Talk amongst yourselves for a moment, please...

As you might have guessed from the lack of posting, it has been a spectacularly unproductive couple of weeks.  Let me start with the building work.  We have a few of our new Ikea cabinets in...

They are lovely - really clean and sparkling without looking showroom-y at all.  I guess it's the dirty great chimmney, with bits of old plaster stuck to it, which prevent it looking 'showroom-y' (that will be cleaned up, we're told) but really, showroom-y is bad, in my book.  This looks practical, but still a very light and cheerful place to be - we are quite chuffed about it. 

One of these days, when it's finished, I'm going to dig out the 'before' photos and post them.  It's quite a startling change.

Anyway, this year I am hoping to contribute to the Tannenbaum Christmas Barn.  I have only just realised how late it is - and how much work I need to do to produce some stock for it.  I currently just have one mammoth, Bogart.  He's made from a remenant of mohair, and I didn't have quite enough of it, so he has a black cashmere gusset.  It makes me snigger every time I say it, but it actually looks quite spiffy.

I haven't spent the entire time since I last posted making Bogart though - thankfully.  I have been trying to design a meerkat.  It has taken so long (and it isn't complete yet) that I'm not sure what to do anymore.  I can't really afford to devote much more time to him, and yet I need to make something back on the time I've already spent.  And, I like what I've done so far.  I have completed the head and the body.  Here is part of the head, along with the photograph I'm working from.

It doesn't look like much, I realise, but it is at least the right shape.  I spent ages trying to get that shape via the ordinary method - i.e. two side pieces and a gusset - but it didn't work (and I assure you, I exhausted every single possibility).

I am going to break from the meerkat for a little while, so I can put together some stock for the christmas barn.  It has been ages though since I took anything into the Coggleshall art gallery.  If I can get this meerkat on his feet anytime soon, that is where he will be going.