I haven't had much to report because I've been working my way through Ditsybead orders. I don't know if I'm gradually getting worse at beadmaking or if I'm struggling in some other way (my absolute pillock of a fussy brain) but I've found the past couple of weeks' lampworking to be extremely difficult and stressful. I've closed orders for the flower beads now and I don't think it'd be wise for me to do the taking bead orders thing again. I have a couple of orders outstanding which I will get done, but not today. Today is a day off after yesterday when I attempted one single flower bead eighte ..read more

More Ditsybead pairs, this time in Double Helix Theia and Effetre dark topaz/amber 016. These can be purchased on my Available to Order page. I worked on bead orders this morning but I had to abandon shed at lunchtime when the thermometer said it was 35.7°C in there. That's too warm to think straight. I'll have to make an early start out there in the morning. In crochet news... I'm waiting for a yarn delivery as I have a blanket planned so in the meantime I've been making more mandalas. I find the go-roundy-roundness of making a doily or mandala to be very relaxing. They're nice small proj ..read more

Well, summer has truly arrived. It was the summer solstice yesterday and now it's 23°C out there. I've even got my shorts on! I've been working on Ditsybeads this week and I've made pairs of them available to order. I don't often do this but I'm in the zone with them and I feel okay about staying in said zone for a bit, so I thought I'd take a few orders. Blue: Effetre dark turquoise 236 Right now there are six options available but I will be adding more next week including some in my favourite purple glass, Double Helix Theia. Green: CiM Meadow The pink Ditsybeads will be l ..read more

The sunflower throw is complete and what a joybringer it is. It makes me smile every time I look at it. It measures about 100cm x 120cm so it's a good size to use as throw on a sofa or chair back and it's just right for a curled-up-on-the-settee blanket. I steam blocked the throw to set the stitches which gives it a nice finished look. The throw is available in my Etsy shop or webshop but for UK customers only. Pattern: Sunflower Throw by Libbycraftmakes Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK ..read more

I'm not really a pink person but I'm quite taken with these pink Ditsybeads. They're CiM Gelly's Sty encased with Effetre 006 super clear with flowers in Effetre white 204 and Reichenbach opal raspberry. And these plum-coloured ones are Effetre medium amethyst 042 encased with Effetre 006 super clear with flowers in Effetre white 204 and CiM Hollandaise. Both of these sets are in my webshop now, along with the lime and teal ones from my previous post ..read more

When did I last make Ditsybeads? I think it was about a year ago. (I've just checked and yes it was. I wanged on about them for a whole blog post.) When I've not made a certain design for a while it's like I have to retrain my hands and brain in how to execute it. I spent Thursday doing just that and ended up with five Ditsybeads that made it to the kiln. Of those five, two are not quite right, one is just about passable and two I'm happy with. This photo shows the latter three. Today will be about properly getting back into the swing of making Ditsybeads, good ones that I'm totally happy ..read more

I'm continuing to blog as if nobody's reading (because they aren't) as I'm convinced that blogging is going to make a comeback. Every day I see another person or two say that they're ditching Instagram and I don't blame them. Even if blogging doesn't make a comeback, I care not. I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of writing future blog posts in my head, taking photos of potentially bloggable things and not feeling any pressure to be seen or read, or feeling like I have to perform some weird meme-like behaviour in order to engage. Anyway, if you recall, yesterday I was off down to the she ..read more

I've had a few days off from the shed so I have no beads to show you. Instead, behold my third octopus! My nephew, Dylan, requested one and he chose these two yarn colours for him which I think are fab. Dylan received his octopus yesterday and he's named him Jaquarius. Fancy! That's it for octopi (unless anyone else asks me for one) but I'm still going with the shawls. It's a proper addiction. I think I'm going to have to brave getting a craft stall somewhere around Christmas time because I've got so many now. I mean, I could stop making them but I don't want to because I enjoy it. I made t ..read more

There's something so calming about this colour combination. My eyes find it soothing. These ones have CiM Dirty Martini cores encased with a thick layer of Effetre pale emerald green 031 and the polka dots and spacers are Effetre light lavender blue (which is sometimes called pastel ink blue which was its original name) 247. These beads are available in both my Etsy shop and my my webshop. I made a confession to my sister yesterday. We've always loathed Crocs and swore we'd never own any. I've been mercilessly rude about them and I think they're one of the ugliest items of footwear ever cre ..read more

I've cleaned and sorted my Lonelies this morning. I'm always surprised at how they mount up. A lot of them are duplicates from other sets where I'll have made three of one style because initially I wasn't happy with a dot placement or it ended up a millimetre smaller or larger than it should be. Then next morning when I take them out of the kiln I can't see the dot placement issue and the size difference is barely visible so I end up with more beads than I need for a strand so into the Lonelies pot the extras go. I've divided this batch of Lonelies into two strands and each one contains fiv ..read more