Another busy week.

So busy that although I know whose company we were in, I just had to check with Wensleydale what we did this week rather than last. We had a VIB (very important birthday) on Sunday, when the birthday boy received a variety of trains, construction vehicles and tractors. Bit of a theme there, you might think. 

Since then we have been to Basingstoke several times - more times in one week, I think, as I have been in the rest of my life. One was the result of a request to go to Milestones (more vehicles), two were in connection with a VEP (very expensive purchase) (another vehicle). We've managed with one car for all of this century, but the ageing of Honda number three (he had two predecessors) plus the demands of going down to Chichester three times a week, led to the purchase of Honda number 4. We are now feeling rather poorer, but at least we keep Honda in business. (Except that Honda 3 is 11 years old and we would have kept Honda 1 more than 7 years if he hadn't lost an argument with a truck. Fortunately he was the only one that got hurt.) (Honda 3 was sold when we decided we could manage with one car.)

We also went to Mottisfont, where we didn't see much of the children's illustrators exhibition, we were too busy climbing about in the new play area (big wooden things) and in the water play area.  (Get wet! Dam a stream! Get wet! Pump up water! Did I mention getting wet?) Strongly recommended to adventurous children of all ages, but do what we didn't (because we didn't know it was there) and take a towel and a change of clothes.

They loved the fish, too, both the real ones and these.

There has been some needlework. Socks have been finished 

and, for a change, and possibly a gift if it works out, a shawl has been started. Many, many times - I lost count after 8. It is not that it is a particularly difficult cast on, but last night I was tired, due to the stresses of driving back from Basingstoke in an unfamiliar car on the Friday before a bank holiday. Fortunately we know how to avoid the worst bit of the M3!

I had a few more goes this morning and eventually got it right, after I'd worked out that I needed to abandon my preconceptions that for a shawl you increase on every other row at two, or at most four, points. In this pattern there are 6 increase points but you don't increase at all of them every time. I think I've got my brain round it now.

And I have made a book. Instructions here.

It's a very small one, which is not quite perfect, due to some slips of the craft knife. The photos are 1" square. I'm pondering trying a slightly bigger version, but I have a feeling size isn't everything. 

And finally - the second Visual Marks/Manor Farm piece is nearly finished - just some leaves to add, plus framing it - always the worst bit!

Clearing the decks

Since last summer, I've been working slowly, steadily and determinedly through my stash. Stuff like Lutradur and Evolon that I had bought and never used has been tried out, evaluated and, if found wanting, passed on or binned. The knitting machine has found a new home, hand blanket knitting has noticeably reduced the boxes of coned yarns and a similar attack is taking place on the sock wool, as you may have noticed. Books have been looked through and in many cases passed on to charity. 

As part of the blitz, I looked through my accumulated sketchbooks - and, rather worryingly, came to the conclusion that I was more creative before I started the degree than I am now. Regular readers may remember that the muse definitely left Cheese Acres soon after I finished the degree, and although she moved back in, I felt that some of the ideas I had between finishing City and Guilds and starting the degree were better than those I've had since.  

I've been thinking about this rather more in the last couple of weeks, and I've come to a couple of conclusions.  You may have noticed that I have a low boredom threshold and I tend to flit from one technique, style, medium or idea to another, at the drop of a hat. I always thought that when I grew up I would discover what my 'usual way of working', to quote a certain tutor, actually was. I now believe that my 'usual way of working' is to flit from one technique, style, medium or idea to another, at the drop of a hat, and I have to learn to live with it, and enjoy the results. At least I don't get bored, and hopefully no-one looks at my work and thinks 'same old, same old'...

The second, related conclusion is that I should stop worrying about making art with a message, and choose themes that I like. What do I like? Well, what do I photograph, apart from grandchildren? Flowers, trees, landscapes. And it's not just because, unlike grandchildren, they stand still, most of the time. I've always felt that these are a bit hackneyed, a bit old fashioned, not what I should be doing - well, stuff that, I've already had some fun with flowers, so let's give trees a go.

So I made the blind contour, shadow and paintbrush on a stick drawings I mentioned before, and then I started a tree sketchbook. I stuck in a photo from our last trip to Stourhead, made a couple of colour studies a la Karen Ruane, and - to my own amazement, a drawing, which I think isn't bad. I told myself that as I wasn't going to embroider a detailed image of the tree, I should focus on what I was interested in - the interlacing of the trunks and branches.

