The Menthol One

I finally got round to making that shimmy bracelet I mentioned. The bracelet has spacers made in CiM Sea Foam, Effetre Copper Green 219 and Effetre Light Turquoise 232. There are also a few faceted Czech glass beads in a pretty aquamarine colour.

All the findings are silver plated and nickel compliant. I'd love to be able to make these in sterling silver but have you seen the price of it lately? Also, I'd have to get them hallmarked because of the amount of silver they'd contain and can I be arsed with all that? No. So yes, consider these shimmy bracelets costume jewellery, not for everyday wear, and not to be worn while washing up, showering, wild swimming or doing thirty lengths in the local pool.

The bracelet makes a soft glassy rattle as it moves which is always nice.

If you fancy giving this 'Menthol' shimmy bracelet a home, it's available in my shop.

It's properly autumning out there now, isn't it? My favourite local cherry tree has got its full Autumn '25 look going on.

The neighbour's front garden tree is in full leaf drop mode and every now and again the wind gathers the leaves in a heap in front of our porch. I say porch because that's technically what it is but you can only fit one person in it at a time so it's a very tiny porch. Porchette? Sounds very Hyacinth Bucket, that. But yes, the leaves gather and when they do I take advantage of it and go and pick them up before the wind changes and blows them all over the show. This morning I was out there at 6:45 in my pyjamas, Harry Potter dressing gown (looks like Hogwarts house robes complete with large sleeves and pointy hood) and my garden Crocs (just terrible) picking up leaves with a flattened Amazon box and a Pizza Hut box (I couldn't be bothered to venture into the garage to find the actual leaf scraper things we own) and obviously, even though I'd chosen an early hour to do this task, three neighbours walked by and said good morning. None of them flinched at my get-up, though. Ah well.

Talking of Harry Potter, I've just spent my Audible credit on their new full cast recording of The Philosopher's Stone and so far it's really good. I'm looking forward to hearing Hugh Laurie's Dumbledore.

I'm away to give Nigel his thyroid medicine now. His most recent blood test came back yesterday and there's been no change and it's "perfectly controlled" so that's excellent news. His hyperthyroidism will get worse as he gets older but right now it's stable so I'm happy with that.

That little snaggletooth!

I was less happy about Nigel getting into yet another fight the other week because he's now getting over an abscess from a cat bite which happened in the altercation. This isn't our first abscess rodeo and they're never pleasant to deal with. The picture above shows him pre-abscess burst but the front of his neck is now totally shaved; the vet buzzed his fur away around the abscess site so we can clean it easily, and she also had to shave the other side to take his blood for his thyroid test. His mortal enemy, who I call Ann Widdecombe on account of the black markings on his white head that make him look like he's sporting a Widdecombe bob, was strutting around our back garden this morning so shortly before my leaf gathering in my wizard robes I was out there shooing him away while hissing "Piss off, Ann Widdecombe!" in an attempt to stop Nigel growling, hitting the back door with his paw and doing that 'no-no-no'-miaowing that cats do when they're angry, so yeah, I'm pretty sure the neighbours definitely think of me as 'The Mental One' or something similar.

Have a good day!

Bead creations and Christmas cats

I made some more Stormy Seas jewellery. There are a couple of bracelets...

...and I also made a few pairs of earrings. 

The beads are only about 9mm diameter so the earrings are lightweight and easy to wear.

The Stormy Seas bracelets and earrings can be purchased in my shop. I can no longer guarantee delivery in time for Christmas but I will continue to post orders as I receive them and on days that Royal Mail are doing their thing, so feel free to buy beady things and they'll be with you when they're with you.

In other news, I made a couple of catnip mice, one for Nigel and one for Enca, my sister Sally's cat.

They're made with wool felt and their tails are Icelandic lopi wool. I grow and dry catnip for Nigel every year but I normally just put some in an old odd sock of mine and tie the end up and he's more than happy with his nipsock. This year I decided that I should actually make a mouse to stuff with catnip. I don't know why because this involves sewing, which I loathe. I found a catnip mouse pattern on the PDSA website and I spent far too long sewing these two. I've hidden Nigel's away and I wrapped and posted Enca's with the other presents I was sending to my sister. The parcel of presents arrived with her yesterday and during the night Enca decided she was opening her Christmas present early and by 'opening' I mean ripping apart the wrapping, biting the ears, tail and arse off the mouse and leaving toy stuffing, catnip and ripped bits of felt all over the dining room floor. What a catnip-crazed maniac!

