Inner City Farm

Hi, I needed to get out of the house for a while today so headed down to Stonebridge Farm, usually I spend my time looking at the small fluffy creatures that live in the barn, bunnies, guinea pigs , that sort of thing. However the barn was closed for cleaning so I had to content myself with slightly larger creatures.
Just a few photos :-)

some pretty flowers around as well...

speak soon xx

beginning to feel better :-)

Hi,

Definitely beginning to fell a bit better, still coughing but not wheezing so much, helped by the fact that its now cooler as well.
I've managed to do a bit in the garden aka the jungle but I suspect that it may take the rest of the summer to get it into any real sort of order.

I've set up a bookmark on my lace pillow and it got me to thinking about some form of travel pillow or pillow in a bag for taking on holiday ( I often take an inkle loom or spinning wheel on holiday ) not sure if to make one and use travel bobbins or full size ones.

tomorrow I may get out all my bobbins and see how many travel ones I have as I'm sure I was given some a couple of years ago but probably not that many.

I hope you had a good weekend xx

Sorting out the book shelf and some lacey thoughts

I have plenty of books, rather we have plenty of books! Many of which have sat on the shelves for years simply taking up space . Unfortunately most of these don't have any real value and may only make 50p on ebay so I'm checking values and popping them into the charity box. Amongst them are a few ladybird books but having done a quick search on the net I've found that there is no real value to any of these, just a sentimental value .

I finally managed to sort out two boxes of books to go to the local charity shop, three have made there way back onto the shelf as he hadn't read them but its nice to get some of the pile of books next to the sofa sorted away!!

I must confess that I followed this up by falling asleep for a couple of hours, the thunderstorm last night kept me awake and I was also wide awake a bit too early this morning for my liking.

Back to the lace, I need some sort of focus for this, a project that will give me variety of styles but not just strips like I have been doing to try and practise. I don't want to embark on any major piece of work and I know that I get distracted easily by other crafts but I do have the threads, books and purchased patterns that are just sitting around doing nothing.

Some time ago I thought about making bookmarks rather than sample pieces as they would look good displayed together in a book or sewn on to a long narrow cloth that can be kept rolled up when not needed. I started putting ideas together on my pintrest page (https://www.pinterest.com/guzzisue/ ) for inspiration and I'm trying to find out which books some of them are from or at least who designed them so I can buy the pattern. I don't feel confident to design my own.

I will have a think about it............looking back at the lace I made years ago, some of which is on this blog, I feel that I have forgotten so much about this lovely craft.

bobbin lace

practise still needed !!

Have a great weekend xx

bobbin lace

hi, this has proved to be a pretty little lace but I found it really difficult to find the rhythm for this one, I think I may have cracked it now but will do a bit mire just to make sure.

thinking out loud

about creativity....I'm into my third week off work with a viral respiratory infection, the first two weeks all i could do was sit quite and read or sleep. This week I'm definitely on the mend and I can feel the desire to create.

But....

Sometimes it gets buried under work, responsibilities, having to act as an adult.

Sometimes I have all the ideas but can't act on them, they stay in my head.

Sometimes its just frustration that stops me.

Sometimes I feel that I need to remove clutter before I can create anything.


However, the sun is shining and I am going to nurture this flicker of creativity and see where it leads me this time.

Enough of me rambling, I'm going to bake some scones.

