Wednesday Wantings (17)

Wednesday wantings: 17

1. Pointing brooch
2. Lovely colour cardi
3. Snazzy tights
4. Perfect dress
5. Rainy t-shirt 

I'm obsessed with cardigans.  I have so many, but always want more.  I love the burgundy/maroon colour that's around at the moment, and I want a nice chunky winter cardigan in that colour.  No.2 is textured, and rather beautiful, but I couldn't see it in the shop (topshop).  I feel I need to see the colour properly before purchase.  When ever I go in topshop, I never find nice things, but when I look online I love everything!  How can this be?  I think I get frustrated with the amount of people and 3 floors of clothes to navigate round. 

Isn't the green dress beautiful?  Dorothy Perkins isn't my favourite shop at all, I find most things a bit plain, but this dress is so cute.  Well done Dorothy!


xx

Wool Museum / Holiday snaps!

So I've been on holiday!
Me and the boyfriend took a nice little trip to Aberystwyth in Wales.  We stayed in a lovely B&B (it had a hot tub!) for a couple of nights.  I managed to drive all the way there without getting lost, (thank you TomTom) which was quite an achievement for me.
An hour's drive from Aberystwyth is a Wool Museum.  I don't agree 100% with wool, and the way a lot of the sheep are treated in the wool process, but I love my knitting, so we went.  It was an old wool mill (not been used for many years) and we had a tour and demo by a lovely man called Keith, who's relatives once worked there.  Anyway, here are some photo's, starting with a couple of nice shops we found in the village.....

We found a lovely shop selling 100 types of tea and special biscuits.  The window display was brilliant, what I expect my future kitchen shelves to look like:

Tea shop with the best window display

Tea shop with the best window display

Tea shop with the best window display

I FOUND VEGAN TRUFFLES! YESSSSSSS

I tracked down the knitting shop: Clare Wools. I got some rather interesting/pretty yarn that I will show you in a future post. I'm knitting a cowl with it.

A LOT of yarn

More yarn

Me, knitting in the hotel room

WOOL MUSEUM:

Robi being rounded up

Me, I felt like a borrower

Keith, our tour guide, he was lovely

Very old spinning wheel

A large version of what I call a 'knitting dolly'

Machine used to brush wool.  They used to use prickly plants to smooth out the wool

Lovely knitted blanket the local knitting group made

Tea and cake time.  I carry these cartons everywhere now

Nom nom nom

Knitted cakes in the cafe

We found a lovely butterfly house to visit.  Loads of exotic butterflies from all round the world.  It was like a massive greenhouse (so warm that my hair went frizzy!), butterflies flying round landing on you, rare plants and a nice cafe for a cup of tea!  They help to breed butterflies that are dying out, and all the profits of the place go to helping their natural environment and protecting the rain forests.  It was brilliant, we went in twice:

Robi with butterfly

Butterfly on my shoulder!

Me in the front garden of the butterfly house

Fat caterpillar having a munch on some leaves

Butterfly likes knitted jumper

MASSIVE MOTH

Prickly plant we saw being used at the wool museum

On the way home we stopped off at a place called the 'animalaruim' but I will show you those pics in my next post.

It's depressing being home and back to work.  I loved being by the coast in Wales so much, our hotel room looked out to the sea, it was lovely.  It makes me feel like I'm not cut out for city life, and I should live in a nice little village somewhere and live happily ever after..... we'll see!



xx

Wednesday Wantings (16)

Wednesday wantings: 16

1. Crochet granny print tights
2. Knitted slouchy jumper
3. Heart print cozy hat
4. Knitted ear-flap hat
5. Fairisle skirt

First of all... you may, or may not, have noticed that I haven't posted for nearly two weeks... I've been on holiday!  I had a delightful time in Wales and will post pictures very soon.  But now I'm home, and back to work and back to reality!  boo hoo.

Right, these tights!! (no.1) I saw them on ASOS ages ago, but for some reason my card never works on ASOS... they're now at Topshop, so I will get them from there instead!  I've got heart print tights from the same brand, and I don't really like the way they feel, or the fit, but how can you resist crochet print!?

