New brooches / gifts for Gallery 49

I have done as many new bits of work as time has allowed this week to take to Gallery 49 tomorrow for their valentine exhibition. Still lots I wanted to do but I have quite a bit of college work to do for Monday as our maritime project is being assessed so had to draw the line and this evening I will make my packaging to go with the items.

I've done embellished textile heart brooches, some woolly flowers and the can wraps where I've gone for a hearts and flowers theme with the fabric.

It's my Blogiversary!!!

How time flies, 365 days to be precise as today is my blogiversary. I wasn't sure myself if I'd keep at it but it's so much more fun than writing a diary. I went through phases in childhood of religiously writing a diary everyday which usually consisted of boring school stuff and then spare time playing in the garden with our cats, the cats were my best friends. I spent hours with those cats and still remember all their personalities so hello to my dear long gone friends, Twinkle, Waggy, Smokie, Schubert, Sylvester, Windthrope, Sambo and dearest Wobbly. I guess you are all sat on your little fluffy cat clouds looking down on me.

To mark this notable day I have made some very quick cornflake cakes to go with elevenses. I've added a bit of goodness in the form of sunflower seeds & raisins!

Felt making

Yesterday at college I finally got a go at felt making by the wet method. It was quite simple requiring equipment nothing more elaborate than an old towel, bubble wrap and soap and then the merino fleece to make it with. The college had a good choice of colours in the fleece, I have a few bits myself from when I've done dry felting but they had much more choice.

Here are my first 2 pieces, we have to embellish them for the next session.

Textile course - fabric printing

Last Monday we started some very simple fabric printing using some pre-formed designs on plastic tiles. These were inked up by roller with acrylic paint with fixer added and finally ironed to set permanent.

The idea was to experiment with different cloths, plain, patterned, overlapping colours etc.

We also had a go with some stuff like memory foam which you soften with a heat gun and then 'push' into the surface your design. Had mixed results with this, it was a bit like potato printing and not quite as good as the label on the box suggested.

Here are some of my samples.

Hopefully we are going to progress to doing our own designs which we may be outputting from a computer onto fabric.

Brooches finally done for USA

Earlier this week I finally finished Carol's order for the brooches and the can wraps to take on her travels, I just hope she can get them in her case!

The brooches were a real mish mash of styles and even included my first attempt with some of the Harris tweed scraps kindly donated last week and also the can wrap shown here has some tweed on.

A friend has asked if I would like to submit some bits n pieces for the valentine selling exhibition Gallery 49 in Brid are having so I am trying my best to get some more brooches done as they need to be there as soon as poss. Proper work has continued to pile in at the rate of 1 new job a day the last fortnight so I'm working anyway at the weekend and maybe there will be chance to do a few craft things for the gallery.

Exhibition at Alex May Gallery

The textile exhibition of our maritime themed wall hangings is on at the Alex May Gallery in the Old Town, Bridlington. It is just on for this weekend but the work may still be there tomorrow.

I visited this morning and my piece was actually in the window.

It was great to see everyones work finished and on display, I got a few snaps, thought I'd taken all the works and then realised I hadn't when I got back.

It sounds like it generated a lot of interest on the Saturday and even got a bit of editorial in the Brid Free Press.

Harris Tweed & wool

It's like Christmas again, I visited a blogging friend this morning who has kindly given me some leftover scraps of Harris tweed fabric and wool. They are fab, beautiful coloured remnants and 3 bags worth to get my teeth into. I can't wait to get making stuff but I have to get all the brooches made for the USA in the next few days as the deadline is approaching fast.

Also went to Poppys craft shop in Pocklington and found they had a sale on, got some really nice chunky wools for the blanket I'm doing. It wasn't just rubbishy coloured wool in the sale, they had some very nice Rowan, Debbie Bliss etc which were oddments, single balls left from a batch and some half price.

The charity shop near Poppys is usually good for wool and I found these extra chunky balls along with the polka dot bag and I couldn't resist this jolly looking jumper too!

I feel all inspired but it's grey and wet and cold so time for a hot drink!

Knitting squares

I don't have many knitting skills and squares in plain stitches are pretty much the extent of my talent but they are useful for the blanket I've been making over the past few years.

