Red Belt!

Back in September, I joined a women only kickboxing course. It has been great fun, I have made new friends, and got a lot fitter. Today I had my first grading and passed my red belt test! Not only that but I got the highest score in the class! I am feeling very pleased about this, and really looking forward to continuing the course next year. It is important to note that I am not in the picture above which is shown courtesy of http://mixed-martial-art-photo.blogspot.com.

Ho ho ho!

The big day is drawing near: we now have our Christmas tree up, all gift shopping is complete and items are wrapped, all international cards were sent by the postal dates (yay!), little chap has only three days more at school, our Christmas meat order and veg box order have been submitted, and I have even been caught humming the odd Christmas tune or two!



Christmas came early for me, actually, as I received a wonderful package from Katie at L'aubergine joyeuse. We agreed to make each other a scarf and exchange them for the winter months. I knitted a silk scarf in Autumn jewel colours from The Yarn Gallery. I also included some small trinkets to make a surprise package. Katie crocheted me a lambswool scarf in purple (a favourite colour of mine) and included some gorgeous handmade glass beads in her package to me. I was delighted and have been busy planning how I am going to use them. The scarf has already had many an outing. It is slim and long, which is just perfect as I can wrap it a 2 or 3 times round my neck and it fills the space between collar and skin perfectly. Thank you Katie!



I have had a lot of time to myself this weekend, as the older lad brought a friend up to visit, so all the boys (including little chap) went off to the football yesterday, and this morning Guinness Man has taken little chap swimming at the local pool. It has been nice to have this time, and yesterday I managed to get out my paints for the first time in months. I was pleased with the results... and the colours give it quite a wintry feel, so it might form the basis of some cards next year.



I am glad to be seeing this year draw to a close. It has been a hard year, and there has been much disruption to our normal family routine. I am looking forward to turning the corner and facing life afresh in 2008.



I took little chap and his friend to the school disco on Thursday night... it raised £250 for the school playground refurbishment, and was a lot of fun. Little chap is also having his first sleepover here next week (after school has broken up!). He is so grown up now!

I won!

I often seem to win competitions in December! Last year I won the Christmas Raffle at the toy library, the year before I won a PDA from the newspaper, and this year I won a prize in the recent Ecover survey that I completed.

I love little books of wisdom, and so I was delighted to win the "I count" book of ways to stop climate chaos, and the Ecover guide for greener living.

Recent posts of mine have looked at domestic ecological and environmental issues, so these books are very timely, and some of the advice from them may well make its way onto the pages of this blog. Infact, here are some food related ones, seeing as we are entering the season of over indulgence:

FACT:

- £424 of food is thrown away by each person in the UK each year. That is enough to buy 530 loaves of bread! Imagine throwing that in your bin.

FACT:

- A study into food miles by Sustrans in 2002 added together the distance 26 items in a basket of shopping had travelled from its source to the store. It was 250,000 kilometres!

WHAT CAN YOU DO:

- Eating local produce can cut your food related greenhouse gas emissions by 90%

HOW:

- On the basis that seasonally available food is likely to be available from local producers, here is a list of seasonal items for December...

Jerusalem artichokes, Brussel sprouts, Cabbages, Carrots, Celeriac, Celery, Chicory, Endive, Greens, Kale, Leeks, Onions, Parsnips, Potatoes, Swede, Turnips, (looks as though December could be a windy month ;-)

It is also the time of year for game so pheasant, venison, grouse and goose are all options for meat eaters.

I also joined the Leicestershire composting club organised by the county council (it is a matter of some hilarity to my friends that I am so avid a composter!). Anyway, I received some cellulose composting sacks, and also a very useful book on composting from the council for joining. I was delighted that it contained myth busting advice on composting specific items, and also a detailed section on Bokashi systems.

I have also been picking up some craft pursuits again. I decided to use the Regia self patterning sock wool to make some mittens for little chap, as he said his hands got cold when he rode his bike. I'm quite pleased. The size is good. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with knitting on 4 needles, I inadvertently turned my work inside out, so have a band of garter stitch just at the point of the thumb gusset. However, as that falls across the knuckles, I have decided to look upon it as a design feature! Thankfully it will be easy to reproduce this in the same place on the other mitten. I was pleased to find that mittens knit up very quickly, and am pleased to add another tick to my knitters check list.

I am also making some knitted bookmarks from small amounts of luxury/interesting yarns, some of which I got as samples. I'm planning to add nice beads to each end of them, unfortunately I haven't got any that are a good colour for this bookmark yet.

I mentioned some time ago that I had felted the shrug I made from the ironstone wool my SP10 partner sent me. Well, I finally got around to sewing it up to make a project bag. I'm pleased with it. It has an internal flap as well to stop the items falling out, and as it is felted, this also makes a great place to keep needles, safety pins etc. I'm waiting for the perfect embellishment for the front, which might then double as a fastener, but the bag is already in use, holding the yarn and needles for the other of little chap's mittens!

I seem to be an all or nothing person, hence another long and rambling post after a period of silence!

Extravaganza

Last Saturday I went to the Lutterworth Embroiderer's Guild annual Extravaganza. This is a wonderful day out with an exhibition of the Guild member's work, trading stalls, demonstrations, an amazing lunch and then an afternoon speaker.

I went with a good friend of mine and what a lovely time we had, comparing notes on what we had seen, sharing peeks of each other's purchases, and passing knowing looks and nods about topics touched on in the afternoon talk.


Alice always used to attend these events (she was the chairperson's daughter!), and somehow, I am glad I did not go to the extravaganza last year (favouring a trip to the stitching show at Harrogate instead), as this meant Alice was not a ghost at every corner for me this year.


I purchased (it is impossible not to purchase at Extravaganza!) 2 felted Christmas Bauble kits (great fun - take wool tops, a ping pong ball, add some pure soap and roll in your hands until felted!); 2 packets of handmade fabric beads; 1 pack of waterlily inspired coloured threads (a bit like a Texere yarns pack); 1 pack of Lutrador (see below); and 1 packet of mixed buttons (OK, I admit now that they are for an idea for NEXT year's Christmas cards). That was quite restrained for me. But luckily (a) I have had my fill of the Guild theme packs and (b) there was no yarn stall this year.


