Recording Events(Sorry for all the brackets) :)))

Some random bits of life since the last post which was too long ago.
First a bit of death, sorry.
You must remember from a few posts ago and from here and there in the blog, little Blodwen.

Well sadly she is no longer with us. She had a good 'innings' as they say and we were very lucky to have had a bit of her company in the past. She was a sweetie. I am imagining  her gambolling over the Elysian fields reunited with her little Dachshund 'sister', Porky, their ears a-flap in the breeze, perhaps being followed along by our dearly loved and missed Willow, who found the two of them quite a puzzle when they stayed with us a few years ago.

How things change.

Last week I spent two full days which nearly finished me off, teaching in a FE college nearby. 

Starting out at 8.15 and not getting home until 5pm is a struggle when you usually have, shall we say,  an unstructured day, and I have immense respect and admiration for those who do it daily. 

I don't do it very often and when I get there I am looked after and made to feel very valuable, but still , just before it comes round, I wonder why I do it.

Well, I had two lovely days. 4 different groups of 16-18 year olds who made felt, and smiled and worked hard despite the awful colours they had to work with.  Mostly red, that horrible green that always gets left, and some awful yellows. They still managed to come up with some variety, and all but one (yes there's always one) were a delight.

I also met an artist who makes the most amazing lino prints that made me want to give up pretending to be creative. Look at her work here. I saw the first three of these prints in the flesh, a metre square and breathtaking.

A by-product of my 2 days in college was a solution to a problem that has been keeping me awake.

I've applied for another demoralising rejection craft event and wanted to make a tree to display my wares upon. (oops sentence ended with a preposition. Sorry) I happened to mention it to the Mr Fix It of the college who said I should draw it out and take it in the next day and voila!

OK. Its an awful picture and the tree isn't painted or anything but I'm thrilled to bits. Its free standing and the perfect height for on a table. 

 (Its no good someone as short as me hanging stuff above head height now is it?)

Even if I don't get in to the event, I'll have it for other events. 

It needs a nice coat of 'String' or even 'Cord', 'Clunch' or possibly 'Matchstick' and a few little knobs on (I'm working on that) and I can hang my brooches on it. 

That's if I have any brooches left.

Since I showed my last ones I have been lucky enough to have been asked by the delightful Rachel of Lazyhill Gallery in Dorset to send her some..so I have. If you live near Abbotsbury, pop along there and see them in the flesh! It looks beautiful and I wish I could visit. I also have work in The Platform Gallery, Clitheroe,  The Chapel Gallery Ormskirk,  and Fibre+Clay, Knutsford.

I have been contacted by whole host of other people for bits and pieces too, so in some ways I can do without having to hang on to things for a possible craft fair. (Thats just to pre-empt rejection and make me feel better)

Now here's some actual Textile content of sorts.

If you were reading in the summer you may have seen a family of blue tits emerge from the nest box. 

I've just emptied it to clean it out and hang it back up for next year and look!

One little leftover egg. And beautifully woven in around the edge of the nest some fragments of pink wool! Do you think the could have picked them from some of my felt hanging up to dry?

I'd love to think so.

How clever birds are.

I do hope they come back next year. They were such fun to watch.

I am going to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate a week on Thursday.

Will anyone reading this be there? It would be great to meet a few bloggers. 

Let me know.

Four wettings and a funeral.

If you are here looking for sewing I'm afraid there's none in this post, so if you are new, you could try looking at this post, or this post or even this post. And I like this too.

Now if you don't mind boring, too many words, read on.

The only part of gardening I am good at is destruction, so when the front door was almost completely covered with growth I decided it was at last time for the chop. I cut off the branches that had held the goldfinch nest, and look!!!


There was another egg in the bottom.
There should have been 6 baby birds in that tiny nest. Isn't that incredible?

Look at the size of it. Beautiful.

Yesterday we went to Aberystwyth.
(For UK readers that big bright thing in the sky is the Sun)

It was to attend the funeral of the father of our friend G, who lived in a village nearby. He was the original owner of the little sausage dogs, Porky and Blodwen. We got hopelessly lost, but eventually found the Crematorium, Now I know funerals and crematoria (?) are not perhaps blog material but I have to tell you that I have never been in a more beautiful, spiritual crematorium chapel ever. The whole of the wall behind the altar was made of glass looking out over the Welsh countryside.
A perfect place from which to step off into eternity.

The day was eventful. I got soaked and dried off about 4 times in the rain. Its a very long way from our house to Aberystwyth. We had a very short break on the way in Llanidloes, a cup of tea in The Great Oak. Fantastic. We were in a hurry but I would love to visit again. We had to rush past a Quilt Exhibition without even looking!

