I’m back!

Wow! Hasn’t it been hot!  Particularly while driving!  My trusty little car doesn’t possess air conditioning so the cold blower has been working over time and the window has been down some of the time.  That is OK except you can’t hear the music, so you turn the radio  up, and then when you stop that is too loud!!!!  You just can’t win!!  My little car has been tootling backwards and forwards, transporting me for some quality time with Mum.  Now I am in a routine I can come and say ‘Hellooooooo!’  So ‘Helloooooo!’  My hooks and needles have been taking a rest.  Just a short rest.  I am sure they will be weaving their magic soon, but at the moment I have needed to concentrate.  To focus.  To snip.  To sew.  To stick.  And pack.  What have I been doing?  I’ll show you….

Something soft and cuddly, something to make you smile…..

Yes you can count two, but if you look closer there are three….

Three little men to hang in the nursery, or sit on the side.  Squishy beans adding to the feel and the weight.  Only a few mind you!

Then…

notelets!  You know how much I enjoy making these little packs.  Measuring, sticking, folding…

before packing four individual cards into crisp cellophane bags.

And lastly – at the moment – my flower power posies…

I have a few more goodies to unveil, but I am waiting, waiting for some special packet tops for my Sun Shine Products.  Carefully designed by a brilliant graphic designer – er – my son!  My aim for all these little wonders is to sell them for the Sun Shine School in Jerusalem, with all monies going to help.  I will let you know how my first sale goes, but for now byee!

A weekend of play!

I have been looking at my Chatsworth photos and thought I would pick out a few more to show you.  These are of the bases or plinths in the Sculpture Gallery.  Most people were looking at the beautiful figures, but I was on my hands and knees marveling at the way these pieces of stone were put together!!

I bet you can imagine where my thoughts were going!

Quilts, applique, borders!

Repeating patterns, continuous lines, celtic knots!

A whole host of things to make – cards, bookmarks, scarves, broaches, bags, book covers….. the list is endless!  And in lots of different media – knitting, crochet, fabric, tapestry, embroidery, paper!  I have enough for a year to keep me busy at least!  It has rekindled all those design skills I have that have been lying there unused, and I am quite excited!!  Late last night, when I should have been going to bed I printed off several of the images and sat gazing at them.  This is the image that stirred me into thought action!!

Compass points came to mind and also Cathedral Window quilting.  So this is my starting point for a weekend of play!!

Tassels.

Many moons ago I completed and gained my City and Guilds in Soft Furnishings and as part of the course I chose to look at tassels.  You know the kind?  The big and small ornamental ones you find on tie backs and furniture.  I drew them.  Cut pictures out of magazines (we didn’t have digital cameras in the good old days!!!!)  and recorded them in words.  We then had to show our findings on paper.

It was all recorded in a very precise way!!  I am a perfectionist now, but then I was even more so.  There was no room for error at all!!

Note the border and the writing.  Everything labelled correctly!!  Oh boy!! LOL

Now a days the pages in my sketch book are more cluttered and a lot more free. I still draw and record them but not so tightly. Anyway on Saturday the first thing I saw in the House was this beautiful tassel and it rekindled all those fond memories.

Isn’t rich?  All that painstaking care and attention.  The beading and the knotting!  Ahh bliss!  That was what I was going to look for – the tassels.  So here they are….

This one works so well with the curtain fabric,  I love the netting effect over the ball of the tassel.

Again a more sumptuous one.  I like the gold but I think the green one is more me.

This one was pale pink, but the low light levels give it a more mysterious setting.  What about a double one?  Again slightly muted because of the light levels, but still very beautiful.

So what am I going to do with all these photos except sit and drool over their sumptuousness?  Well in the good old days I made a cushion with some very suspect hand quilting on it, following the outline of a tassel.  I’m not sure but I will play about with the images.  So watch this space as they say!!!

Content!

