Another order-done

 The last few days have been spent fulfilling another order, not S.O.R this time.
I'd already made the Tweed Things the gallery wanted, and just had to spend a few days making silk Hearts, to go with some cuffs, so I thought I'd share them.

I had an annoying moment when I realised I'd spent ages on two gold ones and there was an obvious flaw in the fabric, so the above is one replacement, I replaced the other with a blue one.

These reds are my favourites but don't photograph well.

I think I like the one on the right with the navy stitching best.

There have to be silver ones too. Now, I've over cleverly edited this picture with the iphoto 'enhance' tool, and I don't think it does....enhance them I mean. They look a bit weary.

Speaking of silver and gold,

look at the sky we followed home from Haworth last Sunday.

We just had to stop and enjoy the sunset.

Now I am left with a sewing room like a tip after having to change boxes for posting my goods . 

The only one I could find had 'other stuff' in it.

What a mess!

I am going to tidy up and then have fun with felt.

Watch this space.

Smoothies

Another day another order filled. Unfortunately 'SOR' this time. For the uninitiated this means Sale or Return.
This can be slightly unsatisfactory because they may not 'S' and have to be 'R'd, sometimes, in no fit state to be 'S'd anywhere else. Of course the money doesn't arrive until many weeks later and often you lose track of whats still around.
In fact I visited one gallery recently where my work is for sale, and admired a mirror with a frame made from silk and velvet, and I thought 'I wonder who made that'.
Yes you've guessed..I did.
They'd had it so long I'd forgotten even making it.
However , the Galleries are very high profile and its good to have a presence, so I defer financial gratification.
I made some slightly more symmetrical Paisley type brooches in my usual colours; here are the greys,

and do you remember the meaty coloured felt?

It makes a nice background.

and green,

and a bit of self indulgent pink

and purply pink.

I was aiming to make 20 and just had one to do . I started one in orange and stitched all around the velvet, and suddenly looked and asked myself what it would be like if I decided not to put the frilly edges on.

Instead I did a bit more stitching in matching threads.

I was hooked. 

I think they have an early 60s look. The kind of things you got in books about lino printing, or illustrations of fruits.

The smooth edges are so pleasing to trim away and the little bits of felt left showing are a delight to stitch on.

I should call these 'The First of Many'.

I'm not sorry they are not Pumpkins.

Whats going on in the UK this year with Halloween?

Its like Christmas..the shops are full of scary stuff and even little shops have Halloween displays. 

I don't think I like it. Bonfire night was always my Autumn festival of choice. 

Very British. 

I love reading blogs from all over the world and the cultural and national differences are what makes them fascinating. 

It seems a pity to homogenise all the traditions by aping culture from across the pond.

I've also noticed American terms terms being used by UK bloggers.

'Stopping by' and 'gotten' for example.  Nothing at all wrong with them but somehow eroding the differences.

I agree with Ursula's comment below that language isn't static .

I love that I have contact with many delightful Americans, but I'm sure they -you - like the differences too.

Listen to me...grumping. Its not really important in the grand scheme..just a little niggle. Hope it doesn't cause offence..none intended.

Don't get me going on the misuse of language..'one fowl swoop' and 'heart wrenching' to name but two of my pet hates.

In other developments...I have applied to do three craft fairs, one outside at night on 3rd December, one the day after inside, and one on 18th December inside again.

The second one,Vintage and Handmade, has asked on the application form, for any details of innovative and unusual ways of displaying one's wares.

Short of lying on the table draped only in  back copies of the Womens Weekly and placing my brooches strategically, inviting possible purchasers to mind where they stick the pins when they put them back, I have no ideas.

Pastures New

There's no tweed at all in this post. First a comment on comments...so many..over 60 for the last post I can't believe it. Thank you. Its very encouraging. I hope most have received a reply, I tried.

All the tweed has been sent to the Isle of Harris at great and unnecessary expense. 

The post office lady misinformed me and I ended up paying about two and a half times what it should have cost. When I discovered this I complained, and the 'Postmistress' in charge gave me a complete refund. The parcel has not arrived yet though after three working days on the road....rather worrying .

UPDATE:I checked on the track and trace website and its says 'delivered'.

Phew.

I've had a change from Tweed and made a long feathery leafy thing..I apologise for the rubbishy background. I've been trying to edit it in PSE but a monkey could do better so you'll just have to mentally edit out the stitch marks in the canvas.

 I've been thinking about this idea for a while. What do you think?  Altogether different when its rolled.

 I don't know if I like such a large amount of velvet all down the centre.

 The fastening is velcro and not right at the end so I have added another velcro spot to sort of latch on to the surface of the felt where it overlaps. The felt is a mixture of colours with just one area of blue, and the velvet is deee-lic-ious pinky purply ness.

The stitching is in aqua shades.

I wrapped it round my own wrist to try to illustrate the point but I'd need a lot more than an erase tool to get rid of the wrinkles so I spared you that sight.

So there it is.

We have had the most amazing weather here lately, as have many bloggers, so I'm just going to add to the feast of berries and leaves and blue sky around the web.

These are viburnum berries and have such a waxy unreal surface they look almost luminous with the sun on them.  Is the word 'dayglo' still in use?

It was difficult to focus in the brilliant sunshine but I still like the pictures. They almost make up for the grey skies in the Summer.

I should be very grateful for any sky at all. I am just trying to imagine what it must have been like for those miners in Chile during their time under the earth. 

