Space invaders

I didn't manage to get a good sharp picture of this before I sold it, so this will have to do. Its dyed silk velvet on a background of handmade silk paper, I lay the velvet on, cover it with sheer fabric, machine around it and cut the top of the chiffon away, then draw patterns with the machine.

I did the same with this.

These are not the 'Space Invaders' of the title but I suppose its an easy mistake to make. Right, thats the sewing over with, now for 2 horror stories, well, one horror and the other not too bad if you like mice.

The First Horror story.
The other night at half past midnight I was in the kitchen playing 'blogging' when I heard a teeny weeny little noise coming from somewhere. It was a regular noise which I can't spell, the nearest I can get is 'tchchchc tchchcch tchchchc'
I called in my Husband but, as you probably remember from the end of this post his hearing is not the best and he said I was imagining it.
But no, there it was, 'tchchch tchchc thchch' and it seemed to be coming from behind the cooker.
I got a torch.
I got a stepladder.
I climbed up and leaned over to peer behind the cooker.
BEHOLD!
A SLUG!
A yellow slug eating the yellow expanding foam we had put in the gaps to stop the slugs getting in. The builder who damproofed our kitchen left the holes on the inside wall and there are ornate Victorian airbricks on the outside wall.
Work it out.
(How much do you think it would cost to rip all the units out and replaster? I need more ETSY sales)
The 'tcchchc' sound coincided with it slimy little head moving from side to side.......I am distraught.
(But I must have bloomin good ears)
Please don't ask what happened next.

Interlude-A Summers day in Brinscall

The second not-quite-so-horror-and-a-little-bit-funny story

Another night at half past midnight when I was playing 'blogging' , our bad boy cat, Jools, came hurtling through the flap with four pink legs and a tail hanging from his mouth. I could see a definite wriggle so decided on a rescue mission. (Sometimes its just better not to)

I grabbed badboy by the scruff of the neck at which point he sank to the floor and dropped the dear little mouse which ran under him and was trapped with just his tail sticking out.

I held him down with both hands and shouted for my husband to come and grab the mouse. It took him ages but he eventually arrived , and made an unsuccessful grab for mousey, who shot off somewhere. We spent quite a few minutes looking under, behind, inside things, he'd just disappeared into thin air.

I had done a talk the night before and all the bags and boxes were in the hall so I assumed he had run in there.

H decided to make a cup of coffee, he filled the kettle, walked to the fridge, back to the kettle then next minute he was bending down squeezing his trouser leg like you squeeze a tube of ointment but instead of ointment it was a mouse, coming head first from the bottom of his trousers.

We couldn't catch it this time because we couldn't stop laughing.

Its under the kitchen units...somewhere.

Jools has lost interest.

I haven't.

Sometimes I'm ashamed of this blog. Other people write about deep things..philosophies, religion, family history, illness. Mine's just rodents and molluscs.

(By the way, does everyone know how to do machine embroidery? Would a post on tips and hints be of any use to anyone?)

Innocent but still slimy

Just a quick note as we are off to Birmingham to see The Art of the Stitch
The answer to the slug/beer problem?
Be generous.

I added more beer and the result is..well ..repulsive.
Unfortunately innocent lives may have been lost.
My dead of night garden prowling revealed that my seedlings are being eaten by teeny weeny grey slugs with voracious appetites, and a huge great SNAIL!
It doesn’t help that my cat tried his own slug repelling earlier in the day by relieving himself upon my baby plants.
I give up.

Some good news and some bad

The Man with the van arrived unannounced this morning and when I opened the front door he was bowing low in humble obsequience, presenting me with a pink box, inside which was my repaired laptop.


Actually he was just arranging his accoutrements on the doorstep..a big pile of papers to give me, a sort of calculator looking thingy for me to sign and he was wrestling with the cable ties on the sides of the crate. I got him some scissors and am now in re-possession of my laptop.

I am having to re-accustom myself to the appearance of the photos..they look a bit bleached out compared to their vibrant appearance on the monitor on the main PC. It makes such a difference and I wonder how you are viewing them?
Slightly worrying aspect to the repair..when I sent it off my laptop had a password. When it came back it didn’t. I have to hope the workshop was too busy for the repair man to rummage about in my personal files.


GARDEN NEWS
There are some extremely short stemmed big leaved nasturtiums poking their way out of the soil outside .
I’m so pleased.
I am having my usual battle with the bane of my life...slugs.
I heard that if you give them oats they eat them and then swell up and die, so I put several piles of oats outside, and in the morning the oats had gone but there were no bloated dead slugs anywhere.
I did it again the next day and went out at dead of night to see what was going on.
You know those pictures you see of African water holes with elephants, gazelles, wildebeest and zebras all around? Well that’s what it looked like, with every variety size shape and colour of slug feeding their slimy faces on oats.
I don’t know a good way to kill a slug so I went to bed and left them to it.

Last night I tried the beer trap. They are supposed to drink the beer and drown happy. Once more at dead of night I went out to see that everything was going to plan..more hundreds of slugs around the beer, even bigger fatter than the night before(must have been the oats) so I got the shovel and flipped a few more of them into the beer and went to bed feeling a bit guilty about hastening the demise of so many of Gods creatures.

I needn’t have worried. This morning ONE SLUG is floating in the beer. The others are all snoring fast asleep and full of beer and oats waiting for tonights treat.

There are no pictures today as the subject matter is just too repulsive.