It's not procrastination

but as I am sure that I can finish the box by the end of next month – I gave myself a day off. Here is a picture of the completed lid to prove I am well on the way.

As it was lovely and sunny when we woke up, we decided to have a tripette out to Stockbridge Down, National Trust downland with an Iron Age hill fort on top. It was less sunny when we went out after lunch, but still warm enough not to need coats. We had a pleasant walk – fortunately the car park is at the bottom of the hill so we did the climb while we were still fresh and stumbled downhill again at the end. It isn’t really very far but we are old and decrepit!

We did seem to be the only people there without an animal of some sort, canine or equine – apart from what Cheese Major once called a ‘joggler’. [CMa was about three at the time.]

The views from the top of the Down are stunning – this is Danebury Ring, a neighbouring hill fort which recently featured in a TV programme. [You have probably go the impression that Wensleydale and I watch a lot of TV – we don’t, but the programmes we do watch seem to link to places we visit, like Danebury, or would like to visit, like China, Japan, India again, Egypt again …]

Of course I couldn’t come back empty handed so as there was no National Trust shop to spend money in – I acquired these. The star shape is flint. Any bone experts know what animal the bone might have come from? The hill side is riddled with rabbit holes, but it looks a bit big for a rabbit.

No tea shop either – we could have gone into Stockbridge to find one but came home instead, rather than offset the benefits of the walk with tea-shop cake.

Half an hour after we got home the heavens opened –rain, thunder, the full works. It has eased off a bit but it is still raining pretty heavily. Of course it is schools’ half term holiday…

Back to work this evening – I will work on the hand embroidery on the sides of the box while I listen to the TV – or more likely, Radio 3.

In case you think I have been suspiciously quiet

about the box that used to be a lampshade - it has been making steady progress.
This unlovely object is the full size mock-up, which for once I made before the real item. I’m glad I did because I decided that the proportions were wrong and that my original idea of ‘leaf litter’ on its own didn't work and it needed a focal point – hence that spray of leaves. [Leaves again – there is definitely a pattern here.]

I also changed the design of the sides after Wensleydale dropped some heavy hints. ‘Are you going to do the sides like that?’ - which always means ‘I don’t like it.’

I have also:

painted and over painted some fabric for the sides and base [not brilliant but most of it won’t show, and I’ve run out of the crucial colour of paint];

Stamped leaves in Lumiere paint on silk organza and machine embroidered them. I love how they look on the fabric – almost too nice to cut up, but I made myself wield the scissors. However I think I will make myself a stole this way ACAG [after C and G];

Finished the embroidery of the top panel, apart from adding beads which I left until I had decided where the spray would go;

Made the spray;

Prepared the fabric for the sides;

Padded the frame for the embroidery and the base and laced the fabric over the base.

I’m exhausted just typing all that!

Busy day tomorrow but I hope to get the frame covered and possibly the embroidery mounted in it – and more work on the sides.

I think I will finish this by the end of June!

No Tuesday trip this week as I was working on the box and Wensleydale was DIYing – but we did have a tripette on Friday. There are currently 2 very different art exhibitions on in Winchester ‘Discovery Centre’. [I hate the name – it’s the Library!]

The first is ‘Art and Artefacts’ – details here – scroll down:

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/wdc/city-space.htm

Immaculate work but many of them are a bit too whimsical for me!

In complete contrast:

http://www.howardhodgkin.org.uk/

We saw Hodgkin’s exhibition at the Tate a couple of years ago and thought his work was stunning – the prints are different but just as good. There is one of a palm tree at the entrance that I would have loved to have brought home - anyone got a few thousand £££ to spare?

Good day / bad day

As I mentioned, we went to visit Babybel and her mum and dad on Saturday. Babybel is six months old and growing rapidly. She is sitting up, taking a lively interest in everything and beginning to babble. She also has two teeth, somewhat to her mum’s regret!

