Monday 28 March 2011

Wet Felting

With the Forfar Embroiders Guild, I attended a wet felting workshop on Saturday.  This was run by a local, talented textile artist, Tessa Mendez of feltunique and what a great day we had.  My wet felt is  the header picture above, after I had embellished it, using a photo we took while on our cruise holiday last year.



Sunset over the Med October 2010

On Saturday there were eight of us in all, and each of us made very different pieces - one woman's picture was of a rock and it was very life-like, others did scenes of trees, fields and another's was of underwater coral.

~~~ O ~~~


In other news, the cushion covers I am making for my college project are finally coming together.  I have decorated the fabric and am ready to sew my design onto them.  This would be difficult without transferring the design onto the fabric; and have wanted a light box for some time.  Even asked Mr T and my son in law for their help. 

Soooo, today I went into Homebase, where I got fantastic help from a young man there (who is a student architect, so knew what I was on about) who sorted me out with a short fluorescent light unit, and a sheet of perspex. Then, I have found a drawer, and will drill a hole in the side of it, add a diffuser to the perspex, bang in some nails (or screws, probably) to attach it to the top of the drawer, et voila!  Costing less than £30, it has saved me at least £50 and I will have it for some time to come.  Now, those of you who say I could use a window for this, don't know the lack of access and light my windows have!

~~~ O ~~~


This is another busy week for me, one of my students needs a report, three others are due a group supervision, foster panel reports are to be read and Mr T has a birthday on Wednesday.  Phew!  I remembered in time to organise a present, and we are having a 'children's tea party' for him, complete with balloons, jelly and cake. What laughs, what fun! xx

Saturday 19 March 2011

It's not yet, but not too early

Hi again

I have now calmed down, thank you to those who commented on my last post.  Phew, it did make me feel better, knowing that others feel the same, thank you guys. x

Now then, we had a brilliant red nose day on the telly last night, with some really funny highlights.  There was also some very harrowing film footage of the suffering of a lot of people in this world. I'm afraid I couldn't watch it all.

However, I do know there are some things we can do.  So, when my daughter came up with an idea a couple of weeks ago, for our weight watchers group to take part in the Relay for Life, I of course, said yes.  Like many others I have personal reasons for wholly supporting any Cancer research or charity. I have a link up there on the left of my sidebar, and another one here Relay for Life and, if you can or wish to, we would welcome anything you are able to donate.


Thank you.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Enough

I have now come to the point where I have had enough. I will not tolerate any more.  I am talking about the behaviour of some bloggers/facebookers, who are also sellers. Setting aside, for the time being, the amount of businesses who use Facebook as a free advertising medium, yawn.

These are terrible times we live in, and for those not directly affected by the awful disasters besetting people around the world, we are extremely lucky to be alive and well, and to not have suffered. It certainly puts into perspective any minor problems/ailments/grievances we may have.  And, no we must not forget that We feel helpless but want to help in some way, of course we do!  We need to hurry and make donations of what we can, where we can - I truly believe and abide by that.

What upsets me, and find despairing is that some people are jumping on the bandwagon and using these awful disasters to Advertise their Wares - to make money, to advertise their business and to elicit future business.  I saw one blog where the person first wrote an opening sentence about how terrible the Japanese tsunami is, then proceded to advertise an upcoming craft fair they are involved in - der?  Others tell us that if we just click on to their etsy/folksy/website shop, a certain percentage, or the profit from that sale will go towards the charity, etc.  Why can they not just make a donation, anyway, like other people do?

I am not going to encourage these people, anymore.  I remove their comments from my facebook and switch off from their blogs.

I do apologise to anyone who is offended by my view, but it is my view and if people don't like it, then they can feck off.  Yep, I feel that strongly about it.

So, Enough, Already.

Saturday 5 March 2011

And, then what happened .....

.... was that the next day, the 14th, out daughter's birthday, I came down with the most awful virus-y, chest-y, brochial thingy. And, yesterday, Friday 4 March, I cancelled my third doc's appointment, as I was at last, feeling better. Blimey!


I caught this from my lovely grand-daughter, who was so poorly, bless her, so I can't blame her. Now, my lovely daughter has the same thing, bah!

Mr T and I have been suffering a lot lately, with headaches each morning. Now, I think I have worked it out. We do spend quite some time each evening. Then we go to our bed, which has lovely pillows, gorgeous goose down duvet and tempur mattress - you really couldn't ask for more. But, in the morning we both have such steaming headaches, that make us feel sick. After being up and about for a while, it will go off, more or less, but returns the next day. I wonder if we are getting 'swan necks' from the laptops? Then, when we're properly laying down, it is altering how our neck and spine is, causing said headaches. It's just a thought.



On another note, I have been struggling somewhat with my first City and Guilds project. Oh, how I hate to be out of my comfort zone! But, I had a breakthrough this week, and think I am now on the right track. You see, I can quite comfortably come up with an item to make, think about it and get it made, whether it is knitting, sewing, felting etc. But, ask me to use my brain to go through the various design elements, de-constructing the elements of the particular item, grr. I worried, lost sleep, worried some more. Then, was able to get back to class this week, and bingo! We have it! I now need to experiment with colours and sewing methods, and I should be on track for producing something worthy of the exhibition we have due in early May. I think so, anyway....