Hetty here

She's been at it again in that room..this time she kept calling me to sit and have this thing fastened on..I wouldn't mind but she whipped it off me again when I'd just got it warm.

 Then it was the photos. 

Sit still...not that way..this way...

 just got warm again when she whips it off and tries another. 

I was so fed up I turned my back on her.

 Oh come on I said..enough's enough.

 I'll think about it.

 Alright then. 

Then she pinches them off me and says they're for someone else.

 Then there was the party. We had a great time. 

Here's a picture of us playing musical mats. See that fat black dog? I had the best fun walking round behind him with my nose stuck to his rear end. 

He had NO TAIL!

I don't think he noticed.

 The only bad bit was having to wear this lot again. Still we won third prize in the fancy dress.

 Don't you think I look angelic? 

That was Tuesday.

Look at me now! I feel like a turkey. I've had me  hair cut..there's nothing on me legs!

Its bloomin' freezing.

 And to top it all...she took the coat away and gave it to another dog.Missy.

 And she sent the other one to Betsy.

 Where's mine? 

Oh she didn't get a picture of that did she?

So here's me as an angel again. 

With short hair.

Brrrrrrr! 

Merry bloomin' Christmas.

Warning:May contain traces of dogs.

Many paws have passed through the pages of this blog in the three and a half years of its existence. 

When we began I had my lovely constant companion, Willow, and we shared many walks with you.

I was distraught when she died.

 Before Willow we had Daisy our first ever dog. Like Willow but with a black head. She was from the pre-digital era so I don't have any photographs on my Computer except  this one. Its not a success but it gives the idea and shows feline paws too.

And who could forgot Porky and Blodwen? We had them on various occasions.

 They baffled Willow with their size, she didn't baffle them, they were oblivious...to many things!

 Conveniently sink sized, and completely underwhelmed by great Art.

My son had a dog for a few years, the delightful Denny. Noisy and enthusiastic and very intelligent. She came to stay a few times causing the cats to run up impossibly high and unsuitable for climbing Leylandii trees next door.

Then we had a visit from Indie. She is a real treasure and so peaceful and gentle you could take her anywhere. So we did! Here she is cooling off in Bassenthwaite,after a visit to Woolfest.

Then we met Dylan, a little cutie being looked after by my friend, when we went away to the Lake district for my birthday last year.

Another one of Denise's charges came to us for a night,

Dexter.

When Willow died I thought I could never love another dog.

I didn't feel I could manage a pointer again and thought I'd just enjoy looking after other people's dogs.

Then a few weeks ago along came Missy.

When she went home after a week we missed her more than we had expected. 

We felt ready for a dog again.

So we made a few enquiries. 

and in two weeks and two days Hetty will be coming to live with us.

But Willow will always be there in the background to keep and eye on things.

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.

Woolly Weekend ahead

Well, the pictureless post sorts the sheep from the goats!
Thank you those who read and followed the links and enjoyed them and those who then commented.
I succumbed and actually bought something on ETSY! I am one of those annoying people at craft fairs who sells but keeps her hands in her pockets.
It was not always so but I am no longer earning a crust in the classroom so I have to be realistic.
I apply the same stingy attitude to etsy but I just HAD to have a Fellpainting. It hasn't arrived yet but I know a lot of you who visited the site will appreciate how excited I am.

I've had a lovely weekend of walkies with this little sweetie. My son-and-his-ex-girlfriends- shared-dog, Denny..named after Sandie Denny of Fairport Convention.



She doesn't sit still for long so its hard to get a good picture.
She is far cleverer than Willow was, far more obedient but still.....she isn't Willow who was beautiful but it has to be said, fairly thick. The Bimbo of the dog world.
When the above son was little he heard the word 'Bimbo' and asked me what it meant.
I said it usually applied to someone who was beautiful but not very clever.
He said 'Oh well you're not a bimbo because you're clever and you're.......er......er....'


I promised a photo of my goodies from Helen of Cocoa and Blankets. I'm sorry, I was so excited that its all blurred. Just look at these yummy things she sent me. Shimmering blurry colour!



I spent a couple of days on my sewing machine making some brooches to send to Woolfest.
I heard an annoying squeak so I decided to unscrew the flywheel to find out where it was squeaking.
How hard can it be?
Two hours later, having tried every combination of the three components I could imagine, I was on the phone to Bambers in Manchester with my screwdriver in my hand and my machine on its end while he talked me through re-assembling it.

Just in time to get more brooches made.


These are Woolfest Specific!
They are going on the International Feltmakers Association stand.