I haven't been shown any knitting on the textile course yet so I really don't know when or if I'll get to see some new stitches so I tried a new line of attack. To try and jazz up my squares I bought some of that self patterning wool and have been giving that a try which is fun to see the pattern emerge.

I also got a little book in a sale which is quite basic and I am happy to reveal a square in progress where I have learnt a new stitch. Yes amazing as it is I have followed some instructions, not always easy for an impatient type like myself but this is basket-weave stitch and I'm quite pleased with the result.

Found these needle cases in the Dunelm sale, the strawberry fabric is similar to a Cath Kidston one but at a fraction of the price, this case was just £1.99.

Snow angel

At last the snow is melting. This is a final snowy shot and whilst I didn't have time to make a snowman here is a snow angel just outside the house, if you can make it out!

Snow blizzard hits Driffield!

The weather has got progressively worse this afternoon. Had a few flurries earlier but it's turned into quite a snow blizzard now and outside there is more snow than before Christmas. I was trying to capture the huge flakes just falling as I type but you can't see the drama on this photo unfortunately.

I have just noticed a bunny trying to take shelter at the side of the hedge, bet he hasn't seen any grass for days! I was also watching a pheasant trying to walk in it but the snow was up to his waist if pheasants have waists. Why doesn't he fly to wherever he's trying to get to!

I think it's going to be a weekend sewing and continuing with work as I'm house bound with the weather. There's plenty of design work to do, it's so cold though it's difficult to be creative.

Oh well, time for coffee and a few christmas chocolates.

Coffee over and I'm adding a couple of pics taken 45 mins after first pic to show level of snow increasing. Got these just before dark hence the bluey look and no fiddling on photoshop, wonder how deep it will be in the morning!!!

Brooches going to the US

My friend from the straw bale cottage is going to San Francisco (lucky lady) towards the end of Jan on one of her globe trotting, straw building missions. From what I gather about these trips it is customary to take gifts to the organisers so she has put an order in for some of my brooches and some other bits n bobs. The brooches will be a mixed selection of the recycled variety which seems in keeping with the ethos of eco building.

Here are some new ones I'm working on and a couple of tartan flowers for someone who made enquiries via ebay.

Textile course - new term

I have done a few final tweaks to my textile mural and I've had enough of it now so it's finished!

These are the last pics which I did outside in the snow to make the best of the natural light.

I can now pack it up ready for the exhibition which has been delayed once with the weather so don't know when we'll be having that until I make some enquiries this afternoon.

Happy New Year!

A very happy new year to anyone reading this and lets hope 2010 is a great year for finding happiness and achieving new levels of creativity.

I've been fairly dormant over the festive period, staying in and trying to keep warm but that fails miserably when you can't get any room over 17 degrees with the heating on constantly. When you are continually cold and inactive it's very difficult to muster up the energy to go outside. I used to love going for crisp winter walks when you know you can return to a warm house but when you know it's only a few degrees warmer inside you lose any desire to go out into the cold only to return to cold.

I think I'm sounding like a cracked record with this constant moaning about cold but I'm counting the days to Spring!

Anyway as this is the last day of the holidays I forced myself to look lively and go for a bracing walk around Scarborough with the reward of a coffee in Roasters and a magazine at WHS.

Goodness me it was cold and there was quite a flurry of snow whilst in the town. I had never noticed the 'Tardis' before down on the seafront so I had to get a snap.

Roasters had some rather nice artwork on display upstairs although the choice of speciality coffees was limited due to monsoons affecting some of the coffee bean harvest.

I'm getting quite interested in speciality coffee and one of my christmas pressies was a coffee grinder. I think I can finally say goodbye to instant coffee now and concentrate on grinding my own. Also found some great videos on the internet showing 'coffee or latte art' with the most amazing designs being swirled on top of your frothy bit. It seems you can go on courses to do this art and I have to say I quite fancy having a go and they do it not too far away in Sheffield.

Anyway, dreams of having a coffee shop will have to wait for now as it's back to normal tomorrow with a bang as there is much work in the studio and the textile course restarts.