Jolly Red ~ in the bag

Last Saturday I headed into Edinburgh for a little bit of Girly retail therapy with my best friend and my little girl.

We had a really lovely day out. And as much as we really do love our boys it was nice to spend sometime together ~ just us girls.

We started off with a very unhealthy breakfast in McDonalds, and then at lunch time we had a very yummy lunch in a lovely little family run Italian restaurant. In between times we had plenty of time to browse around and do a lot of window shopping. As usual we didn't have much money to spend but I did have lots of Christmas vouchers instead ~ mostly for John Lewis. And we all know that the best department in John Lewis is the crafty one ~ don't we?


After taking our time to look at all the lovely things I decided to splash out on this little Jolly Red Needlepoint Kit. Back in my much younger days I used to do a lot of cross stitch, but unfortunately I've now reached that sort of dodgy age where your eyes start to go a bit funny when you are looking at things close up! And although I've never attempted to do any needlepoint before I figured that the holes on the canvas and the thicker tapestry wool should make this a little easier on my dodgy old eyes than cross stitch.

The needlepoint I chose is called Quilt Hearts by Jolly Red and it all comes packed up in this dinky little red bag.

Would you like to see what is in the bag?...........

Of course you do!


There is a colour printed canvas, lots of lovely coloured wool, charts and instructions, a needle and a needle threader ~ which may come in handy when I try to thread the needle with my dodgy old eyes!

I can't wait to get started on this and it goes without saying that I will let you see how I get on with it too.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend ~ See you all next week :O) xx

Smiley things :O)

Making me smile today are these gorgeous pink hyacinths that are sitting on my kitchen window sill just now ~ they were a very cheap buy from Ikea and more than worth the couple of pounds that I paid for them. They smell lovely and even standing washing the dishes doesn't seem so much of a chore when they look and smell so good! I can also see them everytime I walk up the garden path and they are a very welcoming sight indeed!

Also making me smile today is my new crochet project which I found the time to make a start on this weekend with my new stash of Rico Creative Cotton ~ I love the colours of this stuff so much ~ they are so bright and cheery and an absolute joy to work with ~ a little bit splitty sometimes but nothing too drastic! It just means that I have to be a bit more careful when I crochet along and take a little bit more care to put my hook in the exactly the right place making sure that I don't split the cotton! I have to admit that I do normally like to whizz along the rows as I crochet so it is making me stop and think about the process more than I usually do ~ but then again, that's no bad thing!!


I have had this particular project on my To Do List for ages now but I have never had the right yarn or colours to make it. As soon as I saw this yarn I thought to myself this is the one! And I can tell you that Rico Creative Cotton is very definitely the right yarn for the project ~ and although I'm not going to tell you what it is yet I'll leave you with a sneaky peek for the time being.

I hope you all have a lovely day and find plenty to make you smile too...........see you soon :O) xx

New Year ~ New Yarn

Is it really the 6th of January already? Where on earth does the time go to? As usual, I am a lot later than most of you in making an appearance in blogland this year ~ but none the less I'm here now to wish you all a very Happy New Year ~ I hope that 2011 is a good one for you :O)

I don't usually tend to make myself New Year resolutions because being the terribly unorganised person that I am I never, ever stick to them ~ so really there is no point! However, I have been looking back over my little bloggy space for last year and noticed a distinct lack of posts!! Only 24 posts in a whole year!! How rubbish is that?? It really is a wonder that I have any of you lovely readers left!! So ...........what I am actually trying to say is that I WILL try harder to post a bit more often this year, and more importantly, I WILL try harder to finish some lovely crafty things so that I actually have something to post about!!


A New Year just has to have some New Yarn ~ or so I told myself!! And isn't this lovely lot absolutely gorgeous? I decided to buy myself a little yarny present and opted for this collection of Rico creative cotton and to tell you the truth I can't wait to get started with it. I love the brightness of the colours ~ they are just begging to made into something bright and cheery ~ I'm not quite sure what that something is yet, but I will let you know as soon as I have decided.

Right..........I think I can hear the kettle calling to me, so it must be time for a cup of tea and perhaps a little bit of pondering over some Rico creativity.

See you all soon :O)xxx