200(9)

Well the year is almost drawing to a close and since I am normally the last person to get around to look back on the year, I thought I might be the first for a change this year and get in early.

We were supposed to be going down South this morning but the weather is still awful; mainly the entire route that we would take to get to Tunbridge Wells is covered in snow so we have decided to stay at home instead of potentially getting stuck on a motorway somewhere in time for Christmas.

We have made the most of our time at home; we went sledging yesterday afternoon then decided to come home to make a snowman so Lou decided to bring some snow home......we only had a garden full of snow but, you know Lou, you never know when you might run out of snow so it is best to carry your snowball home with you ....


When we got home L and M made a great snowman who is keeping his eye on the garden for us;


This morning Lou and I snuggled up on the settee watching children's TV (Lou) and knitting (me) while drinking cups of tea and having nowhere to go. Wooo! Then the postman came and I had to answer the door in my dressing gown. Whoops!

This morning I sold the 200th item on my Folksy shop. It has been my target over the last few months to reach it by the end of the year. A very ambitious target in November but this month has been so busy.

The sale went to a customer I have sold a few things to previously which is always good, I love seeing old customers come back to me for more things. I must be doing something right ;)

And tonight, I came home to see that I had a bag featured on a great treasury on Etsy. Woo! It's been a good year at Nicsknots. Here's hoping 2010 will be even better.

Merry Christmas to everyone if I don't get back on until after Friday.

Analytics are sooo true!

Thanks for all of the concern and messages about my sewing machine. All is going ok, the new machine is going well. I am getting the hang of everything being in the wrong place; I haven't sewn my finger putting a zip in since Thursday and I didn't cut my thumb once today by going to lift the needle up with the thread cutter rather than the lever on the wrong side so all is good.

I haven't got the hang of the needle threader though. I have managed to use it successfully a couple of times but I have managed to use it as a thread cutter more effectively so for now I will continue to thread the needle myself.

I got some super exciting material today. I have been waiting for it for a few weeks and was beginning to think that we would have to wait until next year to see it but it came, I saw, I abandoned all other work and made this......


I love the material and the quality is great so expect lots more of this in the New Year but in the meantime, you can buy the drawstring bag in my Folksy shop and if you buy before tomorrow night, it will be with you for Christmas. Treat yourself, you know you deserve it ;)


So tonight, I was watching the first half of the Strictly final while emailing people and checking my Google Analytics. It has been quite entertaining this week as I have had it tracking my Folksy shop for a month now so it is showing impressive figures like increases in hits of 1008% over this time last month. My blog shows slightly less impressive figures, in fact if I didn't have the silly positive figures of Folksy, I would be sulking that views of my blog have fallen this month over last month. I know I have blogged less this month because I have been busier though so I am guessing that is why and not that people are getting fed-up of my endless chatter.

Anyway, I was looking at the search queires that had resulted in people landing on my blog. Some were obvious; 'wilma herbert knit', although, to be fair, there isn't a lot of knitting here at the moment but the most entertaining result was 'I hate british roads'. Oh how true that statement is although I didn't realise that I blogged about it. I always mean to, when I am stuck going stupid miles an hour on an open road because an invisible workman might jump out in front of me or when I am driving down the A1 (I generally dislike this road. Stupid road!), I write posts in my head.

Ahh well. Entertained me. Especially as we are currently having a discussion about driving to Kent on Monday in this weather. DH believes he is a god on sand, (Yep, he did actually say that!!) snow and any other tricky driving conditions, he also believes that if there are hundreds of cars stuck infront and behind him on a motorway, he would just be able to drive around them in his Land Rover. That he hasn't had for 2 yrs so you know, we need to get in the real world. I am not risking being stuck in a freezing car on a motorway (or God forbid the bloody A1!) with two children. So it would seem I do hate British roads. Or maybe just English? We have gritters out in force when there is no ice but when we need them, we have run out of grit.

Disaster!!

For a while now, I have been nurturing my sewing machine. I have been known to refer to her as an old lady; slow to get going in the morning but once she is warmed up, she is fine. Today was yoga at school, 8am start for the kids so lots of time for me to get work done. I started sewing at 8:05. I stopped at 8:15 when the machine died.

My sewing machine is older than me, it was my Grandma's and has been great, I love it but last time I took it to the sewing machine man(remember how I declared my undying love to him for resurrecting her from the dead then?) he said that I was lucky she was still working and that if the electronic unit went, it would be kaputt.

Well today it's electronic unit stopped. I tried cleaning it all out, I tried sitting her on the naughty step, I tried blowing in the hole where the cable goes in. Nothing worked.

I rang the sewing machine repair man up. He was out. I explained to his mate how urgent it was that I got it mended,while I waited for him to ring me back I stomped around the house and cried. He rang me straight back. I rushed to the shop and he had a look but he couldn't do anything.

As I was driving to the shop I realised that I needed a new machine *now*. I have orders from today to do, I have orders coming in, this is the busiest time of the year and my sewing machine is dead. Waaaa!

So I set about finding a replacement. I had a look at the shop, asked if I could have a go with a Singer and got told that I was spoilt when I told the man that the machine was too loud and clunky and that I wanted a machine like mine. I left the shop sulking.