We have been away this weekend to Staffordshire.  It blew a gale.  It poured with rain.  Then the sun came out!  Yeah!  Then the sun went in and it hailed!  Boo!!    But then, wait for it……. we woke up to a very sharp frost and snow!!!!  So you may ask where are all the photos to entice us into reading more?   I forgot my camera!!!!!  I ask you therefore to imagine green hills rolling away in the distance; grey clouds scudding across the sky; trees with rime frost on their branches; and the car, covered in beads of hail and collecting as snow.  Got it?  Scene set.

Saturday we trundled off to Stafford the county town, to the Ancient High House.  We like old houses and castles, but we like their history too.  We hate it when the history is frozen at a time.  When a house is taken back to a certain era and often hundreds of years of the house’s history is wiped away.  A house is a record of all the people who have lived there.  To take it back to an era is to say that the people who lived in it after that time did not matter.  They cease to exist.  Who has the right to wipe it all away?  Yes you have gathered by now, I am on my soap box!!!  For this reason we do not belong to the National Trust.  Some of the things, they look after in an understanding way, like the Workhouse in Southwell, or Mr. Straw’s House in Worksop, or even the canal side at Guildford, and I thank them for the care of a lot of the coastal walks and countryside.  For these things I am quite happy to pay.  But some of their historic houses leave me cold.  So much history has vanished.  Well the Ancient High House has managed to reclaim some of its history.  It is a Tudor house, the largest remaining timber framed house in England.  It has been used mainly as a private residence, but also as shops and the rooms tell that story.  You can see the Civil war room where Charles 1st stayed; visit the Stuart room with its magnificent four poster bed; admire the elegant Georgian room with the fragments of wallpaper discovered under layers of other paper (a history in itself); and then visit the shop of Edwardian Mr. Marson.  The Victorian parlour is bedecked with crazy patchwork and samplers.  Then there is the display gallery which this weekend looked at Pugin, so over the top in his designs but fascinating!

Many things caught my eye, but I think it was the embroidery that won the day. The four poster bed has curtains around it and on the bed, cushions with doodle stitching!  I now have an image of the way my own doodle stitching could work.   The crewel work was very rich and impressive, far beyond my capabilities but I will try.  One day!  This weekend I had to be content with my hooking.

My ripple came with me and it grew..

And when we got back I made headway with this month’s tea cosy.

Traditional and very purple!!!

Doodle Bug.

We have all done it, drawing in the margin at an important meeting; swirling our way down the page during the lecture when we should have been taking notes; making circles while on the phone; or angular patterns when angry.  The general doodle!  Well, at the library the other day I came across the book Doodle-stitching by Aimee Ray.  Letting your needle do the thinking!

I had already found my tins of silks and decided that I didn’t want to do a cross stitch design, so the idea of doodling seem like a good idea!  Last night I took the opportunity to doodle, first in my sketch/thinking book and then free hand with a needle.  The latter proved the most satisfying, with the sketch book being a bit contrived.  However would I have come up with the finished brooch without the contrived part first – I doubt it!

I started opposite the wellie/brollie page as inspiration – raindrops!

(Sorry about the dazzle!)  Having doodled the main shapes I then did the red progressing to the green, before leaving the page to work on the needle doodle itself in the top corner.

Chain stitch, stem stitch, bullion knots and herring bone.  I think I should have done the blanket stitch around it in white, but on the whole I am quite pleased and will certainly continue to doodle with a needle!

Traditionally purple!

At the beginning of the year I set myself the challenge of making a tea cosy every month and so far I have made three, plus the one I made up for Mum.  If you click on the cosy tag you can see them.  For this month I have decided to be very traditional and make a fluted/pleated one, which will be in total contrast to the Bumble Bee I made last month!  Why so traditional?  Well I cleared out my kitchen draw last week and under the napkins and table cloths I found three creased tray cloths.  I obviously haven’t used them in a long time!  So I washed them and on Saturday carefully ironed them.  Each one has a different memory.

My niece made this one for me some ten years ago.

The embroidery came up well.

This next one was my first attempt at cross stitch when I was in my early teens.  I remember working on it when Olga Korbut was dancing her cheeky gymnastic floor routine!  Boy, that dates me!!