Utter carnage

Meanwhile, Nigel is taking his usual interest in the Christmas tree. 

He absolutely loves it and always tries to climb it. This year Chris has made a reinforced base for the tree stand to avoid it toppling over if Nigel gets too enthusiastic with it.

Adjusting that blue tit bauble

Nigel's off to the vet this evening. He's got to have a blood test to check his thyroid levels. He was at the upper end of the normal range when he had a blood test back in the summer so this is a follow-up to see what's what. He's twelve now and the older he gets the more I worry about him. I spend more time stressing and fretting about the cat than I do anything else in my life! I'm sure other pet owners can relate.

I'm going to go and tidy the spare room now. Half of it is home to my jewellery making and bead packing desk, all my packaging supplies and my yarn stash. It's all getting a bit out of hand and very messy in there and I cannot move without knocking something over or something falling on top of me.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Socktober

How on Earth is it Halloween already? That's it now; as of tomorrow it’ll be wall-to-wall Christmas.

I had a very sock-filled October. I've knitted four pairs this month and all of them are getting worn daily (not at the same time, obviously) as it's quite chilly down the shed.

I couldn't have knitted all those socks without my furry assistant.

Nigel knows exactly when to leap onto my lap or demand that I open a door for him and this is usually in the middle of a complex stitch manoeuvre or just as I'm turning a heel, and he never chases my ball of wool across the lounge floor or anything, no...

Cats, eh? The stuff they get away with on account of being so flipping lovely.

The wool Nigel is 'looking after' in these photos is Malabrigo Ultimate Sock in shade 658 Zinnias. I turned it into a plain pair of socks as I think the variegated yarn is enough on its own without any sort of stitch pattern.

The yarn is a super soft merino and nylon mix and it's a mélange of reds, pinks and oranges.

These were knitted cuff down which is a bit of a change for me as I normally go toe-up but it's good to have a change every now and then, isn't it?

These sparkly, icy pale blue-green socks were knitted cuff down too.

I absolutely love this yarn. The merino and nylon mix is very soft and squishy and its silver lurex spangle is just so pretty. The yarn is Nateby 4ply in Silver Birch from Eden Cottage Yarns.

The pattern is Bembe by Dawn Henderson from Laine's 52 Weeks of Socks book. The patterned leg is very simple and is created with just knits and purls.

I haven't started another pair of socks yet but I think I'll probably end up beginning some this weekend. I've been working on a jumper the past few nights and it has a very complex cabled yoke so I think I may well need a pair of socks as an I-just-need-a-little-break project to give my knitting brain a rest.

I have new beads made. Some need cleaning and others are in the tumbler and I'm aiming to get them all sorted and photographed tomorrow afternoon so check back here then or maybe Saturday for new beads.

Whether you're out trick or treating with the children, staying in and ignoring the trick or treaters, or going full-on Samhain about it all, I hope you have a good All Hallows’ Eve.

Pictures of nice things

First up, beads. These ones are called 'Fiesta'.

I absolutely hated these when I took them out of the kiln. I was like, "What the hell was I thinking with these colours?!"

I still disliked them as I was cleaning them but when I’d got them all strung together I changed my mind. They're very bright and zingy.

Those were all the beads I got made this week. I've had one of those wasting-a-lot-of-gas-and-glass weeks where I sit there trying to make something but my mind doesn't know what to make so I end up making rubbish and getting annoyed with myself. Hopefully next week will be different.

I'm still pootling about in the garden. Things are growing and doing stuff.

The sweet peas have produced their first flowers:

One of my sea holly flowers has got a definite blue tinge going on:

Remus, my dwarf lupin, has yet to flower but I reckon he'll bloom any day now. The wind snapped his first flower clean off so he's a bit behind, you see. Anyway, his leaves are very pleasing to look at, especially after rain:

My tomato plant is doing a tomato:

My little lavender plant that I got from the local greengrocer is looking and smelling lovely:

And the Hungarian Black chilli plant that I got from the local health food place (a lovely little cooperative that smells of hemp, dried pulses and smugness) has a few chillies on it which start off as these fabulous glossy purple flowers:

I've also got various seedlings growing in trays on the windowsill and I've become ridiculously obsessed with them all, making sure they're happy and warm and not too dry or too wet. I have been reading SO much about gardening it's untrue. I said I was taking gardening seriously this time and I am; I'm determined to create an actual garden. 

