'Strawberry'

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has left comments and sent emails and tweets about Buster.  Your kind words and thoughts are really appreciated.

I started making these red beads on Tuesday morning and I had to stop after the Buster news on Tuesday afternoon.  I carried on with them yesterday and they were really comforting to make.  I've told you before that I like making polka dot beads when my mind is preoccupied - their repetitiveness and regularity is quite soothing.  And of course you know how much I like red and white polka dots!

These three strands already have new homes but do check my Etsy shop tomorrow night as I'll be adding some beads to its virtual shelves then.

Buster

I'm finding typing this really hard as I'm looking at my laptop through tears.  Dad called me this afternoon with some sad news.  He was calling to say that Buster died this afternoon.

This was a total shock.  I last saw Buster at the end of August and he was absolutely fine - eating, purring, sitting on my lap and generally just being himself.  I always asked how he was whenever I spoke to Dad and the answer was always the same - he's fine.

But last night Buster was very ill and this morning he was even worse so Dad took him to the vet.  The vet thinks that Buster has had bowel cancer for some time and last night something just went wrong.  Because of his age - he was fourteen - the vet didn't think surgery and treatment would help him so Dad asked the vet to put Buster to sleep.

We'd had Buster since he was two.  We got him from the Blue Cross and I fell in love with him the minute I saw him there.  When I left home earlier this year I was distraught about leaving him and I've been missing him terribly.  Chris doesn't like cats, you see, so Buster stayed with Dad.  Although Buster was ill I'm pretty sure he wasn't suffering because as I say he was eating and everything and being his normal self.

I'm going to have to stop typing now.  My laptop is getting very wet and I need to go and get a tissue and some paracetemol - I have a crying headache. 

I just wanted to write a goodbye post for my Buster and to tell him thank you for being our cat.  Love you, miss you and sleep well, FurryPurry. ~X~

Cat Burglar

I love it when cats are mischievous. Fellow cat owners will know what I mean. They get extra-alert, their ears and whiskers go all pointy and they get an artful glint in their eyes.

I was just sat here working on my sock knitting and Buster decided that he was going to pilfer some of his cat sweets that I bought him at the weekend. He's a very fussy animal. I have to go to a particular pet shop to get the cat treats that he likes. I tried him on some low fat ones the other week but it's almost as if he knew that they were diet ones and he refused to eat them. Can't say I blame him. I'm the same with any kind of diet or low fat food!

I grabbed my iPhone and quickly snapped Buster mid-thievery. Cat burglar in action!

"Do you mind?"

I think that if Buster could speak English, then that is what he'd have said to me at this moment. Buster is a big old cat. As you can see here, he fills my lap and then some. He likes to settle down on my lap while I'm knitting but he normally doesn't stay there for very long as I constantly annoy him (not deliberately, I must add) with my circular needles. Occasionally he turns around and glares at me with a peeved look on his face, perfectly illustrated in this photo.

Poppy Pendant Winner

Lots and many of you entered the prize draw for the Poppy pendant!

I wrote all the names down, gave them a spin in the Lego tombola and then Buster came along to 'help' me pick a winner. What is it with cats? They're so nosy inquisitive. Anyway, my furry purry friend helped me draw a name and the winner is Jenna Eyres of Stitch Itch . Well done Jenna! Please email me with your address and I'll get your pendant in the post to you.

Thanks to everyone who entered the draw - you've all given me lots of potential flower bead ideas. I'll do another bead giveaway soon so do stay tuned.

Oh yeah, while I'm on the subject of cats, I read this interesting article on the BBC site today. Apparently cats are quite the manipulative little scamps. Like we didn't already know that .....

Whew!

Cor blimey!

What a mad couple of hours I've just had. I watched Come Dine With Me, got dinner, washed up, fixed a mistake in my knitting (again - and no, I didn't throw it in the bin), cleaned beads, etched some beads, strung beads, photographed beads, edited the bead photos, updated my website (half an hour later than planned), sold some beads (those 'Zing' ones up there were first to go) and now I'm a-blogging.

Time for a cup of tea, methinks.

I made more buttons! Oh how I love these babies. They are so ..... nice! I'm going to have to knit something to put one of these on. This etched one is called 'Hailstones'.

Right. I'm going to knit for a bit now. I'm working on even more socks! Then I shall go to bed and hope that the neighbourhood cats let me get some sleep tonight. There were two cats outside in the back garden last night who decided to spend most of the night shouting and fighting. One of them was Buster's girlfriend. She was scrapping with a pretty pale ginger cat. They were doing that thing where they face each other, noses about an inch apart, and they just shout and wail. It's like they're trying to see who can shout the loudest. Why on Earth do cats sound like they're speaking in tongues when they fight? They make bizarre noises that they never make at any other time. And what was Buster doing while these ladycats were outside fighting over him? He was asleep on the sofa. I know that to be true because I came downstairs at 5.30am to see if he was involved in any way. Cats. Crazy animals but I love them!

