and a whopper at a majestic 2 foot!!!

All were equipped with stone eyes and carrot noses and photographed for future reference.

Monster also made another big snowball and asked if we could keep it in the freezer - which, of course, I said yes to!!

The daft old Moog didn't quite know what to make of the white stuff as it's been a while since she last saw any. She did a bit of standing and woofage but soon got bored and proceeded to steal and eat each carrot nose in turn - much to Miss Minx's absolute disgust.

Minx has a party to go to this afternoon - a ski-ing party of all things, on a dry ski slope.

One of the other Mum's has just phoned me to ask if I think they'll cancel it because of the snow.

Well, stranger things have happened.....

Off to do some shelf stacking and then I have a nice roast dinner to make :)

Have a lovely day - sun, rain, snow or all three!!

xxxxx