Biscornu and other happiness

A while ago, I was having a bit of a crafting hiatus, struggling to find something to knit. Inspired by this Craftster post, I set about looking out the instructions I'd found a couple of years ago for biscornu. These quirky pincushions had always appealed, but I'd never quite got round to making them.

In a fit of madness one morning, with minutes before I needed to leave the house, I grabbed a skein of Caron watercolours thread and a piece of aida that had an unfinished piece for a long forgotten Christmas card on the other end, and started stitching the Indian Biscornu pattern. While Mr Wonderfuls and I were in Chester, I finished the Indian one, and a heart one, and started on the provincial pattern on the way back. Last weekend, I began the Happiness one on the way to spend the day with David in Liverpool. They are fabulous fun, simple patterns, but challenging enough to keep me alert, very portable and just what I needed to get me out of the crafting rut.

You might have noticed a lot of beginnings above. Well, I've now finished two of them:


I love them. The shape is gorgeous, and now my mind is full of thoughts of both more biscornu and other embroidery.

A big source of happiness at the moment is this little poppet:



My new nephew Joshua, who arrived yesterday. I can't wait till Friday when I will (hopefully, traffic permitting!) get to meet him.

I am also loving Mr Wonderfuls, for he replaced the router! The other source of consternation at the beginning of last month was that I could not upload any photos. Well, we got a very nice new router, and I uploaded 250 in one day, without having to compromise on image size. Thank you, wonderful man!

Another love for today is Florence + The Machine, check her out, the music is simply superb. I am trying to resist the urge to go and buy tickets for the gig this Sunday, as we'll have spent the weekend visiting family, so I suspect I will be very tired!

Expect more posts soon, a lot has been going on!

Eye Spy... Makes Me Laugh

I'm a bit late for this week's date, as this week I've been a bit busy. Drobtinice set us the theme of 'Something that makes me laugh', and it has got to be my family.

People who meet my parents say that all my eccentricities suddenly make sense. Yesterday my dad called me, almost crying tears of laughter to tell me about an incident at his work resulting in the destruction of a modelling straw tower with a bit of lighting equipment. It's impossible not to laugh when my dad is!

From my mum's endlessly optimistic belief that she needn't do a gauge swatch when knitting hats:





To my dad having the sense of fun to still let us put his hair into bunches and ponytails, even when his girls are in their twenties:


Yes, some of those are held up with freezer clips

And my sister and I being on the same wacky wavelength:



I know whenever I feel a bit blue my family will cheer me up.