Happy Birthday Burns!

He'd have been 250 today...

We had our traditional Burns Supper this evening - haggis neeps n tatties - and very good it was too! With an extra-special creamy mash and one of McSweens finest :)

In honour of the occasion, I would like to share with you the

Address To a Haggis

"Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch , tripe, or thairm :
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

"The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

"His knife see rustic Labour dight ,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin' , rich!

"Then, horn for horn , they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive ,
Bethankit ! hums.

"Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner ,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

"Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as wither'd rash ,
His spindle shank , a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit ;
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

"But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed ,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle ;
An' legs an' arms, an' heads will sned ,
Like taps o' thrissle .

"Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies ;
But , if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis !"

- Robert Burns

One of the strange things about this is, I think our night in celebration of good old Rabbie Burns is almost certainly more widely celebrated than St. Andrew's day.

V is for Valentine

♥♥♥

Valentine's Day is fast approaching - yes it's that time of year again! - so I thought I would do a little prize draw. I'm giving away a Valentine's Day Goody Bag - handmade, knitted & felted WildCat Designs goodies that is.
To enter, just leave a comment for this post.
Closing date is Sunday 8th February 2009. The winner will be chosen at random :)

♥♥♥

Good luck!

[edit: I know some of you have had problems leaving a comment (sorry!) so I've modified my settings - please feel free to try again!]

For the love of Print

When reading through the Poppytalk blog recently, I stumbled across this post in which I couldn't help but be captivated by Katie Muth's gorgeous lino cut printed cards, which really caught my eye.

Needless to say, I loved them instantly and wanted to find out more. So I checked out Katie's website and I was not disappointed. As I'd been looking for a special Valentine's day card, I found just that - but couldn't buy just one card, so treated myself to one of her occasion card packs as well, covering various different greeting needs. I have to say I was impressed because not only are they lovely, they also arrived v quickly all the way from Toronto!



The cake one looks a bit like the lovely chocolate cake my folks and I have been demolishing this evening, in celebration of my mother's birthday! :)

Oh! I also finished my mittens, which makes me a very very happy bunny, not to mention one with much warmer, nay, toasty fingers. Soft, cosy and stripy. Just the way I like 'em.

Wanna make something like this?

This is a really pretty wirework necklace, made using silver plated wire, chain, faceted Czech glass and other beads. It just so happens that I'm teaching a workshop in Edinburgh on how to make one like it! If you're interested, it's being held next month at the Bead Shop in Stockbridge, details here. Even beginners can make this - not as tricky as it looks :)

Also, in other news, I'll be announcing a special little *Prize Draw* later this week - so watch this space!

I would also like to say that I admit I am becoming ever-so-slightly addicted to last.fm! I discovered it through a friend just before Christmas, and have been playing with it ever since. The fun thing about it is that you essentially create your own radio station, adding just the bands/songs that you personally like. I like the fact that it can suggest music it thinks you might like, based on the bands you've already added.

You're heard of two left feet...

...well, I almost ended up with two right mittens!?! Which would have been a nightmare to say the least. I mean, I'm left-handed.

Last winter I knitted myself a gorgeous pair of striped mittens, which I loved. Then I stupidly lost them - by accidentally leaving them on the bus, in my rush to get off at the right stop!

I promised myself I would knit another replacement pair, so that's what I've been working on, it helped to keep me occupied and my hands busy in the couple of days before Hogmanay and quite a few days since.

The other night, I was thrilled to be on mitten no. 2 and getting on well. So engrossed was I, that I'd done all the fiddly shaping bits for the thumb and even finished sewing that part up. I was about to proceed onwards, when I realised that I'd omitted to notice the shaping should have been different to make the left mitten! As a result I had to undo the sewing and rip right back to where I got lost...ah the joys.

I guess it will make the stripy mittens that much more rewarding when they are finally finished! (I hope so, anyway.)

Seasons Greetings!

Well, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas (I know I did), and that Santa was good to you!

It was a nice day here at WildCat Designs HQ, with a beautifully laid Christmas table (though I do say so myself), a lovely roast Goose dinner and my own home-made Baileys cheesecake for dessert. A little non-traditional, I know, but to be honest, I'm not really a fan of mince pies, Christmas cake or pud. Yule log is much more up my street :) I even have some rather fab home made beaded felt decorations on the tree, as well as one of Lupin's lovely little robins.

Now that my run of craft fairs and craft markets is done, and all my orders have been dispatched, I can get down to dreaming up lots of fabulous new ideas for 2009, yay! Have a Happy New Year Everyone ♥

Manchester, here I come!

My first outing to Manchester is fast approaching - I'll be flogging my lovely wares at the Whitworth Art Gallery on Sunday the 14th of December, 12 noon til 4pm. It looks like a fab line-up, thanks to the Manchester Craft Mafia and there will be lots of opportunities to catch up on your Christmas shopping, including great little stocking fillers :)

[click the poster above to see it larger & clearer]

Oh to be a Scot

I thought as it's Saint Andrew's Day today, I would do a little reflecting on what it means to me to be Scottish. It means a lot to me to be able to say that I come from such a beautiful little country. I often wish (due to the fact that I am, and remain, fiercely Scottish, and never feel especially 'British') that I could put 'Scottish' as my nationality, however, I was dismayed to discover that my passport says I am from 'Great Britain.' I also sometimes feel that because of having to put 'UK' as the 'country' I live in (though strictly speaking - if I'm going to be pedantic - I suppose it is, in actuality, a group of countries), that I have been stripped of being able to say that I'm in, or from, Scotland.

[edit: I would also like to add that Scotland is often classed as a 'region' in the UK or 'Great Britain' and that frankly, this is a bit of an insult!]

Still, today is about celebrating my heritage, not negativity. The things I love about Scotland are far too numerous to list completely, but here are a few: wonderful scenery, nessie, lochs, skiing, bens, celtic art, the history, knitwear, tartan, the wildlife, heiland coos, haggis, red cheddar, shortbread, tunnocks teacakes, raspberries, crannachan, the beano, the broons, oor wullie, wonderful soft Scottish water, tattie scones, fudge, tablet, toffee, hogmanay, burns night, smoked salmon, Aberdeen angus beef, men in kilts, Gaelic, the Scots language - and the people too, with their cheeky banter :) oh, yes: last but certainly never least: the magic hangover-curing rocket fuel that is irn-bru! And lucky us, we have two flags to choose from - the Lion Rampant and the Saltire, or St. Andrew's Cross. I love both, because of the decorative quality of the lion, and the fact that nobody can ever quite agree on the exact shade of 'sky blue' your Saltire should be!

As a child, I lived abroad for a while, and in some ways, it made me feel more Scottish than ever... When not in our home country, we hold onto what makes us Scots. It was things like celebrating Hogmanay in our usual style complete with fireworks, lovely shortbread and (if we were really lucky, and had actually managed to track some down!) maybe some irn-bru, which were important traditions that reminded us of home.