Got to admit it’s getting better …

I don’t cough so much, I have the beginnings of a voice, and today I ate a toasted hot Cross bun – definitely food with edges!

Not sure what happened to the first week of April, though …

Obviously while I was out of it somebody called an election.  What I stupidly hadn’t realised, until I looked at the heap of Party Political hogwash which the postman brought us this morning, was that we live in a key Tory target constituency – i.e. there’s a chance they could gain a seat  here. So they are going to try very very hard.

I must confess that I am a card carrying member of one of the three major British political parties. Not that I think ‘my’ party is that much better than the others, – or that they have a cat in hell’s chance of ever forming a government – [there's a give away] but they do share my values far more than either of the others.

Being a party member normally lets you off a lot of the hoohah – your own party doesn’t bother [apart from making sure you get out and vote], and the opposition doesn’t waste it’s time. But with talk of a hung parliament, I suspect that this time the Tories won’t let us off so easily.

At the moment they are determinedly trying to persuade us that George Osborne [centre] will be a responsible Chancellor – someone who doesn't look old enough to be responsible for his own pocket money.

As opposed to Vince Cable [right]– the only major UK politician to see the financial crisis coming – and who, according to an old survey in the Times, is trusted more by Tory voters than GO.

And in the interests of balance – on the left, in fact if not in politics – some other feller.

Here endeth today’s party political broadcast – and I promise to try to avoid making any more.

In fact I may just go back to bed till it’s all over.

The good things in life …

1. It is a beautiful spring day and my cherry tree is in blossom.
2. I ate breakfast [OK, it was in bed.]
3. I had a nap.
4. I had a shower.
5. I have clean hair!!!!! Not sweat-soaked spikes. [This post may get a little graphic.]
6. I weighed myself. One of the [few] benefits of having no appetite fro 10 days is that you lose 4 kilos.]
7. I got dressed. In clothes – not night clothes.
8. I came downstairs.
9. I ate lunch. At lunchtime. With two courses. [Soup and yoghurt.]
10. I though about doing some homework to make up for the college session I missed.
11. My finger nails are longer than they have been for years. Cheshire’s beauty tip – for beautiful nails, lie down all the time and don’t do anything. [I think the coughing is an optional extra.]
12. Wensleydale has been the most brilliant nurse.

The bad things in life…

1. I still cough my guts up every time I move – and at random times in between.
2. I’ve pulled a muscle through coughing which makes it even more painful.
3. Despite a longing for a bacon sarnie, I can’t have one. Eating food with edges leads to coughing and unsightly spluttering. My diet is restricted to porridge, soup, bread if I soften it in the soup, yoghurt, grapes, water, orange juice and tea.
4. I’ve thought about homework, but can’t work up the energy to actually do any.
5. Despite drinking the contents of a small reservoir over the past 10 days, my skin has the texture and colour of an old dishcloth.
6. I still can’t talk.

Still – the good points outnumber the bad points. And I’ve got clean hair!!!!!

Thanks for all the kind messages you’ve sent. [Not sure about the ones in Chinese [?], so I rejected those.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Dispatch from the plague pit

I’m still here – just, although it has been one step forward and two back over the last few days. As I didn't feel I was getting much better I finally dragged myself down to the doctor’s today. You may think I should have gone sooner, but when things first took a turn for the worse it was all I could do to get out of bed, never mind get dressed and go out. And I was fairly sure it was a virus and our GP’s practice is one of those who don’t give you anti-biotics for a virus – because they don’t work.

So i pottered down and saw a rather personable young man who had lovely pictures of his baby [boy] and his dog [Springer Spaniel] on his desk. [Is this a legal requirement for GPs? all ours seem to do it – not that I've been near the place for years.] I had my ears eyes and throat looked at and my chest listened to – and was told, yes. it was a virus, and no, there wasn't any treatment.

Still, it’s nice to know I haven't got pneumonia. just an upper respiratory tract infection – and just getting dressed and going out did me good.

Still no energy to actually do anything and my brains is in something of a fog, just need to sit here – possibly even get up and walk round the garden occasionally – and wait.

It will be nice when I can actually talk again, not just whisper – not to mention sleeping lying down. And when I can use this machine at the desk and not rely on this !£^$$$£”” touchpad thingy which does NOT improve on acquaintance.

l Know a bird flies to the nest. l know a cold flies to the chest.

We know where the birds go when the wintery weather is nigh...
...But how high does a fly fly when a fly flies ever so high?

I don’t know the answer to the question in this Playschool ditty – but I can confirm the second statement. My cold flew to my chest on Thursday night and has remained resolutely embedded there ever since – leading to a lot of sleeping, coughing – and if you’ll pardon the expression, sweating. Except when I venture from the unheated bedroom to the heated living room, where I shiver. Go figure. And my ability to navigate round this laptop has gone completely to pot – not just because I'm having to use the touchpad, which I hate with a vengeance! Despite that I'm wandering the web, and  came across this:

http://www.fashioningtech.com/profiles/blogs/woven-amp-embroidered-concrete.