Onto to the afternoon talk, which was entitled "Granny's Sewing Box". Marion Maule was enchanting. Not too much "I, me and mine" and plenty of artifacts to show and anecdotes to share. Her collection of old, vintage and antique sewing implements, boxes, and books was wonderful. She herself said that if she collected an implement, she liked to find an example of work done with it, and if she collected a book, she liked to find an exemplar of one of the patterns in the book. Everyone in the audience had a moment where they thought to themselves "Oh! My Mum/Granny/Aunty etc had one of those". My moments were remembering the darning mushroom (green and black) that my Mum had that was also a needle store, and the carved needle holder that I thought was made of plastic, but have now been informed may have been carved from a South American nut.

I can't manager any pictures of the bits and pieces at the moment, as my scanner is not connected, but pictures will follow soon. In the meantime, here is some information on Lutrador courtesy of The Thread Studio.



Lutradur Hints and Uses
What Is It? - Lutradur is a non woven polyester material. At first glance, it looks like dressmakers interfacing, but its unique spun woven structure makes it see through in nature. It comes in a variety of different weights; the lighter the material, the easier it is to see through it. It’s a truly versatile material. It doesn’t fray, has a slight sheen, is see through, can be combined with all other types of material, can be painted, dyed, distressed with a soldering iron or heat gun, glued, stitched, embroidered…there are no limits to what you can do with Lutradur! It is also suitable for paper arts, such as making books, altered books, card making, Artist’s Trading Cards (ATCs) and postcards.

Can I run it through the printer? - The heavier weights of Lutradur can be run through the printer without backing paper; however, because of the structure of the material, some of the ink is inevitably lost. The lighter weights can be run through attached to freezer paper; again, the lighter the paper, the greater the ink loss. However experimentation with your printer settings is worthwhile.

What kind of dyes can I use with Lutradur? - Disperse dyes are suitable for dyeing lutradur. These dyes are painted onto paper and then transferred by ironing the dye onto the material. They are also available in crayon form.

What about paints? - If it works on cloth, it’ll work on Lutradur! However, if you use thick paint, you will lose the see through nature of the cloth. Better to work with washes of paint.

And inks? - Absolutely. Pens and pencils, too.

Can I use heat to distress Lutradur? - Yes you can. It is possible to use both a heat gun and soldering iron for distressed effects; it tolerates the heat of a hot iron in the transfer dyeing process, but if you leave the iron on the material too long, you can also produce a distressed effect, sometimes when you didn’t intend it!

How does Lutradur withstand intense machine stitching? - Depends on the weight of Lutradur you are using, and how you are using it. As with any other material, the lighter the weight, the more distortion is likely when you stitch intensively into an area. The heavier weights will take a lot of stitching; the lighter weights, if fused onto a supporting material (which would be visible through the lutradur), can also be stitched like this.

Can you stitch Lutradur by hand? - Of course. Hand stitching can look particularly effective.
Can I print on it?Yes. The transfer dyeing process lends itself to printing as well as painting, with a suitable thickener (contact your dye retailer for more information).

Can I use my embellisher on it? - Lutradur makes a great base cloth for the embellisher, but it can’t be felted onto other cloth.

Take a deep breath

Today I had been resigned to posting a "service has been suspended until further notice" message on this blog. But sometimes a nudge can come from the most unexpected places. So thank you to the person who told me today that they had visited my blog, your very simple statement has meant that I have found the motivation to return today and post.

First of all, I had promised to post the Blog Action day statistics. I think they speak for themselves and say that the day was a great success. Visit this link to find out more.

20,603 Blog Participated
23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)
14,631,038 RSS Readers

I had hoped to say more about the blog action day but it is a long time ago now, and in truth I felt my own entry was rather weak. But visit some of these sites for some some great posts and environmentally aware ideas.

Back to craft-like pursuits... I finally did it! I made all of our 100+ Christmas cards this year plus another 30 for little chap's school chums. There are a variety of techniques, some of them were very easy and repeatable (hence attaining the 100 target) and none of them were overly complicated (although the beaded fabric charms did take quite a while). Here is a picture of some of the cards as they came off the "drawing board".

Apart from that, we have had some fun home made moments. We nearly always do home made fancy dress costumes, and here is little chap as a pumpkin (again!) and loving it. Also a picture of our carved pumpkin - can you tell which is which?

We also lamented the lack of the annual community fireworks display by having a small box of fireworks in our back garden. No loud bangs and no craned necks. But no bumping into old friends either.

I am redecorating at home - teenage boy's bedroom now becomes sophis' guest room. I am 2/3 of the way through stripping the paper off the walls and ceiling. Little chap is always a willing helper.

I hope to have the rest of the paper stripped off this week, and then next week can sand down the skirting boards. I am dreaming of William Morris wallpaper.

I have Alice's children over for tea every couple of weeks, and we have a lot of fun. This week they excelled themselves... they had the play shop out (old packets, a basket, a till and some coins) and grabbed a carton each, filled it with some coins and ran round the house shaking it and calling out "charity... charity"!!! Is this a sign of the times? I love having a couple of hours to be close to them, and to maintain Aidan's friendship with them. They are special moments.

A couple of weeks ago, little chap and I went on a long bike ride down country lanes. On the way back he complained his hands were cold, so I am knitting him some mittens with the self patterning yarn I bought a few weeks ago. They were meant to be socks for me, but mittens sounded like fun and were a new challenge. Pictures next time.

Finally, I have to show you what a winter fruit and veg box looks like - amazing! A few too many parsnips for our family, but still a great selection and great quality. Well done raw'n'pure

I have yet to get my paints out, but am spending the next 2 Saturdays out and about at leisure at the Lutterworth embroiderers guild extravaganza and PTA London trip. Stories to follow.

Blog Action Day

Blogger has nominated October 15th for a mass environmental awareness campaign. Bloggers are invited to register their blog and post an environmental-issue-related post on that day.

