I didn’t mean to disappear…

but BT had other plans for me. No internet connection. I had two different explanations from 2 different gentlemen in India, and finally got it back after 48 hours. For now – so I’m making the most of it.

Mind you, not a lot has been happening at Cheese Acres. Apart from the big thing, of course – although at 7lb something he’s a bit smaller than his sister was. 

Here he is at about 18 hours old

 

 

 

and this afternoon [counts on fingers] at 5 days.

The considered opinion is that he looks like Wensleydale, but with slightly more hair.

 

 

 

1. In the intervals between admiring babies and their big sisters, I’ve been:
3. 1. photographing sunsets [followed by pouring rain which knocks one old adage on the head],

 

 

2. playing with PostWorkshop [glad not all the photo-editing software I use is on line],

3. drawing squiggles to make Photoshop brushes – although I haven’t yet made the brushes,

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. doing some old fashioned embroidery on one of the pieces of needlepoint canvas I bubblejetsetted and printed,

 

And - of course -

 

 

 

5. watching the repeat of ‘The Killing’* on BBC4 at 10pm on most nights of the week. Just as gripping, just as brilliantly acted, but with the benefit of knowing whodunnit you notice nuances of his performance you didn’t spot first time round.

Speaking of which -  a belated anniversary present to W. 

 

* NB – the original, not the US remake, which we couldn’t bring ourselves to watch. How do you follow perfection?

For some odd reason …

I have a fixation that hand embroidery can only be done in the evening, in the living room – the days are for the work room, and machine embroidery, or other things not done in the living room. I think this dates back to BR [Before Retirement] when I had to make the best use I could of the weekends, which were the only times I could get to the work room and do stuff.

At the moment I need to finish off the hand embroidery on the drawer linings, and then sew them up on the machine – but I can’t bring myself to do the hand embroidery during the day. And it wasn’t possible last night because of the need to read subtitles on another of BBC4’s excellent Scandinavian police series – Danish, this time. Beautifully shot, beautifully paced and scripted, and the effect on the family of the murdered girl treated in far more depth than I have ever seen in a fictional piece. Try watching the scene where the murdered girl's parents tell her younger brothers about her death without crying – I couldn’t.

Interesting that a country with a population smaller than London, with  a language spoken by few outside its shores, can make such excellent television – and what do we make? Midsomer Murders.

But I digress.

As I didn’t have much machining to do, I had to find other, non-college related things to do during the day.

Like making bowls – the usual Lois Walpole design, with selected strips of sari ‘silk’ for the weaving. [I am addicted to sari silk, I can’t stop buying it.] It needs shearing, but I am pleased with it. I’m thinking of experimenting with using craft Vilene for the ‘warp’ as:

1. I have too much Vilene and
2. no more of the right sort of cardboard. Lots of cardboard, it’s just all too thick.

I did get two drawers finished, though -

the button drawer

 

 

 

 

 

and the string drawer 

although the contents of the latter are short of three red balls - I've decided they need either tiny tassels or beads, not sure which.

I got the results for Module 6, the 3D samples back on Saturday [always posted, so we can’t argue on the spot <g>]. 75%, which I'm perfectly happy with. Reading between the lines, I lost marks because my experimetnal samples weren't experimental enough.

There was a suggestion that I should think about combining the knitted vessels, like this one

 

 

 

with the woven pieces like, I assume, this

or this - which has me stumped!

The mean, moody black and white photos are because we had to submit them in b&w.