I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, yarn is all around us and so the knitting grows .....

It is a time of year for finishing things off.  Northern Man has a problem with finishing things:  if he does a DIY job the tools sit where he last used them for weeks;  he has an issue with using up the last of the mayonnaise from a jar and he deserts a tube of toothpaste with at least two or three good squeezes left in it.  I was not surprised, therefore, when I found several almost-but-not-quite-used-up bags of potatoes in the fridge last night when I went to make the shepherd's pie.  The first was a bag of Vivaldi potatoes - we know who he was.  The second was a bag of Chopin potatoes - we know who he was.  The third was a bag of Maris Piper potatoes - who was he?  Is there such a place as Maris or was he a non-geographically-specific figure from Scottish history, heard piping mournfully across the Highlands at the end of the year to welcome Hogmanay?  Perhaps he followed the lead of Scottish football teams in not being named after his place of origin - Queen of the South (Dumfries), Raith Rovers (Kirkcaldy), St Mirren (Paisley), St Johnstone (Perth), Hibernian (Leith), Queen's Park (Glasgow), Albion Rovers (Coatbridge), Heart of Midlothian (Edinburgh), etc, etc.

Every year we have to move the The Box in order to make room for the oversized Christmas tree that Big Girl and Youngest Child insist I buy.

 The Box, which stores the-things-I'm-going-to-do-something-with-one-day, has to be partly emptied and this is when I come face to face with my own inability to finish a project.  I decided that this holiday I would finally put this right.


A knitted gargoyle has been in a dismembered state for  at least two years .....

A knitted devil who was completed all except one foot!  Why?  What can have been so important that I got distracted at that late stage and left him?

These knitted dolls have been partly knitted and partly put together for months.  I had a problem with the hair which I feel I have solved and with the face, which I have not.

And finally, the knitted dragons produced off-spring ......

Happy New Year and every blessing to you all.

Fortune telling and glue gunning ......

This morning I went to Chiswick car boot sale, not to sell, but to wander in the hope of finding a thing or two to buy.    As I was passing one stall I heard a lady ask the dealer if he had any books on fortune telling.  The dealer looked her straight in the eye and said 'Next week'.  I can only hope that she can see far enough ahead not to go back next Sunday in the hope that he is a man of his word.

I was tickled to find a professional sign writer there with beautifully painted things.  He had a collection of vintage saws for sale.  They were painted with opulent scroll work around the words 'Tattoos Removed'.

I have indulged myself with the purchase of a hot glue gun, Who knew there was so much fun to be had?  Everything is getting a stick-on make over ....

Sets of painted drawers with crochet flowers ...

Baskets, boxes and a hat box with crochet flowers .....

and a pretty vintage basket with knitted and crocheted flowers.  I've taken this basket to lots of fairs and it has refused to sell.  Add a few flowers and it disappeared first thing yesterday morning!  This could be the future .....