Flotsam and Jetsam

This will be a mixed bag, indeed! For the last week or so I have felt as if my life has been tossed onto the sea and has been washed hither and thither. There is a lot to catch up on, but it has no coherent pattern and follows no particular direction. Apologies in advance!

Firstly, thanks to my fabulous sister for her great encouragement over recent weeks, and then welcome home to my Mum and Dad from their travels. I look forward to hearing more of your trip.

My last post said that I had been having trouble with my art class and felt as though I had lost direction. I made the suggestion that I would sketch every day to build up the hours, and get "back into the groove" (please don't let that conjure up images of Madonna!).

I did do a few sketches. Only 2 of which I am prepared to share. I was pleased to try branching out into a more sketchy style and try to draw people. Not something I have done before, but I am seriously thinking of signing up to a full day life class in the autumn, so wanted to give it a go.

I have to say that these were drawn from photos, not from real life, but given aside the questionable facial attractiveness of each, I am quite pleased...


and I actually think that some adjustment to the left eye of this chap would yield significant improvement...




And here is my woodland scene painted "in the field" at last week's class. I did not really feel that I caught the essence of the view, but for a first watercolour outside from natural surroundings, it was just about OK.



Next is the lovely sampler band I am knitting from one of the yarns my Secret Pal enabled me to get with her thoughtful gift voucher for my LYS. I love this mix, and am knitting a 30 st wide strip to form an appliqued band to a chocolate brown cushion cover to complement my newly decorated hallway.



It has been so much fun to knit a small amount of so many different yarns. I had trouble with the tasselled yarn - I was not sure how much to force the tassells to lay in front or whether to knit them in with the background yarn. I think I made the right decision in having them all lay forward. You can't see it, but I have 7 different bands so far, and another 5 (I think) still on the ball.

Now onto the promised pictures of the finished shrug. I am very pleased with the garment, which is warm but not at all bulky or restrictive. The photos are severely limited by the fact that I had to model the item... sorry for more visual information than was absolutely necessary!

Finally, we are tackling our eco conscience a the moment. We have replaced many of our bulbs with low energy ones. We are still left wth those where the lamp fittings won't accept a low energy bulb, those on dimmer switches and those we need to use with timers. But any such step must be a good one I think.

We are enquiring about changing our ancient gas boiler for a biomass boiler (wood pellet or wood chip) but it is a difficult area to get going in. I have called three companies today and not really had the response I wanted... i.e. I want a surveyor round here to tell us about the practical options for siting, installing and fuelling one in our house. I have also found out today about carbon rationing and amthinking about signing up for our local Carbon Rationing Action Group (CRAG).

We also had elder son's girlfiend to saty for the weekend ("meet the parents"!). But moe of that will have to wait...