Warning - toy does not come with batteries...

This week's blog will be a departure from the usual work stuff since I am officially 'off' now until the end of January (although the yarn shop and the design shop's current stock will still be available from 8th January.)

So how many of us are running around like headless chickens trying to get a spare moment to wrap the kids gifts - only to find when you do find the time that you have some assembly, batteries/accessories to buy or some work to do on their gift before its ready for wrapping?

I thought I was prepared. I had bought my daughter a simple weaving loom for her to learn to weave on and stashed it away months ago.  Although when I went to wrap it I took it out of the box and found that the amount of yarn on the tiny project that came with the loom was small.  It was not going to make anything that she could use.  Naughty Mummy couldn't help but meddle! So I spent over an hour re-warping the loom with some rather nice varigated 'Naturally' Yarns Merino, Possum and Alpaca with some nylon (wish I'd seen the yarn's contents before gifting it to Miss 6 as it would have made lovely luxury socks, but nevermind, she'll love it and it will make a fantastic scarf!) .

There were no pictures on the instructions and the wording 'you may need to seek some help' was obviously aimed at the child assuming that the parent knew how to weave already or perhaps was an engineer.  Had I not had weaving experience it may have taken longer to fathom it since I had already eagerly ripped off the project that came with the loom without seeing how it was warped.  I even did a little weaving to start her off so that on Christmas morning she'll be ready to go on a scarf project rather than having 5 minutes worth of weaving with what was supplied. 

 I had a lot of fun making Christmas bunting.  It was super-simple to make and looks very festive.  Once Christmas is over I am thinking - seeing as the tree is in our playroom - of making some fun bunting to festoon the room with year-round.

Craft-wise all knitting and designing is on hold at the moment as I make a crocheted gingerbread house - I am not far off finishing so will post pics up once its done.