Bootees, bootees and more bootees ...

I am bootee'd out .... I've been busy replacing stock for the Devonport Market this weekend as last month I sold a few pairs of my little newborn bootees. It's hard to find buttons/bows etc. for the boy or girl bootees, so I tend to use insect and animal buttons - gorgeous little ladybirds or bees ...

Plus I had an order for 3 pairs of these gorgeous little "envelope" bootees - again for either sex!




Aren't these colours just divine? It's the Debbie Bliss Andes yarn made in Peru from baby alpaca wool and mulbery silk. A wee bit out of my price range! However, I did spend rather a lot time in the wool shop trying to match the colours to wool that was more commercially viable ......




And if course the final photo in any of my blogs is of Isabella aka The Ning Tong. Here she is during "cat curfew" - she comes in around 5 pm each day and isn't allowed out until 6 the following morning but so we can keep the house open she's even more restricted for the first 2 or 3 hours and kept in the bedroom. As you can see, she's quite happy!

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Buttons, Ballerinas and Bad Cats ......

Did I mention I love buttons?





I spent ages sorting through them at the weekend trying to find a couple that I remember buying but do you think I could find them ??? A certain someone was heard muttering something along the lines of "well, if you didn't have so many, it would be a lot easier to search through them" ... I ignored him.

I started two ballerinas last week but somehow all my knitting time got swallowed up - not sure how, why or what replaced it - but I had 4 hours of motor racing to watch yesterday so managed to get them finished and also started a birthday present beanie for a friend who's lost her hair. I'm using a really soft Italian merino which is knitting up beautifully. I wish I could afford to use this wool on my baby beanies and bootees but it's expensive and puts the price out of a lot of people's budget.







We thought Isabella bad pussy had been lying on one of our pots of grass as there seemed to be no other explanation as to what had happened to it but had never been able to prove it - until yesterday that is when I went out on the back deck and found this!

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Garden art .....

Just down the road from us is a garden I just love ....





If you double click on the second photo you'll see the dog even has his/her own water bowl with a green bone on the top!

And here's my favorite cross - also just down the road ...





And here's our "feline" garden art ....

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Buttons, market days and pussy cats ...

I love buttons, just adore them. Actually I blame my mother because when I was sick as a child she used to give me either her button tin or her jewellery box to tip out and play with.

I just love the way things were valued in those days - no chucking stuff out then - clothes mended, darned, collars turned, hems and sleeves let down and when something did finally make it to the rag bag, all the buttons were removed and popped in the button tin. Needless to say, I have an enormous button stash (hope Eddie's not reading this bit!)


We had a great market in Devonport on Sunday (thanks Sarah B and Sarah M) and my new revolving stand made its first appearance. It's just perfect for the little cardy's and vests and I'm really pleased with it.




Plus I'd had a bit of a dilemna as to how to display my ballerina's but ended up leaving them upright in the flax box I'd used to store and then transport them in - looked good!




And as usual I'll leave the final word to Isabella .....

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Christchurch ...

A week later and it still seems unbelievable ... our hearts go out to everyone.

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