Caged Minutes

Happy 2008

2008-01-02T18:35:00.000Z

It is 2 days into the New Year. It feels good. There was much to close the book on in 2007.

One of the gifts in our household this year was a power meter which measures the electricity consumption of any single item, or can be fixed to the mains meter to calculate total household power consumption and cost. This was a good way to focus our attention again on our carbon footprint after a fortnight of extra consumption through extra heating, cooking and lighting.

In the I-Count book that I won last year, there is a table of power savings made possible by turning things off. Turning gadgets off standby has been a message much heard in the eco-aware media in recent years, but I found this table helpful in seeing where all the power wastage comes form:

TV off standby = 20kg C02 saved = £3.70 per year
Video off standby = 66kg C02 saved = £12 per year
DVD off standby = 44Kg C02 = £8 per year
Computer off standby = 9kg C02 = £1.70 per year
Turn off lights you don't need = 370kg C02 = £55 per year
Unplug mobile phone charger = 10.5kg C02 = £1.90 per year

Total available saving per year = 519.5kg C02 = £82.30 per year

There is also the seasonal advice to turn your thermostat down by 1 degree and wear a jumper to save 250kg C02 and £30 off your heating bill.

We have not yet pinpointed the power guzzling demons in our home... I suspect the kettle and the ancient boiler will rank highly.

I received some great kick boxing accessories for Christmas, and an antique fish plate to add to my collection, and also a fabulous book by Nigel Slater: "Eating for England - the delights and eccentricities of the British at Table" which takes a quirky look at the British taste for food, their traditions, shopping and cooking methods. It's a great read... each subject from Stew to Jaffa Cakes to Spangles is a treat to read. Each warrants about 1 1/2 pages, so it is a good book to dip in and out of or read for 10 minutes before bed.

This leads me on to another list - what food is in season in January? Hugh F W (oh Hugh!) provides this list:

Jerusalem artichokes, brussel sprouts, cabbages, celery, chicory, endive, greens, kale, leeks, onions, parnsips, potatoes and swede. Also hare, partidge, pheasant, mallard and venison.

I was amused to find out that the Oxford American (apologies) English Dictionary's word of the year is "Locavore"... here is some explanation:

It’s that time of the year again. It is finally starting to get cold (if you are worried about the global warming maybe you should become carbon-neutral) and the New Oxford American Dictionary is preparing for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The 2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

“Locavore” was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional movements have emerged since then.

A group of volunteers in Fife have adopted and adapted the idea. They've created the Fife Diet and are trying to live on a diet of food that is largely from within the area, shunning air-freight goods.

Writer Mike Small is one of the volunteers and he and his wife Karen and children Sorley and Alex have now been on the diet for two months. "Its incredible we've come to the situation where people find it inconceivable to eat food from near where you live," Small argues. "Our food system is failing us all and is unsustainable. In a few years local will be as mainstream as organic and it will be thought ridiculous to purchase air-freighted goods that you could get from Scotland or your own region."...

Here is a week in the life of the Fife Diet, as well as the likely menu for Christmas lunch.
MONDAY
Breakfast:Porridge
Lunch:"Minestrone del Leven" [Leven is on the Fife coast] with curly kale, parsley, carrots, onions, and chilli
Dinner: Homemade rolls and bacon (from Auchtertool, west Fife)

TUESDAY
Breakfast:Homemade bread toast with Fife butter and raspberry jam (from a firm in Newburgh)
Lunch:Leek and potato soup
Dinner:Stuffed cabbage and pork chops (again from Auchtertool)

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast:Scrambled eggs and toast (with eggs from Kingsbarns, St Andrews, Fife)
Lunch:Parsnip soup
Dinner: Omelette and chips

THURSDAY
Breakfast:Toast and bacon
Lunch: Carrot soup
Dinner: Venison stew (from Auchtermuchty)

FRIDAY
Breakfast:Porridge
Lunch:Stovies (Scottish potato-based cooked-up leftovers dish) with baby swede, onions, yellow carrots and Fife butter, all from Bellfield near Newburgh
Dinner:Colcannon - consisting of mash potato, kale, butter, and a little pepper and salt - and sausages from Auchtermuchty

SATURDAY
Breakfast:Scrambled eggs on toast
Lunch:Shepherds Pie
Dinner:Organic Beef Stew (from a farm in Abernethy)
Bramble Crumble

CHRISTMAS LUNCH
Starter:Borscht - Beetroot soup with a circle of yoghurt, served with Aberdour oatcakes
The bird: Roast Bronze organic turkeys (from Falkland, near Cupar) with roasted seasonal vegetables - parsnip, potatoes, carrots
The pudding: White chocolate ripple ice cream with Fife raspberries (from Dairsie)
Drinks:Bouvrage (Alloa, Clackmannanshire) raspberry drink made from Fife raspberries and Christmas ale from Fife.

Well, that is all for now. There have been craft pursuits, but they will have to wait for another post.

Red Belt!

2007-12-17T18:47:00.000Z

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!

2007-12-16T11:06:00.000Z

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!

2007-12-06T14:14:00.000Z

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

2007-11-15T19:06:00.000Z

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

2007-11-07T20:04:00.000Z

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

2007-10-15T10:47:00.000Z

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:

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.
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).
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.
Replaced 5 more light bulbs with environmentally friendly ones - all our lights on the ground floor are now eco except the kitchen spotlights.
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!).
I freecycled a large pile of our old and unwanted items (mostly baby stuff and old office equipment).
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.
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

2007-10-09T12:01:00.000Z

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!

2007-10-08T18:45:00.000Z

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

2007-10-02T14:57:00.000Z

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.

Sade - Stronger than Pride
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Dave Brubreck - Time Out
Bob Dylan Desire
Bruce Spingsteen - Born in the USA
Eric Clapton - Slowhand
Winton Marsalis - Marsalis Standard Time
Talking Heads - Little Creatures
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.)

Shami Chakrabarti
Germaine Greer
Sheila Hancock
Tony Benn
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

2007-10-02T14:45:00.000Z

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

2007-10-01T18:36:00.000Z

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

2007-09-06T17:38:00.000Z

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

2007-09-05T09:15:00.000Z

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

2007-08-21T18:05:00.000Z

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

2007-08-03T19:47:00.000Z

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

2007-07-31T18:24:00.000Z

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!

2007-07-17T18:10:00.000Z

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!

2007-07-13T18:18:00.000Z

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

2007-07-10T13:52:00.000Z

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

2007-07-04T13:52:00.000Z

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...

2007-07-03T13:14:00.000Z

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!

2007-07-02T13:13:00.000Z

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

2007-06-29T11:50:00.000Z

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

2007-06-28T10:40:00.000Z

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

2007-06-27T11:56:00.000Z

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

2007-06-27T08:43:00.000Z

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

2007-06-24T10:57:00.001Z

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

2007-06-22T20:10:00.000Z

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?

2007-06-22T20:02:00.000Z

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

2007-06-20T08:28:00.001Z

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

2007-06-19T15:42:00.000Z

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

2007-06-18T18:44:00.000Z

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.

Catch up

2007-06-15T08:28:00.000Z

Sometimes you just have to wait until the time feels right to do something... and that has been the case with blogging, knitting and painting the last couple of weeks. However, last night I got the needles going again...

I have finished the socks (yes both of them!). I won't post a picture as there have been many pics of yarn and progress in recent posts.

I have also wound the Noro yarn I bought with the gift voucher from my secret pal, and have started knitting with it... it is a beautiful mix of colours, and works up nicely in this broken rib pattern. I can't say what I am making as it is going to be a gift for someone.

I frogged the black felted bag I was making. I ran out of wool for the pattern I was working to (which was going to have an eyelet design along the top threaded with sari ribbon), and am now going to do something smaller, and perhaps beaded. (I have a lovely stash of assorted beads, and have to confess that I have just ordered a whole pile more from Jilly Beads). I have also been making various brooches and charms... many of which are destined to find their way into Christmas presents (yes, I said the "C" word, but sorry, I am notoriously early in planning!). It is not too clear in the picture, but the bottom one is a beautiful set of tiny Russian Doll beads.

I have made a rosette from the sari ribbon, which I intend to embellish with some beads, and actually, I really like it made into these small items, so I might well make some more for brooches and pins).

I have also been butchering my wardrobe, and cut up a dress bought years ago to make a nice summer skirt. I loved the fabric but the shape of the dress was rather unflattering. Actually, I have just noticed that the fabric is very similar to the wallpaper we have recently put up in our hall, so I had better not stand around in our hallway too much when wearing this skirt!. I just cut it shorter, elasticated the waist (nothing fancy), and think it will look nice worn with a wide belt. I have kept the top part of the dress as well, and think I might just about manage to turn it into a top to wear with jeans. (So thrifty!)

I also drastically shortened a long line tweedy skirt that my husband finally admitted he hated. I zigzagged the bottom and was going to turn a hem, but I noticed the zigzag has made the hem nicely fluted. So I am going to keep it with this rather raw finish. I made a contrast tweed flower to put on it, and reckon it might just see me through this summer.

This wardrobe refashioning has been inspired by the fact that I have managed to lose a bit of weight over the past couple of weeks. I have set myself a target to regain my ideal weight (according to the WHO BMI) before my 40th birthday, it's a bigger target than I have wanted to admit.

Holiday inspiration

2007-06-06T19:37:00.000Z

I had a day of painting today, which was lovely. I am experimenting with some dilute acrylic mix on gesso, the idea for which I got from Judy Scott. And have also taken some memories from my recent holiday to inspire me to get back to the fun of painting in watercolour (something which has eluded me for a few weeks now).

