Credit crunch and all that

Its been a rather strange few days, firstly the warm house is taking a bit of getting used to, like not having to wear so many layers!! then I have an ongoing dispute over some Jacobs lamb fleece that I ordered on 3 March and has still not arrived. I was really hoping to use it with the cave painting felting. The dispute continues but I was given a sandwich bag of Jacobs on Saturday which went from this.

to this

to this

now needs skeining and washing.
A short session of wet felting reminded me why I have been using the embellisher recently but I have a certain project in mind for this.


A visit to a neighbour from the area of my childhood today was an eyeopener as when I was young she was just an old lady living over the road. Today I found out that the 'old lady' is now aged 89 and had been a keen member of the Embroiderers Guild in her younger days and judging by the pictures on the wall had quite a liking for gold work. Sadly arthritis has now stopped her from stitching and she was happy to pass on some of her stash to me so it can be used. We spent a pleasant morning chatting about textiles and old Nottingham lace families.

Now, this is the part where I need advice. I'm looking at possibly having an Etsy store but I'm not really sure as to what people would want to buy. Whilst I feel that my work is good enough, I need the confidence to go ahead and do it. Also any income would help support my hobby as unfortunately the credit crunch has bitten this household and my main income from my job will be needed for the necessities in life.

STOP NEWS!!Giveaway present Hijacked!!

During the week I was lucky enough to win Hippopips giveaway, a beautiful scarf so I eagerly awaiting its arrival. It seems that someone else was also watching the post and once he spotted the blue ribbon tying up the parcel, that was it......gone!!! here is the evidence......

its seems that he also had an accomplice!!
Thanks for the beautiful scarf, wonderful texture.





Quick update on the house, we have heating, hot water and newly decorated hallway!! just waiting for the new carpet now thank goodness.

Also, I went to the local Weavers Spinners and Dyers Guild meeting today and a lovely lady named Dee helped me with my first go at spinning on a wheel. I think I must have been grining all afternoon, great fun and my mind is now full of ideas for yarns. Yes, I am now saving for a wheel and would like to thank everyone for making me so welcome.

Just for fun

Hi, since I'm still surrounded by the decorators and the embellisher is still on the table, I decided to have a play just for the fun of it.
This is my doodle for Doodle Day blog



and this is the embellisher version



not my usual style but fun to do and pretty quick:-) ( picture a little darker than actual item)

Update- no heating still, engineer trying to find a fan for the boiler but the newly decorated hallway looks great!!

FibreFantastical Day

The decorators and repair men turned up at 8 this morning so I really had to stay out of their way so I made a nest in my workroom. Remember those lovely soft wool tops and the urge to relate to cave paintings in my previous posts? well today I got chance to sit and work at the embellisher to see what would evolve. I must admit that I don't always start with a design, often the fabric or fibres will speak out.

Chris Gray kindly sent me details of rock carving that she had come across her travels and armed with ideas from these, I plucked out some fibre and went for it.

The base fabric on both of these cylinders, containers, pots or whatever they are, is acrylic felt with wool tops and wool nepps embellisher on top. They are stitched together with yarn spun from the same fibres.





the next one is an experiment on line drawing ie just one needle in the embellisher and worked from the reverse ( the black acrylic felt)

Spring Spin Spun

I've finished my spring spinning sample, first attempt at spinning to a theme and adding texture. It has now been washed and stretched.





I also finished the goat angora ( spun at the bike camp) and Leicester curly bits ( lightly carded)



and played with wool nepps



very short piece, very time consuming!

This has been keeping me sane as we now have a new pump on the heating system and a new radiator but the boiler is now refusing to work. I'm getting a little p*****d off with this and I suspect when the insurance people come in to decorate they will find more problems requiring more money!!!

bookmark finished

this has been my Wednesday night project for the last two weeks and I finished the last inch or so yesterday.

It was made with the same pricking that I used for my give away bookmark last year, I just rearranged some of the elements.



Have a good weekend :-)

Spring on my spindle

Continuing to enjoy my physio ( well bits of it) Hopefully after tomorrow we will have all our heating problems solved and the repair people start on Monday. Typically, in spite of the reasonable weather now, the forecast for next week when I will have workmen in and out all day for most of the week is cold with possible snow. This seems to be a pattern with us as a few years ago it snowed when they fitted the new boiler and the next April is snowed everyday whilst they removed and refitted all the windows. Given that we don't often see the stuff, we obviously have a lousy sense of timing!!

