Tag Archives: blog awards

Playing catch up, planning tomorrow, blog awards and some inspirational blogs for you to enjoy

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Thanks to all of you who have either emailed me directly or left comments here and on Facebook wishing my sister Suzanne a speedy recovery, I will pass your messages on.  Both she and my mother came to Clasheen late yesterday afternoon for our delayed Mother’s Day dinner, asparagus, free range chicken with all the trimmings and an Irish whiskey laced fruit triffle, a good time was had by all!

This morning I am loafing around in my PJs and dressing gown, trying to catch up on all my internet mail and various other computer related tasks before heading over to welcome a new member to the Golf Club early this afternoon.  I have two meetings tonight as well so please forgive me if you are waiting for a response to a query or an answer to an email, I am trying to get to everybody as quickly as I can but it is definitely a battle hard fought from a time perspective at the moment!  Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and as Alan will be away with his family and Carmen is also free we have planned a stress free and active day of fun, fibre and felting.  I am going to try and have the studio and kitchen in some kind of order before I go to bed tonight making way for nothing but pleasure tomorrow, still not sure if I am going to continue with my series of cobweb scarves (thanks for the tips and comments), play around with some nuno experimenting or start on one of my planned sculptural pieces, will wait and see what the mood is in the morning.

The Sunshine Blog Award

Thanks to Angela Barrow and Chrissie Day who both recently awarded me the Sunshine Blog Award and I hope that you both don’t mind that I am accepting them simultaneously probably breaking some unwritten blogging rule in the process.  As far as I can understand it the sunshine award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blog world so thanks a million to Angela and Chrissie, it’s lovely to think that my ramblings go some way towards brightening your day!  The rules for accepting the sunshine award are (although you should feel free to ignore these rules and just enjoy the award!) put the logo on your blog or within your post, pass the award onto 12 bloggers, link the nominees within your post, let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog and share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.   

Tribe Talk

Before nominating some inspirational blogs for you all to check out using the Sunshine Blog Award guidelines I would also like to say thanks to Nic from NicKnits who via the Tribal Talk banner on It’s a Hodgepodge Life nominated me as one of her blogs to check out!  The blog that I would like to add to this fun group is That Artist Woman by Gail Bartel.

Irish Blog Awards

I have also discovered that I have made it to the long short lists for the Irish Blog Awards so thanks to the judges, sponsors, organisers and everyone who nominated me again this year, you all rock!

Now for some of the inspirational blogs that I follow myself and by the way, please don’t be offended if your own blog isn’t here.  Probably Angela, Chrissie or Nic linked through themselves or else I did myself somewhere in a recent post so I am not deliberately ignoring you, just trying to point you in a potentially new fibre direction (with the exception of Anna’s gardening blog) which I hope will light you your day today!  In no particular order …..

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Felting, dyeing and weaving, three inspirational books to buy!

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After the Feltmakers Ireland get together on Wednesday I popped into Borders bookshop in the Blanchardstown Centre, Dublin.  Carmen introduced me to the shop and it is really great, loads of magazines, plenty of craft books, big squishy leather arm chairs and a Starbucks on the upper level!  I was really looking for something inspirational to buy with either new felting ideas or some crochet patterns that were funky and would work up quickly.  Nothing jumped out that I didn’t already have in my library so after about half an hour of browsing I  decided to cut my losses (especially in the current financial climate) and head for home.  Luckily I glanced in the discount section on the way out and imagine my absolute surprise and delight when I found three of the most inspirational books, each reduced from £12.99 to E4.99!  I am going to give you the names and authors of each book, I can’t recommend them enough if you are looking for fun, colourful and interesting books to add to your library and I think that the ideas in each book would be great to try out with both adults and children alike.  The books are all published buy Gaia Books and are …..

  • Creative Felting by Lizzie Houghton
  • Creative Weaving by Sarah Howard and Elisabeth Kendrick
  • Natural Dyeing by Jackie Crook

I am off now to try out an idea that I have had since studying the Creative Felting book, results to be published here complete with pictures probably on Sunday or Monday as soon as I return from the Irish Blog Awards.

Felted jewellery, tourism course, blog awards, wrapping up the jacket saga …

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Just a short post to say that I will wrap up the jacket saga over the next few days, time is not in big supply until Sunday and I have been having huge internet connection problems yesterday and this evening.  This morning I spent a great time with members and friends of Feltmmakers Ireland in Dublin, we discussed and made various items of felted jewellery and it was great to have a loom at other people’s work, enjoy a chat and have a good exchange of ideas.

Tomorrow I am starting a course in tourism development allied to Waterford Institute of Technology.  I thought that it could be a good idea to help me really progress my felting workshops/residential courses and network with other business people in the South East.

On Saturday I travel to Cork for the Irish Blog of the Year Awards, unfortunately I didn’t make the short lists but best of luck to all those who did, watch your backs for next year!  Luckily Alan will be here to mind the dogs over the next few days so I have decided not to stay in Cork for the night although I will arrive early enough to participate in the pre event ‘Ladies Tea Party’ (with alcoholic beverages!!) coupled with a crochet and knit stitch and bitch.

As soon as I get a minute I will wrap up the jacket saga, hopefully sometime on Friday internet permitting.

Some projects finished and Irish Blog Awards

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Well, the challenge as issued by Jo-Anne and Ann has actually spurred me on to finish some of my projects, amazing!  Yesterday afternoon I made and fitted (simple task so why could I not do it before) handles for 3 of the bags and then in the evening strung 5 long streamers of glass and felt beads ready to assemble into a mobile.  I have had a couple of ideas how to suspend the mobile, this afternoon or tomorrow I will try and get this piece finished and decide which method to adopt.  If the weather is clear later this morning I will take some pictures of the work in progress.

I was pretty excited to learn that a friend has nominated me for the ‘Newcomer’ catogory in the upcoming Irish Blog Awards!   This is a great vote of confidence although I guess that I need a few more nominations to be in with a shout of getting through to the next stage.  The awards take place in Cork this year on Saturday 21st February and I have booked places for me and Alan.  Podcamp was great fun in Kilkenny during the early Autumn and I am looking forward to meeting and catching up with many of the people who I met at that event. Nominations for the awards must be in by 6pm Irish time on Wednesday 14th (next week) so if you have some favourite Irish blogs get cracking, it’s probably best to get them by Tuesday to be on the safe side!  Nominating a blog is a simple procedure procedure, just click here, choose the catogory, give the blog address and a short reason why you would like that particular blog to be considered.  Obviously you may nominate different blogs in various catagories but don’t nominate the same blog in several catagories or you will get the blog barred!