We stayed in a farm cottage on our holiday and every day was filled with the sights and sounds of swallows and sky larks. It was beautiful (despite the very wet weather!). Anyway - here is my attempt to capture some wonderful moments.

Sevens

2007-05-23T18:19:00.000Z

I have been tagged by Dancin' Fool to complete a meme of 7 strange facts about myself. I have done this before, but felt she deserved 7 new things about me, so here goes.

1. 20 years on I still have occasional nightmares about taking my A levels: basically I dream I have skipped 2 years of classes and then have a month to make up all the work!

2. I love handbags.

3. One day I would like to be a librarian.

4. I live in a 300 year old house.

5. I love the works of Thomas Hardy, having first been introduced to his poetry and novels when studying for my O' levels (23 years ago!).

6. As a baby in Cyprus, my parents were offered 2 goats in exchange for me (fair deal I would say!).

7. If you put all the books we own on a single shelf, it would be over 90 feet long.

As I have done this before, it is difficult for me to tag 7 people, so I am going to tag 2 very special people... my secret pal, and my secret pal match (ie the person I am sending stuff to). I have to do this by (anonymous) email as until June 15th we do not reveal our true identities.

Not a case of SSS (single sock syndrome) I promise!

2007-05-22T13:21:00.000Z

Hey!!! The 1st sock from the lovely soya yarn that my secret pal sent me has been completed and the second one is underway.

I had a lot of fun with this... the yarn is lovely to work with and is very springy when knitted up. I really enjoyed the pattern, I love the way all the decreases work - it's a beautiful kind of symmetry and just so magical when it all comes together. I was pleased with my work... only one small error (that I know of) which happened when I was picking up stitches along the edge for the instep.

Thank you again secret pal!

"Working from home"

2007-05-16T19:48:00.000Z

I did not go to my art class today. There were a number of reasons for this but the main one was that for the last couple of weeks I have not enjoyed it at the class. I am not sure why, I think I was just feeling out of sorts.

Anyway, I stayed at home and finished the wallpapering in the hall, and then tonight I sat down and decided to just enjoy painting, and not try too hard to produce anything "finished". Anyway, that might have done the trick, as I am actually rather pleased with the two paintings I produced. The inspiration came from reading a story book to my little chap tonight... the story was "we're going on a bear hunt" and in it a family take a long walk through many different scenes including a beach, and a muddy walk in a storm.

I like the sky and the wet sand in the seashore picture, and I like horizon line in the second picture. Not sure about the figures, or the bird in the foreground... but it had to be tried! The main thing is I enjoyed it, and it might be just the thing to get me back to class next week.

No will power!

2007-05-16T18:06:00.000Z

Having said I would save the socks for a holiday project, I just could not resist starting them last night. The yarn is knitting up really nicely, and it only took me a couple of rows to get used to knitting in the round. Everything people say about wooden needles is true! These Brittany needles are lovely to work with. I am hopeful of a completed sock by the end of the weekend, and a completed pair by the end of my holiday.

In the picture you will also see a knitter's charm sent to me by Dancin' Fool (thank you again). It's a keyring, but I am using it as a stitch marker at the moment. It is a very sweet little jumper on a pair of knitting needles.

I still have news from the girlfriend's visit to share, but it is going to have to wait another day or so.

Sock it to me!

2007-05-15T12:37:00.000Z

Just look at this! This morning my secret pal pulled another of her wonderful tricks out of the bag... I got a fabulous sock knitting package through the post.

It contains 2 balls of yarn made from soy fibre, some beautiful wooden needles (1st I have owned) and a pattern for "beginner socks". The yarn is in beautiful soft colours of green, pink, brown and yellow and is really soft and springy. It's a knitted fibre itself, and I am really looking forward to trying it out.

I have read through the pattern, and it all seems clear enough, although turning the heel is a little daunting. I am tempted to dive in and get started on this project right away, but then again, it is just 10 days until I go on holiday, and I think this might be a nice project to take away with me.

Thank you secret pal... this is a fabulous surprise, and has really made my day.

Austen heroines

2007-05-14T20:22:00.000Z

Dancin'Fool put me on to this fun little quiz to determine which Jane Austen heroine you most closely resemble. I came out as:

:: E L I N O R ::
You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

The quiz is good fun... follow this link to take part. I cannot bring myself to comment on the analysis (oh so sensible!)!!! Thanks to strangegirl for this.

Flotsam and Jetsam

2007-05-14T13:19:00.000Z

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...

Glass

2007-05-02T17:38:00.000Z

Today's art challenge was to paint or draw glass. Teacher said the piece was coming on, and my capacity had improved (does this mean I can draw more rubbish in the same amount of time?). Feeling very low about the output from the class, and realise I need to shift my mindset to get back to enjoying it (whatever I produce). Still, next week is out in the field ( "en plein" is the technical term I think).

So, feeling brave to show this...

Everything stops for tea

2007-05-01T15:06:00.000Z

... and the odd piece of freelance work. Last week flew by in a whirl as I was working on a user interface design project for an educational company I do work for every now and then. The project was to design a website that teachers could use to analyse and report on the results of class tests that they had set. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds, honestly... I really enjoyed the week, However, it meant there was little time for anything else, least of all blogging.

However, looking back on it, there has been a lot happening... and there is plenty to tell.

I'll start off by mentioning the trip on the local heritage steam railway that my extended family took the weekend before last. It was a great day to commemorate my Mum and Dad's Ruby wedding anniversary. 7 of us made the trip and then went for a leisurely meal. I could describe it in detail, but this has been done very well already by bowledover, with a beautiful picture supplied by dancinfool.

I have finished knitting (but not blocking or sewing up) the shrug from the Ironstone wool my secret pal sent me (thank you again secret pal). I have promised myself to finish it completely this weekend, but here is a sneak view of the colours.... lovely.

I also assembled and posted my second parcel to my secret pal, which includes some lovely artisan spun and dyed wool and silk blend yarn with enticing names. I hope she likes it. I can't show pictures of that yet... but would love to.

In the evenings, I have been avidly reading Alan Alda's autobiography which my sister kindly send me as a surprise last month.

It's very entertaining, and reminds me fondly of the days when I loved to watch MASH, treating every line as deep insight into life, and hero worshipping the character Hawkeye Pierce. So, if you're looking, sis, this is for you:

...and this is for me ;-)

My little chap has made a new friend at school. The new friend (Harry) is round here tonight for tea, and the boys are playing happily with many giggles. Rather endearingly, they are taking it turns to pretend to be a dog in a pet shop, who the other comes and buys! Even sweeter, they were both caught calling me "Mrs. Mummy"!! It was Harry's birthday at the weekend, and he had a great 5 year olds' party including soft play area and face painting. Here's my little chap doing a great Tiger.

As if that weren't all, we are still decorating our hallway and stairs. The patterned wall paper is going up on the contrast walls. So 2 days this week have been dedicated to papering. Here's the paper. I love it. Bold yet simple and (hopefully) elegant. It makes the hall look so much wider and brighter (the main walls are plain cream).

Finally, everyone has a favourite portent of Spring, and mine is newly opened beech leaves. I love the fact that the tree keeps all its dead leaves all winter, and the one day they all drop off overnight, and the next day the beech buds are unfurling, all tender, furry and such a beautiful colour.

2nd term week 1

2007-04-26T18:16:00.000Z

Well, this week I started back at my art class. A strange week, as I had hoped to paint over Easter, but life just go tin the way. Anyway, for the first hour our tutor waxed lyrical about what we would need to take to the sessions we are going to do in the field. Then he put all of the kit on the table and told us to draw it.

Oh dear! Well, I found it very difficult. I kind of switched between rough and ready, hoping to get an outline of the whole, to trying to do detail of light and shadow, to working with the perspective lines, to focusing on the boots (oh, how I long to draw boots!).

Anyway, I was not at all happy with the output (but happy to offer the excuse that it was done in half as much time as usual!) - but no, really, it is poor. I was not going to post it at all, but then I got a request today from T-bird!!! A fan club!!!! So here goes "for better or for worse..." Excuse the wonky legs (mine and its!).

Other news... the shrug is off the needles... just needs blocking and sewing! I want to do a flower fastening with french knitted cords.

The baby blackbirds have been seen this week in the garden. They are nearly full grown. It's great to see them, and think of them as ours.

I have been working all week designing the user interface for an educational product to be used by teachers to analyse class test results. It has been very engaging, and I am pleased to now have clocked up input to 5 products for the same company. They are all small pieces of work, but they add to my CV and to the company books.

Also done major family events this weekend just gone including steam trains and engine sheds! Secured 6 foot teddy bear to open our school fete, AND I have volunteered to escort my boy's class on a school trip next week (whatever came over me!).

So pretty busy - hoping for a quiet week ahead!

Nest Watch UK!

2007-04-18T12:41:00.000Z

Breaking news... the chicks have left the nest. (Picture of chicks a day before they leave the nest courtesy of http://www.shire.org.uk/news/200606/nest.jpg).

Yesterday the male and female blackbirds were feeding the chicks in the nest. I was replanting our herb garden, and saw them collecting worms from the garden and repeatedly visiting the nest to the accompaniment of noisy chirping.

