'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Not much junk this week...

Only two items, but for once in compatible sizes - the junk food flier was three times the size of the lawn care card, which was very convenient.

This is a variation of Alisa Golden's 'house book', except that the way I made it, it's more like a chalet bungalow with dormer windows.


In other news, we went down to Walford Mill yesterday, for a nice lunch, to see the current exhibition, and to pick up the two Adam Buick moon jars we bought from the last show.

Here are our his and hers moon jags, with our paloma blanca, a lovely gift from Cheese Major's senora's parents.

 

We got a right Royal welcome at Walford, as you can see. Paper sculpture by Peter Rush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Glove continues slowly. I have not had to unpick the last two pattern rounds, but only because I count stitches religiously for every increase and decrease section - and even it's not perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I keep looking at it and thinking:

  1. I should be using a bigger needle to get a softer fabric.
  2. I should decrease the number of plain rows between the pattern rows to make it lacked.
  3. I should switch to a longer needle.

But:

  1. I am not unpicking it for a third time.
  2. Given the time and effort it takes me to get 1 pattern row in 8 right, anything less would take forever and drive me nuts.
  3. This I can do.

One out of three ain't bad!

 

Sunday 27 March 2016

It's been a funny Easter.

Good Friday disappeared, who knows where, although I do remember the sun was shining!

Yesterday Wensleydale was invited to help the VHC and his dad do some plumbing, while his mum, big sis and I had a good discussion over coffee and carrot cake. Although it wasn't very Easterish, it was very enjoyable, just to be able to get together and be sociable, especially as the weather wasn't very inviting. And a new tap was safely installed.

Today we woke up rather later than anticipated, due to a failure to recall that the clocks were going forward overnight. There was beautiful sunshine and a dead calm - which wasn't quite what was forecast. About an hour later, the rain and wind arrived. The sun did come back occasionally, but now the rain seems to have set in now, and the forecast is for 70 kph winds overnight.

So we have pottered around in the house, which is what we tend to do on public holidays, anyway. Living on the edge of popular routes to the south and west tends to discourage venturing out on the roads at such times, especially when you're retired.

W. has been working on armatures for my remaining gloves, and I have made a To Do list, which is a tad longer than my usual three item lists. It isn't very legible in the photo, but you may be able to read the words 'Degree Show'. In two months it will all be over, much to my relief.

But as we have quite a lot of time off in the next two weeks, both from Uni and grandparenting, I want to get on the top of the boring bits like making sure the paperwork is up to date.

I'm glad to say I've managed to check off two things today - the first item ('Make a list'), and one about going through the 3 million entries on the Notes app, for things that need to be added to the aforementioned paperwork. (I may exaggerate about the 3 million. Slightly.)

 

 

 

 

I have also done some knitting, on what is positively, definitely, absolutely the last glove. It has been started from scratch twice, undergone radical pulling back of multiple rows twice, and gets unpicked every pattern row, even though I deliberately picked an easy pattern (Old Shell/Shale). Of course, trying to work even a simple pattern row while reading a Danish TV series is asking for trouble.

 

Tomorrow it will be back to the list, probably following up some of the artists people have suggested I research and I haven't quite got round to yet...

 

Wednesday 23 March 2016

After the drought...

comes a deluge - of junk flyers. Well, four. And for once they were all good quality paper or card. All different sizes, of course.

 

The largest became a 'guest book' - 'Inside', top, and middle left below. I had some difficult working out how to make this, but Google was my friend and let me to a post on Alisa Golden's excellent blog, where she had made a similar, though not quite identical book.

The other three, not quite the same size, card flyers became the snake book, 'New Hot Pepperoni Passion ' - or, if you prefer, three snake books glued together.
One day, when I don't have Degree Shows to worry about, I think I should paint over these flyers (all bar the 'cover'), and write stories to go with the titles.

 

Tuesday 15 March 2016

After several weeks...

with no junk mail, yesterday produced 1 big leaflet and 2 cards, almost perfect for Alisa Golden's 'storybook theatre'.

 

 

' Almost perfect' because, as you can probably see, it would have been better if the larger piece had been stiffer, and the cards were lighter. But the junk mail book maker must make the best of what she is given.

I don't remember making this structure before and I rather like it. It seems to be called 'shutters' which suits it.

 

Sunday 13 March 2016

I've been procrastinating...

about posting, because I keep forgetting to take a photograph of the one glove plus armature which was actually finished (more or less) about two weeks ago. But as it's at Uni and I'm not, it won't get photographed till later in the week, supposing I remember this time...

However there is this: a nearly finished plain black glove, about a metre plus in height. My plans for this one include 'distressing' it with the embellisher, and then some darning.

Then there's these two: a hand on a three metre rod, and a two metre armature for the three metre hand. (This is for the very big glove which I finished before Christmas.) The armature is still under construction, as my fabricator is devising a system to weight it at the bottom - I'm worried it will fall over on someone at the degree show, although the staff seemed more confident than I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


And finally, some embroidery. You can probably see that I originally wrote 'February' but embroidered 'March' over it, so you can tell not much happened last month. The half hand on the left is my attempt at needlelace, and the less said about it the better - but I have been reading a book called 'Sloppy Craft'...