It's been ages since ....

I last wrote on my blog so here I am back! Life is busy out on the Yorkshire Wolds, very cold right now and snow expected. So what has been happening well start with me - joined a lifestyle group and have lost two and a half stone and still losing - dropped 2 dress sizes so far will be able to sideways behind a lamp post soon! (in my dreams) I returned to Harris during the late summer and saw some old friends on Harris and in Stornoway. Stayed at Urgha in Nina's ma in laws self catering cottage for a week - it was good to go back. Have since been to Norfolk to the boathouse again and also to Staithes just over the border into Cleveland. Lovely little fishing village hanging on to the sides of a very steep valley, the road down into the village is just about vertical and no space for anything - built before cars, all the houses are higgledy piggledy and streets have names like Slippery Hill. It was second homing in the extreme as it appears that most of the houses are holiday lets. We stayed in a tiny tiny one bedroom cottage built into the side of the cliff, sat outside most mornings (first week in December) catching the sun, knitting socks - have had a lot of orders.
What else - Lizzie graduated in the summer Textile Design and Print, doesn't have a job as yet but is signed up to do a business course with the Princes' Trust with a view to setting up a small studio in a converted warehouse in Leicester, apparently small spaces are let out very cheaply for people to get started. Lizzie wants to work with Harris Tweed making accessories and has lots of other ideas too.
I have also joined the Countrywomen's Association bit like the WI but not the same. Was encouraged to enter handicrafts in the village show and won the cup with socks, bags, corsage, baby beanies, sheep, brooches and some other things!
We are getting ready like everyone else for Christmas, have been feeding the cakes for a little while and next week is marzipan and icing. Again have orders - they will all be traditional, lots of royal icing! I have copied Kirstie (or maybe she copied me!) and have made most of my presents this year - socks and Harris Tweed bags, have done a new design and called it a bucket bag - Harris Tweed outside, vintage cotton lining, pinched across the bottom so it sits, quite big for shopping, holding the knitting and magazines or for use as a handbag, can come with a closure or with short or shoulder length natural jute handles, trimmed in natural jute. Gives a good contrast to the tweed and very sturdy. Again have had lots of orders and will be putting some on e bay in the new year when I have built the stock up a bit. They have been selling well locally. Carrying on my 'Tinshed' label they are called 'Tinshedbags' - Handmade in Yorkshire with the Harris Tweed label on the tweed. Here are some pics of the bags and the christmas tree with the morning sun coming through the door, Santa arriving by chandelier and Hamish sitting by the woodburner hoping someone will be going outside in the cold to fill the log basket! Well that is it for now - off down the big road tomorrow to Mansfield and then on Sunday Father Christmas is coming to our nearby town with his reindeer to the Christmas market - looking forward to that! Pictures to follow and if it snows - wow!