Creativity Pod

I finished the small woolly object started last week - it is hereby named a Creativity Pod! 

I made it for Himself, for his birthday.

It opens up to reveal the pebbly treasure within:

thus...

the idea being that you then arrange the pebbles in whatever way you wish. 

It's a right-brain activity (as in right-brain thinking in pictures, left-brain thinking in words) and it's designed to (a) soothe a frazzled head that's been doing too much left-brain thinking, and (b) help with creative right-brain non-linear thinking...

I had the idea back in August when we were in Brittany, playing with pebbles on the beach...and reading this book when back at the tent.  She suggests doing something similar with coins, but I thought pebbles would be more tactile and meaningful!

This is the first of two explanations from my last few posts; the second explanation for the machine embroidery survey will be along in a day or so once I've analysed my results. The survey is still open (I can't work out how to close it....) so if you haven't taken part yet, please do!

Treasure

Treasure:

....from the deepest darkest depths of the car storage bins under the floormats....(how long have we been back from holiday?)

Destined to become part of a Birthday Present for a Certain Poet...(and yes, he's a bit Uncertain about quite what his present is going to be...and nervous...)

On my way back from fetching felting wool to make the other part of the Birthday Present, from the Little House at the end of the garden, I found this forgotten treasure:

It came with a bonus earwig...

Meanwhile, the wool is slowly working itself into a receptacle for treasure:

(and yes, with the Birthday imminent, I'm supposed to be helping it along at the moment and not writing blog posts)

But I just had to show you this other treasure, that arrived in the post yesterday:

Just how wonderful is that?  I'm so lucky! 

Thank you Anne!

There was even bonus treasure, wrapped around the parcel:



Wonderful stuff!

And even more treasure in the afternoon, from my class:

from Ann and Tricia, working hard to perfect their organza flowers over half-term...

But of course, the biggest and best treasure of all is:

....also the naughtiest Whippet.

He's not allowed up the stairs, but this was Bonfire Night so exceptions were made....

Still naughty though!

Red dots of loveliness

Bit of a mad day couple of days (aren't they all?)

First off, having enrolled myself on an "increase your fluency in French" course (see no. 3 on the holiday resolutions list), I spent two hours yesterday morning in mild panic at not being able to remember my avoirs and my etres.

While I was out, the Whippet had been a Very Good Boy and slept all morning, so I took him out for a bit of squirrel chasing, came back and mounted up a few pieces of work, "cooked" dinner (slightly ashamed to say that I switched on the oven and used some scissors to open the pizza box...) and then went to teach for three hours.

But when I came home it seemed that somebody hadn't been a Very Good Boy any more and I was told terrible tales of puppies eating beds and table cloths and barking naughtily and getting the jellywobbles about fireworks...(this is the same Whippet who ate a bit more of the dining room door on Monday when there were fireworks and he was alone for ten minutes).

So there was nothing for it but to stay up with the Very Nervous and Trembly Whippet and make a few cards:

which I finished some time after one o'clock in the morning.  But when I turned the light off, the Boy turned into a Very Lonely Whippet and did Barking and Singing.  We had a little chat, the Boy and I, and we all eventually got to sleep at 2am.

But no time for a lie-in!  Time to get up and drive to East Grinstead to help set up the exhibition:

Sorry for the gloom, the skies had gone black and torrential rain was lashing the windows by the time I got to take the photos.

Guess who did a Linda Monk workshop and made yet another chimney:

And because we needed more "big things" I took in my tree wallhanging, made in an inspired session of feltmaking a few years ago:

And already there are red dots!  Red dots of loveliness! 

So all the madness is worth it after all.

Now we just need to fix the Whippet.

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.



My scattered mind

 

My scattered mind means that I often work surrounded by what some would call mess, and I call getting things done...such as this pic, done spontaneously after a bit of fabric/papier mâché:

And this, the start of Warming Pot 2, drying in the sun: