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Happy Birthday HRH

Today is Queen Elizabeth II’s 80th birthday. It is the day on which she was actually born, but for some strange reason the formal celebration of this day is in June. I could never quite figure that one out. A royal birthday suggests something regal and what better than a “cuppa” high tea brewed under […]

knitting

Coffee Cozy by Sarah James Patterns

Here is our first designer coffee cozy. Ann, designer of Sarah James Patterns, has kindly given us the pattern for her basic coffee cup cover. Thank you so much! To see more cozies, beyond the basic, curser down to the bottom of this page on Sarah James’ site. The pattern may be ordered from your

Blog

Coffee Cozy

Here is our first designer coffee cozy. Ann, designer of Sarah James Patterns, has kindly given us the pattern for her basic coffee cup cover. Thank you so much! To see more cozies, beyond the basic, curser down to the bottom of this page on Sarah James’ site. The pattern may be ordered from your

Blog

Sunshine and Lollipops

I thought that you might like some eye candy, just in case you didn’t get any treats from the Easter bunny. Here are two new scarves from Fiddlesticks Knitting which can be joined with a twist to form Mobius’. I think it’s tricky to make that one plural. What was even trickier was trying to

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Of Cats, Spats and Cream Soda

The story about Sir Humphrey reminded me of a poem by T.S. Eliot in his book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” – the basis of the musical “Cats”. In fact I had had this particular cat in mind when I designed one of my cat mittens. Here is the first verse of the poem

knitting, unicorns

A Cat for All Seasons

Perhaps you’ve heard of Sir Humphrey Appleby, the infamous cat of 10 Downing St. Well I hadn’t and I was amazed to read an article about him in a magazine recently. Apparently Sir Humphrey has been around for a long time. He appeared one day at the front door of the aforementioned address, when Margaret

gardening, knitting

Snuffiest of Snowdrops

When we use the superlative have we reached the sublime? I think we may have here. This is a link to a site with a wonderful picture of Snowdrops and a lovely poem about Snowdrops. I think that the poet must have distilled the essence of “snowdrop-ness” and had it drip (by drops) into her

gardening, knitting

Snuffier Snowdrops

This has nothing to do with Spring allergies. I just thought that the picture of Snowdrops in the earlier post wasn’t up to “snuff.” It didn’t really capture the “essence” of Snowdrops – whatever that might be, so I took a few pictures of other more sheltered clumps around the garden and came up with

gardening

A Snuff of Snowdrops

Sorry that’s the best I could do with Snowdrops – a Flowering of Forsythia was easier. Anyway we take our highs where we can get them and these are the first flowers up in the garden. Actually they were up about the second week in March; but it turned cold again, so I had to

knitting

Romancing the bean

Jolene Treace very kindly sent me her thoughts on designing and related them directly to designing a coffee coat. Jolene’s ideas are pure poetry. Such sensitivity and understanding for such a simple task suggests the tremendous amount of thought and feeling that Jolene brings to her sweater, shawl and scarf designs. Here is what Jolene

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