Birthday boy

Today is our dogs birthday, he is seven years old! To celebrated we had a walk together around the fields this afternoon. Although still very cold here with frost on the ground, there was a beautiful blue sky. This is such a lovely change from the terrible grey, wet days we had over the Christmas and New Year break.

Birthday boy 

Blue sky! even a shadow

and signs of spring!

 Although it is quite a while ago now, just a few photos of Christmas...

We had friends and neighbours around for drinks on Christmas Eve which was a lovely relaxed evening - well, once the rush of getting everything ready was over - mulled wine, lots of nibbles and plenty of chat - set the tone for the rest of the break!

I think apart from taking the dog for a walk we didn't venture outside. On boxing day we all went for a local walk with the dog, and the next day went across to the NE to visit relations.

Over the break M wanted to eat apple pie, so she made a pie which turned out to be a fantastic work of art as well as really yummy. The filling was apple and cinnamon, so very festive. Not sure where she got the recipe from, but hope she can remember as I would like to make it again.

Felted Angels

I'm going along to a felting class this term which is held at a local school. I really enjoy the class, the tutor Annie is so welcoming and encouraging and has shown us the basics of wet felting over the past weeks. The other students in the group are also so friendly and love to share ideas and bring in things that they have made at home, and I really look forward to the class. Over the weeks we have covered how to make basic felt, have made flowers, made nuno felt and cobweb felt, felted stones and this last week started to make angels - for christmas decorations.

The angels are so cute and really quite easy to make with basic sewing skills, and can be made very individual with different decoration. We each made an A4 sized basic natural coloured felt with some added angelina fibres to add a bit of sparkle. Then a cone shape was cut to make the body and joined at the back with a row of running stitches. A head and arms were made and a triangle of felt cut for the wings. Then the angel can be decorated with buttons and stitching.

Making the felt

This is what we were aiming for 

Concentration!

J adding hair

Hopefully everyone will bring their angels back to the class next week so we can see the finished family of angels!

Update: a photo of the Angels - and even a Father Christmas! All so different!!