I have made a list of actions I have explicitly taken during October in order to reduce carbon emissions and engage in ecologically sensitive issues. We are all told that little actions taken close to home can have a large effect on reducing emissions. Here are my actions:

1. I have not used my car for 3 weeks. I have felt a little bit claustrophobic, but only because I have not yet got to grips with the local buses.
2. By shopping locally, and using our independent butcher and organic veg box scheme I have further reduced our household waste (which only consists of non-recycleable waste packaging thanks to our council recycling scheme, home composting and Bokashi system).
3. We had a no electricity day where we turned off all electrical appliances, and told stories and played games by candle light - little chap though this was great.
4. Replaced 5 more light bulbs with environmentally friendly ones - all our lights on the ground floor are now eco except the kitchen spotlights.
5. I washed all our woollens by hand and only used the washer for the spin cycle (drip dry is not an option in winter when things have to be dried inside!).
6. I freecycled a large pile of our old and unwanted items (mostly baby stuff and old office equipment).
7. We turned an unused area of hardstanding in our garden into a new flower bed, thus improving rainwater drainaway, and improving the wildlife environment. We are planting it with a range of wildlife-friendly shrubs.
8. I signed us up for milk delivery from our milkman - I have opted for locally produced organic milk which is not available in the supermarkets. This will support local organic farming and reduce waste (as the milk will come in reusable bottles not plastic containers).

We have not found this tasks to be be difficult, and have enjoyed the feeling that we are deliberately and conscientiously doing our bit. It will be interesting to see what other posts are published by participating blogsites today.

Blogger has also suggested that another way to support Blog Action day is to donate one day's earnings to an environmental charity. I am donating today's earnings to Green Peace.

Blogger will be producing statistics relating the the "reach" of Blog Action Day. I shall report these back when I see them.

Threads and Beads

This is the ongoing saga of the layered machine embroidery piece I started a while ago. Various threads were trapped between some sheer gold fabric and stitched over. I was never too happy with it as a large piece, but it has now made its way onto a set of Christmas cards. I cut it into small squares, bound the edges and added a bead as embellishment. I think they work a lot better this size, although I am determined to work on a large piece again. There are six cards in total, all slightly different.

This brings my total of Christmas cards made so far this year to 48! Only 52 more to go! So far I have never met my target of making all 100 cards... but this year is looking the closest yet. This 100 does not include the 30 homemade ones we also make for little chap to give to his school chums!

I have also finished the first skein of silk boucle that I am using to knot a scarf for a blogging friend... just tying on the second skein now...

We are rotters!

We are very keen composters... we have 4 composting bins in our garden which we fill on a rotational basis with a mixture of kitchen waste, garden clippings and paper/card. We also have a large water tank which we use as our final stage maturation unit (wow that sounds impressive!). Basically every autumn, I fill this with the most mature compost from the bottom of our four bins, layer it with extra paper and card, and also add the old soil and compost from our patio tubs and hanging baskets. The advantage of this is that it turns all of our compost heaps, aerates them, and checks the balance of green to brown matter. The newly filled water tank is then covered with some hardboard and left for another six months. Then each spring I "harvest" our homemade compost. This involves digging out everything from the water tank, then riddling it to remove any large pieces of less composted matter. The result is a big pile of beautiful, homemade brown stuff which improves the nutrients in the soil and also aids water retention. I then top up the water tank with some of the partially composted stuff from the four main bins, and leave it to mature further and settle until the autumn. I also combine the contents of some of the other compost bins to make more space, and add more paper as necessary. Here is some detailed advice on composting from the RHS.

To this we have added a Bokashi system. This means we can now also compost cooked waste, including meat and fish scraps. Bokashi is a kind of fermentation process. Each time waste is added to the Bokashi bin, a layer of bran is added. The bran is enriched with "effective micro-organisms" which perform the necessary digesting of the waste. After the bin has been filled, it must be left for 2 weeks, and then can be added to a conventional compost bin or dug into a hole in the ground where it fully breaks down very quickly. This week our first bin load will have matured, and we can add it to our garden compost bins. Silly as it sounds, I am very excited about this.

We got our Bokashi system from Wiggly Wigglers who offer a great range of products including wild flowers and native shrubs and British flowers (yes, flower miles count towards global warming too!).

We have also been busy decluttering, and I have taken the gut wrenching step of passing on all my little chap's baby clothes through freecycle, so that someone else can get the benefit of them. I kept a few items back for sentimental reasons. I have also been recycling his old bedroom curtains into toy sacks for use at the toy library. I hung onto everything for a long time, but it is good to let it go.

Tagged - 10 questions

Many weeks ago I was tagged by Dancin' Fool to take part in a meme she had compiled which posed the following questions of participants. I apologise for the delay in completing this... but can I also add what fun it has been to identify and articulate the answers...

1. If you could have super powers what would they be and what would you do with them? (Please feel free to be selfish, you do not have to save the world!)

• I would eradicate the inertia caused by pointless regret and enable the world to move on positively by learning from their mistakes and experiences.

2. Were you to find your self stranded on an island with a CD player...it could happen...what would your top 10 bloggers island discs be?

At first it seemed like an impossible task, but then it just got easier and easier.

1. Sade - Stronger than Pride
2. David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
3. Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
4. Dave Brubreck - Time Out
5. Bob Dylan Desire
6. Bruce Spingsteen - Born in the USA
7. Eric Clapton - Slowhand
8. Winton Marsalis - Marsalis Standard Time
9. Talking Heads - Little Creatures
10. Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced

3. you were a smell what would it be?

• Crushed geranium leaves - sharp, surprising and from an unpromising exterior!

4. What bird would you most like to be?

• A Puffin.

5. If you were a bird who's head would you poo on?

• Margaret Thatcher. She changed the direction of this country forever, and to my mind not in a good way. We are still feeling the pain of the changes she made, and some we are only now understanding the full ramifications of.

6. Are there any foods that your body craves?

• Ginger and chillies.

7. What's your favourite time of year?

• Spring.

8. What's your favourite time of day?

• 6:00am - I am still warm and in bed, my dreams are still with me, an none of the day's demands have yet landed at my feet.

9. If a rest is as good as a change which would you choose?

• A rest please, I have had too much change - both my own and other people's.