What I had forgotten is the way that, when you follow up an idea with no preconceptions about where the journey will take you, the ideas start to flow.

I started with the embellisher - not wildly original, but it got me going. Making the (not very accurate) colour studies led me to explore some of the wonderful colours in the photo. (I don't think the detritus on the ground really was purple, but that's what made me pick that particular photo.)

However, the more I looked at those twisted branches, the more I though about knitting. And in monochrome, although I do keep thinking about working the negative spaces in purples and greens....

A combination of high tech (knitters graph paper on line and a scanner) and low tech (tracing my drawing onto acetate) produced a pattern, and I have, at the last count, ideas for six eight nine different versions.

Here are the first two. A lesson in how not to do intarsia (but it is only a sample, and I know where I went wrong). (If you want to see reaaly good intarsia, go here!)

And a version inspired (I kid you not) by old fashioned tea cosies. I've been using up scraps, but I've bought some wool from Texere and thoughts of dyeing and felting are going through my brain.

I also made a stencil, and that has had a good work out. Spray paint, acrylic, moulding paste plus metallic leaf, and pencil. 

I was so busy with all this, that I nearly didn't make a book, but then I had an idea for a non-insomniac stencil based quickie. Except as usual with me it morphed and became less quick. The original idea was to use the stencil to cut shapes out of the back of a (brown) envelope. There's a lot of brown around at the moment, as well as purple and green. But the envelope wasn't big enough, and a search for other brown paper led to some Blue Peter painted paper.* 

When I cut out the shapes, I decided the paper was a bit too flimsy, and it needed backing. With black. Which led to a search for black paper that was big enough. Still, it's finished, and it may even take up residence in the sketchbook.

On Wednesday, I dragged Wensleydale out in the rain to Mottisfont because I knew they had some interesting trees. And we found a dragon - well, it  was St George's Day! 

Where is this leading? I have no idea, but it promises to be an interesting journey.

*Here's some I made earlier.

When I realised...

it was Sunday (I'm always hazy about what day it is between our 'work' on Mondays and Thursdays) I found myself wondering where the week went. And then I realised it went into 3 days with the little guys (albeit shorter days than usual) and three evenings of recovering from 3 days with the little guys. Still, we had fun - an Easter egg hunt at Mottisfont in the rain, the 'spin tower' + a return trip on the Gosport ferry, also in the rain, and, for old times sake, the ducky place in sunshine. (For those not in the know, the Gosport Ferry is Portsmouth's answer to the Staten Island Ferry - just smaller, quicker and with more historical but slightly less spectacular views.  I'd say 'cheaper' as well, but I strongly suspect it isn't.)

OK, that's only 3 days out of 7, but other, mostly less interesting but less tiring grown up activities have got in the way of textiles as well.

So I have only made slow progress on the Visual Marks challenge - although the pressure eased a little when I realised that I can't go to the meeting next Tuesday, due to extra little guy minding. 

Not sure about thad odd bit on the right, the primary purpose of which is to cover up some fraying fabric. I think it will have to come out.

And I still haven't worked out how to get some felt into it, as per the criteria.

The weekly book was an insomniac quicky (which sounds a bit like something completely different, but for that you need two insomniacs...). A variation on the 'instant book', it is mostly 'here's one I made earlier' - pre-painted card, an unsuccessful screen print from last week, and a bit of glue. I think it needs some stitch, which might have been better done before I stuck on the cover, but it was 2 a.m. And if I'd measured it properly the pages would not have been bigger than the cover. I could trim one side, but if I'd trimmed the central fold the whole thing would have fallen apart, hence the extra fold in the fold.   

Today was meant to be spent fulfilling a promise I made before Christmas, when I gave the little guys' mum and dad some redundant cushions. As they didn't match their decor, I promised to make some cushion covers for them, but it didn't happen. Fortunately, as it happened, as they have now redecorated and aubergine cushion covers would no longer do.

On Friday I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that if you go to the right place it is still cheaper to make cushions covers than to buy them. And you don't end up with redundant cushion pads because shop bought covers always seem to come with pads these days. 

I haven't made cushion covers for a while and I thought I could whip up four plain ones today. (I remember how long City and Guilds cushions take, but that involves designing, and costing time and money, and embroidering, and rememebring to do something fancy on the back as well because your tutor will always look at the back and fail you if you haven't...)

I can hear the hollow laughter of experienced cushion makers from here.

