Music to my Ears

Hope you all had a spiffy weekend? It was a bank holiday here in the UK so hubby and I had a extra day off today which was lovely....though we spent half the day cleaning upstairs and the other half taking a trip into Glasgow to buy some holiday clothes for Miss G and I'm pooped!

I thought I would share the gig Mr Smith and I went to on Thursday which took us to King Tut's Wah Wah Hut for the first time (a long standing, and legend of a gig venue in Glasgow). It was like watching your favourite band in your living room! Lovely and intimate and made even better that we were standing on a bench in front of the sound dude...prime viewing. The band we went to see is BellX1....everyone say "who?" An Irish band that do really well in Ireland and rather well in the USA and have been on the soundtrack of The OC, Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill.



The lead singer has a truly amazing voice and great quirky lyrics....just fab. From the crowd at King Tut's who knew all the words to fantastic tunes such as Eve the Apple of My Eye, Bad Skin Day, I'll See your Heart (And Raise you Mine), Flame and Rocky Took a Lover, it's obvious there is a very strong fan base here in the UK. I have added some of their tunes to my Playlist at the bottom of my blog or you can go to their MySpace page. It has been three years since BellX1 last came to Glasgow...hopefully they won't take that long again!

You should also check out Prascilla Ahn. I saw her support Ray LaMontagne earlier this year and I loved her. Again there are some of her songs on my Playlist at the bottom of my page or her MySpace page. Happy listening x

Ramblings of a mad woman

My favourite ribbon shop (VVRouloux) closed in Glasgow a few months ago I thought "no problem I'll buy it online"...famous last words! I just spent a good part of the last hour trying to decide on which web site to buy from, trying to figure of the tones of the colours, crying at the cost of postage and packaging for a couple of metres of ribbon *sniff*. I don't like to buy whole spools of ribbon as I'm not making that many gloves at the moment and I don't have the money to spend. So I'm at a bit of a loss. All I want to do is go to a shop and have a feel and look at the ribbon... buying over the Internet just isn't the same. I bought some around Christmas time online and it is still sitting in the box it came in as it is much heavier, not as silky, as the ribbon I bought from my favourite shop. Well the up shot is I still haven't bought any ribbon! I think I'll just have to be brave and go for one of the shops I found and pay the minimum £10 order with postage grrrrrr.

The ribbon is for my first order of gloves from Australia! Very exciting the thought of my gloves going to the other side of the world!

There have been quite a few lovely things coming through the post in the past few weeks, one of which arrived this morning from Gorjuss.

This lovely keyring is going on my work keys...something handmade from Etsy to cheer me up on my working days. What makes this even better is that Suzanne Woolcott from Gorjuss lives in Glasgow, Scotland where she runs her business with her husband (read this lovely article from Etsy The Storque on Gorjuss and "Quit Your Day Job".

One of the lovely friends I have made in blogland is Kenneth Anderson who sent me these amazing postcards of his work with an extra special one especially for me. If only I could draw like that by freehand. It's a picture of Grace with her pet Stegosaurus.....when she draws our cat Gizmo they always look like little Stegosaurus cause he's very hairy and spiky! I'm so happy with them and they will be going up on Grace's wall pronto.

I took the plunge the other week and ordered my first set of business cards for my KnitTwits shop from moo.com and I am so so chuffed with them. I think they look fab....what do you think?


I also ordered some labels for my knitted items but they are a bit bigger than I expected (I should have read the size print!!) so I'll keep them for my larger items such as this scarflette I knitted for Grace.

Oh Crumbs!

Miss G has been watching old kids cartoons on DVD recently and there are two firm favourites coming out tops. No.1 is Sooty and No2. is Dangermouse. Now for my American friends who haven't heard of either of these you can probably watch clips of both of these on YouTube. Grace is loving Dangermouse so much she's asking to dress up as Dangermouse for Halloween (a while to go yet so she'll probably change her mind), but I'm getting all excited at the prospect of making a Dangermouse costume. This brings me to draw up my own 80's retro top 10 favourite kids programmes. What's your favourite programme of your childhood?

1. The Flumps









2. Mr Benn















3. Banana Man









4. Bagpuss















5. Trumpton












6. Fraggle Rock















7. The Wombles












8. The Raccoons


















9. Pigeon Street

10. Button Moon


























Happy days xxx

Getting all Arty Farty

I was speaking to someone today at work (I promised you an image of the gallery I work at so here you go) who has just finished her degree in Art History at Glasgow University. She asked my what my dissertation was about, which was turn of the 20th century Scandinavian Impressionist art. I loved doing my dissertation so i thought I would share some of the paintings that I enjoy. Another reason this came to mind today was I came across the paintings and prints by Janet Hill. Janet's interior paintings remind me of the interior paintings that the Scandinavian artists, such as Anna Ancher, Peter Ilsted and Vilhelm Hammershoi loved to paint. It also reminds me of the work by one of my dear friends Caroline Walker, who is currently in London finishing off her MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, London.

"Tea Service" by Janet Hill

Peter Ilsted
Vilhelm Hammershoi
Anna Ancher"Frognal Lane 9.30am" by Caroline Walker

"Frognal Lane 2pm" by Caroline Walker

I have a very special charcoal drawing by Caroline in my hallway and I would love a oil painting to go with it, but I think she has hit the big time now and is destined for great things... keep you eye out for her name in the bright lights!