New packaging

For a couple of months now I've been looking for the *right* ribbon to use on my jewellery boxes, and I finally found it last week. So, here, at last, is my lovely brown and pink packaging complete with handmade gift tags and a gorgeous textured pink ribbon. I think I need to tone down the pink for male recipients though...

A bit carried away, do you think?

These are the fruits of my knitting so far - 2 and a half pairs of gloves! The plum coloured pair are mine, the other pairs are for friends. I expect I'll get the green pair finished in a couple of evenings. The blue line that you can just about see on the green glove is where I need to add in the thumb. I have made a change to the pattern for the green pair though, as the ruffled casting-off that the pattern suggested is pretty but I think I prefer the tops of the gloves held a bit tighter, so I've just cast-off normally. I've already bought the yarn for my next project - a hat this time with a lacy pattern. It'll be my first time knitting a pattern by following a chart - I must be mad! It's from the Knitty website again. I don't usually wear hats but this is my first winter with short hair and I've decided that I need one! Oh, and my other knitting project was a scarf for B's Baby Teddy, the teddy that he absolutely has to have at night. Apparently Baby Teddy (or BT to his friends) particularly requested a red scarf, and now wants a hat to match!

Today's lesson

Well, Saturday's lesson, but it's taken me until this morning to edit the photos! Sue came round for a day's private silversmithing tuition on Saturday with the aim of learning how to make chains and making herself a bracelet. She learnt how to make the individual links, solder, hammer and link them together - and ended up with enough links to be able to make herself a necklace and a bracelet! The bracelet features a lampwork bead in lovely muted shades of green by Tan.

If you fancy coming and learning how to make your own pieces of jewellery with me, then email me on info@daisychainjewellery.co.uk . January is fully booked, I've got space for one more person in February and there are still spaces in March. I have to warn you though, silversmithing is addictive!

Sad news today

It was really sad to hear in the news today that Tony Hart has died. I loved watching Take Hart when I was a child. Drawing has never been a strength of mine but he made it look so easy and approachable that he gave me the confidence to have a go. I loved the mischief that Morph got up to too, and without him we wouldn't have had Wallace and Gromit or Chicken Run or anything like that. For those that don't know him, Morph had a pet nailbrush and was often visited by the Very Small Creatures - happy memories!

Old but much loved

Having shown you my brand new workstation for my dremel I thought it was about time I showed you a much older, but very much loved drill. I've mentioned a couple of times that a friend very kindly gave me some of her parents' old tools from the days when they were goldsmiths in Portsmouth. I love them and use many of them every day I work in the shed, and this beautiful bow drill and one of the hammers are my favourite tools. I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!

For those of you who haven't come across them before, bow drills (sometimes called pump drills) are centuries old. They've got a drill shaft (mine is metal) which obviously has the drill bit at one end, and at the other it's got a hole drilled through. A cord runs through this hole, and each end of this is attached to an end of a stick with a hole in the centre - the hole board. As you can see from the photo, the hole board fits onto the drill shaft. The last piece of the drill is the flywheel.

To use it, I place the drill bit in the indentation I've made with a centre punch (okay, a nail and a hammer!) so that it doesn't slip, hold the top of the drill shaft with one hand and give the hole board a push so that the cord winds up the shaft. I then hold the hole board and push it down gently. The drill spins, the weight of the flywheel makes the cord wind back up and then it starts again! I love using it as it's got such a soothing rhythm. I won't stop using it just because I've got a modern version as it's great for drilling small holes in small pieces, like the daisies that you can see, as it only needs one hand once you get going, so the other hand is free to hold the piece you're drilling.

Okay, the history lesson is over for today! There will be photos of finished daisies tomorrow!

"Grace under pressure"

I am certain that I am far from the only person who has had tingles running up and down their arms from watching the news reports of yesterday's miracle in New York. I can only imagine the terror that those on board the plane and those on the ground who saw the plane approaching experienced, and the thankfulness that they are experiencing now. Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, said that the pilot had shown true heroism, "grace under pressure".

Again like many, many hundreds of people, I can remember exactly where I was, where exactly in the room I was standing, when the BBC showed the breaking news of 9/11. I visited Ground Zero a few years ago, not through choice, I have to say as I knew I probably wouldn't be able to handle the emotion of it well (my Grandma always did say that I cried too easily), but because I was a teacher on a school trip to New York. I will never, no matter how long I live, forget the feeling of that place or the news pictures. Thank God for heroes.

My latest toy....er....tool!

My inlaws gave me a work station for my dremel drill for Christmas - isn't it lovely?! It turns the dremel into a drill press and will make polishing a lot easier too. I spent some time this afternoon moving things about to make room for it and then dragged T out to the shed so that he could admire it. He made some "yes, lovely, dear" noises - then we stopped, looked at each other, and realised what a role reversal it was - then T went inside saying something about doing some ironing!