Introducing the newest family member

I've been busy again these past few days. Amongst other things, finishing off this sweet little cardi for my new great niece.

The design was in Knitting magazine (issue 63 pullout). There's a cute beret and shoes to go with the cardi but I didn't get time to do these with making stuff for the craft fairs. I'll maybe make the set in a larger size for when she's a bit older. Deja Mae was born three weeks ago and as I found out at the weekend this cardi may just about fit her now as she's so big!

My mam, sister, her hubby and I spent the weekend in Aberdeen visiting my brother and his family - and getting lots of cuddles off the new baby. This photo was taken in Ellon where they live, via the camera timer delay and a strategically placed picnic bench!

Here's the proud parents and baby Deja.

And this is me having a lovely cuddle.

And here's the four generations of the family.

We had a great weekend catching up with the family gossip and meeting the newest member!

But now it's back to the crafting - I signed up for a couple of events on Folksy a while ago and now their time has come - a 'Secret Santa' and a 'Christmas Tree Decoration Swap' (I'll post photos when I get them done); plus I've got a couple of commissions to do; a Christmas present to make; and then there's new items for the final craft fairs of the year to do (Grainger Market, Newcastle - 12th and 19th December). I guess I'd better go and do some now...

Support Cancer Research on Folksy

Is your Christmas shopping well under way? Still got a few pressies to buy? Why not have a look at the Cancer Research shop on Folksy - buy a great handmade gift AND support a wonderful charity. ALL of the money goes to Cancer Research not just a teensy percentage.

I've donated this sweet floral teddy bear that I made a while ago (in a break from the knitting!). She's made from hand dyed cotton with lots of pretty embroidered flowers and beads to make her look pretty.

But there are all sorts of things to buy, like these:

Guardian Angel Sign from Helen Jane's Designs

White Christmas Drop Earrings by See the Woods Designs

Four Squidgy Chocolate Cupcakes by Treaclezoo

Thyme Earrings by Christine Walsh

Heart Hot Water Bottle by NickyP

Louis the Wonky Donkey by Sara Carr

For more information on the above items please have a look at the Cancer Research shop on Folksy and see what other wonderful goodies you can buy too.

I've also got a permanent link to the Cancer Research UK website at the top right of my blog, where you can make a donation, buy from their catalogue, or find out more about the charity.

Please support this very worthy charity if you can. Many of these lovely Folksy people have been touched by cancer and they have donated their items for sale in honour of someone they loved. As I have: my wonderful Dad passed away five years ago after a long battle with cancer, and we have lost good friends of ours too.

One in three of us will be affected by cancer in our lifetime. We need to find a cure. Please help if you can.

Victor Meldrew is alive and well

Hubby and I had a lovely day yesterday at the Grainger Market Art & Craft Fair. The fair is held on the second Saturday of each month and this was our second visit their as stallholders. We sold lots of lovely items (it was much better than last week's fair!) - decorative scarves, woolly scarves, Christmas decorations, brooches and corsages - nothing was a 'big seller' so I guess people like to have the choice of different things on a stall.

The stallholders are moved around each month so it's a chance to meet and chat to new people as you're waiting for customers to stop and peruse your wares. We met some lovely people - both stallholders and customers, and people who just came to have a look and a chat. It's great to hear what 'the general public' think of your stall, and about the fair in general. We spoke to few visitors who were in Newcastle for the weekend and they all thought the fair was a great place to buy their Christmas gifts; they really seemed to enjoy the chance to buy handmade items rather than the usual mass-produced shop bought goods.

As well as all the nice comments, we did have a few raised eyebrows or rude comments from peole who obviously think stallholders are deaf. "£24 for a scarf? I don't believe it!" was one succint comment from a female 'Victor Meldrew'. Some people don't seem to realise that, yes, a ball of yarn might only cost £3 but you have to add on all the time that you've spent knitting it as well (plus the cost of your stall, insurance, packaging, transport, etc. etc.). I was dying to shout at them, "I'm trying to run a business not a charity!" but hubby wouldn't let me (he's the more diplomatic one in our marriage!)

The comments by the rude people were wiped out by one sweet elderly lady though. We chatted for a few minutes about life in general, and then she chose my Pistachio Scarf as she was a 'lady who loved green'. As I was wrapping up her purchase she gave hubby £20 (the scarf was £18) and told him to keep the change - "Buy her a Christmas drink" she whispered. Now how lovely was that?

Where have all the customers gone?

Well, the craft fair at Emmanuel College didn't go as well as planned. The weather was lovely when we set off from home: a gorgeous cripsy cold day but sunny and bright - perfect weather for buying scarves and Christmas decorations, we thought!

Normally the organisers just have the main hall set up as the selling area, but this year they added an extra room near the entrance to the college too. And that, we think, is possibly where the problem was. The signage from the first room to the hall was minimal, and there were no staff directing people either. It seems as if the only people that came to the main area were those that had been to previous fairs, or those that went to the cafe and stumbled upon us!

There were about 80 stalls at the fair in total (20 in the smaller room and about 60 in the main hall) so I thought it was a great fair to be at - but the organisation could have been better. All of the stall holders that we spoke too had had a really poor day as there were so few prospective customers. We managed to cover the cost of our stall but that was all.

There was also a big Christmas fair at Gosforth Racecourse over the weekend so that will have taken a lot of custom away from ours. The college's fair organisers may need to have a rethink before next year's event.

The one consolation is that I don't have to replace many things for my next fair this coming Saturday! The Arts & Crafts Fair at the Grainger Market in Newcastle (see previous post) is held once a month and it gets a good amount of passing trade, so fingers crossed that we will be much more successful there. We did quite well at the fair in October when it was relatively quiet (so the regular stall holders thought), so hopefully people will be in the swing of the Christmas shopping and the fair on Saturday will be really buzzing. Here's hoping.