To cheer ourselves up, we have been piecing together a holiday for later in the year which involves the CAR!! and heading north of the border.

Rock Art Samples

Spurred on by the natural fibres, I've made a start on exploring prehistoric rock art, we will have wait and see where this one goes :-)

TAST revisited, week 17

Running stitch




needle felt ( embellisher) and hand spun yarn.

size atc ish

softies in the post

Just checking in with everyone, not really got anything to show due to the healing process but I have had my first physio appointment today and they are really pleased with my progress and I am to use my fingers and hands as much as possible (thank goodness, don't know what I'd say if they told me to stop). I will not be going back to work as soon as I thought but I think I can live with that.


I've been playing with my lace and the bookmark should soon be complete and this parcel arrived yesterday.



lovely undyed wool, gorgeous....and soft.


I've got an itch to do some felting but I will have to use the machine and use rock paintings as a starting point, prompted by an e-mail converation with Karin of Ioftheneedle

TAST revisited, week twenty four

I,ve been having a quiet week as I'm having to get used to using my wrist without the support of the splint which is interesting to say the least. Sadly I will be returning to work soon and that is going to be such a big shock to the system that I may go quiet again for a while :-)

Anyway, a few things to show.



tast revisited week 24, French knots with silk background felted on the embellisher,

made a start on an easy bookmark to keep my fingers moving,



Have a good weekend everyone :-)

BTW, we have hot water and shower but no heating as the pump has now died, waiting still for the repairs to the ceiling.

Rust Dyeing

I recently acquired an old iron, blogged here, and Maggi suggested that I tried some rust dyeing, so here are the results.

mix and match hobbies

We drove down to the Deja Vu rally in the car as we had the new (to us) control tent to pass onto members of our bike club. As we live 270 plus miles from the rest of the club, we often have to combine various errands with the one trip.

A great time was had by all, the local social club provided drink and food in the evening and these guys were the breakfast chefs in the mornings.

thanks Ian and Robbie ( and Val and Rosie)

beautiful sunrise Sunday morning

As I knew that I would have time on my hands whilst manning the control desk, basically ensuring that people had tickets and passing out badges, I took my drop spindle.



Must have been a strange sight but I did get some spinning done between answering questions about it.

I even got to do some extreme bobbin lace by braiding a friends hair, he was most impressed and took away the instructions as to how to do it. ( half stitch plait).

See. I said I was mixing and matching my hobbies!!

Just a quickie

Just in case you wondered where I was, we went to a bike rally on Friday.

Come to sunny Cornwall they said,




They lied!!

More tomorrow once I've sorted photos etc.

knit one

Knit one, Purl one, CAST OFF!!

hiding

In view of all that has happened I thought the best course of action was to retreat my room with the fan heater and practise this.



One of my favourite painted bobbins.



Many thanks to local bloggers who have offered heaters and help. We escaped out on Friday night to have a meal with friends and a plumber called on Saturday to look at the cylinder.I am waiting for his quotation and hope to get the work done asap. We are taking showers at my father in laws (not for the first time)

When we first got together, circumstances meant that we were living in a one room bedsit with a shared bathroom and a kitchen in a cupboard. yes, you opened the cupboard and there was a two ring burner and a sink. We spent many evenings at Ian's Dad's coping with the washing and taking showers.

Delights and Disasters

I ventured out into the garden yesterday to check on some of our residents



found a bit of texture to photograph





missed the best of the crocus, crocii?

Ian bought another box of childhood items back from his Dads and gave me this





needs a bit of spit and polish!!

This is our brand new fitted hallway carpet hanging out to dry :-(



We had noticed a mark on the hallway ceiling but everything appeared to be OK. On Friday I realised that the ceiling paper had rumpled in our main room so phoned a friend and asked if he could check the connectors on our hot water tank. As he moved the lagging, he realised it was full of water and moving it revealed a crack in one of the joints. The water had been leaking and then drying out in the heat, unfortunately once the lagging was removed the leak became a geyser and the tank emptied into the hallway.



We now have no central heating and no hot water until we can get this fixed :-(