When I'm not concerning myself with my garden I'm nosing about at other people's gardens. The lady who lives opposite us was in her front garden planting out some seedlings last weekend and then she went away somewhere. (Yes, I’m one of those people who notices things like neighbours going away. I like to think of it as ‘being vigilant and observant’ because that sounds better than ‘being a nosy cow’.) Anyhow, yesterday morning I was doing the washing up (our kitchen looks out onto a footpath and then her front garden) and I noticed all the new plants she'd put in were looking beyond droopy. I went and fetched my watering can and headed over the way to give them a drink. I don't even know what this neighbour's name is but I felt so bad for her plants, and I felt weird for interfering in her gardening matters, but I couldn't bear to see those little seedlings dying of thirst. After I watered the neighbour's garden I popped out to Homebase to get some pots for my lavender and rosemary and by the time I'd returned all of the neighbour lady's wilted seedlings were upright and looking happy again. Hurrah!

In crochet news I'm still working on the Twister blanket. Nigel, who never used to be a lap cat but is now sometimes a lap cat, likes to come and inspect the blanket proceedings from time to time.

I said I was reading lots about gardening, and that's mostly reference books and websites, but I'm also currently reading a non-fiction book about gardening called Rhapsody in Green by Charlotte Mendelson. Marian Keyes mentioned it at the end of her last book Again, Rachel (which is absolutely wonderful, by the way) and I cannot put it down! Charlotte's book is so engaging and funny. If you like gardening, and even if you don't, I highly recommend it.

A post in which I moan about everything

I don't know why I feel the urge to write a blog post but I do, so here I am.

Lockdown 3 continues to roll on and like many others I feel as miserable as sin. It doesn't matter how positive I try to be, I spend most of my days in an absolute fug of hopelessness. "The vaccines will sort it all out!", "We'll be back to normal soon!" and various other stuff like that fails to cheer me up because I fear for the future. I worry about all the lives that have been damaged by lockdowns; about the non-Covid health issues; about the lost jobs and businesses; about the way that human interaction has changed forever; about children's educations and their mental wellbeing; about the creeping authoritarianism that so many people seem to be welcoming with open arms. There will be no 'back to normal'. Normal is gone. It's very difficult to be hopeful and jolly when you accept that.

*sigh*

Maybe that's why I felt the urge to blog? Perhaps I felt that I just had to put that out into the world. Writing stuff down has always helped me to process my thoughts. We're supposed to be all Blitz Spirit about the virus, aren't we? Asking questions about the way it's all being handled can get you labelled a 'covidiot' or a 'covid denier' or an 'anti vaxxer', when in reality you are absolutely none of those things, so people just say nothing and quietly seethe and worry. We live in a world where we feel increasingly unable to voice our true opinions and concerns. Most of us fear being unfriended, unliked and cancelled. We have to subscribe to and parrot the narratives of the day in order to fit in and get ahead, but that's a whole other blog post for another time...

Anyway.

A friend who I've known since we were 14 recently sent me a gift voucher for Wool Warehouse and I decided to spend it on an Attic24 crochet 'Aria' blanket kit.

It's getting there

I've not knitted or crocheted for about two years. The whole 'knitting is racist' thing in 2019 left me with more than a bad taste in my mouth and it resulted in me nuking my Ravelry account, unfollowing a whole host of knitting people, and shunning my needles and yarn. It absolutely marred knitting for me. The racist knitting thing was one of the first things that made me ask "What is happening here?" with regard to the 'culture war' and 'cancel culture' and when I delved into it and learned about the theory behind it, I began to understand why I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with 'woke' discourse in general. This piece about purity spirals was particularly interesting.

Anyway again.

It turned out Lindsay's thoughtful gift voucher was just the ticket for pulling me out of my yarncraft funk.

Nigel likes to help

I've been working on my blanket these past couple of weeks and last night I completed the 90th square out of the 144 it is made up of. It's not knitting but I'm thoroughly enjoying it and maybe I'll get back to the old two needle stuff soon.