10. If you could have a dinner party and invite any 5 people from the past or present who would they be? (Living or deceased.)

1. Shami Chakrabarti
2. Germaine Greer
3. Sheila Hancock
4. Tony Benn
5. Louis Theroux

If anyone else would like to complete this meme, please leave me a comment and I will link to your answers.

Silk Fibre Paper

A while ago I made a felted bag which incorporated shibori pleating as a thankyou for a cousin in Ireland. Last week, I received a lovely card saying how pleased she was with the bag. The card itself is a work of art, and features hand made paper which incorporates silk fibres. The card is called "Burren Hills 1". The card was made by Leueen Hill.

The Burren is a fabulous place, and has been designated a place of "special scientific interest" because of the micro-climate and rare flora found on its limestone pavement, and is also an archaeologists dream with its megalithic tombs and monuments. My husband and I visited it on our first trip to Ireland. I think the card captures the colours and contours of the place very well. Thank you, Veronica, for sending me such a lovely card.

Shamed into action

Today I went to see Alice's Mum to say hello and see how she was. We had a lovely chat. She said that at all sorts of unexpected moments things happen, or occur to her, or are said that evoke sadness, but it is clear that she is forging on with life in a most admirable way. She asked me what craft things I was up to, and I was ashamed to have to say that I had not been doing any. Overall, I have had very little inclination to do any of my art or craft pursuits. I suppose this is not entirely the case... there have been some small dabblings, and also we have had a very busy time socially, visiting or having people to stay here. Anyway, this post is an attempt to follow the admirable example of people around me and get back into gear.

Some tome ago I tried my hand at a bit of machine embroidery. I trapped various threads between layers of light chiffon materials. I was not too pleased with the effect, and received advice to keep stitching and building up the layers and textures. However, I also came across an article in "Fibre and Stitch" magazine about making fabric charms, and so I have been reducing the piece into small squares with close zig-zagged edges. This has much improved the effect, and I am looking forward to continuing with other sections of the larger piece which have denser collections of fibres. My guess is these will make their way onto Christmas cards.

I have also been working with some hand dyed silk boucle from The Yarn Gallery, and using a multi-wrap stitch to make a textured scarf. I am pleased with the results so far, although have found to my great cost how easily silk yarn slips off the needles!

We have a new wool shop in our area (The Wool Cabin), and I had an interesting time there last week browsing. The shop is slightly old fashioned in that its main focus is the traditional brands (e.g. Sirdar, Wendy, Patons) and the proprietress is rather dismissive of the luxury brands (e.g. Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding) or the novelty yarns (e.g. Lanartus, Adriafil). However, I bought some self-patterning sock yarn, and also some lovely hand made beads.

I've still not picked up my paints, but there is always next week. Here is a picture of the various bits and pieces... We got a new scanner recently, and it is not as easy to use as the last one, so apologies for the faded edges.

Felted thank you bag

First craft posting in a while....

When in Ireland recently, a cousin's wife kindly took me on a girly day out while the men folk did manly things with tractors and fishing rods!!!

As a thank you, I made her this felted shibori'd bag... it is made from the shibori piece I made last year, and is lined in cream linen. I hope that she likes it.

I think it works better as an item of use (ie a bag) than a piece of created knitted fabric.

Here is the front...

and here is a close up of some of the detail in the back.

and because I cannot help to think about such things... Alice made fabulous bags. She felted using merino tops rather than knitting yarn up first. It is something to do with making a sandwich which you later cut open and scouring it with cut up orange bags. We were going to have a day doing it together this summer.

Tell the bees

I received some Scottish honey as a gift from Dancin' Fool, and the package contained this lovely piece of folk wisdom:

"Since ancient times, honey has been valuable to man. Such was the importance of this food, that when people learned how to keep bees in hives close to their homes, they sought to encourage them to stay, including them in their family by telling them any vital bits of domestic news, such as a new baby, a death or a marriage. Failure to pass on these messages would inevitably result in the bees becoming offended and flying off, thus depriving the family of one of nature's luxuries."

I liked this little story, and so I have decided to share with the bees the 10 highlights of my summer. This is also a way for me to reinforce the positive aspects of the summer, and create a happy memory of this time.

1. Exploring smugglers caves on the East Yorkshire coast and watching puffins fly overhead to and from their nesting places on the cliffs.

2. Playdates and daytrips with my little chap and his friends to Ashby Castle, Snibston discovery park, Tales of Robin Hood.

3. Watching little chap "drive" a tractor for the first time on his uncle's farm in Ireland.

4. Hearing of my step son's success in his GCSEs and knowing he can now go to college to do his chosen course.

5. Having picnic lunches in the garden under the apple tree with my little chap and taking it in turns to make up summer poems.

6. Watching little chap learn to ride his bike without his stabilisers, and then getting him a new bigger bike as a treat. Seeing his joy at this step in independence.

7. Feeling the love that my fella showed when he made a 200 mile round trip to be with me for an hour one evening when I had received bad news.

8. Being taken under the wing of the wife of one of our Irish cousins and having her take me out for a girly day.

9. "Being there" for my friend's family after their sudden bereavement, and showing them love and support.

10. Supporting two local 11 year old entrepreneurs who were offering a car wash and valeting service so that they could save up to attend a modellers' fare, and feeling impressed by their get up and go and determination.

On the craft side, I have almost completed the bag I am making for the Irish cousin's wife as a thankyou for the day out, I have also ordered some had spun and hand dyed silk yarn to make a scarf for a friend, and have begun a lacy mohair scarf for another of the Irish cousins to thank them for having us to stay. Pictures of these will follow soon.

I have also been tagged by Dancin' Fool, so I am about to follow that up and see what it involves.

It's good to blog again, I am glad I waited until it felt right.

The lost summer

My little chap has only one week of the summer holidays left. Where has the time gone?

When the summer began, I knew it would be difficult to post during July, and August, but I did not know how difficult it would become. This blog came very close to being a victim of the delete button, but kind comments and encouragement from family and friends near, far, and Internet enabled have meant that I have managed to find an ounce of resolve, and want to keep posting, sharing, and learning from others through the blogging channel.