This morning, I hear a racket coming from the garden, it sounds like blackbirds, so I go out to see what is happening. There is the mother blackbird hovering over one chick on the grass, the male is on the wall letting out a stream of alarm calls, and there is a cat in the flower bed. I rush to the cat, as a small, out-of-control bundle whizzes past my face and lands on the sloping roof of the garage. I didn't have time to see where it went, as I was rushing the cat, who obliged by shooting off into next door's garden.

I turn to look for the chick who must have slid down the hot glazed-tiled roof, but cannot find him. So I settle myself down unobtrusively in the garden and sit and wait. The parents are still in a state of panic, hopping around, the male clattering on, the female making that soft low call to locate the chicks. I listen out hard for the answering chirp of the chicks, but cannot hear anything.

I had not been able to see if the cat had already got a chick by the time I chased it off, and I am worried about the chick that had made a crash landing on the garage. I go round to the other side of the garage to see if it had gone all the way over and landed on the drive, and also to see if there was any evidence of the cat having taken a bird. Thankfully, I find nothing, and... by the time I get back into the garden, two little chicks are bobbing around on the lawn!!

I got a good look at them... they are at about the same stage of development as last year's chicks were after two weeks of leaving the nest (for that read two heart wrenching weeks of daily care and cat rushing from me - my husband still likes to remind me how I raided the compost heap daily to put out worms in a dish of soil to make it easier for the lone parent to feed the chicks!). They have all their body feathers, but only the merest stub of a tail, they can flap and get themselves off the ground, but only to perch, they cannot really fly. They are very cute, and I am so pleased to have seen them today.

Just like Christmas!

2007-04-17T14:44:00.000Z

At breakfast time this morning, there was a knock at the door, and on my doorstep stood a courier holding out a parcel...

"How exciting!" I thought, "I wonder what it can be." The postal label gave me a clue...

My little chap was keen to share in the excitement, and gave me a hand to open the parcel.

And inside we found a whole host of wonderful goodies:

My wonderful secret pal had worked her magic again, with special treats for both me and my boy. Starting with the yarn, I found two skeins of this wonderful Ironstone "Mesa" wool. "Bright colours mixed in interesting ways" my Sp10 questionnaire said, and this fits the bill beautifully. It is already on my needles and is destined to become a spring/summer shrug so that I can wear these bright and cheery colours. There was also a replica vintage pendant yarn cutter in brass, and a wooden thimble with a flower design and the word "Texas" on it. Both of these will be very useful items. The yarn cutter in particular is practical and unusual.

There were some lavender organic bath products. I have a thing for proper hand made soap... it smells and feels great.

There was also a small box decorated with a kimono, which is now in my sewing and painting room, and will hold all sorts of little treasures and keep them close to hand. A woolly sheep which made me smile, and is very appropriate for where I live, and a hand made zipped pocket which now houses my small collection of crochet hooks.

Finally there was some polka dot "sidewalk chalk" and "Incredibles" action figures for the little chap.

He, needless to say, was delighted...

Thank you, secret pal, for spoiling us both so generously and thoughtfully! I shall keep you posted on progress with the Ironstone yarn. Those colours are wonderful.

Easter progress

2007-04-11T17:39:00.000Z

Well, the cotton shawl is complete as far as the knitting goes, there are just the beads to add. I knitted it on 7mm needles this time and used 100g of cotton, but it still was not as large as I had imagined it would be. I have also found out how unforgiving cotton can be. I always thought my tension was very even, but you can see every slight irregularity in the shawl, although maybe this will settle down when I was it. I'll post a picture when the beads have been added.

Tonight I started knitting a handbag which I am going to felt. I have made a row of eyelets at the top of the side, and through this I will thread the Louisa Harding sari ribbon as embellishment... in fact, here we go, let's thread some through now to see what it looks like. I am not sure I should felt it with the ribbon in, though, so I will need some thick cord to keep the eyelets open during felting. I am pleased with the idea for this bag, and also very pleased to be using some of the yarn I got from my secret pal (by means of the gift voucher).

As well as the knitting, I am considering trying to alter a couple of old dresses of mine and turning them into skirts. I'm battling with how to do the waistband for them. My Mum gave me some dressmaking books, so I shall have to see what advice they contain on this matter. I am going to try out the process on the dress with the most forgiving fabric!

I have been spending some very enjoyable time researching yarns for the next package I send to my secret pal. I know she would appreciate yarns that are specific to the UK, and therefore that she is unlikely to be able to get herself. I have found some lovely alpaca from a UK herd! And also some hand dyed silk and a silk/wool mix produced locally(ish). It's a wonderfully guilt free way to purchase exciting yarns (i.e. for someone else)!

Little chap and I did our trial run at camping last night. We set up the tent in the garden, had a sausage and beans camp tea outside, then turned in and listed to the radio and told stories until it got dark. It all went well. He slept through, and I managed about 2 hours sleep due to louder than usual traffic noise, falling temperatures (5 degrees... brrr...) and having to check on the little fella every 15 minutes to make sure he was still in his sleeping bag and not too cold. Anyway at 6:00am this morning we decided to come indoors to defrost! But I am pleased we did it, and I now feel happy about the idea of taking him camping for real later in the year.

While we were decamping, we also noticed that our blackbird chicks have hatched (lots of chirping noises coming from the nest over the kitchen window). This is both a matter of delight and trepidation for me, given the saga of the prematurely fledged chicks last summer. I shall be keeping a keen eye on the matter.

So it has been a busy few days, but it has been so good to have my chap at home. I shall find it a wrench to take him back to school next week.

Rally thrill - 99/100!!

2007-04-08T12:56:00.000Z

Aside from craft pursuits this Easter, yesterday I had a very exciting time going rally driving (a "red letter" experience day treat that I received for my birthday). It was GREAT!!! The event was really close to us at Prestwold Hall. We drove a subaru road car for the familiarisation laps, and then a truly awesome Mitsubishi 4WD Evolution V for the real laps. I had the most fabulous time, and my instructor scored me 99/100 on my score card and wrote "brilliant drive - excellent control and good speed." I am obviously quite thrilled at that.

It was such a great treat... I'd go again right now! I was really nervous the night before, and during the lining up and checking in, but then when I met the other people in my little group, we all got on really well. Our instructor (John) was very patient and made it clear that what he really wanted was for us all to enjoy the experience. He gave us instruction before the driving, and during it, as he sat next to each of us and gave us a running commentary, encouragement and instructions.

Here's a picture of my driver assessment card of which I am very proud (my husband, who is a 'see-a-bubble-pop-it' kind of guy, said that of course they mark everyone high to keep them happy... but even so I am happy!!!!!!).

The bottom box was the first drive I did (after the familiarisation laps driven by the instructor). This was in a Subaru Impreza (hubby was jealous at this point!). You drive 4 laps of a 1 1/2 mile track which has 32 bends per lap including 2 great chicanes!!

For this session my instructor wrote " Good drive. Nice control. Work on Acceleration:Deceleration all round. 96/100".

Then I got to drive 4 laps in the Mitsubishi 4WD Evolution V (see picture!!!!).

For this session (middle box) my instructor wrote: "Brilliant Drive. Good speed and control, working in line all round with braking. Clean Run. Well Done. 99/100"

It was absolutely great!!!!!!!! For anyone who might fancy trying this now... here is the link.

Easter fun...

2007-04-07T14:01:00.000Z

I promised to explain a bit more about the yarn I showed in my last post... My fabulous secret pal found out which was my local yarn shop and arranged for a gift voucher to be sent to me so that I could start off my secret pal experience with my own choice of yarns. That in itself is lovely, but the extra effort that she went to in order to contact a UK shop from the US, explain all about secret pal, and get them to post out a voucher to me makes the surprise all the more wonderful.

The postman delivered the voucher at 12:30pm on Thursday, and by 1:00pm I was in the shop and making my choices. I got some Noro blossom (destined to be a very fancy and luxurious wool and silk scarf), some Louisa Harding sari ribbon (to use as an embellishment for a felted bag I am making) and some fabulously crazy yarn called Filorosa, which is hand knotted lengths of all sorts of textured yarns built up into a mad colour themed ball of loveliness which I think I am going to make into an eye catching, heart stopping cushion cover.

I have also been making another shawl. I mentioned that the one I did in Rowan kidsilk haze turned out smaller than I expected, and when I am honest it is more scarf size than shawl size. So I have started another one in some lovely cotton that my Mum bought me. I have not knitted in cotton before. It is lovely to work with, it glides on the needles. It's a simple pattern, but the slight sheen in the cotton makes the item look more interesting, I am also planning to edge it with some lovely glass millefeuille beads.

As soon as the shawl is finished (hopefully by Monday) I shall start on either the felted bag with sari ribbon embellishment, or the cushion cover which is destined for our newly decorated hallway.

My yarn basket now overfloweth with good things!

Thank you secret pal - you're great!

2007-04-05T14:39:00.000Z

Today I got a fabulous surprise from my secret pal.

Take a look at this, and I will tell more later....

A Tale of Two Kitties

2007-04-01T19:02:00.000Z

There once was foolish blogger who decided she wanted to join in the amigurami craze, but not being skilled in crochet, she decided to try to knit one. Just Jussie came to the rescue with a pattern for knitted fortune cats.

I looked at this pattern, and was glad to embrace some techniques that I hadn't tried before, and also determined to adapt the pattern to cope with my lack of dpns or circular needles.

