Where DID January go?

I can't believe how fast the time has gone, and how bad I've been at blogging this month. So what have I been doing that has kept me otherwise occupied, you might ask.....well very little it seems!

At the start of the month I revelled in the snow - the breathtaking beauty of it all, the way normal activities just ground to a halt and the way everyone was talking about it. I went for long walks in it, I spent ages clearing it off my car every day and I just looked at it. If it was beautiful during the day it was mind bogglingly incredible at night.

I had a large order for knitted baby shoes, so that kept me out of mischief for a while, and then a few days ago the same person asked if I could come up with a baby beanie with a flower embellishment. This was just the push that I needed. Having spent the month tootling along, basically enjoying myself I was up for a new challenge. Although I have knitted all my life, I have never really mastered crochet properly. i have a blitz every now and again,trying to improve my skill, but always revert back to knitting. I managed the daisy fine, but then I tried to do a crocheted leaf. Uh oh! I spent all one afternoon trying to do a crochet leaf! I was never ever happy enough with my efforts, so in the end I knitted them. I'm really pleased with the outcome, even though I'm not going to enjoy sewing them up - all those ends to sew in !

I've also been doing some more bookbinding, and perfecting a new technique, but I'm going to leave that for a February blog!

Walking on water

I thought I would share these pictures of one of our cats that we took a couple of days after Christmas. The snow had just dissappeared from the lawn, but the pond was only just beginning to thaw. It has one very large, free floating sheet of ice across it. This is Saffie, gingerly testing it out to see if it would take her weight. As you can see, water did immediately flood over the top of the ice, but I'm happy to say she made it safely to the other side.

Christmas was a very hectic as we has a total of 9 people in our house but was thoroughly enjoyable. I have managed to do some crafting since though. These are two pictures of a hard backed journal I have made using an exposed binding style called Long Stitch, Link Stitch. It is one of my favourites at the moment.

The dream wording is stamped and then inked to co-ordinate with the cover papers. I made the book cloth for the spine specifically for this journal. I cut the cloth a little wider than I needed, but backed just the
correct width with Bondaweb. This meant I could fray the edges before I ironed on the backing paper

I'm pleased with the effect, so I think it will be popping up on a few more of my jounals soon.

Finally, I thought I'd just share one of my crafting Christmas presents with you

- "Taking Flight" by Kelly Rae Roberts.

It is as it says on the cover a mixture of techniques an inspiration. Its a book to dip into many many times, each time finding something new, and above all its a book to pick up when you are feeling negative or frustrated with your craft work, because I can assure you it will change all the "I can't"s into "I can"s. I thoroughly recommend it.