Still here, at a 2 metre distance.

I think this was week 5? I'm not sure now as the edges are a little blurred. My routine for the morning is established and my afternoons tend to be in my craft room as my other half is usually back home by dinnertime.

I'm still baking but that may have to stop soon unless I find a source of flour, apparently the problem is more to do with the lack of domestic size bags than a shortage of actual flour.

As I'm still officially employed, I have confra calls with the management and on the social side I'm enjoying social video calls with other spinners.

My spinning mojo comes and goes along with everything else so this week I blended a remnant of dyed top with some Ryeland shearling fleece and spun up around 100gm, looks good. I finally got round to washing all the recent handspun and labelled it up.

This bag is all the skeins that are 100gm or just over. I have a couple of big squidgy skeins of Shetland that are 150gm which are waiting until I start the next bag.

My swift was temporarily re-purposed as a bobbin stand and I've started some more lace.

That is pretty much that for the time being, not terribly productive but that doesn't really matter :-)

bookmark finished

hi

I finished the bookmark this morning before doing the housework!! I could really get used to this not working lark unfortunately retirement seems to get further away :-(

anyway, finished photos here and I'm off to look what to make next.

speak soon xx

having a tidy up...... Warning, long Post

I had a good day out with my sister on Friday, all good intentions of buying new shoes for work disappeared as I found a pair of jeans instead. Lunch was at our favourite Chinese buffet restaurant where we gossipped and put the world to rights.

Life is a bit strange at the moment as we are both at home all day and It's taking a bit of getting used to! still, I return to work next week ( which should be interesting) as the physio is happy with my progress to date although I seem to have developed trigger finger! amongst other annoying side effects ( yes, me too, how did I get trigger finger??)

Ok, what have I been doing since? Well I've had my lace head on for the last few days, for me its a little like retreating to knit, you know the stitches and it's a repetitive process, soothing. I also found time to visit the local Embroiderers guild and catch up with the gossip.







I've also had to sort this out


To resemble this so I can get to shorten both mine and Ian's jeans


I received this in the post and was gifted some Jacobs fleece to play with as well.


Yesterday I met Julie in town and we had a day out, checking out the castle, the Lace Market ( Buildings not stalls) and one of our many pubs. Julie has blogged more photos, see here
We had a great time and hope to get together again soon.



Nearly forgot....concrete lace on the panels of the Contemporary Art Centre being built in Nottingham

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 :-)

What If? lace experiment continues

I searched high and low yesterday for my copper wire without sucess but I did find some childrens tinsel pipecleaners. What if............................

pattern adapted from bookmark in Beginning Bobbin Lace by Gillian Dye, I've reduced the munber of bobbins and simplified things slightly.


result................bendy bobbin lace

Belated 100,200,300 post GIVEAWAY

As promised, here is my much delayed giveaway, I am giving away the lace bookmark ( now completed) together with a goody bag to the first name drawn out of the hat in two weeks time. All comments on my blog between now and then will enter the draw and the winner be picked by special guest blogger Biker Ted.

First here is the completed lace.


If you've not seen bobbin lace being made, visit here for a demo.

The winner will also get this pile of goodies to play with :-)
so why not drop a comment on below, I would love to hear from you.

It seemed like a good idea at the time !!

Great idea, have a giveaway, hand made bobbin lace book mark! Yes!!!!............err maybe slightly damaged handmade bobbin lace bookmark.
Moving the pillow, I trapped one of the bobbins, didn't realise until the thread snapped. So I now have the option of replacing the thread or giving up on this piece. grrrrr.


Anyway, the idea is to have a giveaway next month to celebrate 16 month blogging and 315 ish posts so watch this space.
Hope you all had a great weekend.

Swap display

I have been wondering for a while about the best way to store and display swap items. During the great book sort out I found a photo album which seems to be perfect for postcards, atc, inchies, bookmarks and 5 inch quilties and looks lots smarter that the shoe box that was their temporary home.

Bookmarks and Inchies

These are the Bookmarks for Suz and Mrs Nesbitt, Sari yarn stitched on velvet and hand embroidered

Do you remember the Inchies I posted a few week ago? well I sent them to Quilting Arts Magazine to be swapped at Houston Quilt Fest and last night I had an e-mail from Odile in France to say that she had picked up one of mine! Sometimes I feel that the world is getting smaller and smaller.

Itsy Bitsy Purses

Ian has drawn four names out of the hat. they are Julie, Calamity Jane, Ikkinlala, and Doreen K with the Harleys. I will be e-mailing you all tonight for your address.

As Ian felt that the other two had been left out, bookmarks will be sent to Mrs Nesbit and Suz


Doreen- I don't seem to have a blog or e-mail addi for you so could you e-mail me at the link on my profile- many thanks

Bookmark swop

I love it when you get home to a pile of post which is not all bills. Today I received this gorgeous book mark from Susan who is part of the Unlimited Textile Internet group. Made on her new embellisher , it is wonderfully soft to touch.

Bookmark swaps

These are my 'Feeling Blue' bookmarks swaps for the Unlimited Textiles Internet group.

They are on their way to Mags
and Sandy

They are made from torn fabric strips and chiffon scarf oddments, distressed with the old heat gun ( must get new one soon ) and simple hand stitching ( I like to work with just one or two different stitches)

Prezzies in the post

Look what the postman brought this morning, this lovely bookmark from Annica from Unlimited Textiles internet group. The swap subject is feeling blue and although I have finished my quiltie, I am still stitching bookmarks for Sandy and Mags.