Mixed offering

Well now, what have we to offer today…

Firstly, an update on the little knitted shoes (they really couldn’t be simpler!), because they got buttons! 

And then we tried to photograph them on the baby, who just can’t seem to keep still 😮

 

Just like her mum, then.

Then there is something else I promised you last time, ta-da:

It took a bit longer than the 7 weeks Ieading up to Christmas from when it came into my home, but finally, the first enormous red bloom has appeared on my amaryllis. Well, it’s about 3/4 of the way but I’m impatient so had to show it off! The second bud is even taller and the shiny green just beginning to split –

But look, sneaking in at the bottom is a third bud! Nice surprise!

Now, what else…

I have never been to New York. But when I do go there, one day, it’s not guitar heaven I shall be heading for, like my BIL, or Tiffany’s, like my friend, but Purl Soho, a shop that sells yarn and fabric and everything else inbetween, apparently, and looks like paradise. I might never leave it. I might need longer in there than in any museum (and that’s saying something!). I might have to save for 10 years before I can go to able to afford so many goodies and to pay for them to be cargoed back to Europe! Anyway, while I drool away quietly, there’s a great blog there, at http://www.purlbee.com (the main site is http://www.purlsoho.com and includes an online shop…and they sell MadelineTosh!) where there are some gorgeous patterns to be had. Seeing the success of the above shoes, how better to expand a baby girl’s shoe wardrobe than with some of these:

Free instructions to be found at http://www.purlbee.com/felt-baby-shoes/ and dead simple by the look of them! I shall definitely be trying them out, anyway, too pretty not to.

Of course, I could also be found blissfully wandering through Kate Spade, the only designer I have seen so far who stirs in me any kind of desire for her style – but that stuff wouldn’t fit me anyway, so perhaps I’ll just stick with Purl Soho!

Very cute Kate Spade hedgehog purse!

I’ve also been raving about a children’s book I came across. Called “Wildwood” by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, a husband and wife writer/illustrator team who have created a really charming, classic book for children probably 8-13 age group, though I’m convinced anyone older will enjoy it just as much (and it’s quite a tome!). Exquisitely written and with plenty of adventure, I’m sure Prue and Curtis will keep everyone absorbed with their excursion into Wildwood. Personally, I think it’s going to be BIG, if it isn’t already! 

Not only is there a charming introduction to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLacpZuYNo8&feature=player_embedded but also a short interview with Meloy/Ellis here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9fA6fCIXWL0

In my view, it’s up there with Rowling, Pullman and Funke as a modern classic.

In our part of the world, we’ve got a bit of wild wood feeling, too – not only raging windstorms but this afternoon, the works, with thunder, lightning and thick hail smashing against the northern façade of the house and now piled up everywhere, pretending to be snow… the neighbour’s flagpole came down and missed both our roof and a telephone wire by inches (fortunately), held back by the fence, at which point it bent and broke. Still, you never know, we might still get some s n o w, like the rest of the country – eventually.