The Woodstore

How satisfying is a well-stocked little woodstore - Steve loves collecting wood, getting the old chainsaw out, stacking it and waiting for it to season .... I love burning the logs on the woodstove with a glass of red wine in my hand and becoming mesmerised by the flames ...   my addition to the woodstore was the theatre posters on the wall - style is everything don't you agree?

Inspiring clouds

Amazing clouds seen whilst travelling on the motorway to Anglesey

Clouds

Purple dragon

Breathe your fire

As the golden orb

Melts low

Majestic mountains

Profiled black

Grey the ocean

Chill and threatening

Purple dragon

Turns to charcoal

Breaks into Kandinsky shapes

Fixed against a

Big-sky backdrop

Angel art

On constant view

Startling harvest moon

Appears

With a zillion stars

Attendant

Draws us closer to

The Island

Snowdon silhouetted

Now

All is drama

All is changing

Frost is promised

With the dawn

Revelling in Ravelry

How could it be that I have been blithely unaware of the wonderful world of Ravelry?   Only at my Marple knitting group on Tuesday did I hear of this site which is a nirvana to all of us wot knit!  I go by the user name of guerillagardener and as yet I have only touched the hem of this site but I did notice when drooling over the patterns, the yarns and the advice that there were another three thousand other clackers all over the globe on line at the same time!!!!!!

Whilst telling you about Ravelry I'll just leave you with a shot of my seaside-themed wallhanging knitted up from ribbon, charity shop wool and an old much-loved denim shirt with one of my tiny seaside poems attached - it has little pockets in also to hold the razor-fish shells collected in Anglesey and hangs on the wall from a quirky piece of driftwood. 

Sometimes you just gotta chuck it!

So I had my Yard Sale this morning in an effort to reduce the mountains of stuff one accumulates (or more correctly that two accumulate).   I was brutal, well brutal for me that is and the weather was reasonable as I sat out on the front of my house surrounded by paintings, bric-a-brac, chest of drawers, spice racks and rattan screen etc.etc. and did my knitting and hoped that now and again one of the speeding drivers would consider stopping and looking at my treasures ....  not too many takers but enough to say goodbye to the main body of things and Steve packed the others into his car and took them to the charity shop.   Oh well it's a start and I've got lots more to go at and I still have my sentimental suitcase when feeling blue ...  

The Sentimental Suitcase

Memories moulder away

Within your comfortable decrepitude

Rather as the garden compost

Where all good waste

Morphs its journey towards ripe

Earth-enriching goodness.

So the shabby suitcase,

Battered repository with broken lock, no key

Holds piquant memories.

A toddlers abstract artwork,

Attributed to “Kate aged 3, 1971”

And “Mummy” with purple hair

And wild yellow eyes,

By “Sian 4.1/2, 1972”

Both heavy with dry, cracked paint.

Aunts and uncles at christenings

Proud grandmas and granddads

New mums in mini-skirts

And dads with kipper-ties, smile out

With hippy hair and gaucho moustaches

From tiny Kodak-ed photos

Falling from their torn and gaudy

Boots the Chemists envelopes.

Hundreds of slippy-dark negatives

So much a thing of the past.

School reports and the still-silken locks

Of a child’s hair.

Yellowing newspaper cuttings

Relating births and deaths,

Crumbling wedding telegrams

Old love letters and a child’s

Precious poetry

All encapsulated within

The fragile grip.

And year on year it languishes,

Life’s luggage

Like some happy but deserted lover

Rugs galore!

Just wanted to show you a small selection of my latest range of hand-cut rag-wool type hand-knitted rugs .... these are made from recycled materials, they are colour-fast & washable and look fab on

either stripped floorboards, white painted boards or laminate floors .....

Perfect for the nursery, playroom, study or bathroom.

If you are interested please contact me either on Facebook or e-mail

meg@tcomms.co.uk

August roses

As you know I like to knit wherever I am and that includes the car, whether stationery or moving, when I'm reading, watching TV, waiting rooms anywhere .... I especially love to knit in the garden and whilst doing so this week inbetween the rainshowers I marvelled at my old English pink climbing rose as it exceeded itself this year by rising way above the cotoneaster .... isn't it lovely?

The Small but perfectly-formed Craft Fair

Saturday 6th August 2011 and my craft fair commences at 9am ... the other local artists I've brought together have now assembled at Poynton's Civic Hall and we are buzzin' .... we set up all our wares yesterday so now we just need to string up the purple and silver balloons and the banner (made by Liz), put out the A-board and smile and wait for the hordes of punters. 

I have wanted an excuse to show off the cherry-patterned pinny my daughter Sian sent to me in May and so I themed it with some jolly red lipstick, a scarf from the charity shop tied as a turban and painted some old earrings with red nail-varnish in an attempt to look like a 1950's housewife having to Make do and Mend.

There's a big shiny Waitrose store just a few yards away so we're hoping that their shoppers will feel drawn to us as well as all the others who use this large car-park but what happens next is not great ... the weather has been unbelievably good for weeks with very little rain but just as we've settled ourselves behind our respective stalls the heavens go black and decide to open bigtime; it is hammering down on the roof above us, it is precipitating, it is throwing it down, it is perpetrating and all those other words beginning with p.   I venture out into the foyer to check the number of cars, the passers-by, the shoppers - there is not a single body around and it looks like a ghost-town outside.

Some silk/cotton mix headbands, fingerless gloves and cuffs, some Kaffe Fasset fingerless gloves

 and a wonderful collection of Baby Ugg Boots knitted by Anne-Marie

Have faith, have faith ... we chat among ourselves somewhat hysterically and have a cuppa .... and lo and behold by 10 o'clock the lovely people start coming in .... our chosen room is small but really friendly ... there is Liz with her hand-crafted jewellery, Gillian with her very original greetings cards, Philip with his stunning photography and me with my knitwear, wallhangings, doorstops and the like.

By 1pm we have packed up our things and head off to the nearby Costa for a de-brief and much-needed coffee.   We all agree that the Fair was a great success as we have sold a good amount of stock, made contacts, met a lot of lovely old friends and made some new ones and most importantly we have enjoyed a brilliant atmosphere together.   We'll be holding our 3rd Small but perfectly-formed Craft Fair in the autumn.... watch this space.

The exceptionally nice Hand-made Rug

Red and white hand-knitted washable rug

This is my hand-cut from recycled materials, hand-knitted rag rug

Size 70cms wide x 110cms long

Wonderful for nursery, playroom, bathroom or study.

Contact me on meg@tcomms.co.uk or on Facebook

The Knit Girls

                                            
Monday night is knitting night and the night that The Knit Girls meet together in the local pub The Vernon Arms at 8pm for a coupla hours .... I set up the group about 18 months ago and it's proved to be a great success in that we have all-age knitters from all walks of life with varying abilities;  we have the retired, the busy grandmas, the professional women -a community policewoman, an accountant, a civil servant, a secretary, a maths teacher and a systems analyst, we have carers, personal assistants and nursery teachers and those who are disabled.

                                        
It's a night of drinkypoos, natter, laughter and loadsa knitting and apart from our personal projects that we may be working on there are those who are unable to concentrate on the night (too much fun) and therefore knit up squares which others then sew together for blankets for African orphanages.
                                                 
For some reason I am known as the Mother Superior of the group - don't know why but it might be due to the fact that I take an attendance register, demand very good reasons for absence and expect needles to be clacking throughout!!