Making and Walking

Well here we are, 2017.   I've had a lovely few days off, in the period between Christmas and New Year when no-one knows what day of the week it is.

First of all I build some wooden covers for my wheelie bin.  They used to be hidden behind a screen fixed to a pergola but the pergola was rotting so I decided to take it down before it fell down.

I thought it would be a quick job to put them together but it actually took all day.  They are very sturdy though.

Next I've been making some jewellery.  A few months ago I bought some limo (polymer clay) and yesterday I made beads - it's very therapeutic!

Today I had fun laying the beads out and finding other beads to go with them.

Quite pleased with the finished result - I'm especially pleased with the marbled blue beads.

While I had the beads and bits out I decided to make another necklace with some beads that I'd bought ages ago.

But it's not all been building/making - I've had 2 lovely walks.  One day Celia, her husband and I went to Mersea Island off the Essex coast.  We'd seen a Channel 4 program called Britain at Low Tide a few months ago and they'd shown the earthworks of a tudor blockhouse  which was commissioned by Henry VIII in 1543 to protect the strategically important Colne estuary.

We found it!  The triangular earthworks are all that remain, and eventually, due to the changing coast line here, even these will probably be lost forever.

The other walk I did was on New year's Day, when it was grey and murky but it wasn't raininng so I walked down by the river to the mill on the water meadows.

The reeds were rustling in the wind and I watched a kingfisher darting about for ages.

Finally I walked home through the town, past this little gate, which was open but clearly not used much.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2017!

A New Lampshade

When I gave my dining room a new look in the summer I didn't get round to doing anything with this lampshade.

It used to be ok with the cream walls but it really didn't go with the new white or with the new chair covers.

When I was at the Knitting and Stitching show in October I saw lots of stalls selling kits to make your own lampshades but none were the right size so I did some online research and decided to reuse the original frame.  I bought some fabric locally and ordered the laminated backing and sticky tape.

The parcel that arrived was slightly larger than I was envisaging!

This weekend I set about making it.  I pulled the old cover off the frame and used it to make a template.

I cut out the laminated backing and fabric and joined them together (much more easily than I'd imagined).

Then I wound the sticky tape around the edges of the frame.

Winding the frames onto the laminated fabric was quite tricky (now I know why most of the kits sold were drum shades and not angled coolies!) but I got there eventually.  Then I had to fold the fabric over and tuck it under.  If I did it again I'd leave more fabric to turn over as some of mine is slightly short in places.

And there you have it - one new lampshade!

And I have rather a lot of laminated backing left over so if you want a new lampshade you know where to come!