It's Christmas!!!

We had a Christmas wreath making workshop in our local village hall on Sunday. We had mulled wine & mince pies to get us in the mood. Everyone had been raiding the hedgerows & begging from friends to gather together assorted greenery & under the expert guidance of a local lady in her 80's who used to do flower arranging classes, she's absolutely fantastic & puts us all to shame with her enthusiasm. We produced some wonderfully festive wreaths. I think it's amazing how we all start off with the same basic materials & end up with completely different things. This is my effort, quite how it'll look by 12th night is any ones guess, with all the wind & rain we get! Feeling a bit more Christmassy now, tree next....

Am having a go at knitting socks, have managed one, but gosh they're fiddly aren't they? Don't know if I can muster the enthusiasm for the 2nd one!

Have nearly finished my beaded shawl, had a bit of a hiccup as ran out of beads & the shops where I'd bought them had been flooded, but luckily they're open again & I bought all the beads they had in the colour I needed - just in case! So have only 10 or so more rows to do of that am I'm done.

Then yesterday we had our 1st Christmas meal at our local village school, turkey with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding & brandy sauce, & then if that wasn't enough coffee & mince pies, had to take our pies home, couldn't eat anymore - gym tomorrow for sure. The village school has a community lunch once a month for the locals, it's 2 courses & they charge £5 & it goes to raise funds for the school. Great way to get the community involved.

I'm a winner!!!

Many thanks to Rowanberry, I received my package this morning, very exciting!

It's just like Christmas......

and look what I got, small lovely Debbie Bliss wool, which is so gorgeously soft, I can't wait to make something with it. Rowan also sent a lovely note & a pattern called Fetching for some fingerless gloves, which I might have a go at or a cowl or snood, ooh so many choices to make. But many many thanks to Rowan for sending me part of her stash.

Well it's official, I'm now on Etsy & Blogger as Beside The Beck.

Dreadful play on words, as my nearest & dearest call me Beck & we live close to a beck, here in Cumbria. Although a raging torrent would be a better description over the last few days, this is what it looked like at the weekend. Lots of our neighbours have been flooded with many roads closed & bridges lost or too damaged to use, all incredibly sad.

I'm knitting another shawl, but this time with beads in the laceweight linen from K1 Yarns in Edinburgh, it's the first time I've ever knitted with beads & I absolutely love the effect, I can see I'll be adding beads to everything. Although I couldn't get a crochet needle fine enough to thread through the beads to attach them, so have threaded them onto the yarn & am knitting them in as I go, very fiddly & not awfully sure if they'll stay where I put them, only time will tell!

Started knitting a scarf yesterday with some wool I've had for ages, it's just a practise piece really, as don't have many balls. I've done a ruffle edge to it just to make it a bit more interesting.

I've been doing a web design course for a few months, which I'm on again this morning, not quite sure what I'm going to do on my website yet but at least I'll know how to design it.

Can't decide whether I want to make hand embroidered names and cards, which is something I did years ago when our son was little. I used to sell through craft fairs & shops but I don't know if I want to do that again as I did it 20+ years ago. What I really fancy doing is making bags. I love bags, doesn't matter how fat/thin you are bags & shoes always fit!

Here I am!

Well, here I am world, come & find me!

I'm a 40 something year old living in the beautiful north of England.

Been interested in crafts all my life. Have done embroidery, knitting, cross-stitch & needlepoint forever & I've just started learning to crochet, a friend is very kindly giving me lessons, she has a lot of patience!

Went to Woolfest last Friday which was very exciting. Lots of inspiration but was very good & didn't spend too much. Did buy some hessian & a proddy to make a rag rug - another project to start!

But first I must finish the rug I've been doing for 13 years, just got the border to do, only been taking me 3 years!

Then I need to decide what I want to crochet with my new-found ability.

& get wool & pattern for a cobweb lace shawl/stole. If anyone has a reliable pattern, would love to see it, keep looking them up on the net & can't decide what to do. Saw some absolutely fabulous ones at Woolfest & am desperate to make one. Also want to use Rowan's kidsilk haze mohair as it looks beautiful & the colours are to die for.

Yesterday I made some elderflower cordial for the first time & it was so lovely that I'm now making 6 bottles more.

Also making some elderflower champagne, apparently it's non-alcoholic, which is a bit disappointing & you have to wait 2 weeks for it to mature, looks pretty dire at the moment but smells wonderful. Using a recipe given to me by a neighbour from a WI Cookbook from 1939!

So many things to do & just not enough hours in the day........