Four Years On and Another Leap Day!

Today is a bit of a special day for me as it's 4 years ago today that I bought this house.  Nothing special about that you might think, but although it was 4 years ago it's only actually the first anniversary because the date was February 29th!

The first thing I did once I'd got the keys was investigate the shed (I'm a shed kind of girl who knows her priorities!).  It was painted a VERY bright blue (it's now cream) and had lots of interesting bits and pieces left in it and it smelt wonderful!

I didn't move in for another 5 days and at this time on the 29th Feb 2008 we were busy filling cracks in walls and preparing to paint.  I had wonderful friends who helped me and over the next two days we painted both bedrooms - changing the walls from strong colours to cream took several coats of paint and was hard work.  Then the bedroom carpets were laid and I moved in on the Thursday.

Stupidly I didn't take any pictures of the house and garden when I actually moved in, but this was the garden when I started tackling it and clearing the ground of ivy and other weeds

And this was the bathroom at the end of the first day of replacing the bathroom suite (much of the Edwardian plaster had blown and fell off when the tiles were removed!)

It's a lovely house with a very special garden and I'm looking forward to many more years of living here even though I can only mark the actual day every 4 years!

Beads and Quacks!

On Monday my neighbour tapped on the back door, holding a yogurt pot, an old jar and two old tins.  "I'm having a clear out," she said "can you use these?  They're left over from my college days."
"Ooh yes please," I replied, not even knowing what they contained but knowing that she did a textile degree.

And what did they contain?

All kinds of wonderfulness!  Old beads, new beads, old bits of jewellery, sequins, buttons and threads.

On a sadder note, her ducks (who personally wrote me notes and gave me eggs) met a very sad and brutal end on Friday night when a fox got into their run - no further details required.  We were both very upset and as she hadn't got any recent photos of them I decided to make her a little picture of them.  I had some of their feathers that I'd collected in the summer when they moulted and happily stitched away for a few hours.  But actually giving a textile picture to someone with a textile degree turned out to be harder than I'd imagined and I then spent several more hours getting colder and colder feet about it.  Eventually I plucked up some courage and gave it to her - fortunately she seemed genuinely pleased with it and quite touched that I'd spent the time making it.

Hinge (on the right) and Bracket (on the left)

Quack Quack!

What's A Cat To Do?

When the weather's like this outside

what does a sensible cat do?

Make a cosy little nest under the table in one of mum's fabric piles of course!

Just snuggle about and move stuff around, until an old pillow and a bit of prefelt are in the perfect position, then sit back and relax.

 

And only move when you've had a perfect sleep as any unoccupied space will of course be reoccupied by your brother pretty quickly!

So Nearly

My goodness it's February already, how did that happen?

I found my snowdrops this morning, hiding under some hellebore leaves.  I thought they'd disappeared (I think that every year, I really should learn!).  They're not quite flowering - but are so nearly.

Also so near to opening is this bud:

I think it's an Iris Reticulata.  I know I planted some last year, trouble is I thought I'd planted them in the front garden so I could see them when I came home each day and this one is very much in the back garden!  As there's no sign of any in the front garden I guess I thought one thing and did another!

Clematis Freckles

But these are definitely out and look so cheerful winding their way through the rose stems.

Holes, holes, holes.

One of the things that I love about textiles is holes and what is revealed underneath them.  A combination of being inspired by the cover technique of this book

Image courtesy of Amazon

and then watching the BBC production of Great Expectations over Christmas and being fascinated by the wonderful Miss Havisham

Image courtesy of  The Telegraph

made me want to have a play and see what I could create.

I'm not sure if it's finished or what I'll do with it, but I do quite like the holes and the fragility of it (although it's ended up pinker than I was expecting) and it does resemble a piece of old fabric from a worn out dress.

Fragile Lace (18cm x 15cm)

The top layer is Crash fabric which I stencilled onto using soft molding paste before blasting it to distress it and make the holes.

The base layer is silk scrim and silk carrier rod strippings and it's held together with beads and french knots.

Detail from above

I'm not sure what this fascination with holes says about me, or where this technique might go, but I think it's something I will return to.

A First for the First

On this first day of a new year I thought I'd show you something that I finished a couple of days ago and am quite proud of - my first ever piece of lacy knitting!  It's not really complicated lace like some very clever people can knit as I've tried that and kept ending up with the wrong number of stitches, so this was a simpler pattern which meant I only went wrong and had to unpick it twice!  It's called a "shawlette" - and the pattern was a free one from from Ravelry.

I had to learn about blocking, cue towels and pins on the bathroom carpet, which really helped to shape it properly.

It's a lovely variegated 4ply yarn and feels wonderfully soft - I shall definitely enjoy wearing it.

I hope you've all had wonderful Christmases and that 2012 brings happiness and fullfillment to you all - it'll soon be Spring!

A Little Bit of Brightness

On my way to turn off the greenhouse heater this morning, I spotted this little beauty in flower.

It's a self sown hellebore seedling that appeared last year but this is the first time it's flowered.

I suspect it's a hybrid and isn't a pure variety but it's a lovely mix of dark pink and lime green,

just perfect to brighten up the dullness of a grey December morning.