I managed one. Partly because I changed my mind part way through, and partly because it was my first experience of using continuous zips (why did no one tell me how wonderful they are, even if they only come in the wrong colour?) and I had to Google them. But mostly because it takes longer than I thought it did. 

And I'm not sure the little guys' dad will like it anyway, so it is probably better to take this one as a sample and get his opinion before I go any further.

My knitting has been more satisfactory. I discovered another advantage to the random stripes pattern - apart from using up oddments of wool, and it not mattering if you miscount the rows in a stripe. If you think you are in danger of running out of the cuff, heel and toe colour (it has been known) you can make the random stripes a little less random so you use more of the other colour. And you would never have known if I hadn't told you.  

Of course you have to be the sort of person who doesn't mind wearing non-matching socks, but I figure anyone who spots that they don't match will only do so because they are grovelling at my feet, when it won't matter.

We survived!

The trees across the road, however, didn't. Literally 'across the road', as you can see. One came down early on Christmas Eve morning, and others were left leaning at nasty angles, and were taken down.

Fortunately no-one was hurt, though neighbours lost their land lines, and the street lights are (mostly) out.

Also fortunately, it happened after we had taken the little guys home, as I think they might have found it a bit scary - although the VHC would have enjoyed watching the trucks and workmen.

We had a good time while they were with us - some duck feeding, 

some card making (we hope to get all the glitter out of the carpet by next Christmas), some 'Snowman' watching (scary to realise that when we first watched it with her daddy, he was about Babybel's age), 

and an abbreviated trip to Mottisfont because they were closing early because of the wind.

We did manage to attend the Snow Queen's Ball, which Babybel adored - dressing up in pretty things and dancing, what could be better? The VHC, on the other hand, was a bit overcome, and preferred to keep his opinions under his hat.

Speaking of his hat, does it remind anyone else of 'Rocky Horror'?

After all that excitement, it was good to have a very peaceful Christmas Day on our own, before getting together with the little guys and their parents on Boxing Day. 

It has been pretty quiet since then as well, which has meant I've been able to get on with the Chairman's Challenge. 

I found the bottom of one of the bathroom curtains in the stash, which wasperfect  for a backing, and several bits of red, black and silver for a patchwork strip down the middle. It is all just pinned together for now, and it's a dodgy photo anyway, but hopefully you get the idea. 

The plan is to add a few stars. This is the first. I knew there was a good reason for keeping those painted twigs from a bunch of dried flowers...

All should continue quiet, weather willing, until New Year's Eve when we get together with the other half of the family, plus the Spanish contingent, who are coming over for a visit. Weather willing!

I hope all my UK readers have also escaped the worst of the gales ((and anyone else who's had bad weather) and that you will continue to do so, as more is predicted here.

The last time...

I forgot to show you this - my first handspun in place. The change of colour is where I changed from spinning Leicester to spinning merino. Having no taste, I preferred the Leicester - and not just because of the romantic associations of that county, which is where I was proposed to - and accepted.

I had hoped to show you these, finished too, but the fates decreed otherwise. (Those are not tacking stitches on the grapes. I found an image of some 3d-ish grapes supposedly worked by Mary Queen of Scots, where she had stitched pentagons and hexagons round the grapes - so I did too.)

Together with their partners they have been applied to a Vilene backing and then removed, to be reapplied using my walking foot. And the method of hingeing (sp?) the pages together is - er - under consideration. 

In between those bits, I have started two more - I do like to have plenty too much to do. There is some very experimental stuff inspired by the last Visual Marks session, which is so experimental it may be consigned to a sketch book - or the bin - and some quilting on a bit of this, inspired by CTW, which is intended to become a completely non-functional bag.

And finally - if you can get to this, and you are interested in textiles, Kate Plumtree's bird inspired ballgowns are stunning. I'd like 'Magpie 1’ in a slightly bigger size and with sleeves, please - although I have no idea where I'd wear it...

There are work books to look at, and fabric samples to feel, and the displays in the gardens and in the rest of the house are pretty good too! We are hoping to go back with our cygnet princess and caterpiller prince soon.

Circuits and Bumps.

You may remember that at the conclusion of my last post I said I was going to play with Grilon, and similar threads, which shrink when exposed to heat.

Let's not talk about that, shall we? I spent the whole day trying to get one which worked. Three went in the bin, the fourth went in my sketchbook as an example of what not to to do. I'm sure it was me, not the threads, but I shall not be trying again.

Thursday was much better.

