Lady Jane Has Arrived

My tailors dummy has arrived after what seemed like a long wait. I have decided to call her Lady Jane. I ordered her on the 7th February with an 8-10 day delivery date. When she didn't arrive I rang the company to be told that meant 8-10 working days so that didn't include any weekend days! That meant that I had to wait almost 3 weeks for her arrival. I am not the most patient of people when I have ordered something. I want it within a couple of days and have been spoilt in that things usually arrive within a week of ordering. The only things that I had to wait for are goods from China but as they are usually a fraction of the prices in the UK they are worth the wait.

I know that you have seen this waistcoat before but this photo shows off Lady Jane, except for her legs. She has a three legged stand in wood as a base. I am pleased with her as, although she was relatively inexpensive compared to the adjustable ones, she is just what I need as a photographic prop.

Of course the Manchester weather is not co-operating. I did manage to take a few photos for Etsy yesterday but today is dark and gloomy, Photos of crochet look so much better taken in natural light so today I will just have to concentrate on adding the photos from yesterday to my Etsy store. I will let you know when they are in the shop so you can take a look.

This is one of my Spanish influenced shawls.

As is this one. This is a remake of one that I sold at a craft fair. The colours are very slightly different as I couldn't buy the exact shades as two of them had been discontinued.

Guess who has been ordering from Kemps again? I swear that I must be one of their best customers. It is balls of acrylic that I need for my next few projects. Much as I would like to crochet in better quality yarns I need the budget prices to make them a reasonable price to sell. If I ever get a customer base who would appreciate paying for lovely yarns then I will switch to pretty yarns. At the moment I can't afford to buy expensive yarns and hope that I will sell the finished garments. I do have some lovely yarns in stock to make lacy scarves that I will try to use as they are just one skein that I bought for socks and then decided that the yarn was far too nice to wear on my feet. I am rough on socks and it breaks my heart when I wear holes in wool that I have paid £10-15 a skein. I will stick to Opal for socks as it washes and wears so well.

Nestled in the middle of this yarn is one ball of Red Heart in red that I managed to bid for on Ebay. I found a stockist on Amazon.co.uk who ships to the UK but the postage is only given for one ball. I have written to them to ask about multiple postage and once again I have not had a reply. That is three firms that I have contacted who haven't bothered to answer me. If the answer is that they don't give a discount for multiple shipping then at least it would be polite to have an answer. I will have to wait until my US born friend goes to see her family in the US and can buy some and tell me the price plus postage and I can pay her via Paypal.

These are the latest of my Ebay purchases. My friend Sue buys directly from Ice yarns. As she has bought from them many times she now gets e mails telling her of their bargains. The postage is expensive as I believe that the yarn comes from Turkey but if you can get the yarns at bargain sale prices then it all works out quite reasonable. I haven't ordered directly from them as their site contains far too many tempting yarns and I really have enough. However I do love the Ice yarns and was tempted by this gorgeous mossy green. I think this is a 'me' buy and not for crocheting for sale. The pink chunky yarn is already on the hook. I am making a jacket for my Etsy shop..

I was hoping to take more photos of Lady Jane wearing my crochet but today is dull and dark. The rain is that fine misty kind of rain. I did manage to take some photos in  natural light yesterday afternoon so am hoping that it will brighten up if it ever stops raining. I can't understand why the TV news say that we are running short of water when so much of it falls from the sky. I think that they need a better method of collection than the one that we have at present.

I have a couple of You Tube crochet videos to watch before I get down to my crochet again. I am so addicted to watching these videos. I love to see other peoples finished work.