WHITE CHRISTMAS

Just a week before Christmas I was carefully explaining to the Little Lockets that, even though all the Christmas cards suggested otherwise, the chances of actually having a White Christmas were very slim indeed.

So you can imagine how delighted they were to see me proved totally and utterly wrong this year!


And once everyone had safely arrived at my parents' house (especially Mr Locket who was the last to arrive on Christmas Eve in the midst of further heavy snow)


we were able to relax and enjoy the lovely white stuff because..................

Snow + excited children + lovely big cousins

= LOTS OF FUN


And if you asked the Little Lockets what the best part of Christmas was it would definitely be the toboganning (with presents coming a very close second!)


And with my brand new, perfectly designed for me, even if I did have to chop the top 3 inches off to make them fit my fat legs, button wellies

even I was persuaded to go toboganning!

Totally mad fun - but I drew the line at going down THIS slope

Merry Christmas!!!

Santa and Rudolph Locket would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas - and so would I!

Hope you receive lots of crafty Christmas presents and have a really wonderful time!!!

Lucy xxxx

Rainbows in the snow

It may be snowing nearly everywhere in the country at the moment - and we certainly have a good amount here - but last week was ALL about
rainbows!

I was very excited when my parcel from Trashy's Rainbow Swap arrived - especially when I discovered it was from my wonderful friend Est of My Cuppa Charms!

I love, love, LOVE everything Est makes - her creations are always so cute and happy - and I'm lucky enough to already own quite a few gifts from my lovely, generous friend. My mini-quilt makes me smile every morning!

And look at all the new goodies I have received:

the most gorgeous mini rainbow pot, friendship bracelet and embroidered button

a beautiful rose-sachet inside the prettiest cover ever! I love those fabrics!

and the teeny-tiniest needlecase with rainbow pages!

(I've borrowed Est's photos because mine were really rubbish)

Est also sent cute stickers, a little clip and a lovely Christmas decoration!

I'm so delighted with all my presents - thank you so much Est - I'm so lucky to have you as one of my special friends!

An embarassment to my family

Ok,


So I've always been a bit of an embarassment to my family......................



................but in Dot's eyes, at least, I managed to excel myself last weekend.

And the weird thing is that I didn't see anything odd in it at all.

In fact, even with retrospect, I would still do exactly the same thing.

Am I alone in this?

Would you have behaved differently?

Is it a "crafter" thing?

Or a "blogger" thing?

Or is it just a "Lucy Locket having no idea of how to behave" kind of thing?

So, what did I do?



Well, last Saturday, having received a tip-off (via Ravelry and Periwinkle) that one of our local wool shops were selling off Regia Galaxy sock yarn for £1.20 a ball, Dot, Daisy and I popped to said l-w-s to have a looksie.

And there it was.

Perfectly lovely sock wool

for only £1.20.

Bargain-Schmargin.

(Especially as I was one of the unlucky knitters who pounced on the "superwash" bargain sock wool from LIDL only to discover that it wasn't superwash at all)


Anyway.....................................................................

.......................as we were leaving the shop another lady entered.

A few steps down the pavement Dot suddenly said:

"Oh! You know that lady that just went into the shop? That's my English teacher Mrs M!"

So here is the point where normal mothers would have just said

"that's nice dear" and carried on walking to the car.


So why, oh why am I not one of those "normal mothers"?


Because my response was to say "Oh! Right! Let's go and say hello!"


Dot protested.


A lot.


But was duly dragged back into the shop.................................


............where I found said lady teacher (looking at the Regia wool no less) and promptly introduced myself (and made Dot say hello too).



Apparently this is NOT what mother's of 12 year old daughters are meant to do.


Even if it turns out that the teacher is a member of Ravelry and actually reads this blog


But it is TOTALLY what a Lucy Locket type mother does

so, I'm sorry Dot, but you are stuck with me!


And Mrs M - it was lovely to meet you - and fortunately I think Dot has forgiven me! And thank you for the tip off about the new Regia at Kemps! I hope we get to meet up again soon.


But I really am curious..................................


what would you have done in the same circumstances?


It was a wool shop after all.....................I probably wouldn't have done the same thing in the local supermarket..........................would I???????

Poorly knitting

Being poorly and spending all my time in my cosy corner has definitely increased my woolly-productivity

During the recent London adventure we went to Loop - such a fabulous shop - and I bought some Malabrigo Silky Merino.....

I'm now totally in love with this wool and just want more and more - it is gorgeous!

And I really love the Baktus scarf and pretty-ified Toast mittens that it became.

It was extravagant - but not too bad when you think of what you could pay for a lovely soft scarf and mittens, and definitely not bad when you think about how much I enjoyed every minute of knitting it.

I've also managed to finish another sock (the orange one)


and had to photograph it very quickly, along with another I found in my knitting basket, because my feet were FREEZING and I was desperate to put them on! I have spent the last week ONLY wearing handknit socks - they are so cosy and lovely - I just need to knit lots more!

I even managed to dig out my ripple blanket, sew in all the ends (thousands) and add a couple of rows.


It's going to stay on the sofa now as it is big enough to be useful and now the ends are tidied up I can just add a row whenever I feel like it.

Finally, although I haven't been feeling well enough to play on the sewing machine, I have been looking at my Christmas quilt and need your advice.....


It is small enough to benefit from a border so

a) do you think it should have one or not?

and if so should it be

b) the red?


or

c) the turquoise?



What do you reckon?

Lucy x

Bleurgh

Sorry for the lack of posts lately

but this is where I have been spending most of my time

my cozy, poorly corner of the sofa.

Hopefully normally blogging service will resume soon.

Locket xxx

Presents and a special day

So I promised to show you the lovely goodies from Monda

My main present was this gorgeous Monda original stitched picture specially designed for my pink sewing room.