There has been little craft done this summer, but this week I have progressed things a little, and hope to use these small accomplishments as a springboard to return to chronicling my dabblings and the wonderful talents of other people I happen across. So the latest FOs and UFOs and new projects include:

- 3 more little woolly hats for the Big Knit challenge;
- a length of rich felted "fabric" made from a previous knit that I had grown tired of and destined to become my autumn everyday bag;
- a promise to knit a bag for one of my Irish cousins-in-law who was kind enough to take me under her wing for a day on our recent holiday while the boys cooed over tractors and heavy plant and also went fishing;
- a very exciting project for winter scarf exchange with Katie from l'aubergine joyeuse.

No pictures as yet... but soon.

I think of Alice at every turn. She'd be smiling and would have lots of news to share. Little chap and I played with her lovely children in the park today.

For Alice

This week has been very difficult. Coming to terms with the loss of someone dear is not easy, and accepting the entirety of the situation cannot be done all at once.

I have begun to be able to draw comfort from the many happy times I shared with Alice, and last night I remembered this poem which I read at a school carol service about 25 years ago. This too has given me great comfort, and is my chosen way to think about Alice's passing.

The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.
The eternal spirits in freedom go.

See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other’s face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He’s come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makes
Each feather tremble on his wings.

Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way.
Sound’s perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.

But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make,
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their gaze would never break.

(Edwin Muir: The Annunciation)

Gone

My beautiful, funny, creative, caring, generous, supportive, stubborn friend has died.

I cannot believe she has gone.

Tonight I am here doing my dead friend's laundry. Her two children have had their innocent childhood ripped from them. Her husband is facing their ninth wedding anniversary tomorrow alone, planning her funeral.

There seems no point to this blog any more.

And still it rained!

This is now our 8th week of rainy weather here... I know because we are going on holiday to Yorkshire on Saturday, and 7 weeks ago we we were having a wet time at the Lincolnshire coast after already having endured a wet week at home! So, you can imagine that packing is a conundrum: wellies and woollies or sunhat and suncream?


Last Saturday we had a wonderful time. Little chap was staying with his grandparents (an having a great time might I add. He could not wait to get rid of me!), and we saw an ad in the local paper for a show on at our local theatre... and so we went... and became acquainted with the Spooky Men...

In their own words:

" It is not possible to state when the existence of the Spooky Men first came to light . Early settlers in the Blue Mountains reported attacks on livestock and evidence of scats and the occasional pawprint. It is only in recent years that sceptics have been disabused of the notion that the Spooky Men's Chorale is the stuff of fanciful legend.


The Spooky Men come down from the Mountains like a wolf on the fold. Forged in the red-hot cauldron of Georgian table singing, where anvil strikes bread and like their brothers of old they raise the morning sun with uplifted arms, their ecumenical embrace now extends to songs Paulian and Johnian. They sing paeans in praise of hardware yet are unafraid to face the existential angst that stares up at them from the debris of breakfast. In confronting the big questions facing men today (are they not pretty enough?), the Spooky Men strike while the irony is hot."


They were brilliant! A 20 or so string band of Ozzy a cappella folk singers with the odd comical send up too! A great night out. You can hear some of their tracks on their website, and they are currently doing a UK tour - well worth trying to get along.


The stash busting continues, and the count of little woolly hats for the Big Knit challenge is growing. I have also made a neck warmer and 2 hats for the OCC boxes. I am pleased with this progress considering it is the school holidays. Today I took little chap to the park, and he has now mastered riding his bike including starting, stopping, turning corners, and rising at speed through muddy puddles! He is feeling very pleased with himself, and I am tempted to think that this milestone has been aided by a reverse Samson effect (i.e. I have cut off all his hair for a cooler, easier summertime coiffure).


I have packed some yarn to take on holiday, and my paper and pencils, and a good book. However usually there is no time left for any of those pursuits. We are looking forward to visiting Dracula's landing place in the UK, some Moorland walking ("stick to the paths"), proper fish and chips, and a trip over the Humber Bridge on the way. "See" you when we get back!

Stash Busting!

I am on a mission to deplete my stash by the end of this year! Now I have never heard anyone else say that, so I might now be evicted from the circle of knitters and crafters for such a piece of heresy.

Here is a picture of what is left of my stash after a couple of weeks of intense depletion. I have found all my odds and ends and unused skeins, and am completing planned projects (e.g. lace cowl) or am knitting little woolly hats for the Big Knit challenge, or am making hats, scarves and mittens for the parcels I am making for this year's Samaritans purse. Last year we had so much pleasure from knowing that our parcels would be opened by needy children on Christmas Day and that the contents would bring them a little happiness. This year, I am trying to make a boy and a girl parcel for each of the age ranges covered by Operation Christmas Child. It is humbling to think what simple items will be so appreciated: a notebook and pencils, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a soft toy or a ball.

Back to the stash bash, though. I intend to empty this basket completely so that I can start afresh. The only thing not included in this basket are packs of decorative threads for my sewing.

A similar fate awaits my pile of fabric too. Much will be destined to make toy sacks for our local toy library, although I also have an ambitious embroidery project on the back burner. I want to reclaim my work room, and have chance to think afresh what projects I want to tackle.

It was the first day of 6 weeks of the school summer holiday today. We made the most of it. Last night I made a chicken korma, and little chap and I played at Indian Restaurants with candles, popadoms and chutneys, the works... lots of fun, and reinforcing an adventurous eating habit with him. We are off to a friend's 60th birthday celebration meal next week, and it is at an Indian restaurant, so this little practice will come in very handy!

We have made a list of all the things we would like to do this holiday, and are going to have lots of fun from a train ride, to picking fruit, to camping in the back garden. I am really looking forward to it all.

Another hat

I have been busy knitting little woolly hats for the Big Knit challenge, and have also finished a full scale hat for myself. This is a felted cloche hat from a kit given to me by Monica as part of SP10. I'm really pleased with it... the colour, the shape and the overall amount of felting (quite lightly felted). Given the refusal of the British summer to arrive, I am looking forward to taking this on my holiday to Whitby in a couple of weeks.

