Tuesday, April 22, 2014

A special weekend ........

A most wonderful weekend of over indulgence in chocolate and hot cross buns,  family fun and much laughter.  Victoria's bed is still a work in progress as the framework has to be attached but all the sewing is complete and I will have to share pictures later.

A welcome visit from my nephew had the two of us spending several hours going through old (some very old) photographs of family.  Sadly some of them are pre-war and without any identification it is hard to put names to the faces we do not know. 

A special Easter egg hunt is held for the children in our village and as part of the fun we display a king size cardboard egg in the front window of the house.  I also made an Easter egg tree display this year,  something I used to do when my children were small.  We had a plentiful supply of eggs from our hens and they had great fun painting the blown eggs.  Unfortunately these fragile eggs have not survived several moves.   I found the plastic eggs in our local Lidl store and with the addition of two very beautiful hand painted Russian eggs made a pretty display.



After my recent attempt to knit a dress for one of my bears I purchased a new pattern which I thought would be just perfect for a small bear.  In theory perhaps but the pattern was designed using 4ply yarn and in my usual scatter brained fashion I just substituted fine yarn and needles.  The result is a rather tiny little top,  does look quite cute 'tho as I added feminine lace and ribbon trimmed overalls and Arabella is now on E-bay.  Perhaps the moral of the story is to read the pattern through and calculate the number of stitches before starting a project ...... but then who reads the instructions anyway!  The pattern is a little fiddly as the lace section is a narrow strip knitted separately.  The stitches are then picked up and the top section is attached. I have very basic experience in 'lace' knitting and found the knit three together part somewhat difficult with such tiny knitting needles.  Next time I will try it out using baby 3ply yarn and size 16 needles.


We were thrilled when Silly Bears store in Aberdeen commissioned a selection of miniature bears from us.  They are now on their website together with some amazing creations from other artists from around the world.  Miniature bears are not easy to photograph.   I personally think that some of the wonderful bears including ours, do not look their best in the pictures and that the black background is rather harsh.  Megan experimented with taking a photograph of all the bears laid out flat,  something different and a good idea.  Might need to experiment a little but a simple way to do a grouping.  The theme was a 'teddy bear's picnic' and here are all the little girls together in their pretty pastel dresses ready to join in the fun.


Now that the holidays are over,  it is back to work and I have several new orders to complete.   I must admit to a mental block for ideas to make something different for Teddy Bears of Witney annual catalogue and I need to come up with a design very soon.  I also have to complete my Bead Soup project and this has been rather difficult with several ideas being rejected.  As the deadline is fast approaching the next couple of days will see me busy beading.

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~Gail Lumet Buckley

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I love looking at your charming bears and delightful blog, it's a joy to read, thank you! Keep up the good work
regards Hazel

Elizabeth said...

The little knitted dress looks lovely, glad I'm not the only one who gets a surprise when I knit. Beautiful bears as always, as is your blog.

Cathyraggedy said...

they are so sweety girls and i love your little Easter tree. big hugs

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