Webnesday

It's Wednesday which means it's time for five weblinks .....

1. Uniqart

Caroline Bletsis of Uniqart is truly an Arty Lady Of Many Crafts. The woman is amazing. She knits, she crochets, she sews, she makes jewellery, she cooks, she gardens, she probably does a bazillion more things but most of all she paints. Caroline creates the most amazing artwork in several different mediums. The photograph above shows a detail of her latest painting which is a sweet little sparrow and some apple blossom. Caroline blogs almost daily and she sells her work in her Etsy Shop.

2. The Panopticon

This is the blog of Chicago-based knitter Franklin Habit. Whenever I see that Franklin has blogged I always smile because I know that I'll be in for a good read. His sense of humour is fantastic and he knits the most fabulous things. Fellow 'Cast On' podcast listeners will know his voice - he has read stories for 'Cast On' many times. If you knit (and even if you don't) do pay a visit to Franklin's blog - you will not be disappointed!

3. myPANTONE

I like colour (obviously) and I like playing about with it to work out new bead colour combos. I also like to look at non-beady things and extract potential colour palettes from them. Pantone have an application called myPANTONE for the iPhone and iPod Touch which does exactly that. At £9.99 it's pricey but so very worth it. You can use an existing photo or you can take a picture of something you see when you're out and about with your iPhone and the app will analyse it and produce a palette based on it. I've used this several times for beads and it really is very useful. Please click here for more information.

4. Print & Pattern

I love Paperchase. I like wandering around it gazing at all the loveliness and stroking the occasional notepad, box or roll of ribbon. If you do the same thing in stationery shops or if you just love fabrics, wallpaper and patterns in general then you need to visit Print & Pattern. It's described as a website 'that celebrates the world of surface pattern design'. It really does do exactly that. Please click here to see all the eye candy.

5. Off-Mandrel

I thought I'd give a shout-out to Off-Mandrel. This is where I buy a lot of my glass from. They have have a walk-in shop in Glasgow but they also do mail order. I cannot fault their customer service - delivery is fast and everything is always presented really nicely. Fab place!

Colin

Yesterday was The Day Of Unexpected Post and two of the deliveries I received were cupcake-related. Firstly, my friend Helen in Southampton (whom I miss terribly) sent me a gorgeous ceramic cupcake pot for Easter and secondly Caroline from Uniqart posted me a cute amigurumi cupcake! I've named him Colin and he's living next to Bridget Blobite and all the other little nice-to-look-at things on my desk. Isn't he just so sweet? I can never get over how creative Caroline is - she's always making wonderful things. In fact, she's kindly agreed to be my next interviewee so look out for that interview next week.

I'm travelling up to London this afternoon because tonight Chris and I are going to the O2 to see Star Wars : A Musical Journey which should be good, then I'll be spending Easter weekend in Cambridge.

I hope you all have an ace weekend. Make sure that you eat far too much chocolate!