Wensleydale, Babybel and I (the VHC was in nursery) went to the North Pole. Must be true, here's a sign to prove it.

(Actually it is Mottisfont's 'Pooh trail', but don't tell Wensleydale.) 

So on Friday I turned my attention to a new challenge - trying out every method of adding colour to fabric I could think of. (Bar dyeing, I've done a lot of that.)

These are the results, apart from the transfer crayons which were too anaemic to be used and are hidden under the Bondaweb.

The Bondawebbed one - plus a bit of the Shisha one.

I challenged myself using this fabric - it's a shiny synthetic curtain fabric I bought when I thought my C&G 'goldwork' was going to be copper. 

It, and the accompanying resolved sample, turned out to be gold - and I still love them.

But I digress.

I started with the Gelli plate, freezer paper stencils and Colourcraft Aztec. 

Lesson 1

See that mottled effect? Aztec reacts to the Gelli like watercolour, it beads. Quite a nice effect but not what I was after. It also runs under the stencil, contributing to lesson 3.

Yes, those are holes.

Lesson 2

For machine cutwork, use two layers of tearaway stabilizer, one isn't enough. And choose a thread which   doesn't break every five minutes.

Lesson 3

Freezer paper stencils detach themselves from the fabric and cling to the Gelli plate with a vice-like grip, perhaps because I hadn't ironed them enough - this fabric does not like a hot iron. (See lesson 11.)

You don't need freezer paper stencils anyway, you can just use ordinary paper on the plate. Doh.

Lesson 4

Acrylic paint worked much better, but I overdid the textile medium. It does help to keep the paint from drying too quickly in a hot studio conservatory, but if it's too runny it runs under the stencils.

Lesson 5

Don't do monoprinting in 35 degrees C.

Lesson 6

The splodgy dots were done traditionally, with a stencil and brush at room temperature, but they still ran. I used Opalite which is lovely but I still haven't worked out the best way to use it. 

Lesson 7

Sometimes foil can be too bright. I added Hotspots and foil to the three circles next to the splodgy ones to try and make them more interesting, but now they are OTT. Not sure what I'm going to do with these. Emulsion paint?

Lessons 8, 9, 10 and 11

Markals (right hand end of the top row) and spray paints (underneath it), on this fabric, come out very pale but sunprinting with silk paints works well (left in the middle row). 

And Markal rubbed onto a nappy liner, ironed onto fabric, covered with another nappy liner rubbed with Chromacoal, stitched down and zapped is - er - interesting, but all that heat shrank the fabric

Lesson 12

Don't buy cheap Shisha rings.

All those lessons! No wonder I'm tired. Just hope I remember them.

Keep calm...

And carry on stitching.

This has been one of those weeks.

As far as I can remember, Sunday was O.K.

On Monday afternoon the VHC's daddy got a phone call from his nursery to say he wasn't well - and he wasn't, breathing very unevenly and having crying jags, despite doing his best to be his normal cheeky cheerful self. We looked after Babybel while daddy did emergency doctor and chemist visits, and arranged to take over care the next morning when the VHC would normally be in nursery. Fortunately he recovered very quickly from what seems to have been a throat infection with added tummy upset, and after a good night's sleep, and a morning of quiet play and lots of 'duddles' (cuddles) he was well enough in the afternoon to go out and feed some fish.

(The ducks didn't get much of a look in, as the fish are very determined.)

On the way home, we heard that mummy had had a phone call from school to say that Babybel had fallen off a climbing frame. So we looked after the VHC while mummy and daddy did emergency hospital visits and a broken wrist was X-rayed and strapped up. 

Their other granny and granddad have taken over today, but we're on duty again tomorrow, as Thursday is our usual day. We just hope there are no more dramas.

So today, a little embroidery has been restful and therapeutic - together, at the moment, with a little Allegri. Bliss!

This is the embellished piece, with added Cretan sttich, and turned into another book. Wensleydale has claimed this one for a diary.

And here's one I made earlier - the book, but not the embroidery. I had decided that my summer homework -  ’Repetition', if you need reminding - was going to be moslty sketchbook based. 

But then I came across this little (about 20 by 6cm) book, made ages ago from the offcuts from something else, and those coffee stained pages said 'repetition' and 'stitch' to me. 

And in the small hours of one insomniac night, when I had finished the book cover and desperatey needed some embroidery to do, I found some aida, pinched a  pattern from Gay Eaton's book on Wessex embroidery, and started what in any other circumstance would have turned into a bookmark. Amazing how  therapeutic a bit of simple, repetitive stiching can be.