In other parts of life... little chap has been in his first school play! He was a wiggly bee, with a very cute group song and dance routine. I have the play on video, so family members who read this can look forward to seeing the performance soon. He was very proud of his role and took it all very seriously. It was part of a key stage one (important newish UK teaching milestone) celebration day and the tone of the day was very nice. 3 years' pupils took part in the play (reception, year 1 and year 2) with the older pupils having the speaking parts and the younger ones singing, dancing and playing instruments. The play was called Honey and is about the workings of a hive, so it was educational too. I am very pleased that our school encourages all areas of development - there are lots of good lessons to be learned from working together to perform a play. This week the older years (key stage 2) do their play, including a performance to the senior citizens of the town who visit from a couple of the local day centres and care homes - so there is important community involvement too.

The school summer holidays start on Friday, so I am aware that my time for crafts and blogging might be hard to find for the next few weeks. Little chap and I have made a list of summer holiday activities we want to do, this includes learning a song on the recorder so that we can perform it by the end of the summer. Little chap is keen on putting on a "concert" for his Dad! I ordered a couple of recorders from Amazon, and was amazed to find they still sell the recorder book that I learned from at school back in 1972!!!!! I don't imagine we will set our sights much higher than twinkle twinkle little star, but I think it will be a good summer holiday achievement.

I have also finished sanding down the old oak stairs in our house, ready for the arrival of my newly ordered handwoven jute stair runner, which should come around the end of the month. The hall redecoration is now on the home stretch with the stairs sorted (pending fitting) and new (low energy) light fittings ordered. We have also hung or recently acquired collection of mirrors, and this weekend will also rehang other decorative pieces such as my collection of fish plates.

As I don't imagine I will get much painting done over the summer, I decided to unearth an old hobby and gave my clarinet an airing this morning. It took a while to get to grips with it again, and an effective and reliable embroucher still evades me, so I am prone to the odd ear piercing squeak. I have found a local teacher, however, so I shall enquire about some lessons for September time. A neighbour of mine plays the saxophone, and I hear him practising as I walk back from dropping little chap at school. At present he is trying to master Habanero, so as you can imagine, it puts a spring in my step!

I have just been given a leaflet for the knitting and stitching show at the NEC in September. I am very tempted to try to go. I'll look into it a bit more.

Rural France

I managed to keep my Wednesday date with my paintbrushes today, and here is the result. I am moderately pleased with this. There was a bit more in the foreground, but it suffered my usual vagueness, so I cropped it.

Here is the whole thing for comparison... thoughts?

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who entered my recent competition (Can you guess what it is yet - June 2007) to guess what my two boys bought their Dad for Father's Day.

The answer is that it is a a digital wireless rain gauge... so as a slightly nerdy family we can monitor the daily rainfall from the dry comfort of our kitchen! It has provided hours (well actually millimetres) of fun so far. Let me know if you want the monthly UK fall from now on! In fact I might just post it anyway!

The winner is Debbie - who concluded that it was a rocket launcher - congratulations! You made me laugh even though it was way off target.

A picture of the knitted flower brooch (pin) that I am sending to Debbie for her prize will follow.

Thanks also to Sun Pat for your suggestion - I couldn't quite see how the antenna fitted in, though. If you would care to elaborate on your answer to include this functionality, then I might stretch to a runner's up prize too!

I Count!

Have you heard of the I Count campaign yet? It is a coalition of 50 trusted campaigning organisations focused on "stopping climate chaos". See http://www.ICount.org.uk
I've already signed up online and they provide a range of good options for how I can be part of reducing my carbon footprint. There are probably some options you can act on too.

At Glastonbury at the weekend - where I Count was the headline campaign - over 70,000 new people signed up. It's hard to overstate the kind of leap. Now even bigger things are to come. On 7 July the worldwide Live Earth concerts promise to raise unprecedented awareness about climate chaos. I Count is one of the groups behind the event in London, and will use it to build pressure on politicians, and force political action.

Would you like to be a part of stopping Climate Chaos? The look up this site, and start taking action today. There are all sorts to choose from: from personal day to day actions to political lobbying and everything in between.

Raw 'n Pure

This is the name of the new organic box scheme which operates locally, and which I used for the first time yesterday. There have been other box schemes here, but one stopped because it became too popular (a weird kind of irony there) and others, in my opinion deliver from too far away, and so lose points on the eco front.

This one (Raw n Pure) are about 7 miles away, and is run by two very nice women. I had a veg "surprise me" box, and a fruit "surprise me" box. This gives you the best value selection of seasonal and available products with a guarantee that there will be at least 5 items in each. This cost me £10 plus £1 for delivery. Very good value I think. Feast your eye on this....

I also finished the felted bag I was making from yarn sent me by my secret pal. It has turned out a lot hairier than I thought, but it's just the right size to carry my keys and phone when I go to pick my chap up from school. The rosette, and embellishment at the top is made using sari ribbon. I am pleased with it.

I have also cast on the stitches and knitted about 2" of the felted hat kit (colourway: seabreeze and blush). Pictures of that next time. I am using the Denise needle set. They were odd at first - the plastic of the needles takes a bit of getting used to (they are very slippery), as does the very small length of needle, and the long length of interconnecting cord, but I am getting there now. I had to unpick it the first time, as I twisted it when I joined it into the round, so I had a nice Moebius strip of a hat developing. That would have been fun! Thankfully I caught it before I had got too far.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

I managed to put aside some time yesterday to sit and paint and enjoy. I seem drawn at the moment to try to capture my childhood experiences of holidays on the Lincolnshire coast. I am also trying to learn how to suggest distance and form with gradients of colour, and small indistinct marks, rather than lots of detailed brush strokes.

I quite like this picture, although I think the line of the sea needs to be less broken, and perhaps there needs to be something more for the eye to focus on.

The Big Knit

My new Denise Interchangeable needles arrived this morning - but more on that in another post. What also came in the parcel was a leaflet about Innocent's Big Knit Challenge. They are asking people to knit lots of little woolly hats for their smoothie bottles. These will then go into shops, and for everyone sold 50p will be donated to Age Concern. Last winter 25000 older people dies of cold related illnesses in the UK. Age Concern will use the money raised to provide support to older people including hot meals, blankets and advice on how to keep their houses warm.

