People to People People

Now, I'm not going to make excuses I'm going to write down what I've been up to!

First of all, there were an awful lot more scarves to make and they have finally been sent off to China! (As of yesterday actually). Bad news is that due to swine flu the volunteer group can't actually visit Mongolia... So instead they will be in nearby (ish) Beijing and the scarves etc will be sent on to them. This makes getting pictures of the kids somewhat difficult and possibly impossible.... There is the potential for a future trip though, so hopefully I'll get to see the smiling faces of children with warm hands necks and heads at some point!

Once the final shipment of scarves was out of the way I had a day or two to pack for my P2P delegation. (An american organisation that takes student ambassadors on educational trips around the world). They get to go to some awesome places, my trip lasted 18 days and we started in Ireland, moved through Wales, England, France, Belgium and Holland. I have absolutely no pictures as I was always busy phoning ahead to restaurants or trying to figure out where I was on the various maps I had which showed no knowledge of there being many hundreds of side roads that quite clearly existed in reality! So I finally arrived home (my liverpool home that is) on monday 6th absolutely knackered and since then I have been in a state of suspension i think. Not much is happening in my brain right now and I've achieved very little other than managing to drag myself back to Edinburgh last Sunday.

Since getting back here, I have managed to plant 2 blackcurrant bushes and one Gooseberry bush as well as retrieve a rose from my little, slightly abused, garden. As well as embark on a personal knitting project which is a pair of fingerless flap mittens. I'll get a picture up as soon as I've unpacked the camera from my suitcase which is still lying on the floor perfectly full of clothes and travel paraphernalia. They are really rather nice mittens!

Long time no see...

It's been a very long time since I've logged anything down, but for good reason! I've been very busy. 

The only project I've worked on properly has been the Charity Knitting for Mongolia project (I pumped out another 5 scarves this morning on the knitting machine!) but I've done a random bit of jewellery work, felting and silly magnet making from the eco-fi I bought some time ago.

I think first thing's first is the eco-fi! I was really excited when this turned up, just look at it! It colours couldn't be any more thrilling if it tried (I know, OTT). But I did that thing were you think "wow it's here! Yay! Now what?" So I just fooled around making some magnets. The original idea was to make magnets that kids could play with on the fridge so things like zoo animals, underwater scenes, garden creatures etc. So I started with a bee (yes, I haven't put the wings, legs or antennae on yet)

Then with some fruit (a strawberry and a kiwi fruit)

And also a clown fish for good measure. I think I'll carry on with the fruit theme, and maybe try to modify the bee a little bit. This would be really good if I could perfect a reasonably easy to produce but cute looking bee design because then they could be sold with my Dad's honey and beeswax candles! I also want to try to make some birds like owls, robins, blue birds, doves...

Next thing I want to share is my button jewellery. Sadly, I left my favourite bits at home. I'll put them up when I get them back, but I still really loved making these. This was very improve, I was so taken by an idea that I couldn't bare to wait and buy some findings, so I used staples instead! Which work really well actually, and look a bit different.

I had a bit of a felting mishap this week, I got really far to vigourous with a new (very large very pointy) felting needle and put it straight through my finger in a moment of utter stupidity. That stopped me knitting for a couple of days because it was right on the tip of my pointing finger... But nevermind, I got some very cute little critters out of the experience. They all escaped without being bled on too which was lucky!

Finally, the Charity Knitting. The deadline is looming and unfortunately I head off to my summer job tomorrow so I can't do much more knitting until I get back. But here is the fruit of my recent labour.