Beaker Button Blog

I don't normally use my blog to winge about the bad things that happen to me. I prefer to stay positive and see the bright side, and I like to project that bright side to my few readers. After all, you've probably got problems of your own to cope with, without having to listen to mine. However, something horrible happened at the Christmas Farmers market last year which made me really think. I thought I would share these thoughts with you all in the spirit of self discovery. I hope you don't mind. The Sunday before Christmas was a bad day for many reasons. We all have them I know, where if it can go wrong it will. Thankfully I don't get them very often but this particular Sunday more than made up for the lack. The crowning bad point was discovering that someone had stolen my needle felted rabbit from our stall at the farmers market. You might remember him if you follow our Facebook page. We made them as a group with Erica from Arts, Rush and Cane. He did a sterling...

It's been a while I know. I've been updating (well, completely changing) the website so it's easier for my customers to use (once the kinks are ironed out) and easier for me (once I've learnt how to use it!) The whole process has been a very steep learning curve, what with learning HTML code, what the Google spiders pick up on, how to sort the data I'm putting on the site so it's easy and efficient to use. The bricks and mortar shop has had a makeover too. The shelves are now organised by yarn weight so you can see what you're looking for for your pattern much more easily. New shop layout This sorting fever has started to spill over into my personal life. For example I haven't touched my garden in over 2 years. I keep telling myself I'll get out and do something with the great load of weeds, brambles and fruit but each year slipped by without me noticing and the weeds and brambles get bigger and the fruit, well some of that got eaten. This ye...

This is a quick post to say that I'm putting the blog on hold for a couple of weeks while I work on the new website. It's going to be all singing and dancing, the new site, so it'll be worth the effort.  I've posted I below for those of you following the Alphabet blanket pattern and will continue with J very shortly.  Thanks for your patience. this weeks chart My unblocked I

Apologies for the delay in getting this post out.  I've been a little under the weather, having wrecked my shoulder.  Knitting has been a little difficult.  I'm on the mend now though so no more stalling.  This week I thought I'd share some my highlights of Wonderwool 2015.  We had a fantastic show and met (and infected) lots of new button makers.  I taught two button classes this year in the Wool school, which was great fun.  We sold lots of kits, wool, mini skeins and patterns.  I did managed to come home with a fabulous new pair of trousers from Elegant Chaos, so I didn't buy any wool. Below are some of the beautiful things at the show so I'll shut up and let the photos do the talking. This week's letter is below.  As always detailed instructions are here . Giant Cardigan by Lisa Hellier Giant Cardigan by Lisa Hellier Giant Cardigan by Lisa Hellier Giant Cardigan by Lisa Hellier Knitted Ginger Bread house by...

Some of you will know that Beaker Button has hosted two fabulous Felted Fairies workshops with Erica from Arts, Rush and Cane .  As this week is an F week I thought I'd share a little about the felting fairies experience. First I want to make clear this is not a felting tutorial.  It's merely me showing off our fairies. Erica is a brilliant teacher.  She has a knack for making you feel like things are going well, even when she's telling you what you've done wrong.  The fairies we've made are needle felted, and what's great about the class is that you learn several techniques which can be used for all sorts of felting projects.  Erica makes fantastic kits for felting your own fairies as well.  They're £14 and have everything you need including needles and foam.  We have 3 in stock at the moment.  Have a look below at the models for them. Your chart for this week is at the bottom of the blog.  Full instructions are here. We start with th...

This week has been a challenging, although interesting week.  I was pondering what to write today and it suddenly hit me the one of the nicer things about this week has been the singing.  I sing all the time, usually to myself or inadvertently to others if I happen to have an ear worm (for those of you who don't know there is a great description of ear worms here , although there are a lot of adverts on the page).   This week however I was reminded of the power of group singing.  On Tuesday night I had to go to a Wake, for a folky friend.  We spent the evening singing, with some hurried catching up with other friends in between songs.  Although the occasion was sad the hall was filled with the sound of our voices, all singing harmonies.  The sheer noise level was incredible, but with everyone singing together it was also beautiful and joyous and uplifting.  Pearl, who's wake it was, would have loved it. The whole evening felt like a fitting t...

I get asked a lot why the shop name is Beaker Button, so I thought I'd tell you all here.  Some of you will already know that I have a degree in archaeology.  When I was a child my Dad used to tell my brother and I stories about history and prehistory and I have very strong memories of the Beaker people (nothing to do with The Muppets!)  I also spent nearly 10 years working at Stonehenge and the Beaker people are thought to have built at least one of the phases of Stonehenge.  So who are the Beaker people I hear you ask? In my Dad's version they were a prehistoric people, named for the particular pottery beakers they made, who came to England and duffed up the local Neolithic population.  They built burial mounds, took over ancient monuments and generally lived it up until the next lot (the Celts) came over and duffed them up. Archaeologists, however, think they were a lot more peaceful and that Beaker people integrated well with the local population, helping ...

 Yesterday we took Short Round to Milestones Museum in Basingstoke.  If you haven't been I'd highly recommend it.  It's full of very well presented stuff, from old tools to childhood toys to pristine vehicles.  The history is brilliantly presented, with boards and audio tours.  They run a lot of events as well, which is why we were there yesterday.  The Legomania event has been running for a few years now.  Last year Short Round had one of his models on display (so proud!).  This year we got to make one of the panels in a giant picture of Lightening McQueen, and had a fascinating look around the hundreds of Lego models.  Short Round got to make a mini figure.  We got to spend time with my Mum, brother, sister in law and their kids too, which was lovely. The higlight of my day though had to be the Womble puppets and the knitted jumpers on the footballers in the penny arcade! I've added some photos to give you a flavour of our day. ...