WOYWW 781 - All change, please!

 Gosh.

I missed last week - reasons themselves being fairly obvious from the previous week's post, and I was disappointed to have missed the week and the ATC swap (Helen, I still owe you an ATC and you WILL go the ball.... um.... I mean you WILL have your card!), and also to have not made it to the crop.  Turns out I ended up in Braintree on house clearance duties, but also visited Mum at the chapel of rest and did some Executor business type stuff with my sister on Saturday morning.  Saturday evening and Sunday were spent in some frantic house clearance - more on that in a mo...

Helen’s ATC

And so I logged on today to celebrate WOYWW which hithertofore (good word, that) had been hosted by the very lovely Julia on Stamping Ground (stamping-ground.blogspot.com) but found that as of the 15th Anniversary (last week), the reins have now been handed over to the equally lovely Sarah at Sarah's Craft Shed (sarahscraftshed.co.uk)

Slap me sideways and call me a gurnard.

I have GOT to stop missing weeks!

So - congratulations/good luck in your "retirement", Julia.  May your desk ever (never?) be tidy, in the spirit of WOYWW.  May your rotary cutter stay sharp, and your ink pads never be dry. A toast to Julia Dunnit!

Sarah has been a long time desker herself, so has able control of those reins.  Change being as good as a rest I'm sure, and a new path in life I suspect may well be a welcome distraction from the trials and tribulations of life.  I'd say "welcome" but you've been here a while, my lovely.  But instead, very well done for stepping up and letting JD step back - Bravo!

My crafting bug has understandably taken a bit of a hike, but I've made the effort to get some stitching done at least. I hope to get my WIPGO done this month, but not much else of anything will be undertaken.

I have at least worked on the Snowman Pirate a bit....

But last weekend was all about Mum, really.  Amongst the things we sorted out, we had a good squint at her dolls house, and now starts the task of finding a home for it.  I don't think I've ever mentioned it before, because I don't have the appropriate labels, but Mum (and my late Dad) were model makers and Dad built this amazing dolls house for Mum starting in 1994 up to his death in 2007, and she decorated and furnished it.  I won't go into massive detail here but a couple of photos will suffice.  I'm in contact with a museum local to her, and hopefully they'll take it on.  If they won't, I'm sure somewhere else will, and as a very last resort, we'll just have to open our own museum.  Not quite where I thought my life was going but there you have it. Admittedly, it does need a little work to smarten it up a bit, but we'll see where it's going to end up, first!  

The loom is fully functional, if you have the patience to set it up…

I've also been passed a partially completed piece of needlework that Mum left, which she'd been working on during the last few months, and which I sadly think will need some unpicking of the most recent stitches, and I will complete it ready for framing.  I have a matching one she'd finished before that, and it also needs some TLC.  We'll get there, though!

I think I've waffled on enough for this week.  Not sure if I'll be around next week but I'll give it a try - we travel up to Essex again next Thurs, as my beloved Mum's funeral is on the 31st.... so see you again soon.

Happy Hopping!

Morti x

WOYWW 611 - the one without Her

 Good morning, lovely deskers.

As I join in with WOYWW today, I write with blurred vision and tears rolling down my cheeks.  I made the fatal mistake this morning of reading Julia's blog from Monday about Shaz, and it set me off again.  Sorry Shaz, I know you're thinking "idiot woman, it's all good...", but your departure has unexpectedly blindsided me, as it has many others, I do believe - no matter how much many of us were prepared for this to eventually happen. The lovely Donna (Doone) and I were comforting one another at stupid o'clock this morning as we both happened to be online, on Facebook, at the same time and managed to set each other off.  For newer WOYWWers who are not on FB, Donna used to take part in WOYWW before she moved to France a few years ago, and was part of the Crop Brigade up until that point, so knew Doug n'Shaz through Julia too.

I'll get to my desk in a moment, but first I'll do as Julia asked and share my Shaz story.  It's short, but no less poignant.  You see, Mr B and me, we're Metallers.  Rockers.  A lil' bit goth and a whole lot pagan.  And we craft.  So you can imagine our delight walking into that first crop and meeting Shaz and Doug for the first time.  Our tribe!  Wonder of wonders!  A like minded soul and an instant friendship. I have wondered if she felt the same... David and Doug got chatting as well, and although Doug is not known for picking up needle and thread or double sided tape and card, I hope he found some company and acceptance from our lot.  Cos Doug n' Shaz were..... Doug n' Shaz.  An entire unit. Shaz also struck me as being the perfect balance between Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg... generous to a fault but I wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of her.  Assuming she had one, I never saw it if she did.  

So, I will stop my maudlin and lachrymose meanderings, pull up my big girl pants and get on with the show.

Welcome back to my desk.  Apologies for not getting round folks last week but, ya know...I will however endeavour to respond to comments from last week in here.

First up - the desk.  A little bit of activity.  There's actually a finished card on there but I hope you'll forgive me not showing it until after the recipient has had it.  It's not the card I really wanted to kick off my non-Christmas card making with, if you follow...

Stitching - well...

Siren's Lament has a teensy bit of work done on it...

The PPSAL has moved on a bit as well, but the reason it's not further along is that I had to unpick the entirety of the border that you saw last week (plus the extra I did after that photo).  I'd forgotten to include the outer framing line before starting the border - and without that it affected the knotwork placement.  As it's supposed to be a direct pair to the turquoise one, I had to address that...

Regarding the problematic two shades of purple thread I had, Lisa-Jane pondered whether or not I could have blended the two colours.  Unfortunately not - this is all stitched with one strand of thread, and although even the single strands of thread are ultimately two ply, I love my sanity more than I love saving money.... 

Especially for Felicia, who was disappointed last week not to see Mr Moose, I made sure I worked on him for you this week and here he is....

He has eyes now!

Eagle-eyed Spyder spotted a "horse and stable" in my desk photo last week.  I think I may have shared photos a long time ago but they bear a second outing here.

My father - who passed away in 2007 - was a toolmaker and mechanical engineer by trade, and a model engineer by hobby.  I know for a fact that had he been alive when "book nooks" became a thing, he'd have been all over them.

He made so many things, and one of those was this little diorama, which I nabbed a couple of years back when Mum moved house and we had to re-home the myriad of trains, buses, cars, dioramas, paint, figures - you name it (and now I know where I get it from).  

So, the stable is not in fact a stable, but a farrier's cot/blacksmiths.   

The lid lifts off, and inside is a whole other world.  

From the other side:

Tools and all sorts!

I love that there is a rusted out bucket just outside by the tap.

And the other side...

It needs a little TLC where the glue has dried out and failed, as do a couple of other items of his that I have, and this is why it’s tucked on the shelf above my desk. When I’ve made the repairs it’s going in my curio cabinet in the dining room.  I shall try to repair them over the coming weeks and share them here.  Dad's most notable achievement was the dolls house he made for my mother in 1997.  I'll save that story for another day, but suffice to say here that she needed a whole room for it... I also have a pair of dolls houses - one of them was the last thing he worked on before he died and Mum had to finish it off.  Again, I'll save those for another time.

Anyway, enough waffle/ramble - I shall love you and leave you, and salute to the fallen....

Happy Hopping!