Luckily there is another shop on the same street, I went in, I tried a Pfaff. It was ugly. I was told that it had wonderful German engineering. I pointed out that it didn't look as nice as a VW so moved onto Janomes.

Finally I settled for a Janome 525s and while it isn't love, I like it. I realise how spoilt I was with my old machine so now I miss her more. I don't want an automatic needle threader, what I want is a zipper foot that slides from one side to another without having to unclip it. I don't want 28 different stitches, I want the lever thingy at the back of the machine so that I can raise the foot with my left hand, not right but at least I can carry on sewing and you can carry on buying!

It's the final countdown!!

Not wanting to add stress to anyone struggling with Christmas preparations or anything but it is indeed the final countdown.

Next Monday I am going to be starting my Christmas holidays. I haven't quite decided when or for how long I am going to close for Christmas but last posting date is officially the 21st, a week today and as I will be on my way down south then, I would advise you to get your orders in sooner rather than later. I will post on Monday but obviously, the sooner the better.

The mad-woman in me thinks I should stay open all over Christmas and New Year 'just in case' you *need* to buy something on Christmas day or you or bored on Boxing Day and have Christmas money burning a hole in your pocket but the rational me (buried deep down inside somewhere so I wouldn't worry, it never sees the light of day!), suggests that maybe I should close from next Monday night until Monday 4th Jan. What do you think? I could stay open but not post until New Year?

If it makes you feel better, I may be here, providing people with Christmas gifts but I am totally unprepared for my own Christmas. So unprepared that it is getting to be a bit of a joke. We have the tree up and some cards have been written, mainly by J and L who then wrote different names on the envelopes to the names they wrote in the cards which lead to parents of other children laughing at me and my inability to supervise my children to such a level that that wouldn't happen. I find this helps to make you feel good about yourself at 8:45 in the morning when you have been bed-hopping with a 5yr old all night.

I have had time this weekend to take photos of new fabrics and get them in my shop so the photos in this post show the new fabrics. I love the new Japanese sheep. I am sad that I can't find any more 'Organic Seeps' but these come a close second and now that I have seen the fabric in real life and am happy with it, I have order a bit more which should be here by the end of the year. I do have a few for sale in my Folksy shop at the moment though.



This Flower Fairy print is stunning. You can't really tell on the photos but it is also glittery so perfect for any little glitter-loving fairies you might have. It is also available in the larger Ruby bag. If you would like needle rolls or drawstring bags made with it, please just let me know.




Well school beckons then the shops. I had a mad idea to do baking tonight for teachers and instead of telling J and L what we were going to make, I asked what they wanted to do. Dear. God.

Seal pawn?

Today we made our annual pilgrimage to Donna Nook. It is about 20 mins away from us and is where 40% of the UK seal population come to breed and have their babies. Approximately 50% of the UK population (well it feels like that many anyway!), then come to oooh and ahh at the seal babies...well that's what I thought until this morning anyway.

The morning started off innocently enough; J decided that the seals were boring and that the puddles were much more interesting so he took himself off to jump in them while I took the obligatory rubbish photos of cute looking seals....

M and Lou decided to see if they could teach the seals to wave...it didn't really work but it kept them happy ;)

We walked a bit further up and found loads of amateur photographers taking photos of something, obviously very important, look at them all;


And what were they taking photos of with their huge lens? Well a couple of seals having 'special cuddles' as M so delicately put it when Lou wanted to know 'What on earth are *those* seals doing?'

Panic buying....

I've never really been into panic buying. When we were living in Wales, there were a few occasions when they really went in for the old panic buying for various reasons; fuel shortages, floods, etc.

I remember going into Waitrose and the shelves were devoid of bread, milk, flour, eggs and tins. It was mad. I jokingly suggested to M that we ought to get some marmite because I had heard that there would be a shortage before long. A couple of people walking past, overheard me, looked a bit worried and shoved a couple of jars of the black stuff in their already bulging trolleys before heading off to buy all of the loo roll up before we got there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosemarievictoria_artwork/1184162818/

So today, as I was cutting out some bags, I noticed that I was running low on material so I had a quick look with the idea of buying some more tonight. I looked where I normally buy; sold out, I looked somewhere else; discontinued, I looked at a place where, if I am honest, I don't like to buy from because she has ripped me off before, she said that the fabric had been discontinued and words like 'You'll be lucky if you find some' were used. Arse. This material is a good seller at the moment so I got onto Google and found about the only place that is still selling it. They had 10 yards. It also said that it has been discontinued. Did I buy all 10 yds? Did I succumb to panic buying?

The 'flu bus.

Dropping J and L off at school this morning, I had a great idea. As their children ran around like loons and played games with their friends, lots of parents looked like this...
It would seem that swine flu and good old colds have hit school but doesn't seem to be affecting the children but their parents who then struggle to school to drop their little darlings off so that they can crawl home and into bed until 3:15pm.

Now here is my cunning plan. A 'flu bus. You ring the 'flu bus hotline in the morning, get your child ready for school then push them out of the front door when the bus comes to pick them up so that you can stay at home, suffer quietly and not sneeze all over the well people at school.

Royalties to be sent to me please :)