And what news of beads?

Getting my arse in gear every day and finding the enthusiasm for beadmaking is hard. I'm not happy about this but I'm just accepting it as a standard response to the shitty pandemic and lockdowns. When I do get in the shed and if I am able to make beads, I make whatever I am able to make. I don't think about it and I just make whatever I feel like I want to make on the day. The past couple of days that has been big hole beads.

I'm not silver coring them because the physical effort required to do this does not work with my current elbow issues. Have I droned on about that here before? If not, long story short: In October I hurt my extensor tendons lifting a heavy crate awkwardly at the foodbank but I didn't do anything about it and carried on lifting and working and now I have some kind of long term tendonitis issue that won't go away. I've had steroid injections which kind of helped with the left arm, but the right one is still bad. I'm supposed to go back for another set of injections but meh, it didn't seem to do much last time so I'm dubious about another lot. I've got used to the pain, I think. Some days are better than others. I've found out what I can and can't do, adapted how I lift things, and I've accepted that sometimes my arm really hurts. I'm pretty sure I should have been sent for some kind of scan or X-ray to check it out properly but that never happened because of the old Covid bollocks. I had to wait four weeks for the steroid injections! So yeah, it's a crappy arm situation but... I just can't be bothered, really. I'm bored with it. And in case you're thinking "Well, crochet won't be helping!", oddly it has no effect on it. I think it's because of the way I hold my hook (overhand) and the way I crochet. My technique is 'wrong', from what I can gather. I taught myself how to crochet when I was about 11 and I've never changed the way I do it.

*another sigh*

It's all a bit shit, innit? For everyone, not just me. I honestly believe that anyone who is apparently flourishing during all of this, or is carrying on seemingly unaffected by it all, is either a liar or a sociopath.

Apologies for such a downer of a post. Like I say, sometimes I write to get stuff out of my head, and sometimes the place I do that is here. Just be grateful that you don't have access to the Notes app on my phone!

Archaeoramblings

I've never read so much in my entire life.

And I read quite a lot.

But nothing could have prepared me for just how much reading this degree would involve. I mean, I've had to buy a secondary bookcase for the lounge. And thank goodness for Amazon's second hand booksellers. Mind you, how they make money by selling books for a penny I don't know, but I'm very grateful for them, except for the one who sold me a 'very good condition' Chris Stringer book about Neanderthals. When it arrived it absolutely reeked of Creosote and Deep Heat. I have no idea what the previous owner had been doing with it but I had to spend a whole other penny on a different copy (and no, I don't mean that kind of spend a penny) because there was no way I could have read the stinky one. It upset my nostrils!

Nigel likes to 'help' me study

But yes, I've basically spent the last two months reading. Reading about human evolution, early prehistory, and general archaeology ideas and methods. I've been to talks and lectures, I've been to museums, and I've handled casts of early hominin skulls.

Although I'm doing my degree with the University of Leicester, I'm really lucky to live in Cambridge where we've got this pretty famous University. They've just done the Science Festival and as part of it I went to an open day at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies and I got to speak to all the superclever academic types (which was great but I wish I knew how they get all that knowledge into their brains and keep it there) about fossils and bones and hominins. I also watched the incredible John Lord do a two hour flintknapping demonstration, which was absolutely amazing.

John Lord making a flint hand axe

John Lord flint flakes, or blades, that are now mine

I'm utterly surprised at how much I am loving the early prehistory thing. When I started my course I had a choice of six modules for my first year, and I had to choose five. I was stuck between sacking off Early Prehistory or The Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Middle Nile. I was all "Meh, stone age cave stuff  and mummies and pyramids all sound a bit yawny to me" and I dropped the Egypt one. I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I opted to do the early prehistory. Sure, maybe I'm missing out on the mummies and the pyramids, but it turns out I love the human evolution thing. Love it. So much so, I am currently wearing an 'I heart Neanderthals' t-shirt (which Chris has banned me from wearing when I'm out and about with him), I have two shelves full of evolution books, and I'm planning a trip to Grime's Graves as soon as I am free from my essay-writing shackles. I can recognise and name (and spell) all the basic standard hominin skulls, and I will fight anybody who says that the Neanderthals were stupid or ugly or slow. So yeah, woohoo human evolution! I like it.