Christmas is coming and the baby has arrived

I've been a bit lax with the blogging lately - too busy making more goodies for the craft fairs! I've got some new scarves, new gloves and a tonne of Christmas tree decorations to price up ready for the next fair on Saturday.

Craft fair dates for your diary:
Saturday 7 November - Emmanuel College, Lobley Hill, Gateshead - 9.30am-3.30pm
Saturday 14 November - Grainger Market, Newcastle - 9am-5pm

Please come and say 'hello' if you're in the area!

Here's what I've been working on this week: some pretty, cushion-type decorations made from gorgeous Christmassy fabric, with silk thread details and a jingly bell in the middle.

And some 'Suffolk puff' decorations with added beads and festive holly sprigs (they look much better in real life!).

And can I just say -

Welcome to the world Deja Mae!

My nephew and his partner are now the proud parents of a gorgeous little girl; she arrived at 12.26am today (3 Nov), at a very healthy 9lb 2oz. A fantastic new addition to our family!

Model customer #4 and book #29

Drum roll please... da da da da da da daaahhhh...
Please put your hands together for my Model Customer number 4 - Laura from Aberdeen!

Laura is wearing my Funky Scarf; a lovely soft and fuzzy scarf in dark purple with bright pink stripes. Laura said, "I love this scarf - the colours are fab and it's SO warm!" Doesn't she look great? Thanks for shopping at Bliss Knits Laura!

If you've bought anything from my Folksy shop or from one of the craft fairs that I've attended, and you fancy being a 'Model Customer', please get in touch!

I finished 'The Memory Garden' by Rachel Hore today, so that's me up to 29 books read this year. Definitely nowhere near my record of 53 books in a year (but that was when my bus journey to work was much longer!).

I  found this book a bit slow going at times, but that's probably because I'm used to more fast-paced crime novels. It was an enjoyable light read though.

The book is set in Cornwall (a well-loved holiday destination of ours) and tells the story of a lecturer who takes a sabbatical to research and write a book on the famous artists of the area of Lamorna. It tells of how Mel falls in love with this part of Cornwall, and Merryn Hall in particular. Here she stays in the gardener's cottage and builds friendships with the local people in the present, and learns about the inhabitants of the past (the story moves effortlessly from one era to another). She helps the new owner, Patrick, to start renovations on the overgrown and neglected gardens, and a relationship starts to blossom - but will the past get in the way of their future? And will Mel uncover the truth about the mysterious artist PT?

Christmas is Coming...

Over the past week or so I've been getting into the festive mood, making decorations for the Christmas tree.

I want to have a good selection for the November craft fairs that I'm booked in for (Emmanuel College, Gateshead - 7 Nov, and Grainger Market, Newcastle - 14 Nov) so the knitting needles have been put away for a while.

Previous crafty pursuits that have been put on hold for a while include embroidery, and patchwork and quilting. I've amassed a huge selection of fabric and threads, which have been safely packed in storage boxes in the spare room, ready and waiting to become the craft-of-the-moment again.

I'm also a bit of a magpie for beads, ribbons, sequins, etc. so I've always got a good selection of embellishments to choose from.

It's been lovely to get out my sewing needles for a change. And I could easily spend a few hours hunting through all my supplies, looking for the ideal thread to go with the sparkly beads to embellish the perfect fabric...!

So that's the decorations that I've made and managed to photograph, so far - there are a lot more waiting in the wings!

I'm not sure whether to list them in my Folksy shop yet or if I should wait until after the craft fairs to see what I have left. In an ideal world I'd have hundreds of decorations to sell, but the time I have to make things is limited with having a day job to go and I've always sold better at the fairs. I'm afraid I'll miss the boat though if I post them too late and people will have already bought their decorations, so I'll probably pop a few in the shop and see what the interest is like.

I'd love to know what YOU think of them - please leave a comment if you have the time. Thanks!

Big Knit - Little Hats

Today I'm showing off my mam's knitting skills for a change. In between the baby knits (for her soon-to-be-arriving second great grandaughter) she's been beavering away, knitting little hats for smoothie bottles. Last week she sent off 30 little hats for the Innocent Big Knit campaign which, in a collaboration with Sainsbury’s, aims to raise thousands of pounds for charity. Each little hat is place on a smoothie bottle, and for each one sold Innocent and Sainsbury’s will give 35p to Age Concern and Help the Aged.

(Here's a selection of the hats that my mam made. She knitted 30 in total, all with little bobbles on top!)

Every year the deadline date for donated hats creeps up on me and I manage to make only a few; this year, with making items for my shop and craft fairs, I completely forgot. Luckily mam was on the ball. I must remember to put it in my diary for next year and start knitting early!

In the UK, 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 are malnourished. So this year the money raised from the campaign is going to be used to fund projects offering advice on healthy eating, cookery clubs and social events where older people can enjoy a meal together and a good old chat.

The Big Knit campaign started in 2003 when 20,000 hats were knitted, raising £10,000 for Age Concern. Things have gone from strength to strength and last year 506,738 hats were donated and £253,384 was raised. This year, so far, the total stands at 437,509 hats; but due to the postal strike the closing date has been extended to 30 October so they still have a chance to beat last year's total. Have a look at The Big Knit website and see if the Hatometer has increased this final week - also check out the weird and wonderful designs that people have knitted - and read about the people that the campaign has helped in previous years.

However much money is raised, it's going to a fantastic cause, and the advice, concern and companionship will mean so much to thousands of older people this winter.