Okay, last one of the Dark Lord

This is a close-up so you can see more of the detail:

A small group of friends

Aren't these costumes fabulous? The monsters are made from goat hair and the masks are wooden and, Alex told me, weigh 5 kilos.

This weekend Alex met an elderly elf at a Bohemian Castle

He was at the Fx-Con Festival that a friend of ours, Vlad Taupesh organises.He came back with lots of photos including some hysterical ones of him applying body glitter to the woman he had to make up himself. Not sure if I will post all of those :OFor now, here is the first taste. One problem with a blog about life here is that almost every week we end up with more photos of amazing things and I never get a fraction posted. But here goes with two. I really like this costume.

Making Dreams Work

I'm gradually feeling that the new businessy blog is getting properly underway. It took a while to move material over. But also just to play with the layout (which still needs some work), add links and so on.

But I think I will start to promote it a bit now. It feels like the right time. Assuming that people are thinking about their businesses, and not simply out in the garden burying pots of cash (a nod to a friend here!)

I think we'll all survive, and carry on, though perhaps there will be big changes from the way it was over the last ten years or so. That might even settle down to being a good thing.

Vicuna! - maybe

My "vicuna" yarn just arrived from the dealer in the UK that I really love. If you want really special yarn at reasonable prices I would recommend them. So far I have been pleased with everything.

Those of you reading this may not know I am a crochet-holic - I seriously do not feel happy unless I have at least three or four crochet projects on the go. Right now I'm doing an alpaca lace jacket in grey, a perhaps-scarf in hand-woven silk combined with a very fine silver lurex thread (this is "perhaps" because having made it I think the yarn is too thick to look good in crochet so the whole thing may have to be made into something else) and the very beginnings of a top in blue and grey silks - bought as an ebay bargain and so I need to think how to make it all work together.

Anyway, the dealer had some vicuna that I stumbled across (the site is very hard to search and there is all sorts of stuff tucked away). It was, er $2 a skein instead of the normal vicuna $300. Now this tells me something, and the site DID say that it might not be vicuna but was believed to be - this dealer is honest about yarn content and says outright when he's not sure. But at $2 who cares? So I bought enough for a small scarf (as Alex says, "How many small crocheted scarves do you need?") and today it arrived.

It smells as though it's been lurking at the back of an Afghan bizarre for many years. Minnie, who likes to sniff all packages, was truly amazed by it. But I have washed and washed and washed it - and lo and behold, it's fluffed up. Lots of long, white hairs also fell out of it, so it does seem to be from some kind of antelope-type animal.

I suspect it isn't real vicuna. It might be anything - ibex crossed with camel? - but it will make an interesting project. I'll photograph it later in the winter once it's done and you can tell me what you think. Right now the skein is hanging out on the terrace and infusing the flat with the smell of wet goat. Lovely.
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Oh - and I meant to add that vicuna is endangered (which I only realised when I looked it up). But I think this yarn is pretty old - and probably something else in any case.

I did once eat an endangered species - by accident. I'll tell the story one day if I dare.
 

THE most beautiful bags. Though I did have to sacrifice a shawl.

I bought a Liberty's varuna wool vintage shawl in "Hera" pattern some time back and then - typically - fell in love with it. However, it had some quite bad moth damage in one part when we bought it so I finally accepted that it really should be cut. I'm actually really glad as the bags turned out to be just drop-dead gorgeous. One had a moth hole (Romana spotted it too late once it was sewn) so I grabbed that one. It's become my new small bag for carrying things in my messenger.

It's hard to do these bags justice in a photo, They are just luscious. You know, some things just work out SO well.









They are only on Etsy for now as I need to upload a whole heap of things to the main shop. By the way, they're a little more expensive than our usual bags as the fabric in itself is quite pricey and collectible now.