So I knitted it flat and decided I did not mind having a seam up the back. I managed to put the stitch markers in for the arms and legs using waste yarn. I managed to pick up stitches from the cast on edge (as I did not have a crochet hook to do the provisional cast on), and battled valiantly to find them in the fuzzy wool I foolishly had chosen. I realised I had put the ears in the wrong place (through knitting the head as a flat piece rather than in the round), and figured a way that I would put a dart into the head to bring them into position. Then I borrowed some dpns, and picked up the stitches for the arms, but then it all just got too hard. Knitting so few stitches in the round on 3 needles just was not working for me (perhaps I should have done them more like an I cord?). It was all turning into too much of a struggle and the sparkle was wearing off the idea. So I just gave up. I wish I could say I had frogged it, but no, the whole thing just went in the bin.

However, I am pleased to have grappled with some issues, and "thought out of the box" at least a little bit.

I've never been much of a fan of knitted toys, but the amigurami cats were very cute. I don't think I'll try the fortune cats again, but since then, I have also found the pattern for a knitted "hello kitty" by Valerie.

So I might be brave enough to dip my toe back into the water.

SP10 - early days

2007-03-30T13:37:00.000Z

A quick message to say thanks to my secret pal for all the wonderful messages she has sent me, and for the tantalising promise of something that should arrive early next week.

So far SP10 has been a lot of fun. I have also said hello to my matched SP10-er and have also posted a package off to her. So she should get it in a week or so (it's an international posting).

2 weeks of school holidays now start for us. I am looking forward to having my little chap home and being able to do things with him, but also know that the next 2 weeks will not have much time spare for crafty pursuits. The weather is supposed to pick up, though, and we hope to go camping if that is the case.

We took a family decision this year not to have Easter eggs, but to donate money to Oxfam. Through their wonderful gifts unwrapped scheme, we have bought 100 school dinners for children to encourage them to go to school and be fed and educated. Now every time I see that mountain of eggs in the shops, I can instead think of some good being done somewhere.

Happy Easter to everyone.

What do Bloggers read?

2007-03-28T19:01:00.000Z

Two knights and maidens tagged me to take part in kailana's bloggers top ten books. It has been tough, and I have to say outright that Shakespeare's works and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales go without saying... but when I thought hard about it, these are the books that have shaped my life. I am sad to say that most of them were read when I was in my 20s... I really need to find another one to grip my imagination and make me think hard.

1. Saturday Night Sunday Morning - Alan Sillitoe
2. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - Robert Tressell
3. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Oliver Sachs
4. The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks
5. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
6. Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
7. Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy
8. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
9. The Diceman - Luke Rhinehart
10. Modern Poetry 1900-1975 - George McBeth (ed)

Just off the list are:
11. Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman - Richard Feynman
12. Godel Escher Bach - Richard Hofstadter

I will come back and add the whys and wherefores for each choice, but for now I am pleased to have settled on my list.

Puzzle

2007-03-27T13:35:00.000Z

Well, I finished the shawl, and have even sewn the ends in (a stupid little job that can often take me ages to get around to!). I am pleased with the shawl, even though it has turned out a lot narrower than I expected. I find that odd as I used the same needles and yarn as the pattern suggested, and I thought my gauge was pretty much right. Oh well.

But the puzzle is, which beads to use to bead the edging. I have some delicious amethyst ones, some lovely grey ones, and some cool green ones.

Which to choose?

I have also been tagged by two knights and maidens to take part in a bloggers' favourite book list. I've been compiling my list (she has asked for 10) and shall post it soon. It is difficult to limit it to 10, and I found it difficult to have modern and classic all on the same list, it would have been easier to separate them out. Anyway, more of that another time...

SP10 questionnaire recap

2007-03-22T10:19:00.000Z

I realised last night, that my SP10 questionnaire was buried way back in mid February, so now that SP10 has officially kicked off, I thought I would recap on the questionnaire...

1. What is/are your favorite yarns? - I like both fine and chunky yarns, and these can be natural or synthetic... but what I like best are yarns with different colours in them, as I love seeing the way the colours mix and build up when the yarn is worked.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? - I keep my needles in two earthenware jugs, one that I brought back from Portugal in 1986, and one that I received from an Irish relative as a wedding gift in 2000. I also use earthenware jugs to keep my paintbrushes in and also my button collection.

3. How long have you been knitting? - I have been knitting since 1979 when our school got everyone to knit squares to sew into blankets and send to Africa as part of Action Aid. I am probably still classed as a beginner... I do small, simple or quick projects, and don't do many fancy stitches.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? No.

5. What's your favorite scent? - Lavendar, lemon and nutmeg.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? I don't have a very sweet tooth, although I like milk chocolate but don't tend to eat much of it.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I sew, draw and paint (watercolours). I like trying new things, and am a dabbler. I have recently bought some disolvable fabric and am enjoying playing around with it.

8. What kind of music do you like? - I like jazz and blues and folk. Also David Bowie, Simply Red, The Scissor Sisters, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I like South American music. I love the sound of the clarinet and trumpet.

9. What's your favorite color(s)?I like purple, orange, green and gold. I like strong colours mixed in unusual ways.

10. What is your family situation? I am married with a 5 year old son and a 16 year old step son. We have no pets.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? - Yes! Especially hats and scarves. I have a woolen cape, but have never had a poncho.

12. What are your favorite items to knit? I like to knit small pieces that I then sew, embellish, cut up or otherwise work into other objects. Last year I knitted 17 hats as gifts for various people! In the last year I have also knitted bags, purses and journal covers.

13. What are you knitting right now? - A hat made from recycled sari silk, I am also using some fibres spun by a friend of mine to make lampshade. (late addition - I am now knitting a mohair/silk blend shawl.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? I love to give and receive handmade gifts. The love and care that they embody makes them all the more special.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? - I tend to use aluminium needs, but only because that is what I have. I have never used circular needles, although I once knitted a pair of socks on four double ended needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? No.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? I am ashamed to say it is 21 years old - it is a half made cross stitched tea cosy in the shape of a cottage. I don't think it is ever going to be finished. Apart from that I tend to finish items within a couple of weeks of starting them.

18. What is your favorite holiday? May bank holiday - the weather is nice, and it is the start of the season of garden fetes and country fairs which I really enjoy visiting.

19. Is there anything that you collect? Soda syphons, wooden fruit and ceramics decorated with fish motifs.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I'm working my way through my mother's old set of "Golden Hands" - a craft series from the 70s, so I have not been looking at books and subscriptions recently.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? Felting, shibori stitching, machine embroidery.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I have only once knitted a pair of socks - I was 14 years old at the time and the socks were fluorescent green! I take a UK size 5 shoe.

23. When is your birthday? 11th January.

Mother's Day

2007-03-21T14:06:00.000Z

Why 3 posts today? Because I can!!

I had a wonderful day on Sunday. My husband, step son and son all spoiled me for mother's day.
I was cooked a breakfast of smoked trout and scrambled egg on bagel.

I was given a picture of a vase of flowers and homemade pasta brooch from my 5 year old, a card and bunch of flowers from my 16 year old, and a Sanctuary incense set from my husband.

Then they took me to an art gallery to see an exhibition I had wanted to see: Matisse to Freud - A Critics Choice. This is the collection of film critic Alexander Walker from the London Evening Standard which he bequeathed to the British Museum, and which is currently touring the country. The collection is a series of modern prints and drawings reflecting the major tendencies of British and American art movements from the 1960s onwards, and contextualised by a small number of early 20th century modernist pieces by artists like Picasso and Matisse. I had a wonderful time looking at them, and found some to be very inspiring, while others were just baffling.

Then home for a roast lamb dinner cooked by my husband.

What a wonderful day. I am very lucky.

Soft and fluffy

2007-03-21T13:46:00.000Z

I have been meaning to post this for a week, but life in our house has been a bit too manic.

Anyway, last week I went on a girls' outing to a local yarn shop in Nottingham (yarn-in-notts.co.uk) ... absolutely brilliant! and run by a lovely and really helpful person.

Thankfully, I did the sensible thing and took my "one skein wonders" book with me so that I would only buy the yarn and needles I absolutely needed (oh so sensible!).

Anyway... I ended up with 2 yarns, some needles and a set of crochet hooks...

I am knitting the "sea foam shawl" from the one skein wonder book. It is in Rowan kidsilk haze... and is so lovely and light. It is going to have a beaded edge. I am dreaming of early summer evenings outside, when the temperature drops just a little, and what is needed is a pretty little shawl.

The other yarn (the turquoise one) is a mohair mix (Bergere de France - Symphonie), and was a very good price, so I am happy to experiment with it. I am hoping to try a shrug from this one.

In the meantime I knitted a flower brooch for my sister in fiery orange eyelash yarn with a crimson and orange button centre. It was a little thank you for her being such a good sister, and all the things she has helped me with recently.

Art class week 10

2007-03-21T13:11:00.000Z

This week in my art class, we were invited to begin our own project and receive personalised help with the piece of work. The tutor also brought in an arrangement of glasses and bottles, which we could paint if we wished.

Well, I decided to fulfill my objective for this class, which was to paint a picture of my house. I am pleased with what I have done... I think I managed to keep it well under control, and there is only 1 piece of artistic license!!!!

The night before Christmas

2007-03-14T13:33:00.000Z

It feels like the night before Christmas. The secret pal pairings are due tomorrow, and I am looking forward to getting to know my secret pal, and also becoming a secret pal to someone else. I have been saving small boxes in which I can post my gifts to my secret pal, and have had so many ideas of great things to send, but so far have resisted so that I can find out what she (or he) likes and what she (or he) is in to.

