This is the eighth book in the series about Muddy Waters and his friends, and this one introduces the dredger Cedric and the finding of a bomb during one of his dredging jobs.
Cedric and the Bomb. Price £3.99p.
New Muddy Waters Title
Canal Walks (Julia Bradbury)
- Canal Walks (Julia Bradbury)
Published to accompany a four part BBC television series with Julia Bradbury walking four different canals. They are the Llangollen Canal, Caledonian Canal, Worcester & Birmingham Canal and the Kennet & Avon Canal.
The book is priced at £9.99p, and can be found here.
Model Boats
Another few items that are returning to the catalogue after a long absence are the three 20cm (8″) model boats, Lapwing (pictured left), Sandpiper and Water Rail,
- 10cm model narrowboats
and the 10cm (4″) model narrowboats, available in three different colour schemes.
GeoProjects & Heron maps
The River Thames map has now joined my list of unavailable GeoProjects maps, but it is one of the new Heron maps due for release in the Spring, along with the Oxford, Llangollen and Grand Union Canal map 2.
The Heron Mon & Brec map is due out in June or July, and the BCN is listed as the end of the year. More news as and when I receive it.
Kingfisher Tiller Pin
After a longer than expected wait, the kingfisher tiller pin is now back in stock, there has been a slight increase in cost due to the higher VAT rate.
This tiller pin is the best seller by a long way, sales of this pin are more than the total of all the others.
Another day at the NEC
Combined two events this time, but still not as much walking as the other day, so not so tiring.
The first was a hobby and craft trade show, looking for anything new for both canals and campervans. There could well be cross stitch kits for both categories in the near future.
The second one was the Boat Caravan and Leisure show. Not too much here for the inland waterways enthusiast, but plenty for the caravan, motorhome and tent people. Although looking at the prices of the new campervans/motorhomes I won’t be swapping my old Renault campervan just yet.
Canal Cross Stitch Kits
This is the start of the cross stitch section of the blog where you can leave any comments about anything to do with the canal cross stitch kits.
Two new kits have just been added to my catalogue.
This is the latest from the John Clayton Miniature range from Heritage Crafts. It is the second one in the range to feature a canal, the first one being ‘The Lock Keepers Cottage’.
It is on 14 count aida fabric, and comes complete with the fabric, charts and instuctions, needle and DMC stranded cottons. The finished size is approx 13cms square and costs £10.95.
It can be found in my catalogue under Heritage or General Canal Scenes.
This is the latest canal map from Heritage Crafts. It shows the Shropshire Union Canal from Ellesmere Port to Autherley Junction, and has small drawings of various buildings and structures along the route. It is finished off with a border design of roses and castles.
It is on 27 count Evenweave fabric, and comes complete as the kit above. The finished size is approx 29.5cms x 40cms and costs £20.50.
It can be found in my catalogue under Heritage and Shropshire Union Canal.
Spring Fair, NEC
Spent a leg aching day yesterday walking around the majority of the exhibition halls at the NEC, Birmingham, looking for anything new in the canal and campervan ranges, and as far as the general gift manufacturers are concerned, campervans are more popular than canals.
The only items new for the canals that I spotted were a few jigsaws, so they should be appearing in the catalogue in the near future. Plenty of stands had campervan stuff, keyrings, fridge magnets, clocks, cushions etc.
The main problem for both canal & campervan stuff is that it represents a very small part of the range offered by the company, and quite a few of them have minimum order quantities and costs that are £250-£300 or higher, and just spending that amount on the few items that you want means that you would have to buy more than you really want or could sell in a couple of years. So unless you can find a wholesaler that stocks these items then you don’t stock them.
The downside of the wholesaler stocking them is that every other shop on the waterways etc., is also stocking the item, so you don’t have something different to everybody else.
The 2011 catalogues haven’t appeared from the waterways’ wholesalers yet, so I don’t know what new stuff they may have come up with.
New Year, New Blog
Welcome to this first post of my new blog.
The intention is to use this blog as another way of keeping people informed of changes to my site, including new stock, deleted stock. directory additions and changes to the structure of the whole site. There may even be special offers occasionally.
New categories will be added to make things easier for you to find once new posts have been made in that category.
The blog will become active from February 1st, and if you want a monthly update on new stuff, then you can always sign up to my newsletter by entering your email address in the box on the home page of my site.