I was in a very purple phase.  I painted my bedroom purple and white.  It took three coats of white to get rid of the colour one year later!!  I still love purple and like to wear any shade!

I showed it proudly to an elderly lady, who turned it over and tutted loudly before saying ‘the back should be as neat as the front, my dear.’!!!!  She gave me another tray cloth to do and yes the back is as neat as the front!

It wasn’t so intricate and very traditional, and I have never forgotten what she said!

So I think three traditional tray cloths and a pretty bone china tea service deserve a traditional fluted tea cosy.  The colour?  Well it has to be purple or lilac, doesn’t it?!?!

A Bunch of Thank Yous!

The simple act of giving a bunch of flowers can say and mean such a lot, and Saturday I received the most gorgeous bunch of tulips and freesias.  And while they were a thank you for the invitation, I can give them back to J and J in a list of thank yous!

As I looked at them this morning they said ‘thank you for friends’

‘thank you for the shared laughter’

‘thank you for the shared moments’

‘thank you for the colour and smell….mmmmm’

‘thank you for brightening up this dreary Monday morning’

And now I have spread that ‘thank you’ around the house so I can see it wherever I am.

Coming down the stairs….

as I walk into the lounge….

and as I sit relaxing with my crocheting.

So what am I crocheting?  Well my bag is complete and my Ripple rests within it!

But in contrast to this..

I have these vibrant stripes ready for a new quilt top.  So another ‘thank you for the inspiration’.

So many thank yous from one bunch of flowers!

Hip, hip, hippo!!

Remeber this?

Well………da – der……..!!

He has gone to his new home so he can come out to play now!

I quite enjoyed making him.  I saw the pattern in Sew Hip and although I didn’t like his expression in the picture, I wanted to see if I could make him.  And with a little bit of adjustment here and there, and a completely new expression, I think for a first attempt he isn’t bad!

So I hope he enjoys his new home, and you never know, there may be some cousins joining his family around the country!!

Shopping!

Yes I have been having a spot of retail therapy!  Always good on a rainy day, but even better when the sun is trying really hard to come out as it was on Monday.  Have you ever thought about the weather conditions affecting the things and colours  you buy?  Hhmmm?!  Well this is what I bought on Monday.

Having been drawn to the wall of colour, I really wanted to buy, but which colourway?  Oh what the heck – one of each ended up in my basket!

I have six great nieces and nephews so I think some little slipper socks will be knitted over the summer for Christmas pressies!  Ooops sorry!  But for now I shall gaze at the colour combinations.

Monday also saw me sneak this little bundle into the basket.  It was all done up with ribbon and cried out ‘buy me!’  Soooo…….

And then on Wednesday in the pouring rain and fog I ventured into Nottingham and bought Kaffe Fassett’s book purely for the colour fix on such a grey day.

So together with a big cutting mat my therapy was complete, but now the itchy fingers have started!

So tomorrow will be spent in the garden, tidying and trimming, and thinking about the projects I can start with my stash.

Oh yes meet…

Well you will when he has gone to his new home!

Phew!!

Celebrations have been in the headlines recently for Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, but there was one other 200 year birthday celebrated this last weekend.  CMJ or The Church’s Ministry among Jewish People.  It was started in London in 1809 by William Wilberforce, (of slavery abolition fame), Charles Simeon and Lord Shaftsbury, to spread the Gospel to the Jewish people and it continues today on a global scale.

So Friday saw us winging our way down to Bath for the first of the large services to celebrate this bicentenary.  And phew! hasn’t it been a busy couple of days.  Bath Abbey is beautiful with spectacular fan vaulting.  Sadly I only had time to take some quick  pictures.  I couldn’t resist the sun rising behind  the Abbey.  We had a lovely view from our bedroom window.

The nave is very light with the high clear windows.  Contrast this to the aisles.

Sadly the sun didn’t shine enough for me to gather the colours from the windows but the tracery was beautiful too.  Imagine quilting lines and patchwork!

So yesterday was a quiet day for catching our breath and doing things crafty!

It is growing!