Someone gave me a great way to sum up a day... it is to answer 5 simple questions. I jot these down every now and then, it is amazing how much it shows about a day and your frame of mind... Here is today's:

If today were a colour what would it be? answer: orange.
What smell sums up today? answer: freshly mown grass.
What did you dream of last night? answer: dancing the flamenco.
Name one thing you will do tomorrow. answer: paint my hallway.
What is the best thing that has happened today? answer: going to my art class, and getting feedback on my painting of the riverbank.

There are no pictures to post today. The art class was mostly a demonstration on acrylic and oil painting, and I am waiting to buy a crochet hook before I can start my amigurami.

I got some nice reactions to my knitted flowers yesterday, and showed someone else the strange twisting thing you do to shape the petals.

Anyway... when you read this, hello secret pal, I am pleased to meet you.

Another attempt...

2007-03-13T22:17:00.000Z

So, mid ground and background brush strokes, and to an extent colours, are still eluding me. But here is my latest attempt at a painting. I am pleased to have included trees, buildings AND a PERSON!!!! in this picture.

I like the fineness of the work on the buildings. I see all the mistakes in the mid ground trees, but am not sure how to correct it. But still, overall, I am quite pleased.

This was homework, so I will see what teacher says tomorrow....

Tomorrow's lesson is a foray into acrylics... Yikes!

Here we go... here we go... here we go...

2007-03-13T20:14:00.000Z

Please excuse the completely out of character football chant, but I am feeling so pleased to have mastered the "provisional cast on" method from the one skein wonder book... with the help of a friend and the loan of a crochet hook...

I can now tackle the shawl I have been longing to try... and also one of the hard-to-find knitted patterns for amigurami (as opposed to crocheted ones).

Feeling very accomplished tonight! (A rare feeling!)

Art class week 7

2007-03-07T13:22:00.000Z

The challenge today was to paint a picture in water colour from a picture or photograph of our choice.

Mine is of an Australian outback farm building.

I really enjoyed doing this picture, and I learned a lot about mark making in the foreground, mid-ground and background.

In my art class, I am sitting next to a young Muslim girl. She is very interested in drawing objects from her culture, and today she brought in an ornate brass coffee pot to do a painting of. It was lovely, she got the shape beautifully.

There is also an interesting fellow who sits the other side of the class from me. He looks like John Prescott, and is quite gruff. He likes to do Turner style pictures, and boasted that he took the same approach to painting with watercolour as he does to emulsioning. He is odd, because he pretends to be a beginner and declare that everything is too technical and too complicated for him, and yet he gives away, through his comments, the fact that he knows a lot about painting and art.

Anyway, a most enjoyable session today.

Half balls and scraps

2007-03-06T11:19:00.000Z

My knitting needles have been busy this weekend. I have been trying some more of the patterns from "one skein wonder" which is proving to be a great way for me to try out new stitches and techniques.

I tried the tamashanta pattern this weekend. Something went a bit wrong though, as it is not wide enough in the main part of the hat, and not flat enough on top. My little boy likes it though, and has claimed it for himself. Athough I was disappointed overall, I was very pleased with my seed stitch, and the very neat way of decreasing at the top of the hat. I had also adapted the pattern to knit on 2 straight needles instead of a circular needle, so maybe that had something to do with it.

More successful were some knitted flowers which I intend to sew brooch backs onto and use to liven up my spring jackets (yes spring is here now!!). This involves a very strange twisting action which twists the entire piece of work around the needle, and then catches it in place with the next stitch.

Homework - trees of green

2007-03-01T11:21:00.000Z

This week I have managed to do a piece of homework for my art class. I wanted to use the colour theory we learned a week ago to produce a range of shades of green that could be used to convey distance. The brighter, purer greens being foreground colours, and muted ("greyer") greens in the distance.

Our art teacher insists that we use a palette of only 6 colours (2 yellow, 2 blues and 2 reds) and mix all our shades from first principles. That way we understand what we are doing with colour.

My attempt below is a little confused, but the basic elements are there. Disastrously, I changed tack part way through, and so some of the colour ranges I had established became wrong in relation to the other items I was putting into the picture. So, for example, although the foreground trees have good foreground colours, the greens immediately around them are more mid-ground, and some of the mid ground colours come too far forwards. I also struggle with changing the brush strokes I use to help to convey distance. I need to work on a range of different brush marks.

Art week 6

2007-02-28T12:38:00.000Z

Today we tried applying last week's colour theory to a still life in water colour. I did not do very well! I found it very difficult today... I could have spent all morning on the sketch, let alone try and deal with the colour.

Anyway the good points are, I like some of the texture I achieved on the taller jar, and the reflected colour from the apple. Overall, though, I was disappointed.

On a more exciting note, today is the closing date for applications to SP10, and so in the next 2 weeks I should find out who I am going to be secret pal to (i.e. the person I will be sending stuff to) and I will also be allocated to someone who will then send stuff to me (i.e. they will be the secret pal to me). It's exciting. I have been on the lookout for nice things to send to my pal, and am looking forward to finding out what she likes and what she does.

Sap rising

2007-02-27T10:45:00.000Z

In a previous post, I mentioned the sari silk bag that had gone horribly wrong.

Well, I have now finished recycling it into something else: an embellished, knitted, abstract picture. I have called it Sap rising as it was inspired by a picture of tree bark posted on In the Pink, and the glass beads remind me of the way sap oozes and crystallises from a branch when it is cut.

The only problem now is, as with all abstract pictures, which way round does it go?

Now that's what I mean

2007-02-27T10:44:00.001Z

In my SP10 questionnaire I mentioned mixing bold colours in bold ways. Good kharma bunny put me on to this site http://www.knotjustknitting.com/ ... then go to the "what is freeform" page...

Amazing!

Chunky collar

2007-02-21T14:23:00.000Z

I recently bought the book "One skein wonders" edited by Judith Durant. It's a great book - full of small (one skein!) projects of varying complexity and using a wide range of yarns.

I decided to try out one of the projects using some hand spun, hand dyed wool that was given to me by a friend for my birthday. The wool is dyed using things found in her garden, and the two pieces I used were alum & onion skin, and elderberry.

The project I chose was the "chunky collar" which is a neat alternative to a scarf, and is knitted in "broken rib" pattern.

Well, it takes about 3 hours to complete... and I am wearing it already as it is so comfortable, warm and not at all bulky. We live in an old house, and our boiler is on the blink as well, so it can be a bit chilly at times... but no longer thanks to this fun little project!!

By the way, that is NOT my wrinkly neck showing from underneath the collar, but a handily sized plant pot!

There is no art to report today, as we did colour theory, and I doubt that my various blobs of green and orange hues (guaranteed to aid aerial perspective in my next painting) will be of much interest here.

Stitched and dissolved silk

2007-02-19T12:07:00.000Z

I have had a skein of recycled sari silk yarn in blues and greens in my stash for some months. I recently knitted it up and attached some handles, with the intention of making a craft bag for my Mum. The finished item, however just did not work. The handles were curved, and the weight of the sari silk meant it all bunched up and hung in an ugly mass from the centre of the handles. Now, the problem with sari silk, is when you have stitched it up, the stitches just disappear into the yarn, so it is not possible to unpick it. What to do to salvage the beautiful colours and textures in the knitted piece? Well, the answer lay in the dissolvable fabric I bought at the show in Harrogate last year...

I chopped the knitted piece away from the handles, and stuck it to a piece of backing felt, then I put over the dissolvable fabric and stitched through it to secure the fibres. Then quick rinse in warm water got rid of the top layer, and after drying above the Aga overnight, I have been left with this...

The colours glow more than this picture shows, but once again the stitching has disappeared into the fibres of the sari silk. The slight ribbing from the way it was knitted, and the mix of colours remind me of a picture of tree bark posted on "In The Pink" (see post 07/02/07). The next step will be to embellish with some beads and maybe some angelina fibres. I think I shall also try to pleat it a bit to give it some more 3D shaping. I'm excited by this... I think it has good potential.

Half term mayhem

2007-02-16T20:03:00.000Z

This week has been half term... and it has been mad! Little chap started his week off from school with 2 1/2 days soaring temperature and non-descript virus type symptoms. We spent time doing art and craft projects, including some plaster of paris moulds of "monster trucks" which he painted, and attached to friction drive wheel bases.... lots of fun.

When he felt a bit better we went to a local theme park for the under 12s. It's a great place, not least because there are plenty of opportunities for parents to be big kids too. Our favourite ride is the bumper boats. These are like huge tractor tyres with an out-board motor that you ride on a boating lake. The aim of the game is to bump each other, and if you get the bow wave just right, give each other a good splash! The best thing is that for the 10 minutes that you are out on the lake, everyone becomes playground pals, and there is fun, laughter and banter freely flowing between dads, mums, sons, daughters and across all different ages. It is completely rejuvenating.

We also went to a local museum, where there was a temporary exhibition on the holocaust, persecution and genocide. I know it doesn't sound like a place to take a 5 year old, but there were beautiful, if haunting, pictures of people of all races, creeds and social situation, along with slogans promoting understanding and condemning prejudice. So my little chap and I sat on the bench and talked about not being fearful of people who seem different, but taking the opportunity to get to know them and understand the things that are different between their lives and ours. So it turned into a lovely positive moment, aided by a beautiful picture of an African boy of 4 or 5 years in age pulling a toy string on a car ... something boys across the world love to do.