And that's just one module. I'm doing two at a time as I am doing my degree full time. This explains why I've had zero time for beads. The other module I'm working on is archaeology aims and methods; general introductory stuff about what archaeology is and why, where and how we do it - surveys, techniques, digging, post-excavation and all that malarkey. But it also involves bones. Human skeletons. And I realise this makes me sound strange but I am a tad obsessed with the human remains side of things. I've discovered that a lot of people are weirded out by this; I can almost see them recoil when my eyes light up as I'm talking about it. I'm well aware that there are ethical issues surrounding the archaeology of human remains and I'm not going to get into that here because everyone has different views about the subject and internet debates never end well, but yes, let's just say that there are also quite a few bones books on my shelf. I'm going on a two day osteoarchaeology course in June and I'm super excited about that.

Right now I'm working on two three thousand word essays; one about Neanderthals and one about human remains. Both of them have to be in at the start of May so there is much typing and even more reading happening. After that I have a month off from studying so I'm hoping to have a beadmaking splurge then.

Anyway, I've probably bored you enough with my archaeoramblings. I'd best get back to the essay-writing thing. See you!

Stressed

I've got a stye coming on my left eyelid. I know this because my eye feels bruised and tender to touch. I've suffered with styes for as long as I can remember but I only get them when I'm run down, stressed out or worried, really really tired, or a combination of all of those things.

This one I've got now is probably a combination-of-all-those-things stye.

The last few weeks have been stressful. I came home from teaching in Barnstaple to find that Nigel had an abscess on his face, caused by a fighty cat bite, and he ended up having to have an operation to sort it out. After more medication and pampering Nigel decided to develop some kind of skin allergy. The vet thinks it's probably caused by some plant that he's brushing past when he's out and about. A steroid injection last week kind of helped him but the effects of the injection only lasted for five days and now he's all irritated and a bit scabby again so I'm going to have to take him back to the vet. On Monday Nigel decided to eat pretty much a whole baby dove (the crime scene showed that he didn't fancy eating a couple of internal dove organs and one wing) and he's made himself quite ill as a result of it. He's done this a couple of times before and I just have to keep a close eye on him and wait for him to get it out of his system. Literally.

In between all that cat unwellness, I happened upon a lady having a heart attack in the street. I'd popped to the shop to get some milk and on my way there I saw a lady lying on the pavement and another very distressed lady on the phone to the emergency services. A few other people were sort of stood there, just looking. I immediately went full Charlie Fairhead and checked for a pulse and all that and told the lady on the phone to tell the operator what I was finding. And not finding. I put her into the recovery position.

I won't lie, the situation was horrible.

I'm not first aid trained.

It's something I told myself that I'd do, after my mum died of a heart attack. I kept telling myself that I'd do a course. Watching Holby City and being a lifelong Casualty fan can only get you so far in an emergency situation. I've been told by two doctors and three paramedics that there was nothing anyone could have done to save my mum, even if she'd been in a hospital hooked up to all the right machines at the time of her heart attack. But not a day goes by where I don't think about it and go through all the "What if I'd...?" and "Why didn't I...?" questions in my head. I can't allow myself to dwell on those questions for too long or I end up having a panic attack.

So here I was again, in a similar situation. The lady was a local character. She has a very odd way of walking; she does tiny tiny footsteps and teeters from side to side with a shopping bag in each hand as she does so. I'd always said hello to her, even though I didn't know her name. And here she was, on the floor unconscious, with a faint pulse that was becoming fainter. She was making noises that a human being shouldn't make. I knew immediately that it was a heart attack. Nobody else was doing anything. Time seemed to be going so very slowly. Then all of a sudden the paramedics arrived and I stepped away and they swung into action. I looked through the lady's handbag and found her bus pass with her name on, a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a debit card and about thirteen pence in coins. That was all that was in her bag.

The paramedics were doing what amazing paramedic people do. It began to rain and a lovely lady appeared with a huge umbrella and she stood over them all with it as they worked, while I redirected rubber-necking passers-by.

The heart monitor with its constant flat tone suddenly beeped itself into a rhythm. The lady was alive.