We had a good day – Wensleydale helped fix the leak and then we sat in the garden playing and gossiping. [As I expected the hoodie I had made was too big but I have started a smaller one.]

The day took a down turn on our way home. It was a public holiday weekend and the start of a school holiday so we had expected the traffic to be bad. However, in the morning we were driving into London and most people were going the other way, so it wasn’t too bad. Coming home around 6 was much better as the traffic had eased off – until on the quietest bit of the journey we were overtaken [just] by a guy in a battered car who clearly was not in control of it.

We were not surprised, a few miles on, to find him in the ditch, facing the wrong way, with power cables draped around the car. He had hit a wooden electricity pole and snapped it about half way up – which suggests the car was in the air at the time. He was slumped in his seat, but moving.

Other people had already stopped and phoned the emergency services, but we did too, as we wanted to make sure the police knew how he had been driving. Fortunately no-one else had been involved.

The ambulance and police came very quickly: according to the policeman who spoke to us the guy was ‘in drink’ [a phrase I have only ever heard policemen use!]. I don’t know how they knew because he wasn’t in a fit state to be breathalysed and the paramedics were being very cautious because of the power cables!

The police took Wensleydale’s name and address and sent us on our way – I haven’t been able to find out how the guy is but the road was closed till the next morning and the residents of the neighbouring village must have been without electricity for most of that time.

So that rather spoiled what had been a good day until then. I just hope we never come any closer to a drunk driver than that! And I have to confess that I don’t feel very sorry for him.

It's official

I am no longer making a lampshade. Unfortunately the teacher felt that a book would not fit C&G criteria, since it is not a ‘household object’. [They are in this household – we probably have more books than any other object]. However we compromised on a box.

I came home from college early, found my books on making boxes, and by the time Wensleydale got back from governing I had decided what I wanted to do. One like this – only rectangular, rust coloured and [probably] shallower.

I had one of my bouts of insomnia this morning so by breakfast time I had found the fabrics and card I need and painted some more silk. Procrastination? What’s that?

Of course I have run out of steam now…

Not much will get done tomorrow as we are off to see Mr and Mrs Cheese Minor and Charlotte [a.k.a. Babybel]. Just to prove that I have kept busy while I have been procrastinating about the lampshade, I am taking this with us. I think it will be a little big for her, but I am sure she will grow into it.

As usual Wensleydale will be helping with plumbing while I play with the baby – seems fair to me!

I've been tagged

by Jackie at

http://dogdaisychains.blogspot.com/

She has such a lovely blog, and does such beautiful embroidery - how could I refuse?

So here goes:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.[I am not going to do this - nay volunteers?] Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.


1) What was I doing 10 years ago?


It's hard to remember that far back! Teaching - I was still newish to the job [special needs in a VIth form college] and it was still scary / exciting. And worrying about whether Cheese Minor would get into the university of his choice.[He did.]


2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?


Apart from answering these questions -
Make sample leaves for my new 3D piece;
Go to the gym;
Paint some papers for design work;
Put the postcards I bought at the exhibition we went to yesterday into my 'Exhibitions I have been to' scrapbook for C&G.

All achieved apart from No. 3

3) Snacks I enjoy.

Bread and butter. Sandwiches. Toast. [A bread-maker is a dangerous thing.]

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire.

Mmm - a billionaire? I do periodically dream of winning £1,000,000 on my £10 worth of Premium Bonds [had them since 1969, never won anything]. I don't even know how many 0s there are in a billion.

Obviously, share some of it with the family and make sure we've got enough for a comfortable retirement. I like to think I'd give the rest to Oxfam but I suspect I'm not really that public spirited!

5) Places I have lived.

Stockport, Newcastle on Tyne, East Bergholt in Suffolk, Bangor, Leicester, Wigan, Leatherhead, Wonersh just outside Guildford., Washington [not the US one], East Bergholt again, and Hampshire. In the future, we hope, somewhere in Powys.

6) 6 people I want to know more about.