I wish I'd thought of it sooner.
Just imagine..

tops!
I Love EWE!
fleece!
card!
spin!
dye!
weave!
fibre!

B*******!

See you there Saturday?

Progress

Thank you for making me feel better about my felt. I knew you would! It just gave a me a bit of encouragement. I've done some more work on it, its coming on.
Maybe you were just being kind, but I am grateful anyway. (See Anonymous comment four posts ago)
This is why blogging is such fun.
I am sorry I've been neglecting blog reading. I am in a panic now because I have hundreds unread in Google reader but I must work on my exhibition pieces. Tempus, as usual is fugiting.
I have more to do to this.


But my back is killing me. I've been making felt all day.
I'm such an untidy worker.
The sherry bottle is just to bang the corners of the felt into shape. Honest. And the crumbs..well I have no excuses...

I've made a bag and straps and loads of prefelts.
I need a horse

But all I've got is this bag of bones who isn't in the least bit interested and wouldn't even know which way she was going if I tied my felt to her.

I should have utilised a recent opportunity and harnessed the roller to Denny, my son's dog.
You see, I did get a visit on Mothers' Day after all.
Denny is a human dynamo. Well she's not human but you know what I mean.(She's the one on the left, my lovely boy is on the right!)
She would have dragged enough felt for a whole row of yurts round our garden in no time at all.

And shouted a lot while she was doing it.

Now I must point you to two other blogs.
One is a post in Mousenotebook which says a very useful thing.
Read it to find out.
The other is a very very funny blog. The blog of Bob T Bear Esq. There are so many posts to amuse, but I especially like this post which appeals to my 'schoolboy' sense of humour.

I put three 'Retro' brooches in my ETSY shop. Look at the link in my sidebar.
Pinks greens and blue.
Lovely spring colours to go with the wonderful weather.

And finally...a question.
Does my blog background look grey or white to you?
I am looking at it on the main PC and its pale grey, which I chose, but on my laptop it looks white.
I wonder why.

Not for the squeamish.

Other bloggers have parcels through the post containing wonderful colourful treasures.
Here's what I received on Saturday.

This note and two very large disposable nappies from my friend who works in a school for children with severe learning difficulties.

Don't worry they're not for me...but for this old girl.
I have been at my wits end with a bedwetting dog.

I tried a 'Pampers' with a strategically placed hole for her tail but she wagged it off.

The larger version in the parcel was a great success..one wet nappy, one dry bed, one very confused dog.

Are you horrified?

Yesterday we took her to the vets and discovered she has severe osteo arthritis in her spine which is causing the other problem so she was prescribed painkillers.

We paid extra for the palatable variety.

Unfortunately she doesn't find them so.

I got one out of the bottle and put it on the table, went to fetch Willow and when I got back the cat had eaten it.

It was the size of a Scrabble tile.

I won't describe the consequences.

Now for something nice.

Quite some time ago I visited one of my favourite blogs and found I had won a giveaway.

I didn't take a very good picture of it so click that link to see it.

That was a lovely surprise and I wanted to say a public thank you to Caroline Inckle who's artwork I really enjoy, especially her embroideries.

They have a magical and enchanting quality and reflect the mysterious northern land she lives in.

They give me the same kind of feeling I had when I first read 'Moominland Midwinter'.
Just have a look through these posts.

Thank you for all the really lovely comments you have been leaving.

I've sold one of my silver cuffs three times over.

Embroidery next post.

(Green.)

Mathematics

Small dogs + deep mud + walk =


Dog sitting again. They are a real pleasure.


(Owing to lovely comments, miserableness has been deleted here! Thanks)
Kim of oakmoon left me a lovely comment and gave me this.

Thank you Kim it cheered me up a lot and I must think about passing it on.
There are so many really lovely blogs out there and I am going to choose a couple .

Here are blogs that I find very entertaining and lovely to look at, so I invite them to receive the award.

Beading at the Beach is full of colour and lovely projects,
and if you want to dream of a rural idyll in the USA with exquisite miniature patchwork, look no further than The Shady Grove
I am being very throrough with this award and I am also going to add Margarets blog because I think it looks so beautiful and its quite new so I think she's done very well!
The award also goes to Viv who is a dear and supportive friend and her Hens Teeth is full of gorgeous and unique embroidery.
Sesga has a beautiful blog with lots of cute dolls, both human and handmade! She has probably already has this but I am awrding it to her anyway.
And finally I choose Charlotte from Fancy Picnic. She's having a break at the moment but will be back.
I think I have to choose 6. These awards go round and round and there are so many deserving blogs its difficult to choose. Its worth it because it keeps us all looking at each other for support and inspiration and friendship.