I have not done much in the way of art or craft this week. Despite having a mega Amazon session and buying "one skein wonders", "Yeah, I made it myself" AND "alternacrafts"... so inspiration abounds, and I am looking forward to some "caged minutes" next week. This will, however, have to do battle with the need to finish some painting (of the redecorating kind) in the hallway, this quarter's VAT return, and another practice run at book keeping with the ultimate aim of producing a perfectly formed Trial Balance!!!! Oh! And Spring is coming, so the garden beckons with increasing urgency!

Secret Pal 10 Questionnaire

2007-02-12T21:54:00.000Z

Having seen the fun others have had with Secret Pal, I decided I would sign up for the latest round. What a great idea to send and receive to/from other crafters around the world. It is very exciting... The first step, of course, is to complete the questionnaire... so here goes...

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

I like both fine and chunky yarns, and these can be natural or synthetic... but what I like best are yarns with different colours in them, as I love seeing the way the colours mix and build up when the yarn is worked.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

I keep my needles in two earthenware jugs, one that I brought back from Portugal in 1986, and one that I received from and Irish relative as a wedding gift in 2000. I also use earthenware jugs to keep my paintbrushes in and also my button collection.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

I have been knitting since 1979 when our school got everyone to knit squares to sew into blankets and send to Africa as part of Action Aid. I am probably still classed as a beginner... I do small, simple or quick projects, and don't do many fancy stitches.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

No.

5. What's your favorite scent?

Lavendar, lemon and nutmeg.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

I don't have a very sweet tooth, although I like milk chocolate but don't tend to eat much of it.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I sew, draw and paint (watercolours). I like trying new things, and am a dabbler. I have recently bought some disolvable fabric and am enjoying playing around with it. I don't spin.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I like jazz and blues and folk. Also David Bowie, Simply Red, The Scissor Sisters, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
I like South American music.
I love the sound of the clarinet and trumpet.
In terms of the technology, I'm just getting to grips with MP3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

I like purple, orange, green and gold. I like strong colours mixed in unusual ways.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I am married with a 5 year old son and a 16 year old step son. We have no pets.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

Yes! Especially hats and scarves. I have a woolen cape, but have never had a poncho.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

I like to knit small pieces that I then sew, embellish, cut up or otherwise work into other objects. Last year I knitted 17 hats as gifts for various people! In the last year I have also knitted bags, purses and journal covers.

13. What are you knitting right now?

A hat made from recycled sari silk, I am also using some fibres spun by a friend of mine to make lampshade.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

I love to give and receive handmade gifts. The love and care that they embody makes them all the more special.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

I tend to use aluminium needs, but only because that is what I have. I have never used circular needles, although I once knitted a pair of socks on four double ended needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

No.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

I am ashamed to say it is 21 years old - it is a half made cross stitched tea cosy in the shape of a cottage. I don't think it is ever going to be finished. Apart from that I tend to finish items within a couple of weeks of starting them.

18. What is your favorite holiday?

May bank holiday - the weather is nice, and it is the start of the season of garden fetes and country fairs which I really enjoy visiting.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

Soda syphons, wooden fruit and ceramics decorated with fish motifs.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

I'm working my way through my mother's old set of "Golden Hands" - a craft series from the 70s, so I have not been looking at books and subscriptions recently.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Felting, shibori stitching, machine embroidery.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

I have only once knitted a pair of socks - I was 14 years old at the time and the socks were fluorescent green! I take a UK size 5 shoe.

23. When is your birthday?

11th January.

Art class week 4

2007-02-07T13:18:00.000Z

We were back to still life today (as opposed to drawing from a picture)... and it was boots! This is quite funny, as I have long wanted to draw boots. When I was at school everyone who did art drew their Doc Martins. I, however, was studying science. Then there was a fabulous and huge picture of DMs in one of the first "locals" that my husband and I drank in. I drank 'directors' and he drank Guinness. It was a funny old pub, full of the local winos, but a great plus for it was the real ale and the fact that there was no juke box. Last year, after a discussion about whether a 'technical' approach to art was required, we set ourselves a challenge to do a picture of boots in our own styles and look at the results side by side (this challenge as yet is unstarted).

So this is a trial run for my side of the challenge. I have learned a lot from drawing these boots... firstly matt, old, worn in boots do not pick up many reflections! Secondly, the temptation to reproduce all the lines of stitching is very hard to resist. Thirdly, boots are a weird and very awkward shape!

And what did I learn of the people today? Well, I learned that my art teacher is 65, that he did not go to art college until he was 50, that he had a riding accident a few years ago, and that one of his main income streams is painting other people's horses. He also told me he thought I should be very pleased with my picture of a castle on a hill (and I am), and he suggested some ways to work it up a bit more to improve the overall effect. I shall give it a go and post the results.

Peace Gardens

2007-01-31T14:52:00.000Z

I have been making peace gardens for a few friends who have Spring birthdays. I save nice ceramic pots through the year, stencil them, and plant them up with bulbs around November time. I keep them cold and dark, and then around the end of January/beginning of February I have some nice sprouted bulbs. I then have to hope and pray that the bulbs do not flower before the birthday of the intended recpient! (If they threaten to do so then the recipient has to have their present early!). The final touches are to add decorations suited to the person they will be given to. I usually add candles, incense sticks, beads, and a small figure.

Here are some details from the "good kharma bunny peace garden" and "poetry peace garden" I hope the people I have given them to have as much enjoyment from them as I have had making them.

Art class week 3

2007-01-31T14:41:00.000Z

Today our challenge was to do a tonal drawing from a picture of our choosing. I chose a photograph of Lindisfarne.

I was pleased with the drawing. It is a complete scene, and some of the elements of depth and texture work. However, there are some bits I want to change and develop. I think the midground rocks are too dark, and similarly the right hand sections of wall are too dark. Also the path is a bit dodgy, but I am not sure what to do about that section.

As for other aspects of the class... I am a creature of habit, and tend to sit in the same place in a classroom each week. The benefit of this is you get to know more about the people who sit around you (albeit at the expense of not getting to know those on the other side of the classroom). Today I learned that the chap who sits next to me (the one with the injured thumb) had once thought of buying the small cottage next to our house, and the chap who sits next to him used to be the policeman in our town 25 years ago. This came about because I showed them a picture of our house. My long-term project is to produce a drawing or painting of the house by the end of the term. Anyway, on seeing it they both exclaimed "that's old Sutton's place". And they were right. Our house used to be a dairy that was and is still known throughout the town as "Suttons".

Art class 2

2007-01-24T14:19:00.000Z

Today was the second lesson of the term. There was snow on the ground, so I was unsure how many people would make it, especially as a large proportion of the class are elderly and/or infirm. Anyway, there were 12 of us, including one who didn't make it last week, and a completely new chap whose acrylic painting course had been cancelled, so he had signed up for our class belatedly.

It is always the case that newcomers to the course bring nothing on the first day - not a scrap of paper nor a pencil. The college advises that the tutor will tell everyone what materials they will need on the first day - but that doesn't help if you are empty handed for a 2 hour drawing lesson! Anyway, the group as usual was very supportive and offered paper and pencils to the new chap. He was determined he would sit out the first lesson and just observe, but Barry (the tutor) cajoled him into giving it a go.

I had the new chap on one side, and on the other side a chap who missed last week as he had an operation on this thumb, and so his arm (left arm thankfully!) was all strapped up.

We knew that the lesson was to be tonal drawing of flowers, but our hearts sank when we saw an array of battered silk flowers including roses, hyacinths, petunias and assorted foliage. Having hated boxes and jugs for so long, we now all felt very fond of the previous uniform objects we had had to draw.

The girl who had longed to draw flowers, was also dismayed as she had to portray them in black and white, when she longs to let rip with the colours of nature.

A major issue with still life in this class, is that it is held in a porta-cabin, with windows on 2 sides, and strip lighting above. So any sense of light source and shadow is very difficult to find and maintain.

Anyway - here is my tonal drawing of roses strewn across a desk next to small wicker basket. I am actually quite pleased with it. Although I missed a trick in choosing a very linear composition, and so I had little scope to try to portray depth in my picture. I like the fact that I drew very few outlines, instead concentrating on the contrast of light and dark. I am also pleased that I did not do a botanical drawing, but instead looked at the overall form of the flowers.

"Dancin' fool" always picks out her favourite element in any of my pictures, and this can be as small as a single petal or the handle of a jug. I look forward to hearing what she has to say, and I admire her ability to look into a picture at elements, and not just glance across a whole surface.

I am also looking forward to having a good friend visit this blog (You know who you are) and hope he will catch the blogging bug!

Homework!

2007-01-23T14:02:00.000Z

This time round, I am determined to do some homework in between each of my art lessons. I know next week we are doing a tonal composition of flowers, so I thought I had better have a go at a tonal drawing of a flower. It should be no different from a box or a jug really... bit it is! It is the irregularity of the shapes I think that is causing me issues. Anyway - see what you think...

It's a daffodil by the way! - I think there are too many lines, and not enough tonal variation.

Where for Art thou?

2007-01-17T18:47:00.000Z

In 2005 I signed up to an art course "painting and drawing for beginners" at a local college. I had missed the 2004 autumn term, so was joining for the last 2 terms of the academic year (spring and summer). It got off to a very rocky start on my first day, with me almost at the point of lodging a complaint against my tutor for bullying. But our first-week clash was soon forgotten, and I really enjoyed the course. In 2005 I did the autumn term to complete the 3-term course. 2006 was all over the place for me with my little boy starting school, and my father's illness, so I did not manage to rejoin the class.