(by the time I finished rambling, the sun was no longer shining, the sky looked like this !!)

but we still had scones for tea :-)

Bobbin Lace

So, next book off the shelf is.......

turn to pattern 1 and find that it needs 10 pairs of bobbins so spend a few minutes winding up another 4 pairs, copy the pricking and take advantage of the sun coming through the window to take pretty photos.

this pattern is definitely more complicated and the first two repeats are a mess but I think I'm getting back into the swing of it and we will see how this one turns out.

this photo is to show off my pincushion, isn't he sweet ?

thats all for now. have a great day x

Bobbin lace

Well firstly the good news, I found the charger for my small camera and discovered that the batteries still have some charge in the big camera.

not so good...I have never made any sort of lace with just 6 pairs of bobbins and working from what looks like a hand drawn pricking did not prove ideal for me. 

here are the results, judge for yourself.............scale, about 5mm across

 There again, the book has sat on the shelf for about 20 years and this is the first piece I have made from it. Maybe the next book I pick I will open at random? or maybe pattern 1 again...we shall see !

 anyway, here is a slightly better photo of the bobbins, in my mind these are my no 3 set. My No 1 set are all dark many with silver wire or decoration and they are often used with my no 2 set which are all nice manly plain woods. No 3 set are painted as you can see and the rest are all old bobbins from various places. I also have a number of honiton bobbins which haven't been used for many years.

thanks for looking, I'm off to choose the next book!!

a quick break from the lace

I still have a strap on the loom, just another foot or so to finish :-)

even the pattern on the reverse is quite pleasing. see bottom of the last photo.

Bobbin lace

Hi,
I haven't made lace on a regular basis for years,  just the odd bits and pieces mainly stuff for occasional demo when needed.
Maybe it's because I have been doing so much weaving that I feel the need to do something different for a while and since I have a shelf of lace books (and a few on the desk and floor)

A drawer full of lace making threads

A varied selection of bobbins

So I picked up a book at random, turned to pattern 1

And started

Flemish  centre braid, six pairs

Sorry for the bad photos, camera battery dead so blogged from my tablet.....need to find my charger asap!!

Overdue post

Hi, although posts are sporadic on here, I can't  bring myself to abandon the blog altogether. So anyone still reading this is stuck with me, sorry X
So, what have I been up to? Well, I had a stall at a ukulele festival in May to try and sell my straps although being directly opposite an established strap seller probably didn't help but I covered my expenses and the cost of the festival tickets so all is not lost especially since I would have been there anyway.

However, prior to the festival we took a few days out to recharge our batteries and headed north to our usual bolt hole north of the border although the weather left much to desire !! but after a couple of days or rain and sleet we began to see gaps in the cloud.............we love this island so much !!!

have a great weekend xx

Early morning thoughts

Hi, I've been awake since the early hours (it's 7.20 now) because my brain seems really overactive with ideas plus my eyes are itchy which is either early hayfever or the anisthetic drops from the optician yesterday.

The urge to sort out my workroom continues, yesterday I refound 30 or so coloured and water soluble pencils and some nice gel pens so I've ordered a large pencil case to house them all together. My paintbrushes have a new home and today I will go through my paint supplies.

I think this is all part of what turned my brain on as when I re find something, I want to use it and start to think of ideas and techniques etc. I'm really not sure what will happen when I start to sort out my sketchbooks! I suspect that my brain may simply explode!

The band of ukulele ladies has grown to 17, here are some of them, I have a couple of straps to finish over the next few days as well.

I'm also still enjoying the colouring books, it's giving me practise with  colour and technique although I have a long way to go. I've not really played around with paints and pens for quite some times and I'm quite rusty and sort of lazy when it comes to drawing something for myself.

However,  I am having lots of fun !!!!

Times now for coffee, have a great Sunday, will speak soon x

Easter plans

Hi

I've been full of cold this week and I'm actually really grateful for the fact that I don't work on bank holidays! , today's challenge is to sort out the mess that we call home and to finish some weaving since the rain seems to have set in for the day.

The latest strap is nearly finished which gives me around six that need finishing off and the crowd of ukulele ladies is growing ever bigger :-)

Do any of you have etsy or folksy shops?  I could do with some sort of online sales presence but really small scale as I'm often asked if I sell on line but up to now I've not ventured down that avenue. Any advice would be welcomed. 

Anyway, it's 8 in the morning and I'm off to start tackling this....

Who knows what I may find !!!