An ambulance and a couple of police officers arrived. I had to give them my details and a brief statement. They eventually put the lady into the ambulance and the police officer confirmed to me that the lady was unconscious but alive.

People gradually left the scene. All that was left was a cardigan draped over a fence post. I'd asked one of the onlookers if they had anything we could use as a blanket because the lady was cold. One of them had handed me their cardigan.

I walked over to the shop in a bit of a daze. I got my milk and a packet of Caramel Logs and then I walked home. And then I went to pieces. I drank tea and ate Caramel Log after Caramel Log. I'm OK in an emergency situation while it's happening (adrenalin is a wonderful thing) but I always end up in a state afterwards.

Maybe I should have done CPR on the lady, but she was sort of breathing, and I was sure I'd read somewhere that you only do CPR if the person isn't breathing. Maybe I should have done chest compressions at the very least. I DON'T KNOW. Because I never did that sodding course. Of course, looking back I could have Googled. I had my phone on me. I mean, I spend a large proportion of every single day with it glued to my hand but no, I seemed to temporarily forget that the internet existed.

What I do know for sure is that she arrested after the paramedics arrived.

I called the police to see if they knew what happened to the lady. They don't know as the the case was deemed not suspicious and was subsequently closed and the situation handed over the hospital. I called the hospital but, understandably, they wouldn't tell me anything as I'm not related to the lady. It's been three weeks since this happened and I've not seen the lady. Nobody has. I keep checking the local papers and every time I go into the shop I ask one of the assistants if they've seen her or heard anything about her, but nope, nothing. The not knowing what happened to her is really quite distressing.

As you can imagine, the whole heart attack thing has been playing on my mind. I'm not sleeping very well. It's given me a short attention span and an even shorter temper. It's brought a whole load of bad Mum thoughts bubbling back to the surface of my brain, which in turn have brought panic attacks, anxiety and tears with them. I feel sad for the lady, and angry, guilty and annoyed at myself for not knowing stuff. But I'm not a doctor or a nurse, and at least I didn't just stand there staring at the situation like a gormless person.

I apologise for such a miserable, unhappy and morose blog post but I needed to get all of this out of my head. Maybe now I've done so this bloody eye stye can do one because it flipping hurts.

Thanks for reading.

Baaa

Oh heck, its been twelve days since I last blogged. That's a bit naff of me, isn't it?

What have I been doing? Well, I've been to the vet with the guinea pig and the cat. Again. I know. I'm sick of going, the vet must be sick of me going and my bank account is sick of the vet too. However, Ruth seems to be okay. She has no bladder stones (a £50 X-ray showed that) and she's on antibiotics for some sort of internal nethers infection. Nigel seems to have some kind of gastritis so I've been cooking him chicken and fish and feeding him small meals. We've got to just wait and see how he goes. (Thank goodness he's insured.) Nigel's also got a new drinking fountain which he loves. He loves both drinking from it and also splashing it all over the place like a child in a paddling pool.

Speaking of animals, I've taken to making them. Glass ones. That don't require special cooking and feeding, or medicine syringing into their faces twice a day.

Sheep.

Baaa.

I've had sheep on my mind recently. Odd, I know. I'm blaming it on listening to Felicity Ford's excellent KNITSONIK podcast and also stroking my Jamieson & Smith pure Shetland wool that I bought as part of a fingerless mitts kit from Kate Davies.

Gorgeous Kate Davies Designs 'Ecclefechan' fingerless mittens kit

So, with the aforementioned sheep on my mind, I sat and twiddled about with glass and after about seven attempts I came up with the little fella at the top of this post. Chris has named him Baaarney. I say I had seven attempts but it was more like fifty-seven. (Seven just sounds less obsessive.) You see, there's no point in me making a bead that I'm potentially going to sell that I can't replicate. Each bead needs to be made in the same way, with bits added and worked on in the same order every time, so that I can make roughly the same bead over and over again.

Baaarney, rearing up like a scared horse and also relaxing

The sheep is tiny. He's only about 10mm tall.

I've turned Baaarney into a stitch marker for my knitting. The sock in this photograph doesn't even require marking but I just like having a tiny glass sheep there, dangling from my needle.

Baaarney doing a knitting-related dangle

Facebook and Instagram seem to like Baaarney so I think I'll make a small flock for the shop.

Have a fun-filled Thursday!