Today however, I went back (again having missed the first term of the academic year!), and had a really good time. Two of the class were still there from Sept 2005, and one even from Jan 2005, but the others were new faces. It's an interesting mix of people and I will tell you more about them as the weeks progress. Today I identified:

2 petrified newbies;

2 old dears who chat and back chat all the session;

1 die hard technical draughtsman;

1 very interesting Asian woman who according to the tutor draws everything like a tapestry, and whom he is trying to "convert" to western art style;

2 grandmothers who have not drawn since school days and who are being argued out of cross hatching.

That leaves me, another of the returning students from 2005, and 3 absent pupils. I also learned that several of the pupils from previous years have progressed to the intermediate and even advanced courses. I wish them all good luck, and hope I might cross paths with them at the college, I would love to know how they are doing.

Having gossiped about the course, I had better show you what I produced:

Be kind... And tune in next week for more exciting stories from "Art from Charnwood Forest".

Alterations

2007-01-15T22:10:00.000Z

I'm a user-interface designer, and one thing I know is you have to live a design for a while to find out if it really works. So I applied the same principle to the little purple purse that I posted before, and found it really worked better if the dinky little handle was sewn down as a strip to the purse flap.

So here is the amended item... I think it looks much better like this.

2006 reviewed

2007-01-15T19:27:00.000Z

I was transferring birthday dates and other important stuff from lat year's calendar to this year's and had the idea of picking out a few key happenings from each month of 2006. It gave me an interesting perspective on last year:

January
Mum came to stay for a few days - first opportunity for her to spend any length of time with her grandson since she retired.
Birthday meal out at a local swanky restaurant (Gray Lady) - very difficult to find your way through the forest in fog!
Participated in a 2 week radio listening survey.
Commenced 3rd year of volunteering for local toy library.

February
2nd course of MMR imms for little boy - and same old worries about reactions.
Took little boy to local magic lantern show - old photos of local scenes.
Attended consulting course in Berkshire - remembered what my old life used to be like.

March
Joined the committee of the PTA for my little boy's school.
Took son and step-son for professional photographs in local photographer's studio (to commemorate the year of starting school and also GCSE year) - very pleased with result.
Little chap stopped attending day nursery (1 day a week).

April
Family holiday in Jersey.
Little boy started school part time.

May
Helped out at plant sale at school.
Attended Oaks country fair (annual tradition) - held in beautiful series of fields on a hillside - closest thing I have come to "Little House on the Prairie".

June
Manned the "pick a pot" stall at school summer fete.
Attended school sports day (did not take part in the mothers' race!).
Held a book party.
Launched blog site.
Small work project with educational software company.

July
Local carnival.
Mother, son and Aunty seaside holiday in caravan in Mablethorpe Lincolnshire.

August
Major design project for educational software company.
Attended local summer event including excavating dinosaur bones from giant sandpits.
Father taken seriously ill and in hospital for 1 week.
Husband and step-son on 2 week scientific expedition to Slovakia.

September
Grandmother dies - attend funeral.
Little chap starts school full time (difficult first couple of weeks).

October
Family trip to Legoland.
Small scale reunion with 2 old work chums.
Attended fashion and embroidery exhibition in Harrogate.

November
Little chap attends first school-chum birthday party.
Take son and friend to local church Christmas Fair.
Fireworks at local pub as community event not held this year.

December
Parents evening - good feedback on little chap's progress.
Small design project for educational software company.
Community carol service.
Family Christmas party.
Short break in Chester including a sunny hour on the beach in Prestatyn.

Orchids

2007-01-12T12:41:00.000Z

It was my birthday yesterday, and as part of a pamper myself day, I set aside all afternoon to do some painting. Now usually this would mean emulsioning walls or ceilings. But this time, I got out my watercolours and had a go at painting some orchids which I received for Christmas.

I have mixed feelings about the results. I am pleased with some of the brushwork, but the overall shape of the orchid petals was very difficult, and is not right. The main thing, though, was that it was a very relaxing and enjoyable couple of hours. I have also signed up for another term of a painting and drawing class. I am really looking forward to spending some time each week on artistic pursuits.

Put to good use

2007-01-09T13:38:00.000Z

I received some wonderful gifts this Christmas, including a great little book on handbags, and a wonderful selection of buttons and beads. So I put both to good use, to make a dinky little handbag shaped purse for a friend who shares the same birthday as me.

The purse is knitted in stocking stitch from hand dyed linen, and the handle is plaited wool and linen. I made the pattern up, and it is fairly basic, but if anyone is interested: cast on 20 stitches, work stocking stitch for approx 50 rows (or until the piece is twice the depth of the desired purse).

Continue in stocking stitch, knitting two together at the beginning and end of every knit row. Continue until the closing flap is narrow enough for your chosen fastening, cast off.

Cut a rectangle of linen to form the lining for the body of the purse (I left the flap unlined).

Sew the side seams of both the knitted purse and the lining, insert the lining and stitch around the top to fasten it to the purse. Use the tail of the yarn from casting off to make a loop for closing the purse. Attach a bead or button for the closure. Use buttons to attach the plaited handle to the purse.

Super heroes abound!

2007-01-08T14:16:00.000Z

There is nothing quite so much fun as making fancy-dress costumes for children. I don't mean the kind from patterns published in books or magazines. I mean taking items you have and turning them into costumes, and all the fun of researching and deciding the details with your little one.

We did just this at the weekend, to come up with a fancy dress costume for my little boy's birthday party.

So from one old negligee, a pair of tights, some gold ribbon, yellow craft foam, an off-cut of black leatherette and an old pair of pants... batman was born...

Ignore the red socks and cuffs - on the day they will not be making an appearance. Do you think Bruce Wayne would have been proud? My little chap was unsure about wearing his pants over his trousers, but even he had to admit, that when we consulted the comic book, that was how the man (bat?) himself did it.

Q: What's brown and sticky?

2007-01-03T22:37:00.000Z

A: A stick, of course! (sorry - that is one of my favourite jokes!)

My sister came across stitch and bitch sessions recently (one is just starting in Towcester - if any one wants the details let me know). She was shocked by the title and then intrigued, but reticent to join in as she is not really a knitter, although became quite fluent in finger knitting. So I told her about weaving sticks.

Stick weaving (see picture below) is a very simple and highly portable way of weaving. All that is needed is an odd number of sticks ( as many as can be comfortably held in the palm of one hand ) with a hole in the end of each one. The weaver would thread each stick, as they would a needle, with a desired length of wool, and knot each thread in place to make the warp. The weaver would then tie the loose ends of the threads together. Next, taking a ball of thread they would tie the end around one stick and begin to weave over and under the warp. The work was then pushed off the sticks onto the warp threads. When the work was completed the weaver would carefully cut the threads going through the sticks and tie them off securely. For more details see: http://www.history.uk.com/clothing

Above is a picture of a choker that I made a couple of years ago on weaving sticks. I have had many nice comments about it, and have been very pleased with the way it can be used to mix a number of fibres. And here is a picture of the weaving sticks with some weaving on them...

It's very simple, good fun, and most of all quick!

Straps, bracelets, chokers and belts are all easily made, and sections of weaving can be sewn together to make larger or more complicated shapes.

A diversion

2007-01-03T22:14:00.000Z

To start the new year, I am being brave and showing a watercolour painting I did over the Christmas holidays. It was from a photograph in a book.

I took up water colour painting 2 years ago, but have not done any in the last 12 months for one reason and another (mainly my boy starting school and a number of small work projects).

Anyway I liked this one - this is actually just the part of it that my scanner could fit - but I am pleased with the enforced cropping, and shall try playing around with the rest of the picture (there is some moody sky which the scanner chose to ignore, and some more of the hills) until it all comes together. I am also thinking of doing another version with poppies in the fields (a bit like the old Cadbury's flake advert! - can you remember it?).

There is a funny story about my first painting lesson and Dahlias. I mention it to make those in the know laugh...

Networking - that must be the secret

2006-12-21T15:44:00.000Z

So I wondered why it is I could not think of 6 people to tag for the recent meme. I thought I would consult the masters, so I checked out how good kharma bunny got tagged, that led me to Leigh, and then to Cheryl, and then I realised - I just am not very good at networking!

So sorry to be the weakest link in the meme...

But it's good to follow other people's networks - Leigh and Cheryl both have some great things on their blogs. It's great how many talented people are just a click away.

Winter Solstice

2006-12-21T15:27:00.000Z

So, today is the shortest day of the year - and what is the view from my kitchen window?

Rockpool

2006-12-21T14:59:00.000Z

So what's with the daily posts? Well: sick child, work deadlines met, main Christmas activities on schedule - it's a weird time, so I am making the most of it.

When I went to Harrogate in October, I discovered Shibori. To most people this means a dye resist technique. But before the dying is the pleating and stitching - and this is the part that captured the hearts of my mum and I. She is doing stitching on beautiful, ivory silk. I decided to try felted shibori.

So I knitted a rectangle in pure wool. Then pleated and clamped and also tied in glass pebbles. Then I did hot and cold hand felting. The result was a lovely textured piece with lumps, bumps and ripples. The colours inspired me, so I couched threads, added some metallic fibres, and beaded away to produce this...

I am going to call it rockpool, and intend to mount it on a board (but what colour background do you think? Cream? Or painted sea blues and greens?). I am really pleased with it. It's quite unstructured, and for me, uses a nice variety of materials in unusal ways.

Here is a picture of the whole thing... as you can see, it is an uneven shape, but that suits the idea of a rockpool I think.

