Trying to get Christmassy



Home Made Christmas Wreath

I'm trying to get Christmassy, but have a heavy cold and had to have an emergency tooth extraction this week after breaking a tooth on a lamb chop.  The tooth put up a fight and there was quite a tussle in the dentist's chair, so I've got face ache.  Feeling a bit miserable and low on the energy I need to tackle the Christmassy things I wanted to do.   I am sitting over a heater, listening to IPlayer, finishing up my knitted presents and trying to decide which sort of medication to take next.
Before the cold and the tooth I was very Christmassy and after a visit from the TV aerial man (we were down to two channels) I picked up a bit of waste cable, rolled it and stuck things to it  to make a wreath.  We've had a lot of strong winds and I really didn't expect it to last, but it's still there and still intact.  So is my Christmas tree, in spite of the fact that the TV aerial man watching me put it together had severe doubts.  He kept offering advice and instruction as he worked.  He was right and I had to take it apart twice before the branches were in the right order.

Smocking

Beaker Button, the new yarn shop which has opened up at Weyhill Fair near Andover had a box of old patterns for sale when I visited, the proceeds going to charity.  Apparently there had been some real treasures in there, but I was a bit late to get those.  I did get this wonderful little book on smocking which I have never seen before.  Late '40s maybe.  Certainly in a period of austerity as all pictures are black and white and if there had been a choice publishers and readers would certainly have wanted them in colour.

I have books on smocking which also cover Dorset buttons and I suppose there is some link between the crafts.  There are some wonderfully intricate patterns in this little pamphlet and I have often thought it would be fun to translate smocking patterns into knit, either by creating fairisle patterns from them, or by knitting a diaper pattern and embroidering it.  In fact I have a WIP which will do just that very thing if ever I can finish it.

I caught the office cold



Bare trees in a wintry sun on Sidbury Hill

 I never catch the office cold.  This one I caught.  Feeling a bit bleak today.  Got so much to do for Christmas.  Sniff.

Beaker Button

A new shop called Beaker Button has opened up near me - at The Fairground Craft and Design Centre at Weyhill.  You get a lovely welcome and Jen who runs it stocks some very nice yarn, with more coming in all the time.  I went to get Christmas presents and shouldn't have been looking at wool shops at all, but hey-ho.  What can I say?  

Absolutely scrummy mossy green 4 ply

Also in stock are kits for making Dorset buttons and some cards of buttons already made up.  I have always been fascinated by this craft which once provided a livelihood for many in the west country who would proudly say when asked, 'I do buttony'.  Sadly, the advent of machine made buttons took away their livelihood and they fell on hard times. 

Jen does workshops and here is her website.
Beakerbutton

Another Dorset connection is that Weyhill is the site of the famous Weyhill fair where thousands upon thousands of sheep were brought by drovers from all over the South of England.  Itinerant workers would go as well, to sell their labour or their expertise and it was at one of the Weyhill fairs that the Dorset novelist Thomas Hardy had the future Mayor of Casterbridge sell his wife.

I haven't read The Mayor of Casterbridge.  Thomas Hardy always makes me a bit depressed and having got through Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D'urbervilles, The Woodlanders  (the last two are extremely sad), I'd need to be feeling particularly bouyant to tackle the Mayor of Casterbridge.

Beginning to get a thing about fungi

Bracket fungus on a stump surrounded by stinging nettles

Whilst walking a footpath at the back of the local cricket pavilion a few weeks ago, I found this bracket fungus attached to a tree stump. 

It looks really tough and embedded in the wood.  It's curled up around the edges, like a dish shape so that it catches dead leaves and rainwater and I wonder if this is one of the ways it gets nutrients.  It has a weird kind of beauty and power.

I've poked about various websites and books and haven't been able to name it.  What is it with us humans that we have a real fascination with labelling things ?  I think maybe if I name it, then it might lose some of its power.  Am I going a bit strange?

Anyway, as I was poking about, I found this website with all sorts of interesting things in it.
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/