A bit of prep continued...

Hi, I got just over 100gm of nice spinning fibre from the fleece leftovers, I will get the spinning wheel out later and have a play.

I've also decided that the texel fleece lurking in the cupboard is destined for the bin. It was my first fleece, washing to brittleness and really coarse. Its been sat there for 5 years and I still really don't like it so out it goes!! No point having it take up space!!!

I'm not very good at labelling things and I'm guessing that the bag labelled Bob is polworth, beautiful and soft so its been place next to the door ready to prep and spin. Although I think it may be more a case of flick and spin.

Escaped

Hi, I've escaped from the house but it's difficult trying not to cough too much whilst out for a drink!

But I've been stuck in the house too long this week , a bit of quiet time in the corner at Costa will do me the world of good.

My challenge  ( to do something creative ) has been to try stranded knitting, colour work,  fair Isle or whatever you want to call it. So I have 3 balls of cheap acrylic yarn, a pair of needles and a chart printed from the net.

I need to work on my tension but I'm slowly getting there :-)

Mojo gone?

Hi

I've not done anything crafty for the last couple of days, I suspect that I'm just getting fed up with the cough now. I've done a bit of reading, watched far too much catch up TV and sorted a few computer files.

Normal service will be resumed soon, In the meantime I will be playing on Pintrest.

Have a great week, I will post again at the weekend x

A bit of prep

Hi
Now the fleece is dry I can see that it is the dregs left over from a previous spinning session, partly felted, short cuts etc. As I can't get to my carders I'm combing it out. The idea is even if its a small amount of wool, it will be quick and way to spin and I have plan for its use :-)

So, at the moment my work table is one big mess but it wont be for long.

If all the pillow cases contain this sort of stuff, It won't take too long to sort as a lot of it will go in the bin!!

making progress

Hi

Now I have my masks I have finished the hat...

dusted off and sorted my books.....

.......and rewashed a small bag of Portland fleece which was feeling rather greasy!!

maybe life is getting back to some sort of normality. There's not much of this fleece so I'm not sure whether to spin it on the wheel or give one of the spindles some exercise.

The plan is still to spin up the remains of the fleece in the cupboard before I get any fresh fleece in this year. I wash good and didn't buy any last year but I already have some on order for this year and I'm keeping my eye out for coloured fleece in particular.

New masks

Hi, I'm blogging from my tablet today so please excuse any weirdness ☺

I've just picked up my new dust masks,  not very fetching but more comfortable than the last ones.

At least it means that I can now look to doing some fibre prep as well as the dusting!!

Bobbin Lace

Hi, yesterday we woke up to a dusting of snow, nothing serious. It melted and turned into a sunny day. Today is cold, bright and sunny, it's been a really strange winter this year. The temperatures are predicted to be 12c by Sunday!!

So yesterday was housework, book sorting and I went for a walk as I have been stuck in the house far too long. The cough really wasn't so bad as it has been although I did have to stop several times to get my breath!

Since last Wednesday I have been avoiding chocolate, coffee, caffeine, crisps, citrus fruits just in case the consultants latest theory is correct............. so, so difficult to avoid chocolate and coffee!!!!

I finished winding the lace bobbins. That pretty pattern was from this book.

Which I bought many years ago because I liked the picture on the front only to find the pattern is not inside and doesn't have anything to do with the style of lace!

I've made a start although there isn't much to show, just a forest of pins!!

So, back to the computer file sorting and the book sorting....speak soon x

white stuff ?

I was just about to post that we haven't had any snow when I realised that the room had gone dark. I've had the blind shut so I could see the screen on my tablet and as I looked up I realised that I could see snow through one of the gaps!

All excited, I opened the blind to find that it was just a quick snow flurry, blink and you will miss it. However, Ian phoned around an hour or so ago to say it was snowing where he was, about 60 miles from here.

Between sorting the books and photos, I've copied the lace pattern and started to wind the bobbins.

Just checked, still trying to snow.

its turning cold again

Hi,



The temperatures have dipped a little here and there is talk of snow although we tend not to see much here in Nottingham.

I've had a few days away from doing anything creative so really don't have anything to show you. I'm still sorting through old photos on the computer and transferring to the new hard drive. I had forgotten some of them and every so often I come across a small batch of pictures which puzzles me as to where they were taken.

I promise that in the future I will be better at labelling things up!!!

Most of my lace books have been removed from the shelf now for a good dust and sort out, I will pop them back before I start on the next one as I really don't want to pull the shelves over on top of me!

One pattern caught mt eye and I may just pop it on the pillow to take out with me. My plan over the next few days is to make sure that I get out for a walk and there are a couple of cafes 1/2 mile or so from here. I'm sure they won't mind a lace maker dropping in on the odd occasion :-)

Having said that, It took my two attempts to get to the bus stop yesterday!.

Have a great weekend :-)

this makes life err... interesting

So I've seen my consultant again, I still have an asthma diagnosis but they are still unsure as to what is causing the cough or what is triggering the asthma. So, new drugs, new theories, still off work......

and they now recommend that I wear a dust mask when doing housework etc. I have ordered a pack off the Internet and I've bought a few from the local shop to keep me going. The biggest problem with this is that my glasses sit a bit funny with the shop ones.

Fortunately they haven't asked me to wear one outside the house !!

( when I wear them, I end up with a red patch on my face the same shape as the mask!!)

I'm back to sorting out and hopefully making things dust free and I found these.

The bobbin lace stitches booklet was given to me by Dorothy Cox a few years before I began to make lace properly and have lessons.