(but go here to see Monda's photo of it - my photo doesn't do it justice)

Monda also included some of her gorgeous cards that I have been coveting for ages


and one of her fabulous Christmas trees!


Thank you so much Monda - I love everything and you have really spoilt me!

And I was inspired by Monda to make this

for Mr Locket for our 15th Wedding Anniversary today!

I had planned to stitch on top too but I think the piece of card is too big to get under the machine - I still like it as it is, and most importantly, so does Mr Locket!

Happy Anniversary Jonathan - you are the best!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quick Halloween, Quilt and Present update

Two naughty Lockets ready to party - unfortunately Dot was poorly :o(
But Fred isn't meant to have spooky eyes - I just couldn't edit them away this time :o/

The only time Locketland looks tidy - when the lights are out!

Party!!!!!!!

(Well 2 actually - one on Friday night and then our own delayed "party in the dark No.2" with bagel snakes, sausage hedgehog, monster chocolate mini rolls, witch's brew diet coke and special cupcakes with Anna's candycorn for decoration.)

Moving on to crafty stuff - here is the latest stage of the zig-zag quilt.

The top is nearly completed and now I need to decide what fabric to use for the backing - I'm leaning towards the turquoise spot (which isn't really as dark as it looks and matches the centre of the darker turquoise in the prints)

What do you think?


And before I go I will leave you with a peek at the gorgeous PIF present I received from Monda

so come back next time to see what was in it!

Happy November!

Lucy x

Something rather exciting......................

.....................happened yesterday at work.

At least, I thought it was exciting,

especially in the context of my usual days full of emails and admin.

But more of that later!

First I need to tell you about my lovely lovely friend Anna
(who I'm sure is probably your lovely lovely friend Anna too seeing as she really is so super lovely)

(picture pinched from Anna's blog - hope you don't mind Anna?!)

because we received a gorgeous and totally unexpected parcel of goodies from her on Saturday!


To say that the children were ecstatic is a bit of an understatement!

And the funny thing is that I was actually out in the sewing room when the parcel arrived, cutting the gorgeous Christmas fabrics that Anna gave me LAST October when we met up in Edinburgh!

I'm using this tutorial by Crazy Mom Quilts to turn these strips

into a zigzag quilt for Christmas - and I'm loving it, even if the photos are awful!

So Anna, THANK YOU..............

for our halloween goodies

my gorgeous fabrics

and especially for being such a lovely friend!

Please come and visit the UK again soon!


Now, back to my other exciting happenings.........................

................I was busy at work yesterday when one of the students on the MA that I am programme secretary for called at the office.

We happened to get chatting and somehow it came out that we were both crafty/sew-y/knitty types.........................

and then she pulled her sock knitting out of her bag and said "this is the Mystery Sock I am doing at the moment"

So I said "Oooooh! Is it by Through the Loops? My friend is doing that pattern."

And do you know what?

It was!

And we had a lovely time chatting about patterns and woolshops and Ravelry etc with me looking over my shoulder to check I wasn't going to be called back to my desk!!!

Now I know that in the great scheme of things that isn't really all that exciting.

But it was to ME,

and to have my two worlds of YAY-crafting and Oh-but-do-I-HAVE-to-working overlap like that was truly fab!

The only problem was that I REALLY didn't want to go back to work afterwards!

So M, if you do happen to look at my blog, thanks for improving my day dramatically yesterday!


Finally, after all that chat, I will leave you with some photos of my latest knitting

A Kaffe Fassett pattern called, for some weird reason, Tainted Scarf, knitted first in a fairly chunky wool - um, Venezia I think


and then in the most gorgeous 4 ply sock wool


(handwash only, which is why I'm not knitting socks with it!)

What a helpful little chap!

So there I was,

sitting peacefully watching a film with Poorly Daisy

whilst knitting my new scarf,

when I was RUDELY interrupted by a cheeky little wabbit!Hmmm.

Alice in Wonderland clearly wasn't keeping Alfie's attention!


so he did a few poses for the camera

(is it just me, or does he look like he's sticking his tongue out at me in that last one?)
and ran round his play-pen thingummy like a loony!

But despite these distractions the scarf was finished..............

Noro Blossom with a Kidsilk Haze ruffle...........
and very difficult to photograph as it is actually an elongated triangle - almost shawl shaped

and modelled by Poorly Daisy just before we went to fetch Fred from school.

Ahhh! I love it when I finish something!

Does it make me Happy????

Oh yes it does!

A post about lots of things that have made me happy lately!

Gorgeous presents in the post:


beautiful pink bunting from Katie's pink shed to mine - as she said on the label, "you can never have too much pink!" She also sent loads of fabric and crafty goodies!


a gorgeous cotton reel pincushion commissioned by Trashy from LucyKate

and personalised specially for me!!!

and a fabulous seaside purse from Missus Moogs because she knew how much I coveted the one she had made for her partner in the seaside swap.


It's the perfect size for my sock knitting


and is extra special because there was a very scary time when I really thought it had been accidentally thrown in the bin!

I searched the house for it, shouted at everyone to um, encourage them to look for it too, and, after a traumatic weekend turning the house upside down, eventually had to ring Missus Moogs to confess that it had gone missing.

So I think you can probably imagine my ecstatic relief when I found it about 2 weeks later! I squealed very loudly down the phone to MM and I think she was rather pleased that her kind birthday present to me hadn't actually ended up in the bin!

The other thing making me very happy is, of course, young Alfie McAlfie!


He's really becoming part of the family and spends most evenings in the sitting room with us.




Totally fab!

Although I have to confess that he bit Daisy's finger this evening :o(
she wasn't very happy about that! Hopefully he won't be doing it again!!!