Not sure I understand the question. I am not very nosy about other people's private lives, if that's what it means. However there are lots of people I would love to spend a day in their studio with - too many to mention!

I have not had a good two days!

Several minor hassles on Monday – nothing major but all irritating.

Today we had a Tuesday trip to Guildford. Cheese Major and Cheese Minor were born there and we go back quite often – not to visit the ‘re-purposed’ workhouse in which they were born, but because it is the best shopping centre around.

On the programme today was:
1. lunch at Loch Fyne:
2. a visit to the Wey Valley Embroiderers’ exhibition in the Guildford House Gallery and
3. shopping in Lush and Waterstones.

Between 1 & 2 I went to the bank to get some cash – but the ATM told me it was an ‘Unauthorised Transaction'. As we were in the bank I queried it – and was directed to their phone to call the call centre to find out what was happening.

Well – any call to a call centre is going to be a long process. [At least the bank were paying for it.] Wensleydale sensibly found himself a chair. This call centre is in the UK – in Bootle, for a guess from the accents – but I still got the soothing music and was redirected round umpteen different recorded messages and three real people.

It turns out that someone in the US had tried to get 51p [i.e. $1] out of my account. The bank had detected that it was fraudulent and frozen the account. I am grateful that they did but now I have to wait until they send me a new card. And I can’t get a mini statement from the ATM to check on any other withdrawals.

After that I couldn’t really concentrate on the embroideries – and we only had time for a quick visit to Lush.

However, thinking about life, the universe and hassles on the drive home – I decided to rethink the lampshade. I am really really really not happy with it, and rather than continue and wreck a £50 lamp – I have decided that I will ask – no, tell - the teacher on Thursday that I am moving to plan C.

[This is a family joke: Plan A is what you start with and Plan B is thinking up Plan C.]

So – what will I make instead? Well – if it is acceptable as a 3D functional item – a book. Bet you are surprised!

When I got home I tipped the bits of ‘leaf litter’ I have made out on some painted silk – and liked what I saw much more than the lampshade. With some hand embroidery and beads I think this will make a good cover. I thought I would make a stick binding with a donation from the birch tree in the back garden. So a minor hassle prompted a resolution of a major one.

Keep your fingers crossed that the teacher agrees. If she isn’t happy with a book I will make a box but that will be more work and something I am less comfortable with.

Life has got in the way of embroidery

over the last few days, but I did manage to do some. These are samples of ‘leaf litter’ for the 3d piece. I also did some leaves but they are not ready to be revealed to the world yet.

On Friday I got distracted into following up Thursday’s lesson on transfer techniques – although I’m still not sure what the point of it was.

In class we discussed techniques like ‘prick and pounce’ and tacking for transferring designs, and then used some dreadful smelly stuff to transfer photocopies of our designs onto fabric. This is my effort – but as you can see it is pretty blurred [and it still stinks!] Fortunately I had chosen a fairly simple image: those who tried more detailed pictures were very disappointed. I suppose the learning that took place was not to bother with this stuff, the name of which I don’t know!

We also tried Dylon Image Maker, although as I had some at home I left that till Friday, when I got sidetracked into trying most of the transfer techniques I could think of – all the stuff you buy on a whim and never use, or techniques you’ve read about and never tried. Most of these were more successful than the smelly stuff.

I won’t show you them all because they are colour variations on the same image but I can tell you that I printed onTyvek, calico on freezer paper, tissue paper on Bondaweb on its backing paper and Craft Vilene with no ill effects – although the latter had to be put through with care not to jam. This is the result on Vilene.

However if you do the same it is at your own risk!

As usual, I printed onto the wrong side of a transparency in an attempt to try to transfer from it onto fabric. I shall have another go at that today. I used t-shirt transfer paper which worked well, and I also want to use transfer paints and crayons.

All of this seems to have moved a long way from where we started, how to transfer a pattern to fabric for further embroidery – but it has been an interesting journey!