Fibre-East Festival, 27th July 2014.

 

These delightful black piggies were part of my day last Sunday, when Larry and I went to the Fibre-East Festival at Redborne Upper School in Ampthill. There is a farm on the school where the pupils can learn animal husbandry. The animals were extremely well kept and happy and the pig-house even had piped music installed to keep the pigs entertained.

 

There was a farm shop, where I bought some fresh eggs and some honey and in the freezer there were all sorts of home produced meats.

Here are some pictures of the fibre festival itself. Larry and I had a wonderful time looking around and it has inspired him to take up weaving!

There was have-a-go spinning for beginners:

 

There were weaving looms galore.

 

Lots and lots of yarn. Here I am checking out some wonderful, purple art yarn.

 

Bales of roving in all natural colours and livid ones too.

 

Hand-made drum carders:

 

I was interested in those but they were very expensive.

 

Just look at these gorgeous colours:

and of course there were sheep!

 

 

 

and a sheep shearing demonstration:

and the fleece was for sale too. I didn’t buy one. I am still working on the one I’ve got!

Have a great weekend, whatever you do!

Oma

 

We have a new member of the family.

Please meet’ Sausage’. He is the latest member of our family to join the cottage. He is the result of my latest crafty effort and he is a sausage dog (in case you didn’t guess).

He likes to hide behind the washing basket…

and sneak up on the cat …

He has a very stripey body …

and very short legs.

But we all love him 🙂

The Church Christmas Bazaar – cupcakes galore!

Last Saturday we had the Christmas Bazaar at church. Larry and I had a ‘Tea-Time Stall with all things tea-time on it. Our stall wasn’t very big so we couldn’t display too much at once, but it did have the advantage of being over the heat vent so we were nice and warm throughout the proceedings. I was a bit worried about the toppings on my cup-cakes melting, but they sold so quickly that I needn’t have been concerned.

I got the recipe out of a new cook-book, which a dear friend gave me recently. Over here in England, cup-cakes are a relatively new invention (correct me if I’m wrong please). In any case they are new to me. I am more familiar with fairy cakes, which are a good deal smaller and have a lot less topping on. Here you see the completed cupcakes. I made three sorts; blueberry, chocolate chip and all chocolate. Larry was allowed to eat one of them!

There were lots of other stalls and I thought you might like to see some of them:

This is our ‘Tea-Time Stall’ again, this time showing how I present some of the cakes – in tea-cups. The tea cups were also for sale so the visitors could buy the cakes on their own or a cake in a cup. You can also see the tea cosies I made and the pot holders.

Next is the main cake stall with lots of attractive goodies for sale.

There was a raffle for the hamper. I bought a whole book of tickets, but I didn’t win anything.

This stall sold ‘smellies’. I bought the pink shower bag. It had some body lotion inside!

There were lots of books for sale:

Bric-a-brac

These hand-made gingerbread men were beautifully made.

We had a very well-designed bottle stall…

I hope you enjoyed your trip around the bazaar and if you are having your own bazaar soon, I wish you well with it.

Oma

Humpty Bunny

This is Humpty Bunny. He’s a full-sized cushion and I make him regularly for one of my sons, who likes to rest his head on him in bed whilst reading. Apparently he’s just right for that purpose.

I made this one whilst I was in America last year, but when he was finished he had to travel back to England.

Here he is in the car awaiting the journey.

 

and my last cuddle before parting with him on his long trek:

 

I wouldn’t like to say how many of these I have made, but each one comes out just a little different to the rest.

I’m pleased to report that he arrived safely and is now resting after all the excitement.