Last year 230,000 hats were knitted and £115,000 was raised.

Please join in this fun and worthwhile campaign. There is further information at www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/thebigknit.

When you have made your hats send them to "Little Knitted Wooly Hats" Fruit Towers, 1 The Goldhawk Estate, London W60BA, with a note on the envelope saying how many hats are inside.

Rowan have kindly provided 3 patterns to get people started...

Felted Goodies

On Friday I received another package from my secret pal, Monika. This ticks lots of boxes for me: hats, handbags, and felting courtesy of pick up sticks. Take a look at this:

There is enough yarn to make a child or adult version of the hat, and I am going to claim his one for myself.

I love this bag, and have just knitted my first I-cord, so am looking forward to applying this technique to the decoration of the bag.

Thank you, Monika - you certainly know how to spoil someone, and I have been amazed at your great choices, all of which I have enjoyed.

I have also ordered myself a set of Denise interchangeable needles from I Knit (great site with a fun blog), so that I can do larger projects in the round.

I have a whole range of projects on the go at the moment (bag, cushion, rosettes, collar, cards), all close to completion, so should have some FOs to post soon. It has been a mad couple of weeks, though. My little chap finishes the reception year at school on 3 weeks, and so the school is preparing them for moving up to Year 1, and all the independence and responsibility that involves. They now gather and line up in the big playground with the other children, and are led in by their teacher. Up to now the parents have gone in with them and helped them hang up their coats, find their name tags for self registration, and hand in homework/money for events/letters from home etc. Now we have to let them go on their own, with reminders such as "don't forget your reading pack is in your bag" ringing in their ears. The children are all ready for it, I think this period of adjustment is more for the parents!

I also have to complete a lot of applications for funding for our playground project as part of my PTA duties. We have raised £4,500 this year, and our target is £10,000. This will be used to regenerate the school playgrounds following major building work in the school. It will be used to buy shelters, seating, playground and sports court markings, play and sports equipment and storage. We are going to need to do a lot of fund raising activities next school year. It's quite a daunting prospect, but we'll get there.

I haven't managed to do any painting for 2 weeks, but hope to be able to find some time for that today as well.

SP10 comes to a close

The end of SP10 is approaching for all participants. I for one have had a wonderful time. This was my first exchange of any kind, and I could not have wished for better either in terms of my pal (Monica at Knitty Goodness) or the person I was spoiling (Nephele at ADKD).

Thankyous have been exchanged all round, but you can never express too much gratitude so I would publicly like to thank Monica for the wonderful job she did of spoiling me - she sent we wonderful yarns, lovely and useful accessories, introduced me to sock knitting, and kept my little chap entertained as well with models and chalks.

I also want to thank Nephele for being so responsive to the packages I sent her. It was great fun to read about her receiving and opening the parcels, and hear the plans she has for the yarn I have sent her. I was particularly pleased to find some hand dyed yarns that from The Yarn Gallery that she had not come across before. Here are a few pictures.

More textiles

I promised more textiles for you to feast your eyes on. Well here are two of my favourite pieces from the recent LUSAD exhibition I went to this week. Actually, one is textile, and the other isn't but they are both beautiful, and to me have great similarities. The colours, shapes and textures are just wonderful.

I have been collecting gold and green threads and fabrics for ages now, intent on doing a mixed media Klimt inspired embroidery. This might be just the push I need to get started. One thing I learned from the students' technique books is the value of swatching!!! Testing the individual elements, and the individual techniques in small samples, and then combining and recombining them to learn what really works. It sounds so obvious, but let's face it, when you find a few moments to indulge in crafty pursuits, it can be all to tempting to dive in rather than take a structured and academic approach to creating. I have seen a lot about "inchies" on sites like Dot Frankston's maybe that might be a good way in.

Anyway - the credits for the pictures shown above are:

(top) Mixed media textile by Stephanie Nixon

(bottom) Fictional Artefact in silicone, oxidised stainless steel and guilding metal by Nicola Stock

Can you guess what it is?

OK! Here is a bit of fun... this is a picture of what my two boys bought my husband for Father's Day. Can you guess what it is?

I will make a knitted flower brooch for the first complete, accurate and correct answer, or the most original and amusing suggestion received by Fri 29th June!

Textile Exhibition

Yesterday I went to Loughborough University School of Art and Design to see the final year textile students' exhibition. WOW! What a wonderful array of woven, printed and mixed media textiles (actually they called it 'multi-media', but to me that means video, sound and printed word in a kind of hi-tech presentation, so I am sticking with 'mixed media').


Anyway, back to it - such talent! So many beautiful textiles displayed as swatches or sometimes used as clothing, upholstery, wall art, or even translated into wallpapers.


The students displayed their textiles, and also their research and technique portfolios - these were fascinating, and it was so good to see where they had drawn their individual inspirations from, and how they had examined the elements of these and interpreted them into their own work.


Each student had these lovely photographic cards to advertise themselves and their work. I have many more to show you, so watch this space for more to feast the eyes upon.

Credits for work shown here (left to right):

Blues and golds: Alexandra Brown, Charlotte Jane Winn-Morgan, Alice Janssens, Daniel Michael Smith

Blacks and White: Katie Leamon, Kathryn Neville, Madeleine Wass, Joanna Parkin

Yellows and golds: Stephanie Earnshaw, Gemmas Wade, Linda Mackie, Sarah-Jane Skrynnyk

Pink and reds: Katherine Dawson, Rebecca Cox, Georgina Reynolds, Beth Morton

A weird kind of surprise

I have felt a strong urge to tackle and achieve something major and tangible this week. So I have gone for a bit of a bathroom makeover. Now our bathroom is really nice. It is huge, and it has wild wallpaper which was put up by the people before us and which I absolutely love. There was one major problem with our bathroom however, and that was the carpeted floor. I dislike carpets in bathrooms, they just don't seem very hygienic or practical. Add to this the fact that we inherited the carpet, and also that it extended sixteen inches up the back wall behind the cistern and basin (yes really!), and you will see why this has been a makover on my mind for a while.