I acquired the Little Grey Rabbit Book a little later on although I have not, to date, made anything from it!!

I forgot that I had changed my desktop picture last night, I had quite a fright when I turned it on this morning and these eyes looked back at me!!

I'm still trying to sort out my photo files and get them backed up properly onto an external hard drive. The biggest problem has been renaming the files properly and sorting out the huge files that are labelled as blog 2013 etc as I'm trying to get everything into neat  'boxes' and often these contain photos of several events from that year.

Its also surprising how long I have been visiting some of our local attractions to take photos.

25gb sorted and copied so far....

Some of these are fairly random!!

Nothing to say....

I hope you all had a good day :-)

PS I baked scones..yum yum

a little late...

Its been a quiet day, I woke up with a headache for the third day running and went back to bed after a while. I've stopped taking some of the tablets so I'm suspecting that they may have caused this. I get to see my consultant on Tuesday so hopefully we can sort things out.

I did get to watch some catch up TV, transfer a few files onto the new hard drive and cut off the boring lace (started last summer) and empty the bobbins.

Tomorrows challenge is house work again :-( slowly doing little and often, still emptying cupboards and drawers, still a long way to go.

a very brief outing

It was Nottingham Light Night last night and we rarely miss the chance to spend some time wandering round although the Uke Orchestra has provided the entertainment for the last 3 years or so, meaning the the wandering has been a sole occupation.

This year he decided to join me rather than play to the masses in the Tourist Information Office and we kept the visit short as I started to wheeze quite early on. This means that there are few photos but we did enjoy what we saw :-)

 a handsome dragon made from assorted trash :-)

 we had fun spotting the cds etc

 I don't usually take photos of youngsters but I do love her cardi/jumper, lovely colours

 human mannequins

 after watching this installation, the patterns and pictures moved and changed, we headed home x

my excuse? I need a hat :-)

not spinning or knitting for 5 weeks does not seem to have made much difference to the asthma type problem so I'm chancing a quick knit with the merino, I just fancy something a bit colourful :-)

embroidery exercise

Hi
Whilst I was going through my college work yesterday and trying to reduce the number of files I found an exercise in colour and stitch that I thought I might share with you.

The ides is to find a photo and either interpret it onto fabric, stitch directly onto it or cut part of it out and replace with stitching that matches the colour and feel of the original.

Interesting?

this can be a valuable exercise

food for thought.

spare room?

We have a spare room, originally intended to be a guest bedroom but it really is the dump room for all the bits and pieces that don't have a home.

Yesterday I made a start on sorting it out, it doesn't look like I've done anything but I rescued an assortment of glasses from the shelve above the window and washed a good quantity of dust from them. Nothing is going back on that shelf now!!!

Ths glasses are from motorcycle events so can't be replaced and for that reason we are reluctant to use them....although two small ones are in regular use as spirits glasses, living next to the bottle of Archers in the kitchen.

My biggest quandary is what to do with my old college work, I have files of samples that take up room but I am reluctant to let them go. I'm thinking that I may be able to get a lot of the work into one big file and maybe pack them all into an air tight box. Some small pieces of work have been thrown away as they are so dusty and faded. Others I may remove from the frames and wash.

I can only tidy up for short periods of time so I'm guessing that this may take me a few days.

Baking

Hi

As I've mentioned before, if I'm off work ill ( asthma type ill, able to move a little, not infectious) I generally get the urge to bake.

This time I have dug the bread maker out of the cupboard where its been hiding for several years. The first attempt the other day was sabotaged by a power cut and had to be scrapped out of the bowl. The second attempt was a bread mix from Aldi, basically to check that the machine still works ok more than baking bread. It did produce a loaf of quite dense brown bread which was  delicious when cut into thick slices, toasted and eaten with marmalade.

Today I have popped in all the ingredients for a spiced fruit loaf... we will see what happens :-)

OOOOOppps   all fruit on the outside !! tastes ok but need to rethink :-)


All this has made me think about the number of electrical items in our kitchen, all gadgets to save time, make life easier. The sad thing is that I would struggle without some of them and when we had the power cut I realised how much I rely on them.

The radio, DAB radio essential for good reception here ( we live in a valley, we can see the mobile phone mast, we can't get mobile signal in the kitchen! many conversations are carried out on the stairs)

Electric kettle, we have an electric cooker so popping the kettle on the stove isn't an option.

Slow cooker, stick blender ( perfect for soups) hand mixer, multi mixer (tends to live in its box)
bread maker, toaster, Tassimo (coffee machine, makes a good chai latte) microwave, tablet ( I keep my recipes on it)

Yet in my craft room other than sewing machines (if I had an old treadle machine I would happily use it), computer and embellisher everything is hand operated. Spinning wheels, drop spindles, hand carders, drum carder, weaving looms, assorted knitting and sewing projects, lace bobbins, tatting shuttles.

I'm not sure why my love of traditional crafts doesn't spread to my baking, why don't I get the same satisfaction from beating a cake mix with a wooden spoon that I do from combing out some fleece, both actions take time, are comfortably repetitive, traditional.

January

So that was a post everyday in January, I didn't really set out to do this but it did give me a small daily task which in turn gave some me some sort of routine whilst being off work.

You are not getting rid of me that quickly, I'm still at home for at least another week !!!

Today the weather is a bit yucky, light rain and really dull, I had planned to go out for an hour later but this may depend on how heavy the rain gets.

Later......this turned into a quiet afternoon with the two of us watching Warehouse 13 with hot drinks and dark choc digestives, I know I will live to regret the biscuits ( just don't ask how many!!)

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