Chasing my tail

Trying to do everything - now.

Wishing I hadn't left everything until the last minute.

As usual.

A scarf for Art Trail

That is too scratchy to wear and so has now been chopped up...

Some unfinished cuffs

The usual rummaging around wondering if a reject is cut up it could be salvaged?

Maybe a stick would help? 

 And the obligatory embellishing session in lieu of housework.

As usual, it's a case of do as I say not as I do and my students have triumphed.  Just have a look at these!

Jane H

Jane

Carole (work in progress)

and Caroline - and Caroline has only just started machine embroidery three classes ago!  What a superstar.

Why the hurry to do everything?  Why the running out of time?  Surely Art Trail is at the end of July? 

Ah yes, but the Girl is going to France on a school trip next week.....methinks her parents aren't going to be kicking their heels around an empty house all week wondering whether to pull her curtains or not and wondering why it's so quiet and echoey, and they may go and enjoy a little holiday of their own...after all, they've not been on holiday without child for ELEVEN YEARS. 

Just don't tell the Girl.  As long as we're back to meet her ferry on Friday we're good....

Busy doing nothing

Just watching the sparrows devouring my pea plants

trying to ignore the Whippet's demands for attention

"Oh PLEASE Mum can I sit on your lap?"

"Great!  I do fold up small, I won't be any trouble..."

Shame about the slightly ridiculous ears....

And what better way to spend a half-term than sorting the Playmobil for storage.  The two cousins are too young for it at the mo, being 5 months and unborn respectively.  Well, I'm sure the Girl could think of many alternative occupations for a rainy half-term, but tough - someone had to reunite all the people with their hats and swords and diving helmets and so on, and only the Girl knows what belongs to whom....

And with the Girl suitably occupied, I dug out the embellisher and started to try some more ideas for Art Trail.  I remember this from last year - the panic beginning about now, short deadlines etc - the embellisher is definitely the answer!

Bracelet Idea 1.

Bracelet Idea 2. 

A sort of wraparound bracelet.  I'm trialling it as I type...it's certainly warm around the wrist, maybe good for rheumatism?

And then late last night, I cracked how to make wired fabric petals

And made a flower....

I haven't worked out what to do with it yet, because today was spent out and about with the Girl.  We went to Lewes and found TREASURE in Oxfam:

And after lunch we went for a walk in the woods, just to hear the racket with the wind walloping through the trees.  There were lots of lovely sticks, so I had to bring some home:

Gosh, that little arrangement makes me so happy.  Why do I have a compulsion to collect sticks (and fabric)?  If it had been a beach walk, I would have brought back shells or pebbles...

The lovely lovely block printed fabric was from the India Shop.  It cost slightly less in Oxfam than it does online.   There was sparkly sari fabric too, but I resisted...

Here are all the different patterns in the pack

Now what?!  Just look at it, drool a little...

Play

Front

I discovered a book about how what you do for a living should be as much like play as possible (I haven't read it, just reserved it at the library).  In the meantime, I've been playing with my embellisher, because it is still sitting on my desk from the weekend's experiments.  But how can I get paid  for doing this?  That's the question.  Hopefully all will be revealed...

Back

My husband suggested that because the sewing machine and embellisher are now "out" on the same desk, perhaps I could work them simultaneously, a bit like Jean Michel Jarre or Rick Wakeman...two foot pedals, two pieces of work, off the embellisher and onto the sewing machine.  Now THAT's multitasking...

While the cat was still away...

 

On Saturday I took over the kitchen and dyed some old wool blanket, recently acquired from the charity shop.  Boiling bits of it up in a pot was slightly more successful than using a plastic tray, particularly when I discovered (after pouring in a kettleful of boiling water) that one of my trays had a crack in the corner.  It didn't really "felt" though, and I know from bitter experience, and a long session with buckets and towels and rubber gloves, that putting it all through the washing machine on a hot wash just clogs the filter...

So after creating lots of blue fluffy mess, which I left to drip dry in the bathroom, I was feeling a bit despondent.  So I tried something else.  I used wool fibres, and silk, and fabric scraps and thread snippets to try making some "paper" using cellulose paste to bind it all, in the same manner as making silk paper.  So the sample above is one sheet drying on the washing line, and here is some more:

Not sure what I'm going to do with these yet, but I have a few projects in mind...the top one reminds me of a highland landscape, with a distant red tin roof peeking above the peat bogs.  That's if I squint at it with my lenses out, otherwise it's just a blue thing.

Reinspired, I then dug out the ol' embellisher on Sunday morning.  One of my soggy woolly dyeing experiments was a piece of prefelt which I have had kicking about for months, to make a background for another "chimney" piece.  It had dried overnight, so I embellished it together with another piece to create my cooling towers.  I then wet felted it, and as I was rolling it and unrolling it and rolling it again, I came to realise that I preferred the back of it to the front.  Except the cooling tower was then on the wrong side. 



So I had to do another one, reversing the positioning, so that the cooling tower would be on the right side of the wrong side...if you see what I mean....except I now prefer the right side of this second sample, not the wrong side, which means that the cooling tower is STILL on the wrong side....

And lo, I ran out of time because the little Brownie returned and slept for 12 hours and now it is Monday morning and time to clean the bathroom.



Finished something!

I created the embellished background for this sometime before Christmas; it then got stuck in the plaggy "to do" wallet as I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.

Then, with an urgent deadline to produce something "no bigger than A4, don't spend any money on it just use what you have" for a week's time, a deadline I've known about since January, I was suddenly inspired to dig it out and see what could be done. A bit of buzzing up and down with the machine, a few beads to hide the bodged bit, a bit of cable stitch (steady now) and job done. I did spend 60p on the piece of mountboard. Is that allowed?

To be sold at our Guild day with Maggie Grey, June 5. Non-members £15 (includes light lunch, homemade cakes....my job for next Friday), tickets available from the website: Tunbridge Wells Embroiderers' Guild

I also made some oat biscuits, using apple spread instead of sugar. They went in the bin, but only after we ate about three each - we couldn't bring ourselves to believe that they were horrid, and kept trying again. Woe. Think we may have cracked the flapjack recipe though. Needs a repeat performance just to verify, then will post!