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.

What To Do First?

I've come to the conclusion that I need more hours in the day.  I've got so many unfinished projects, so many ideas and a whole list of things to do that I don't actually know where to start (or even what to finish).  I think the inside of my brain must look a little like my workspace looks at the moment - there is no apparent order but I do actually know exactly what's there!

Projects lurking on the table are:

1. Unfinished cord skirt for work (on back of chair)
2. Abandoned pink silk lace knitted shawl (abandoned as the stitches keep falling of the needles and I always seem to have the wrong number!)
3. Green crocheted beaded lacy scarf 
4. Pile of bits for textile piece 
5. Hair scrunchies for work
6. Pressed rose petals that I now can't remember what I'd planned to use them for
7. Seedheads (collected for a good reason at the time)
8. 2 wall tiles, one covered in crackle paste and the other in molding paste and marble dust (don't ask why!)

Also on my "to do list" are:

1. Get on with an interactive fantasy story setting resource for The Treasure Tree (aliens, fairies, mermaids etc)
2. Experiment properly with the watercolours I bought in August
3. Sort out the shelves (hidden from view in the photo) so that I can clear some stuff off the floor

That's a list of 11 without even thinking about Christmas and everything that I should be doing for that - the only thing I've done so far is make the cake which Fran has promised to help me eat!

I really should go and get on with something, but I'm not sure where to start!  Maybe I need a  cup of tea first (and of course I'll need to reclaim my chair before I can do anything).

Am I the only one needing more hours (or less ideas) or do other people suffer from this problem too?  I'd love to know...