Remember gold stars?

No, not the motorbike but the gold and silver stars that you would get in your school notebooks if your work was particularly good. At my Junior school we had stars and at Senior school it was boring A, B+, B,B- etc.
I had assumed that most schools had a similar system until Ian bought some old school books home the other evening. In his history books, the marking system was marks out of 20 and if you were lucky you got this.


If you were very lucky you got this.




This is the first time and only time that I have ever seen Co-op savings stamps being used as part of a marking system.

For my non UK readers, you would get these stamps with your purchases from the Co-op store, you could also get Green Shield stamps with your petrol. Stamps would be redeemed for goods.

Ok, that's just given away my age, who else remembers them?

Bedfordshire for beginners

I apologise for the lousy photo and also for the pathetic leafs in this lace. Anyway these are Bedfordshire lace ( Pamela Nottingham) pattern two and Barbara Underwood Bedfordshire in 20 lessons pattern one.

Note to self, practise required :-) too much plait before picots I think on the top samples. No idea why my cameras simply refuse to take a decent photo today.

Lily and a giveaway (not mine)

Hi, two things to tell today.

Firstly, Biker Ted says he is having a GIVEAWAY!! so if you husbands/partners/sons are into motorbikes and fancy an insight to biking in Europe, check out this post.

Ok, I'm safe from complaints from the small furry one for a while now and I'm ignoring his comments about being him being trapped in my workroom for a few days.

This is Lily who has now found a new home in Wales with Gina.



Felted mohair and silk, stitched with raw silk thread.

I'm afraid the photo doesn't do her justice!

Embellisher - simple boxes

as I said, today is play day with the embellisher and the fibre mountain.
First project is felted boxes, I cheated and made this one yesterday.


merino roving, painted silk fibres and hand stitching.



If you want to know how to do this, I have made a short video and will provide further instruction if required.


did you spot me break a needle :-(

todays title is....

Suspended.


You may recognise these little birds, they seem to still pop up from time to time:-)



handstitched on wool background with embellished silk fibres.

Check out Todays Title is to see what everyone else is doing.

fibre sort out

I now have all my wool tops bagged according to colour and all the silk packs gathered together to play with on Monday. Surrounded by all these colours I couldn't resist practising my spinning.


I don't really knit, just find spinning on the spindle relaxing and I'm also curious as to how many different effects can be produced from such a simple tool.

My name is Guzzisue and............

I am a fibre addict.


This is just the tip of the iceberg, I also have bags and bags of coloured assorted fibres.The challenge is to start to use some of this stash.
It all started at my first sewing show when I bought a small bag of this and one of that.The problem is that instead of playing with a lot of these they have been admired then put in the cupboard for safe keeping.

I have already made one small project which will be revealed once it has been received by its new owner.



The degummed silk cocoons are proving fun to pull apart, have been loosely spun with merino with mixed results which I think is more down to my bad spinning that anything else.
Over the next few days I intend to push a selection of these fibres under the embellisher and see what develops.I want to try and work with just these and as little commercially prepared material as possible although I will need to add embroidery threads but I think I have some that are undyed so I can colour those myself.

On a lighter note, my thanks to Acereta for these awards. Another lacemaker but this time in Russia working on a very different style of lace to mine.

sneaky preview

a sneaky look at a small project on my desk, angora wool (goat)de gummed silk coccoons and wild silk thread.

Nolitex Textile Artists Group

Spotted this on Rarelizzies Blog so will wander over soon and have a look. If you live near Newark, (UK) you may like to check this out. Its taking place in the Spotlight Gallery at the Town Hall.
More details on Rarelizzies Blog together with a sneak preview of some of the work. I've known Liz for some time so I'm sure this exhibition will be interesting.

Having just read one of the comments, I must say that this exhibition is in Newark, England.

Bedfordshire for beginners

Some of you may remember this post about Jenny and myself undertaking a challenge to learn Bedfordshire lace in 2009. As this activity keeps my fingers moving without having to use any real pressure, I can cope with the plaster cast on my arm as long as I take frequent breaks. Jenny has posted her first sample here and my first sample is shown below.


thread Finca 50
I still need to practise on the plaits as they are sometimes too loose

nottingham light night 2009

Once again, Nottingham lets it's hair down to banish the winter blues :-)

embellisher

The wool at the Textile Workshop in Sherwood, Nottingham is so gorgeous that I just had to make thede small bowls so Susie could show her over customers that you don't just have to knit with it.

TAST revisited, week 18

Whipped and woven wheels,





felted background, stitched with wool, size ATC sorry for slightly shakey photography, ATC is actually correct size not wonky :-)

todays title is....

meeting of opposites......my first thought were black meets white but then this became b/w meets colour, old meets new. So this weeks offering is an old black and white photo taken sometime in thr eighties with my trusty SLR and colour digital enhancement, sort of covers both ideas.

spinning

A week or so ago I posed the following question to my friend on Stitchin Fingers

So my question is, although many of you have tried many different fibre techniques, Is there one that you have never tried that keeps calling to you. You know, the one that gets you watching every time you see someone demonstrate it.

For me, it's seeing someone sat at a spinning wheel, my fingers itch to have a go. Closely followed by those big looms that bang and clang :-)

Spurred on by this, I had a rummage in my cupboard and found a drop spindle purchased in Scotland several years ago, played with once, failed to make anything that stayed together and promptly abandoned!

I then hunted down video clips on You Tube, adapted the method so that I used my bad arm as little as possible and played,and played, and played...................

So take one spindle



add fibre




make some wonderful texture



eventually something that resembles wool



knitable



try again and again, eventually a little more control



produced this




thanks to my friends for replying, many of them also had ambition to spin-) Abigail, Hanane, Tatting Chic, Sita,Pam,Jenny,Helen Suzanne, Neki,Ati, Pippa and Margaret

So, what new craft would you like to try?