24-60 hours

2006-12-20T13:03:00.000Z

That is the estimated period from 1st sign of symptoms to recovery for winter vomiting bug, which landed in our household at 3:00am this morning! So we had all last week off school with fevers and coughs, and this week we managed 2 days at school before sickness and the dreaded 'd' word (all Mums will know what I mean).

So I am glued to the settee as my little chap won't let me out of his sight, while he moans and tosses and turns, and periodically "chucks".

Still, the time can be put to good use. So I have started on NEXT years Christmas cards!!! I am exploring a holly motif and seeing how many different ways I can do it. I did glass paints on acetate this morning, and will try that textured fabric paint that you make bubble up with a heat gun tonight. I have also got some embossing powder that I had long forgotten about, a holly punch, and lots of green and red fabrics and threads - so it could be fun.

I promised to show the citrus filled organza bag from a couple of posts back, so here it is...

Also here is a Christmas table decoration that my little boy made while off sick last week. It's a cheese spread carton covered with glitter, with Christmas cake decorations stuck in, and snow made from dessicated coconut. The coconut looks really good, and smells nice too!

It's all about me!

2006-12-19T10:05:00.000Z

Good kharma bunny invited me to do her tagged meme. She also asked what a meme was. So I did some investigation... in blogs it tends to be a list of questions you have seen somewhere, and decide to answer and post. However, apparently, the high-brow explanation is "a unit of cultural information that represents an idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and is subject to mutation and adaptation" (that sounds like Chinese Whispers to me).

However, the way I think of it, is that these lists always seem to be things to reveal about yourself, so I think a meme is really a me-me, as in the title: "It's all about me!".

Anyway this one is six weird things about yourself... so here goes...

1. I often dream about celebrity chefs, especially Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.

2. I skipped school only once in my life: to go and see the opera La Traviata. Not even my Mum knows that.

3. I like potato waffles and the skin off roast chicken, both covered in salt. I think it is because overall I have a low fat, low salt diet, so every now and then my body just screams at me "go on... do it!"

4. I studied psychology at university, yet I am a sucker for self improvement books.

5. I once went to a fancy dress party as Clint Eastwood. My husband said "you're brave!".

6. My husband and I met when we were joint presenters on a 5 day training programme. Does that make me the teacher's pet? There was some good chemistry on the course.

Actually, not sure that these are weird things. But they are not things I tend to tell people every day!

Oh, and I am now supposed to tag 6 other people. Afraid I can only think of one who has not been tagged already so here you go In The Pink

Does it count?

2006-12-18T14:58:00.000Z

Well, not exactly a making moment... but we had our family Christmas party yesterday. There were 12 of us and I did a huge spread of all home cooked food - even the bread was home made. My spinach and rice balls also made a re-appearance on the menu after 10 years absence (well, they are VERY fiddly to make!).

It was a lovely do, and thankyou to all who came along. It felt like a sort of milestone for me, as it marked the end of three weeks' work, one of which was spent with a little chap off school sick.

Anyway... I was asked for my recipe for the glaze I put on the turkey so here it is:

1/2 jar crab apple jelly (or you could use cranberry)
Grated zest of one orange
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

Heat and reduce slightly in a pan, pour over the turkey for the last 20 minutes of roasting. Yummy!

Small boy is back at school today...

Merry Christmas to everyone.

PS What is black and blue and yellow all over? Answer: Me falling down the cellar stairs while holding a bowl of custard.

Iridescence

2006-12-09T14:29:00.000Z

I have just completed my final home made Christmas present! (Actually this completes all my Christmas presents, except for the one that Amazon worryingly keeps informing me has been further delayed. I ordered it at the beginnng of November, and the delivery estimate is now 21st Dec... do you think it will come in time?)

Anyay, back to the home made one. This is a decorated organza bag which will be filled with a selection of clove studded citrus fruits. My little helper is in charge of decorating the fruits, and I have had fun using some of my purchases from the Harrogate exhibition. I took some fusible (peacock green) and non-fusible (bronze) angelina fibres, and heated them over a rubber stamp to fuse them and imprint them at the same time. I then cut out the leaf shape, stitched it onto the organza bag, and then had some fun adding some beads and tiny bells. I am not very experienced with beads, but am quite pleased with this attempt.

Hopefully the sight and scent combination of this present will go down well.

Christmas Traditions

2006-12-07T10:21:00.000Z

The good kharma bunny recently asked about people's Christmas Traditions. It seemed like a good thing to muse upon for a few minutes.

As kids we were allowed to have chocolate digestives for breakfast on Christmas day, and a glass of "Rise and Shine" (do you remember that powdered orange juice drink...).

The traditions we have now for my family are to go to church on Christmas Eve for the Christingle service. However, disappointingly, this year the service is set for Dec 10th (too early for me!!! but we will still go).

Also, to chase out in the garden looking for a glimpse of santa leaving his last parcel of Christmas morning before he goes off for some sleep. Last year my husband excelled himself by leaving a lump of horse manure and half a carrot on our flat roof, and taking my little boy up a ladder to see the evidence that Rudolph had been by!!!!

Also having the only little boy on the planet who adores brussel sprouts makes our food traditions very interesting! I try to make our focus exciting vegetable dishes... and we always have something unusual like guinea fowl rather than turkey.

We have yet to manage the local tradition of pork pie for Christmas breakfast!

Do you believe in angels?

2006-11-20T14:29:00.000Z

Small boy let loose with digital camera... 'nuff said!

What would an arborist keep in a pouch?

2006-11-20T14:15:00.000Z

I have made this pouch/wallet as a Christmas gift for by brother in law (shhh!!).

I am very pleased with it as I had no pattern, and so had to plan and design it all from scratch. It is made from knitted hand dyed linen in a nice muted acid green. It is lined with plain linen cloth and the pocket is made from a nice oak-leaf patterned fabric. The colours and pattern seemed appropriate given his profession.

I am very smug to be able to announce that this completes my Christmas present list, and so now I can lean back and relax until the big day. Oh, except for the piece of consultancy work that I just won this morning. (Hoorah!).

Silk baubles

2006-11-09T10:41:00.000Z

Earlier this year I fell in love with recycled sari silk, and have knitted with it to create a hat and bag, and also to use as embellishments in other projects. I love its chaotic structure and myriad of colours. It looks fantastic when washed and wound into balls...

I wanted to do something with this image, and finally struck on the idea of sari silk baubles as an image for Christmas cards. Here is one of the first batch. I am playing with alternative versions...

Harrogate Stash

2006-11-01T19:28:00.000Z

At the beginning of last month, I attended my first proper hobby exhibition - the Embroidery and Fashion show at Harrogate. It was great - so much to see and try So many people happy to talk and tell you their inspirations, techniques and materials. I don't know what to say about it, so here is a picture of my purchases. I also bought lots of dissolvable fabrics and texturising products... so there is much fun to be had.

I have not managed to try any of them out so far, but am looking forward to playing with all my goodies.

Funky stripes

2006-10-17T13:07:00.000Z

I have made another journal cover as a gift.

This one was knitted, but I found I had to line it with fabric otherwise it curled at the edges.

Next time I'd knit it wider although with it being quite tight it makes the stripes curve nicely. It is a mixture of hand dyed linen and sari silk. The colours are all very acid - it makes the whole thing look quite fresh I think.

I have also had a "refresher course" on sewing machine basics from a very good friend of mine. So the darning plate has been fitted, the foot removed, and freeform machine stitching here we come. We've still not addressed the frustrations of sewing with metallic thread - but it never hurts to leave some bits to be done by hand.

Operation Christmas Child

2006-10-16T10:59:00.000Z

This year, my family is supporting the Samaritan's Purse charity by taking part in "Operation Christmas Child". This sends a small Christmas box to victims of war, poverty and natural disaster throughout the world. http://www.samaritanspurse.uk.com. Last year Samaritan's Purse in the UK sent out over 1.18 million gifts to children across Eastern Europe and Africa.

We have packed a box for a boy and a box for a girl. There is advice on the website about what to pack and it is very humbling to see what items will bring so much benefit and joy, for example:
A cuddly toy,
A toothbrush, toothpaste
A wrapped bar of soap and flannel
A notepad, colouring book
Picture books
Pencils and pencil sharpener, pens and paper
A set of crayons or felt pens
A hat, cap, gloves, scarf
A small ball or tennis ball
A puzzle e.g. small jigsaw
For boys: a toy car, truck, passenger plane or similar item
For girls: jewellery (e.g. pair of clip earrings, make-up or hair accessories)
A greetings card or a photo of yourself
Sweets
Small musical instrument

There is also a video showing children receiving the parcels last year. It is so little to do and amazing to see it can bring such happiness. My little boy has helped me choose and pack the items, so he can understand what it is to give something to someone who has so little.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

2006-10-10T18:42:00.000Z

Viva Bob the Builder!

I bought what I thought was a fun and interesting yarn back in the summer. Patons Splash ("fun and fresh").

I knitted it into a wraparound belt with wooden bead fastening using the pattern: k1, *yf, k2tog, *repeat to last stitch, k1 - simple I know, but a nice little project. The pattern is nice enough and vaguely lacey...

But on completion, all parties agree that knitted up it looks like knotted string woven through with old tights. So technically OK but aesthetically a disaster! Infact so bad that I cannot bring myself to even sew on the beads!

Looks like an inspired bit of recycling! A big disappointment! Let's hope the next project works out better!

So on an uncharacteristally personal note, here is my little boy dressed up as a puppy in an old blanket and my slippers.... aaahhhhh!!!