Now that looks like fun!

No sampling has taken place since I last posted, although stitch has played a part in some rather odd dreams!

We were due to go to Babybel mum’s  birthday do on Sunday, but they also were ill, so it’s all been postponed to Easter. I have to confess I'm not sorry – I couldn’t have gone and I didn’t want to miss the fun!

Bunking off college …

but with ‘per’ – as Wensleydale is prone to say, having read far too many ‘Jennings’ books as a child.

We were asked to do emergency Babybel sitting, so I arranged to go into college in the morning, and bunk off in the afternoon. It was a seminar and tutorial session so I grabbed the first tutorial and then W., B. and I all went to the Hillier Gardens for lunch and a play in their tree house. A good time was had by all despite B. and I being under the weather – turns out she has a virus in addition to the conjunctivitis we knew about.

The seminar/tutorial were very helpful and I have spent today sampling, in between the coughing and sneezing. 'Everyday’ has morphed into ‘family’ after the suggestion that we thought about what was most important to us. [Everyday > familiar > family had come out of my mind maps.]

This is more or less the idea  - you might think that you have seen something like it before! – but this will be at least a metre long and 2D. Oh, and made out of an old, faded, frayed curtain, with bleached out lines. And recycled textiles. And string. It’s a bit conceptual, this piece.

Why do I associate my family with tatty textiles, do you think?

I did draw the line at ripping up my GG grandfather's dictionary for it, as suggested by one tutor.

Another suggestion was that the circles [‘family circles’ – geddit?] should be made from textiles obtained from  – and possibly stitched by – family members.  So now I am cadging old clothes from my kids and their families … [I haven’t mentioned the stitching yet …]

I played around with a bit of curtain and the embellisher – adding holes and patches. The white was a scrap of silk noil I fished out of the bin, embellished from the front or back, which I really like.

 

 

I think the bleached circles will be stamped with a set of pastry cutters made by my grandfather. We are fairly sure they were joined with lead solder so I don’t use them for food! This is the effect on ink – the fabric samples are drying as I type. [I have four of these curtains, all about 3 metres by 1.5 metres, so I’m not skimping on the sampling …]

 

I also tried drawn thread work and other stitches using self threads from the curtain – the warp and weft are different, which gives some interesting alternatives – as does the fading. Loose ends are deliberate!

 

 

 

Can you tell I’m quite enthused by this?

We have a busy few days coming up so I probably won’t get much done before next week. The next step is – probably - a full sized mock-up, and experimenting with scanning and printing out bits from GG Granddad's dictionary – I thought I'd try tissue paper glued to the curtaining and see how that looked.

Rabbits!

No, I'm not under the mistaken impression that it’s the first of the month. I’ve just spent a lazy afternoon getting started on these. I’m suffering from the combined effects of a cold, which seems to be completely unaffected by Lemsip, and two nights of not sleeping as a result of the cold which is completely unaffected by Lemsip. So when I found these I decided they were exactly the sort of thing an under-the-weather granny could make for her favourite granddaughter for Easter.

As you can see mine haven’t yet acquired their noses or tails, but I hope to get those finished this evening. There is a fourth one to stitch up as well.

I have also found the energy to play around with some photos of everyday objects, in preparation for a tutorial tomorrow.  That strange spotty thing at the top is the shower head – picture me, if you will, sitting in the [empty] bath, fully clothed, to photograph the taps, and then peering upwards at the shower head.

Will this all lead into an embroidery? Who knows – but I like the images [and remember I don’t ‘do’ representational stuff].

 

Marking blues.

I got back the mark sheet for the first hand in – the print and stitch samples - on Friday – and was a bit disappointed with my 60%. I don’t think the mark was unfair – just that if I'd realised what was needed I could have done better. Not so much a moving of goalposts, more that I didn’t know where the goalposts were …

The gist of it overall was ‘could do better’ – better being more adventurous. So I had another go at the samples from last week’s class. They want sill – er - adventurous, they can have silly…

Top and bottom left were inspired by the collage of the drawing of the microscope view of the holey knitted dishcloth, bottom right  by the collage of the drawing of the microscope view of the tea towel and the one in the middle by the c of the d of the mv of the pan scrub. As the other samples were mostly hand embroidery [if you can call it embroidery], I tried to use the machine as much as possible on these. Apart from the knitted string one.

So the weaving is through a warp of slits cut in calico and edged in free motion zigzag, the non-knitted holey one also has FME’d slits, and the other one is the bits I pulled out of the fringe of the non-knitted holey one, machined down in loops with added mohair.

I like them all apart from the knitted one – but I can’t imagine ever using any of these ideas in a real piece!

God job I’m not a neatnik …