Bustle & Sew, my new blog

I've decided to start a new blog in addition to this one ... and I'm calling it "Bustle & Sew" (more about that below!)

I've found that things are becoming very muddled - I want to blog about all my new ideas and products, but also about the life I enjoy here in Devon with my two naughty newfies, Amy and Ben. So Bustle & Sew will be more of a "how to" blog incorporating some tutorials and giveaways from my business, DevonBear Designs and lots of crafty photos and links, while stories of our day-to-day life will remain here. Hopefully this makes sense and if anyone decides to visit Bustle & Sew you'll enjoy some of the pictures and tutorials I'm going to put together over the coming weeks and months.

The name ... well ... I wanted to keep it separate from DevonBear Designs and was stuck for ideas until I remembered my names for the two newfies .... Amy bustles around looking very important and girly while Ben slinks through even the smallest space (not bad for 11 stone of dog!) with his young, flexible body. Clearly Bustle and Slink wasn't really going to be suitable, but what about "Bustle & Sew"? I thought. Especially as Amy likes to sit with me while I stitch. So a new blog is born.

Next week I'll be posting a tutorial for my handmade heart brooches (shown at the top of this entry on my new blog) - just in time for Valentine's Day. If you don't have time to make them yourself, then they are available for purchase on my website. I've crafted them from vintage Welsh blanket scraps, but felt would be just as good.

Back on the beach!

The weather here in Devon has been cold and gloomy with icy winds for most of the holidays, so we haven't been to the beach very much lately. Of course the newfies adore this weather, and often beg to be allowed outside to bask on the cold cold slates and turn their muzzles to the icy blast! But today dawned bright and sunny, the tide was right so ... the beach it was! All is revealed in our video below...

Weather ... I love this poem!

January brings the snow

Makes your feet and fingers glow

February's ice and sleet

Freeze the toes right off your feet

Welcome March with wintry wind

Would thou wer't not so unkind

April brings the sweet spring showers

On and on for hours and hours

Farmers fear unkindly May

Frost by night and hail by day

June just rains and never stops

Thirty days and spoils the crops

In July the sun is hot

Is it shining? No it's not

August cold, and dank, and wet

Brings more rain than any yet

Bleak September's mist and mud

Is enough to chill the blood

Then October adds a gale

Wind and slush and rain and hail

Dark November brings the fog

Should not do it to a dog

Freezing wet December then:

Bloody January again!

Michael Flanders