Busy

Well, sorry for being away quite so long - I don't think I've had such a long gap between posts before, and wonder if anyone will still be looking in, even!

I have had a busy time of it lately, though, and will try to relate it all here!  In May I had my first 'blogger' meet, when I met up with Suzanne, from Fieldy (she writes about it in that link) and had a lovely time with our knitting, drinking coffe and chatting, in IKEA in Glasgow.  We swapped pressies, and I came away with the most gorgeous 100% wool, in various shades that I hope to use once I've perfected my colour work, bless you, Suzanne.

Also, we have barely been home, these last few months, it seems as we had a wedding darn sarf in Cambridgeshire of our very great pal, G to Mark.  Married in church G is not the sylph-like tall woman of the usual bride pictures, but she is very pretty and I found tears in my eyes as she walked down the aisle with her proud father, and looking so elegant and stunning, and they are such a happy and 'in love' couple.  Also, it was a strange phenomenon to be in the company of so many 'fat' women!  I know it might seem a strange thing to say, some might think me unkind, but I really felt so comfortable to be 'average' instead of the 'largest' person there. Though, of course, G and I made our usual statement of 'This time next year, I'll be thinn....'  to each other.

In June we went trolling darn to Milton Keynes to a family BBQ, which was great fun and so lovely to see all our family, on my side, anyway - though by this time I have fallen out of love with Travvvelllodge (comfy beds, not!) Just back from there, I turned straight around and went to Durham to see my bessy mate, and had such a lovely, relaxed time HERE  We talked and ate, slept and repeated same for three whole days = bliss. Walking around the grounds we saw two herds of deer in the deer park, the gorgeous flower gardens and, in a valley, a summer house - simply gorgeous!

  So lovely to just sit around and catch up, without any distractions of work etc and simply a 'must' again next year.

Just last week we made the journey back down to Hertfordshire this time, for my cousin's wedding H to another Mark.  A different experience this time as everything took place in the Country Manor House where the reception was, also.  I don't know which I prefer as I am not a religious person (my faith is in people, and their inner goodness - but that is discussion for another day, perhaps?) but Church is part of our culture.  However, a civil service can be made so personal, can't it?  But, this was a small wedding, with great focus on H and her sister's small children as they were very much part of the party.  It was lovely to meet them, as well as other cousin's babies, who are the next generation in line.

Our wedding anniversary was in June, and I was married in a Register Office in a cream and brown dress a la 1970s that I had bought in a sale!  This was 36 years ago now, and I don't regret any of my wedding, especially as it was just very close family and a couple of friends, and a Wedgwood blue wedding cake with a tea round at Mr T's dad's house, then a meal at a Chinese Restaurant in the evening with our best friends.  These friends had given us a bottle of champagne to have on our own, which fizzed all over our bed!  So, we slept in champagne, then my nan came around in the morning to collect my bouquet to take to my aunty's grave for me - and, as we only had one rented room, sat on the bed with Mr T still in it, undressed as it were, so he had to stay put for the duration of the visit!  Happy, happy days, and thank goodness, though we do bicker and argue we still love each other, deeply.  Thank goodness.

That is enough of the catching up for today.  See you soon, I hope.

Ta Da!

At last, it's finished.  And entered.  And in the exhibition.  At last, it's Ta Da!

My project, for the City and Guilds Creative Textiles and Embroidery course I'm on, is a pair of cushions.  The design is based upon Knitting, but I didn't want to include actual knitting in it.  Then, my granddaughter, who is very clever and loves photography, took a picture of some tractor tyre tracks in the snow, and voila! The design started to take shape. 

I painted some patterns onto paper, using bamboo skewers and ink, then built up my fabric, so that I could embroider the design. Choosing to just use a running stitch kept the design as the focus and, as my tutor suggested, the stitches found their own direction. Every, and each, stitch was placed in just the space, direction and size I chose; sometimes making a copy of the pattern, and at others being a representation.  One panel represents a cable pattern that was on my jumper, and the other is of a design from a jumper I knitted one of my granddaughters at Christmas - two rows of stocking stitch, two of garter and another of stocking stitch.

The 'V' shape became very important, and I wanted to use that for the 'framing' in the mitred edgings to the panels.  Then, the fabric I used for the edging has lines within the weave that I used to 'point' to the panel.

Ooh, I am really pleased with the process of making these pieces, and with the result I've produced.

Boing!

Well, what a turn up?!

As you may remember, from my previous posts, Mr T had recently taken up the sport of archery.  Something he did at school, some oh.... a few years ago now, and was interested in doing again, now we are semi-retired. 

Well, the local club he joined had an 'Open Day' on Easter Sunday, so that anyone could come along and have a play, including family members.  We arrived, en masse, loaded down with picnic paraphernalia, children and, minus dog on a lovely sunny day, to do so.

Little did we know that another three of us would be hooked, as it were!  Mr and Mrs Daughter both tried and fell in love with it, and so did I.  Seriously. 

It was such fun, but I likened it to golf.  However much you try, only one hit in many, for me at least, made its target! Mr and Mrs D had much more luck, and now we are frantically begging and borrowing kit, to match our sizes and (ahem) abilities = strength of pull, so that we can get to practicing some more.

Who knew?

ps the 'Boing' of the title is the sound my arrows made as they hit trees - all three in one of the tries I had!

let there be light

Ta da!

Aren't Mr P and I a clever team?  I have the idea, go shopping and Mr T puts it together - under strict supervision, of course! 

I could 'do-it-myself' but I like to keep Mr T busy, especially as he's had a birthday this week.  I can't believe we are getting So Old, but I suppose it's better than the alternative, eh?

For Mr T's birthday, our grand-daughter, NBG and her step-dad made the most WonderFul Cake for him, thus

They are arrows in the target, you'll have to forgive my awful photo.  But, NBG and her family also put on a lovely 'children's tea party' for him, with egg sandwiches, sausage rolls and crisps, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.  The reason for this themed cake is that Mr T is returning to archery as a hobby - something he enjoyed greatly when at school.  I don't thinnk he/we will be taking up his other school sport of cannoeing just yet - though watch this space!

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

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.

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.