Saturday 27 February 2010

Ideas of Inspiration Letter B

B for Blanket Stitch Box.

Blanket Stitch Box

take wool fibres left over from spinning, hand spun thread and an embellisher, result...3 inch square box seamed with buttonhole stitch. May need to find a button for the lid.

Friday 26 February 2010

sniff, sniff

Hi, I've been full of cold this week and have had to cancel both my usual evenings out and my trip to Cornwall this weekend as camping in the pouring rain would probably make things worse. I've consoled myself with a little night time knitting instead and finished my first lace shawlette.

My creation

The pattern is 198 yards of Heaven by Christy Verity.

I now have to buy a new printer before I knit anything else...expensive hobby!!

Have a great weekend everybody :-)

NB Regretfully I have had to put comment moderation back on due to a holiday company commenting on the last few posts.

Sunday 21 February 2010

who ordered this?



I've offered to do a bobbin lace demo this afternoon, looks like the weather is trying to stop me!!!

Saturday 20 February 2010

an interesting day

ok, sort of boring title just a little short on snappy captions at this time of night! Strange start to the day as after a night of -C temperatures and a heavy frost, an ice cream van parked up outside our house. Methinks that they were being optimistic!!!

I grabbed Ians runaround bus ticket this afternoon and headed off to town to take some library books back and pop into Knitty Gritty to catch up with the gossip from Lizzi and check out the wool in the shop.

Lizzi is currently encouraging people to knit hearts to be sold as brooches with all proceeds to raise money for the people of Haiti, a simple pattern is available and the brooches are being sold on her stall. Hopefully I will make a few to add to the collection :-)

Lizzi also mentioned that Debbie Bryan had a knitting workshop on this afternoon so I headed over to take a look round her shop. Debbie has been encouraging fellow craft workers to use Lace as in inspiration for their work and her shop offers many examples for sale along side other crafts and framed lace designs ( pen and ink designs drawn for use on lace making machines rather than bobbin lace) Very appropriately, Debbie's Studio is in the Lace Market area on Nottingham

I have been plying two recently spindle spun threads,

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practising my knitting again

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and playing with my laminator, this is throwsters silk waste trapped in the laminated plastic... going to play with this idea a bit more.

silk fibres

oohh, I also found this for £2.29 in a local charity shop!

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Have a great weekend :-)

Sunday 14 February 2010

Ravelympics

Please excuse me if this blog seems to be all spinney but the ravelympics are upon us and my personal challenge to see what I can spin on a drop spindle whilst the Olympics are on.
First mystery bag to spin contains a half used silk paper making kit and a bit of merino.

Progress so far

My creation

I have a number of small bags of mixed fibres many of which I bought whilst doing C&G and never got really used up so this is really a bit of a stash buster challenge for me

Saturday 13 February 2010

Nottingham Light Night

As the sun set last night, strange creatures came out to play :-)

We wandered round illuminated pyramids,

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Ooohed at the big wheel,

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Escaped the clutches of a mad robot,

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Ran from the scary dragon,

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Were followed by a wraith,

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Saw fire light up the sky,

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Found Musicians trapped in a caravan,

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Were chased by a mad nun,

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And a scary monster,

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Were serenaded by Wholesome Fish,

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Listened to quiet music in a candlelit church,

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These were some of the sounds and sights of Nottingham Light Night 2010

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more photos here.

Sunday 7 February 2010

Seems a while......

since I put a post up although I think it is only a couple of weeks. Life has been busy with a Nottingham Bobbin Lace society meeting on Saturday followed by a Weavers, Spinners and Dyers meeting on the next Saturday complete with jacket potatoes :-)

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The weather has been cold, frosty at times but no snow although I think that will come back again soon. When the weather gets like this I always seem to get a desire to do something repetitive like knitting or lacemaking so I have been practising making holes on this scarf ( shop bought yarn).

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I've been making fluff with the drum carder, digging out some fibres for a ravelry challenge and spinning some merino that I dyed a while ago.

My creation

I've also spun up some oddments that were collecting in one of my storage jars.


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Yesterday I dropped off some fabric at the workshop and stopped to admire the work produce the the young embroiderers during the applique workshop. With ages ranging from 7 to 15 these are some talented youngsters so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work threading needles and helping with the the bondaweb.

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I hope you have a good weekend :-)