We missed the start of the funeral service but it didn't matter too much.
Our friend G had spent the week in her late father's house, mourning him by painting his life and home on the coffin. It was beautiful. So much nicer the usual varnished wood veneer. The sea, his boat, and fish on one side, wild flowers, a fox, an otter and montbresia flowers on the other, and of course, Porky and Blodwen at his feet, like a medieval knight's tomb. I wish I had a picture to show.

When we got to the 'funeral tea' place I offered to take the dogs for a short walk. I had been walking for a minute or two when the heavens opened and it began to thunder. I was holding an umbrella and had no waterproof coat. I decided to turn back , and at that moment a car came up the lane and a man opened the door and said 'get in.' It was absolutely bucketing down, hailing by now so I got in, with the sodden dogs, wondering if this chap had actually been at the funeral. I had no bag, or phone and he continued to drive, although at one point the hail was so intense we couldn't see out.
We got on like a house on fire. He was indeed a guest at the funeral and was going home to get his mandolin to play some music while we had the tea. His home was in 'the back of beyond' with a fabulous garden, with nasturtiums and passion flowers cascading over the wall. His 'other half' is a herbalist, and the garden was full of beautiful useful plants, and the sound of bees.

By the time we got back to the funeral party both my husband and G had been out in separate cars looking for me. They just couldn't understand what had happened, so there was much rejoicing when I walked back in.

We had a scenic drive round Aberystwyth before setting off for home via Gayles Wine Bar in Llangollen, for food. I can't recommend it too highly. Good unfussy but delicious food and a great atmosphere.

That was all probably too much writing so I won't tell you how I had to take the one piece selected for the Platform Gallery Open textiles exhibition and decided to incorporate delivery of with an afternoon out with my Mum, but then delivered the wrong picture so had to go again today.

And I won't mention that I also, that very same morning, drove 20 miles North to Forton Services on the M6 near Lancaster to meet someone I had never met before, who had a spare key to the car of our friend in Aberystwyth, (who actually lives in Lancaster)because her car key had snapped off in the lock outside the Spar shop in the Welsh village. So we could take it to her at the funeral.
Oh. I just did.

Well if you've read this far I may as well burden you with the 'Google reader Syndrome'.

I spend hours 'catching up' on google reader, leaving comments on all my favourite blogs, so that 'unread items' is at '0'. I go to bed and when I look again in the morning its back up to 25, and if I leave it it gets up to 185.....
I can't cope!
Does anyone else suffer from the same syndrome?

I got this


from Genie's Art World. Thank you so much. I'll pass it on later.
I also discovered today that I have gone up to 83 on the Top Blogs by Crafters list.

Such a show off.
Sorry.
Also sorry about only having one prize in my giveaway. I feel bad.

Blog love and old jeans. EDITED.. LOOK AGAIN!

Charlotte at fancypicnic has made my week with her post about machine embroidery.
When I wrote the tutorial I didn't know if it would really help anyone but it seems it did. I'm so pleased.

Look what I got this evening from Daisie.
I am supposed to choose 7 other blogs to give it to but how can I? I love you all!
Thank you Daisie.
I've collected a list of 'Daisy ' blogs and called it 'The Daisy Chain'. We've got to stick together.

On the dressmaking front I got a full refund from the online shop where I bought the pattern. They were most apologetic. I have located a similar one in the Vogue Pattern book but its £13.50 so I have to think about it.
Meanwhile I will show you a dressmaking activity I engaged in some time ago for a 'Deconstruct/reconstruct' project in a Group I was in. I used my sons old jeans.
Its modelled by my friend Denise.
























While the eyes of the world are on the Beijing Birds nest ours are on the nest hanging from the clematis just inches from our front door. Our front 'vestibule' is now a 'hide' with stepladders so that we can view the 4 Goldfinch babies through the arched window above. There is much preening and fluttering and gaping beaks. I watched on Sunday as Mother and Father goldfinch visited at the same time with food. I can't swear to it but I think Mother fed two of the babes, then Father 're-filled' mother then mother fed the other two. Most of the time on Saturday Mother G sat and watched the rain . So did I.


I stand, at the top of a ladder looking through the fanlight, and here is the nest. Click on the picture to view the little sweeties..or should I say 'Tweeties'? There are 5 of them and they are just sitting up, all blinking at different times, and when a bus goes past they watch it...

Now for a grump.
What is it with FEET?
Every blog I look at these days has toes in it.
The first time I noticed toes was here where I thought they were very sweet, but now they're everywhere.
ENOUGH FEET!!!
I'm jealous. I have problems in the feet department. They work, I walk but thats about it.
You will never see my feet in Manolos.
Or a blog post.
Be grateful.