We stayed up late to watch the wonderful scenes as they started to come up to the surface. Well, I went to bed but found I was still alone at 4am so went down to find my son and husband watching TV and well...I watched with them. Its a good job we can choose our own working hours, I didn't get much made today.

But its so good to see them as they arrive on the surface isn't it?

In the middle of all this positive emotion, I received a call to say that a friend of ours, who we haven't seen for quite a while, had been killed in a motorcycle accident last Sunday. 

I have mixed feelings about mentioning it as I don't really think comments of sympathy for me are appropriate, so I would appreciate it if it does not become the focus of this post.

 I only make mention of this here to mark his passing which has shaken all of us.  

My thoughts are with his wife and daughters as they try to come to terms with the sudden loss. 

He was a gentle and unassuming chap always with a ready smile. He was not young, but at 60 neither was he old and should have had many years of life ahead.

Finally, someone else has been enjoying the great outdoors.

He came in with guilt written all over his face..literally. A big dangling feather stuck to the top end of one of his whiskers was dangling down over his face.

Can you see it in front of the printer?

When he started to wash his wicked face, we saw that there were other feathers stuck to his toes.

What can't speak can't lie.

He is a very bad boy indeed.

I am not speaking to him.

Order Complete

Finally the 'Big Order' is finished so I'm afraid this is going to be a showing off post..well, I'll show what I've made and lovely readers can draw your own conclusions as to whether I'm showing off or not. I apologise for showing some of the stuff I had in the last post but I really enjoy having a huge pile of stuff made ready to send on.

So to recap..the Tweed Weaver on Harris asked me to supply her with 10 of everything I showed her.

So above there are three lots of 10.

Then there are 10 cuffs, the pictures are suffering from ..wait for it...too much sun! Yes! The back of the house was dark so I went to the room at the front and the sun was blindingly brilliant.

10 little purses cunningly constructed to hold an iphone 4 or 3gs.

Here's a detail I couldn't resist, showing the velvet/silk/Harris Tweed combination. This is what gives me the pleasure, and the drive to continue. Its the surprisingness ( is that a word?) of the results that delights me. 

A different combination of colours gives  a totally different feel.

Now, what do you think these are? I don't even know, but found that I had some large pins and had to make some either extra large if you dare shawl pins, or mini wallhangings.

Its good to sort them into groups of the same colour too.

I had such a good time doing these.

Thank you for the encouragement I had after my last moan. Every single comment is read with care and gratitude and I apologise if I didn't reply to those 'no reply-ers' among you.

I am excited again about future projects, but have a few more orders to fulfil before that and a possible Christmas Market.

A day out in beautiful Mid Wales,cheered me up no end yesterday. My husband went to Powis Castle for work and left me in Montgomery, a lovely little town. I  visited a lovely Crafts Gallery, a vintage and  crafts shop, and the best Hardware shop I've been to in a long time, Bunners.

A lovely drive via Dolgellau  and a walk on Barmouth Beach  walked off the lunchtime cake,

followed by a meal in Gales of Llangollen on the way home.

Its a great place but I have to confess to feeling a bit queasy when I remember the huge half a beef tomato and equally huge mushroom both of which I ate first to get them out of the way.

I hate warm tomatoes.

It makes me think of 8 portions of boiled fish swimming in liquid in a metal tray each with a warmed half tomato on it . Convent School Dinners circa 1965.

I think I'll ask for the salad next time.

Mediocre

 Has it really been 10 days since I posted?
Yes I suppose it must be.
News in brief: Blodwyn has gone home.
                       Car cylinder head gasket blew in the midst of an immense traffic jam.
                       I had my hair cut.
                       It was Ed and not David.
                       I didn't lose any weight.
                       I created my first Etsy treasury
                       The sun came out twice.

On one of the sunny occasions I was out walking,  along this path past the perfect tree.

 I'm sure someone will hack at it soon, being where I live. Probably they'll think it untidy hanging over the fence like that.

And of course...I've been sewing Harris Tweed for the big order.

Brooches with bound edges and a bit of handstitching with beads.

Round

and some rectangular not many of which have made it into the photographs, the weather has been so bad on the days when the sun didn't come out, too dull to take pictures.

Then onto the hearts which I really enjoy.

Its just a pity they take so long.

The  investment of time is not reflected in the financial returns.

And having seen pictures of the superb work in 'Origin', I really wonder why I bother.

Tweed Ecstasy

The tip of the tweed iceberg that has to be made fairly soon.

Well, you may know that I luuuurve Harris Tweed.

 I love the speckledy yarns and the beeee-oooo-teee-ful combinations of colours.

But best of all I love to choose  bits of velvet to go with those colours.

 I dyed some greys when I had my mammoth dyeing day and they are perfect to compliment these tweeds.

You can't go wrong with aqua and amber,

or amber and ochre and olive....ooohhhh loving all these colour names!

Then there's the blues ...

the royal in the middle is much richer-than-the-picher...er....Picture.

I bought this olive and royal tweed from the shed at Tarbert and as I was buying it I could just see it with olive velvet.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum..more grey and ochre....

.....some brights.....

...........some brighters........

and pinks, which don't photograph well at all and thats a shame because they are gorgeous.

65 Harris Tweed Brooches.

Only another eleventy gazillion to make!

And finally a gratuitous picture of Blodwyn who has gone home.

I have learnt from the previous post, putting a little dog on the blog gets me lots of comments.

 Thank you so much for them.

If she gets that many comments with a coat on, lets see how many she gets...

...naked.