Last year, or maybe the year before, I got a lovely knitted/fairisle skirt from Miss Selfridge.  It was lovely and I wore it constantly.... until the washing machine decided to eat it (aka, I put the wrong setting on the machine, and ruined all of the knitwear it contained).  The colours are totally different on this one (no.5) but I love it, might go and look at it today! 



xxx

T-shirts and Biscuits!

Here are some new t-shirts I own.  I purchased the two owl t-shirts and the crayon one from Forever 21 (online, they have a shop opening here soon though, yay!).  They had a 10% off day last week and I'd been wanting these for a while so it was perfect!
The tiger t-shirt is from the New Look kids section.  Kids are massive these days, so their clothes fit me fine!

Owl Heart top

Owl top

Cute Crayon top

Tiger t-shirt

Biscuits are pretty important in my life!  After tea, biscuits and cake come an equal 2nd.  But due to my non milk and butter eating, I can't eat most biscuits.  Thank god for Tesco and Morrisons cheapo bourbons.  Without them I couldn't get through the day!  But now and then I find some new goodies and I will be doing some biscuit reviews now and then.

First of all: Rumpler's Custard Creams
I found these in Tesco (a really big tesco, our normal one doesn't stock them) in the 'world foods' section.  I get a lot of food from that isle, as some Jewish foods don't contain dairy so there are often nice cakes and things for me.  I really liked these biscuits, though they do have a slightly different taste to 'regular' custard creams, from what i remember.  But dunked in tea they are delicious.  They do crumble a lot though and made a mess on my desk.  I consumed the whole pack in 2 evenings, so they must have been good!

Rumpler's Custard Creams

Anna's Ginger Thins
Well, if these biscuits are good enough for the Swedish royal family, they're good enough for me!  I found these at a posh garden centre I went to with my mum.  I ate about 10 on the journey home... THEY ARE ADDICTIVE!  They're something silly like 20 kcals each so I just kept stuffing them in my face.  Yums.  Sometimes I find ginger biscuits too strong, but these are quite mild.  I recommend them, but haven't got a clue where else sell them apart from a garden centre in Formby (Liverpool).

 

Anna's Ginger Thins

Wednesday Wantings (15)

Wednesday wantings: 15

1. Owl necklace
2. Rubix cube mug
3. Hello Kitty big bow t-shirt
4. Chocolate teapot
5. Knitted slippers

As I am constantly cold, slippers are pretty important to me.  I need cute but cozy ones, and these (no. 5) looks pretty cute and cozy to me!  However, £16 is a bit much.... but maybe I'll treat myself. 
Those who read my blog often will know that I don't eat/drink milk chocolate.  But I WANT this cadbury's teapot and the Rubix cube mug is a bit brilliant. 


xxxx

Cardigan DIY

A while ago I saw this cardigan whilst surfing the Internet (remember when people used to say 'surfing'?  They don't say it much anymore!)

Nice but over priced!

At the time it was £50, it has since been reduced.  I liked it, but I did not like the price.  I'm on quite a strict budget, so my clothes need to be cheap and cheerful! 

Sooooooo...... I thought 'Hey! I'm gonna try and make something similar!' 

Action 1:  Find dull cardigan I hardly ever wear.  Check!

Action 2:  Find some nice embroidery threads I have left over from other projects.  Check!

Action 3:  Get sewing!  I used some plan bits of cotton fabric on the back.  It made it easier to sew, and stopped the cardigan from gathering when I pulled the stitches. 

 

Front

I originally tried just a square, but it was gathering too much and was getting annoying.  I settled for two rectangles to make a square. 

Back

    

I found it easier to use a big bit of cotton, then trim it down after. Half of my squares are wonky, but I like it even more that way. 

Finished cardigan:

 

I'm very pleased with the result, and even more pleased with the fact it cost me NOTHING.  The cardigan is from H&M, but I got it 2 or 3 years ago and hardly ever wear it now.  I have the same cardigan in blue, I'm going to jazz that one up next!

xxx