Another factor in the equation is that my husband works away all week, only returning home late on a Friday night, and then off again on a Sunday. So it is nice for me sometimes to take on a big job and do it while he is away, then he comes home to a great big surprise.

We do a lot of DIY. This is because we don't like to pay other people to do stuff we can do ourselves, and also because, although it takes us a lot longer than it would a professional, we believe that for the most part we get exactly the finish we want if we do it ourselves.

So with all this in mind, on Monday I ripped up the carpet from the bathroom. I have put down some vinyl flooring in the wet area of the bathroom, and am going to put a small carpeted area (yes I know what I said above) in the entrance part of the bathroom (you see the room is really big, so there is kind of a dressing area and a washing area, so two floorings will be OK).

As I mentioned, the old carpet extended up the wall (yuk!), and when I pulled it off I found out why. In the past someone had tried to box in the pipework, and had done a dreadful job, so the wall carpeting was covering various holes and gaps and unevenness. I was determined to improve this area, and so today I have gone for some pine panelling. Now this is actually my favourite part of the make over, because the panelling is made from recycled wine box lids. A few weeks ago I got 300 of these lids from a local wine merchant through freecycle. They were from 2-bottle presentation wine boxes, and the lids had been removed so that a corporate client could put their own printed lids on. I have been using these lids to paint on, for craft projects, and now for panelling my bathroom! I have teak oiled the panels (we don't like to put varnish on wood), and put some architrave on the top and as a skirting board, and I think it looks fine and dandy. It will amuse me for years to come that our bathroom is decorated with recycled wine paraphernalia.

Tomorrow will see the laying of the carpet in the dressing area. The previous carpet was a dark sage green, but I am going for a cream waffle effect carpet.

The room is just going to look so different, and I cannot wait to see my husband's face. When we first lived together, he used to play five a side foot ball on a Sunday afternoon, and would come home to find a room re-painted or some such, and four years ago I made and decorated a bar for him in the cellar during one of his weeks away. So this should bring back some fun memories for him.

I forgot to take a before picture, but here is just a small area of the part that has been completed.

Black Dog

For the past month I seem to have been in a bit of a dark place. I have not felt at peace nor at full energy. I can't put my finger on it, and there is nothing tangibly wrong. As the feeling is not seeming to go away on its own, I have decided to grab the bull by the horns and focus on all the good things that have happened over the past month, and there have been quite a few! So, please excuse this somewhat indulgent post of personal newsy "stuff". One of the things that has helped shake me out of the doldrums has been some lovely comments I have received on my blog... words of encouragement and friendship. Thank you to Monika, Nephele, Dancin' Fool and Covered in Yarn.

For the past 5 weeks my elder (step) son has been doing his GCSEs (school leaving exams). He visits us every second weekend, and we have been rallying round to help him with his revision - taking turns to work through revision papers with him, and discussing various aspects of his subjects over dinner etc. This has been such a rewarding time, as we have seen him put immense effort in during these periods, and we have benefited from some moments of real closeness with him. A treasured memory for me will now always be the afternoon he and I spent studying poetry together, and discussing what we felt and perceived in the various passages he has had to study. His last exam is this coming Friday, and I look forward to seeing such a large weight lifted from him. He would like to go on to college to do an engineering based vocational course - something like car mechanics. I think a practical course such as this would suit him.

My little chap has also had some significant educational moments over the past month. We had his first formal school report, and a parents evening, and received glowing feedback about his personality, and his diligence in his studies. We also had sports day where he came 3rd in the running race, and also participated in the beanbag race and ball race. I am a very proud Mum! I was very impressed by how the school ran the sports day - all the children seemed genuinely pleased to take part, and there were lots and lots of parents there to cheer them on and support them. Given the worrying statistics on childhood obesity in the UK (currently 1 in 4 children classed as obese), I was very pleased to see how "lean" the school seemed, and this impression was backed up a few weeks ago when I volunteered to help out on a school trip, and so was able to see first hand what most children ate for their packed lunch. Although there were more crisps and sweets in many packed lunches, I was pleased at the healthy sandwiches I saw, and the amount of fresh fruit, and the healthy life style taught and encouraged by the school. I have a great interest in food, cooking and nutrition, and in some of my madder moments, I have considered putting together a healthy eating course aimed at parents of children under 11. I am lucky t have two boys who are very good eaters, and who are mostly happy to try new things and eat a good range of fruit and vegetables.

We also took part in little chap's school summer fete. This is the major fundraising event of the year, and all proceeds are currently going towards regenerating the school playgrounds with new sports court markings, game areas, play equipment, storage, seating, shelter and the like. We have a target of £10,000 and the fete raised £1400. We ran a stall at the fete. It was a bean bag target game. We made a large target with 5 holes and decorated it, and the children had to throw beanbags at it, and score more than 90 points to win a prize. We raised £48 which equates to 96 visits to our stall. We had the local radio station do a broadcast from the fete, and they sent their mascot "Oakey Bear" to open the fete and entertain the children. It was a lovely day, and the sun shone, and lots of fun was had by all.

In the middle of all this was my wedding anniversary. Somehow we didn't manage to get out together this year - first year that hasn't happened. One year for our wedding anniversary we booked a baby sitter and went and had a grown up picnic on a craggy hill, and one year my husband booked us back into the hotel where we had our wedding reception and we had a VERY POSH 7 course gourmet meal! So, not doing anything this year sounds bad, but we have booked two summer holidays - a week in Yorkshire in a cottage just a skip away from the cliffs and a lighthouse. I feel a few Bronte moments coming on! And the second holiday in Ireland (husband's homeland) as part of a family reunion. So we have special times coming up.

By now you must be wondering why I have been feeling down when life has been full of so many good things - and to be honest so have I. And it just gets better, as tomorrow I am going to the local art college degree show (fine art, ceramics, jewellery, furniture and textiles!!!) with two very good friends of mine. I cannot wait to immerse myself in the talent and beauty of the local art college and their students, and also spend time with good friends.

You know, I feel a lot better already. Counting your blessings may seem like a very old fashioned thing to do, but it's also a good barometer for life.