Sock-Making : My Assistant

Buster has no fear of knitting needles .....

Remember me?!

Well hello!

We've landed! The move went well and we've spent the past week unpacking things and finding them new homes. It's quite difficult to go from a big house to a small one. Square peg, round hole and all that.

The new house is lovely, the area is nice and the neighbours are great. Everyone around here is just so friendly! It's also really fab being a ten minute bike ride away from my grandparents. It felt very odd popping over there for lunch the other day when it used to take an hour-and-a-bit in the car to go and visit them!

I haven't got lost yet. Mind you, Dad did draw me a map that I've been taking out with me when I venture out on my bike. Yes - I really am that bad. Buster could have done with a map the other day. He went out early one morning and stayed out for seventeen hours which is unheard of! I was so worried about him. I thought he'd tried to do that thing that you hear of when cats try and return to their old home. Thankfully his cat-nav was working and at ten o'clock at night he appeared at the back door. Phew!

Dad and I spent Monday setting up my new work space - see photo above. It's very swish. My propane is outside in a little shed, I've got great light and ventilation, the conservatory is warm and spider-free and I've got my 'office' space next to my workbench. Beads By Laura Central, or what? Please ignore the masking tape that's holding my propane and oxygen hoses in place. I've got to get some clips for those. My desks are both very tidy at the moment - give it a week and I'm sure they'll look a bit different!

I've made beads today and I'll post a photograph of them tomorrow. Don't get too excited - they're just plain and simple lentils. Pretty, though. I made plain and simple beads for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I haven't made beads for about a fortnight so I've got to get back into the swing of things. Secondly, because the conservatory is so light and bright compared to my shed I had terrible trouble seeing the flame properly. To do my usual stringerwork I need to see exactly where the edge of the flame is. The flame is mainly blue and it doesn't help that my workbench is blue too. So I nipped to B&Q this afternoon (for about the tenth time in the past week) and got some black ceramic tiles to put on the bench in front of the torch. The flame shows up lovely now so I'll hopefully get some more complex beads made tomorrow.

Big thanks to everyone who has sent me 'new home' emails and cards - I'm going to sit down and set about answering those tonight. Now I'm all sorted the beadmaking and blogging will hopefully get back to some sort of normality!

'Shoreline' Spanglentils

Did you think I'd fallen off the edge of the Earth?

I haven't posted for ages because I've spent the last week decorating, tidying, sorting and generally turning the house into a show-home. Yes - Dad and I are moving. The house went on the market on Monday and we're going to move to Abingdon in Oxford. This house is just too big for us now so we're getting a smaller house and I will eventually move out totally one day . . . . . just as soon as Ewan McGregor leaves his wife! ;o)

It'll be sad to leave here and I'll miss being just around the corner from Sally, Emily and all my friends but I'll only be an hour up the road. My grandparents live in Abingdon and most of the rest of my family are in and around Oxford so that'll be nice. I actually lived the first year of my life in Abingdon, not that I remember anything about it, before Mum and Dad moved to Southampton because of Dad's job.

Buster can't understand what's going on. He hates disruption and what with all the decorating, cleaning and estate agents and viewers coming in and out of the house all the time he's very confused. Today he spent most of the day sunbathing on the lawn which I mowed yesterday. That did my hayfever the world of good, I can tell you. I was sneezing non-stop for about quarter of an hour after that!

So this move means that I'll be leaving my beloved shed behind and Beads By Laura will be getting new premises. I was very miffed when the first viewer said that my shed would make a perfect kennel for her dogs! She said she wasn't going to buy the house as it was too dark on the landing. What?! If the snooty woman removed her head from her backside maybe she'd find the world a much brighter place. Miaow!

I made beads today for the first time in ten days. I had a load of silvered ivory left over from my Wilma beads so I made these simple-but-effective lentils. They're etched to a satin finish and are quite evocative of the seaside methinks.

I'll try not to leave such a gap between this post and the next.

Cat Burglar

More Flora beads, this time in lavender and ink blue.

I came downstairs this morning to find my bag of caramelised milk chocolate drops scattered over the lounge floor next to a dozing and pretty smug-looking Buster who had obviously decided he'd help himself. The thing is, he can't have milk in any form otherwise he goes completely crazy. So not only did I have to throw the chocolate drops away (not very appetising when they've been licked by a cat and have tabby fur stuck to them) but I've had to put up with the cat acting like some kind of ninja today. Every time I came out of the shed he was there, lurking. At lunch I opened the shed door and as I walked out a paw swiped me across the head and this evening he chased me up the garden and bit my leg. Note to self - at night make sure chocolate is totally out of feline reach ......