Happy birthday witchcat!

Today my beautiful little girl turned 5. Lets see some cute photos from over the years shall we? *photo heavy post, cause why not?*

This one was taken fairly recently when I sat down to look at some doll making.

 One of my faves, taken by Dave da housemate

 

Mabel chills out in the sink after a hard day

 Cat & fiddle, she used to be terrified of my violin, now she actually seems to calm down when she hears me tuning up...

 

Asleep as usual

 

At my brothers for Christmas, I was worried she wouldn't settle, I was wrong...

 

Mabel does her bit for the Oxford Folk Festival by laminating the backstage passes...

 

Yes?

 Proof if any was needed that she is the witchiest cat in the west

What do you want? I'm comfy

And it isn't just me who has fallen under her spell, despite their initial disagreements I walked in on this the other evening

It seems no one can resist her charms. Happy birthday beautiful girl!

the one where I buy the oversize porcerlain cat...

This weekend I met up with the wonderful Alex to have a royally overdue catchup and explore the delights of Camden market. When I was a teenager Camden market was my go to place for all things cool (my uncle had a flat round the corner in the very posh Regents parks area and gave my mum a key to his place so we could pop in whenever we wanted) however since swapping the streets of London for the golden glow of Oxford I haven't been back. Would I be disappointed? Would Camden not be cool anymore? I needn't have worried, all was as it should be. Alex took me to a fantastic tea shop for lunch (a baguel and delicious chocolate cake) and then we headed to the market. One of the first things we saw was a 3ft high black poreclain cat in a shop stuffed full of 60's items. To say it was love at first sight would not be an understatement, but we had just started shopping. We asked the shopkeeper about it (as well as the prospect of getting it shipped to Oxford (they had a massive sign announcing they shipped worldwide). No she couldn't ship it had we felt how heavy it was? We felt, it was pretty heavy. Alex valiently offered to carry it for me, but we would have to go back for it later. I asked the lady if she would save it & that wasn't possible either so after wandering round London all afternoon (and visiting this very cool camera shop, I really want one of these) we returned, and to my joy it was still there. So guess where it is now? That's right, at home with me :-)

Halloween/Samhein eve

There were plans, big plans to host a party of our own this year (you can find details of last years halloween party here), the universe it seems had other plans, arranging my next exam for Wednesday and a friends wedding this weekend. So Jam, the witchcat and I had our own small celebration of sorts (I'll be doing my own samhein ritual as usual tonight as well). There was of course a pumpkin, skillfully carved by Jam who expects me to believe he has never done this before (?!?), there was cake, bought in from the local shop and arranged artfully on my new cobwebby cake stand, a haunted house bought by a neighbour who knows exactly how much I love this time of year and dancing. I was also persuaded to don my fancy dress outfit of choice for some lovely new photos of me and my favourite/only familar. What a cutie pie. Happy Samhein!

A stitch in time

So (or should that be sew? :-) all I seem to be doing lately is sewing for various different people (all of whom are lovely so that's okay). The first project was a delayed valentines present for the boy. He is a bit of a tea fiend so what better than to give him some hand made heart shaped teabags? Why not have a go yourslf all you need is some loose tea, a bit of muslin, needle & thread and quite a bit of time/patience. Cut out lots of hearts from the muslin (cause it is so thin you can do a couple or more at a time), it's worth making a template for this bit as that gets them a bit more uniform & also then you can make sure you have enough room to put the tea in. Put two together and stitch round them till you get to the top part of the heart, fill with tea & then stitch up the gap. After that you can add an extra bit of thread to the top so the tea bag can be fished out. I made the box for mine too, but I'm sure you could put these in all sorts of containers and give them as presents. I don't think he has used them yet so I'm still not sure if my workmanship will stand up but the finished things were really pretty (and I think he liked them so that's good :-).

Second project is for my friend David (we met as undergraduates at Lancaster and then when I came for this job guess who was already working here?), he and his wife have just had a little girl (Amelia, photo below, we think she is gonna be a bit of a heartbreaker). so I decided to crochet her a blanket, nothing too fancy just double crochet all the way homemade and big enough to keep her warm/wrapped up from those summer chills. When I started we weren't sure whether she was going to be a boy or girl so I wanted to do purple, but there were no nice colours in that so I went blue instead but I'm sure she'll be able to carry it off.

Final project is my latest commission. After the sucess of Lisa's wedding dress I've been approached to do several more bits for weddings. This latest one is my first foray into menswear making the hankies and cravats for a friends wedding (so the men match the bridesmaids, aww matchy matchy). We (in this instance me and physicist/should have been a dressmaker, Malcolm) managed to figure out a pattern so now it's just the hard work of sewing the things. The material is lovely (green but in some lights yellow, some lights purple) but it does seem to be having a tendancy to shed everywhere. Also as usual Mabel is trying her best to convince me that she should be the one doing the making (she has always been facinated by my knitting/crocheting (she likes the wool and has the tendancy to try and pick it up in her mouth and run away with it, not so helpful when you are doing it, especially if you haven't noticed, she also used to have her own stash/nest under my bed. I had to raid it and take most balls back however as she has quite expensive tastes). She also thinks the sewing machine is magic, and just sits and watches (which is quite nice if it's 2am the garment has to be finished by 8am and your housemate has gone to bed with earplus in (yes it's happened before)). Hopefully we won't be in for a repeat experience on this one, I've been trying to stick to a schedule and have been allowing myself some breaks so I don't get tired and have to redo stuff. The other definite advantage is on this partiular commision although there is still no money (one day) we are swapping crafts, so I get a cross stich done for me in exchange for my labours (I have patience yes but not the amount needed for that :-)

Gratuitous shots of witchcat

Dave my housemate bought a camera in the January sales and short of a professional model guess who he's been testing it on???? Yes you guessed it the witchcat gets everywhere. The bottom shot was also taken on a cold day a week or so ago when Mabel was snuggling in the cover. All together now
Awwwwww who's a pretty girl?