'Little Bit '80s' & 'Pinkurple'

I cannot believe it's over a fortnight since my last blog post. That's awfulness. I've had flu, Nigel was really ill and another of my guinea pigs died so it's just been one thing after another but I think things are looking up now.

I was digging about in one of my glass boxes the other day (I don't have fancy organised glass rod storage because I know it would never stay organised) and I found half a rod of Effetre Amber Rose. This was an odd-lot of glass from about, oooh, ten-ish years ago now. Effetre never replicated it but it is such a pretty colour; kind of a pinky-peachy amber, as its name suggests. I teamed it with some CiM Chai and some soft grey to make this 'Little Bit '80s' set. Peach-pink and soft grey together always conjures up images of legwarmers and bubble perms in my mind.

And I also made a pink and purple set which I called 'Pinkurple' because it's pink and purple. Yes.

Both these sets are £18.50 each and they're for sale here.

I'd best get on with the beadmakery. Have a good day.

Alright?

I'll not lie; I'm finding it flipping hard work keeping up with all the digital places I'm supposed to be. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, mailing list, blog, website - it's crazy, this cyberwold in which we live!

Anyway, I'm here. And I've got two lots of new glass beads to show you. The 'Vanilla & Honey' ones up top ...

... and these 'Midnight' beads are available in my shop right now as I type.

So what's happened since I last blogged?

Well ... Nigel got ill but then he got better and then Martha, one of my guineas, got ill but she didn't get better and all in all I've spent far too much time at the vet.

Nigel is due to have his manparts operation next week so I'll be back there again but hopefully that'll be quite straightforward. For me. Nigel, not so much but it's for his own good. He's also being microchipped (I'm referring to his vet appointment as his 'Chop-n-Chip') as the bugger will NOT wear a collar. We've got through four collars and tags since he came to live with us and he only wore the last one for a couple of hours.

I've caught up with all my bead orders (there were moments there where I thought I'd never reach the end of them but YAY I did!) and I'm now working on a couple of new bracelet designs. Hoping to have those ready by the end of the week.

Lots of other life stuff has been happening but that's not for here. I think it's all on the up now, though, so that's good.

OOOH, I'm expecting the arrival of a new laptop this week! This is very exciting. You know mine broke yonks ago? Well, I've been borrowing Chris' one but it's a work machine and I don't have full time access to it. Also, I'm unable to download any software or useful stuff (like Acrobat) without Chris getting it authorised at work which is a pain. The laptop won't talk to my laser printer either so it's all been very annoying and irksome and I'd be right up the swanny without my iPhone. But yes, I have ordered a lovely Dell Inspiron 15R laptop which is due to arrive on Wednesday. I was after a red one but it was an additional forty quid and I figured that most of the time the lid will be open, facing away from me and I didn't see the point. So it's black and silver which is fine by me. It'll just be amazing to have my own computer again. We seriously do not realise how much we need these things until they're not there.

I've not done a discount code for a while so here you go - just enter AUGUST10 at checkout to get ten percent off anything on my website. (Code is valid until midnight on 22/08/13)

I think that's pretty much it from me. I hope all is dandyfine in your world?

Have a good rest-of-your-Monday,

'Twilight Speckle'

The other day, whilst hunting for spare flints for my spark lighter, I found a bag of frit that I forgot I had. It is Double Helix 'Terra' frit and it's gorgeous. It's a mix of browns in its un-melted form but by applying heat at various intensities you can bring out purples, blues, greens and even pinks. It really is a lovely glass.

I've put it on black here, encased it in clear and the resulting beads remind me of the colours of the sky and clouds at twilight at the end of a sunny day. These are available in strands of seven beads in my Folksy shop.

Hasn't it been a gorgeous day? Chilly but sunshiny.

Nigel did a spot of sunbathing on my shed roof which made a nice change from his current hobby of killing birds. 

I'm currently working on a brand new website and I'm really excited about it; it's all proper and it's going to have a shopping cart and all that jazz. I'm hoping it'll be complete by the start of May.

Also, big thanks to Lori who left a really helpful comment on my last blog post regarding my not being able to wear earrings any longer. She gave me a link to a blog post that she wrote about her own experience of the same problem.

Time to make some tea and do some techno-website-fafferations ...