It doesn't look like the coffee marks, but there are non-coffee pages, and I have a piece of fabric framed up and awaiting some eyelets before it gets added to the white page you can just see. 

I wonder what excitement tomorrow will bring?

Good things and bad things.

Thing 1

I don't know what the weather was like in your neck of the woods yesterday, but in the neighbourhood of Cheese Acres the sky was blue and a golden glowing ball appeared in it, which the weather expert around here assured me was the sun.

So we decided to go to Hillier Gardens.

When we got to Hillier Gardens we drove round the car park and decided to go to Mottisfont.

Good decision. Their car park was also pretty full, but there were lots of Blue Badge spaces. 

We had an enjoyable stroll round the gardens, spotting a few more stars on the way. Then mince pie and coffee in the stables cafe, and a visit to the excellent craft exhibition in the house, where there were more stars.

Thing 2a & 2b

I've finished both my massive clear out of old magazine articles, computer printouts etc. I have also finished page 4 (or 3) of The Book. It looks more 3D in reality, although of course it isn't. I'm pleased with it.

After a visit to Hobbycraft on New Year's Eve, I am equipped with thread for page 3 (or 4) and I had hoped to have a replacement piece of fabric prepared and to get started tonight, but it hasn't happened. It won't happen tomorrow either as it is back to grandparental duties.

Thing 3

Babybel isn't back to school yet, so our intention had been to have a dog walk in the morning, then drop the VHC at nursery before taking Babybel to Mottisfont again, as she enjoyed the Star Trail and fish feeding so much. However (here's where the Bad Thing comes in) her daddy has phoned to say he strongly suspects she has chicken pox. I foresee lots of dabbing on of calamine, cuddling, and story reading in our future, plus a bit of playing on the iPad... Interesting that the only medical aspect of allthat doesn't seem to have changed in 60 years!

We survived...

a sleepover by one granddaughter, one grandson and one granddog. And a good time was had by all - apart from the grandparents being so worried about the children sleeping well that, even though the children did, the grandparents didn't. (The dog was pretty restless too. He can't get his head round the fact that no cat is going to come in and attack him - or that there is no cat food to steal, now.)

We went to Hillier Gardens on Saturday, despite the rain. The tree house was inspected and deemed too wet to use. But it was decided that we should return another day to explore it further.

The mermaid in our party hugged a few trees. The non-mermaids didn't.   

The whole party enjoyed tea in the cafe. Babybel sat quietly and ate her crisps. The VHC didn't. The feminist in me says that boys and girls are pretty similar. The grandmother in me thinks boys are louder and bolshier! 

On Sunday we went to Mottisfont. As non-dog owners we hadn't realised that you can take well behaved dogs into the gardens, which allowed us to exercise the mermaid, the dog and ourselves all at the same time. (The other member of the party came along for the ride.)

Babybel enjoyed finding the stars on the Star Trail, and granny and granddad did too. This is only a sample - the photographer was in charge of buggy pushing and refused to tackle more muddy wet grass than she had to. 

It was not too cold to have coffee in the stable yard, where Babybel could pet the chicken wire horse, suitably dressed for Christmas.

The VHC could explore the effects of running away from granny and through puddles, falling over (fortunately not in a puddle), and pretending you can't get up again, pretending you don't like the gravel on your hands and then adding more after granny has wiped them, (see what I mean about  bolshier?) and fearlessly approaching and petting a dog who is bigger than you are (a beautiful English pointer). He was more wary of the horse, however.

Granny and granddad could sit down, at least for part of the time, and the dog could field the crumbs from the rich humans' table.

Then we all went to Babybel and the VHC's house and very gratefully returned our visitors to their mum and dad.

I am sure seasoned grandparents wonder why I'm making such a fuss, but this is the first time we've had both of hem overnight, and previous visits from Babybel on her own have been rather tearful affairs.

Before all this I did manage to finish Page 2. Neatened Italian quilting and arrow stitches. It's not clear from the photo but the stitch on this is silver, not white, apart from the red thread end which seems to have crept in from somewhere. I'm pleased with the way this looks, it feels like it follows on well from Page 1.

Now to Page 3 (!) - or maybe a later page, as I have clearer ideas about those. Not that I don't have ideas for Page 3, if anything I have too many, which is a big part of the problem!