Category Archives: Textiles

This category groups posts around my interest in textiles and textile design

A Pick’n’Mix Handmade Monday…

Hello, Good Morning and Happy Monday! I hope the sun is shining where you are. It’s a perfect Autumnal morning here, bright low sun, and frostiness. The weekend’s strong winds have subsided, and now the last few leaves have been whipped off the cherry trees, the sun can stream in through the french doors unhindered.

I must admit to being very, very tired! There are times when the only way to have a bit of fun and life is to ignore all the ‘management’ advice about M.E., go for it, and pick up the pieces afterwards, which may take a while…

However, enough of all that…

Would you like to see some pictures? I’ve got lots, but I’ll try not to go over the top! If you want to find out more about any of the lovelies that you see, click on Pick ‘n’ Mix Makers Market in the side bar for the details.

My stall will look very familiar since I’ve featured most of my makes on here at some time…

But here are some of the rest…

We were next door to a lady selling beautiful glass pieces, but can you see who is modelling in the background?

…and I discovered she too was a member of the Dachshund fan club, and I met Monty!

Always a popular theme!

I suffered some serious yarn love looking at these…

…aren’t they gorgeous? I wish I suited a hat!

I did buy some lovely raspberry yarn from High Fibre, which I will show you when I have knitted it up, and some jolly Christmas cards from Gabriella, whose whole stall was an explosion of Jolliness!

(and where you will also find dachshunds!)

If you want to see the whole thing from another angle, pop over to Purple Podded Peas where Celia Hart has posted the day from her perspective…

The only new make I have to show you is the Robin brooch. I made one for Kit and one for me to show where we belonged…

but if I’d made lots I think I would have sold them! I sold all the robin baubles very quickly, I think that thanks to the Kirsty Allsop effect, everyone wants a needlefelted robin this Christmas!

(and that gorgeous necklace is a Silver Pebble creation, created for Kit from the contents of her granny’s button box!)

I had enquiries about the robin baubles before the weekend and will be making more for Folksy but if you’d like some you’d better let me know…

I must stop chatting, I have two men in the garden erecting scaffolding and I’m on tea duty. Do visit Wendy over on 1st Unique Gifts to find the Linky to all the other participants of Handmade Monday.

See you soon…x

Needlefelted Robins for Handmade Monday

It’s the final run down to the Pick’n’Mix Maker’s Market in the lovely market town of Holt, Norfolk on the 26th November which is NEXT WEEKEND!!! (Aaaah! Speak severely to self….’Calm down, dear!’)

Actually I am looking forward to it, panic aside, because I will see so many friends, especially Emma of Silver Pebble, Celia of Purple Podded Peas, Gabriella of Moobaacluck, Tracey and Craig of Faded Splendour, and the hostess with the mostess, Lisa of Bobobun. And there will be Daisy Boo’s Kitchen…and CAKE…and lots of other lovely stalls!

So as, much to my delight, my little Carol Singing Mice sold almost immediately I have made another group, and they are just waiting to collect their song sheets and bell…

…and I have been making more needlefelted robins, this time to hang on the Christmas tree…

Despite my efforts to remained focussed I did get somewhat side tracked by discovering the delights of the ‘hexipuff’. It came at me from two different directions, firstly in Vanessa’s post on ‘Do You Mind If I Knit’, and then on the UKHandmade website. Isn’t this pretty?

Such a brilliant way of using leftover sock yarn! These are my first efforts…

…and the lovely thing is that UK Handmade are collecting donated hexipuffs to make a quilt to raise funds for charity, and you can find out all about it here.

I think I qualify to enter Handmade Monday this week! If you drop over to Wendy’s Blog on 1st Unique Gifts you’ll find plenty more to see.

See you soon! x

Mid November Cheerfulness

What do you think of that for an Autumnal photo? Albertine usually only does her stuff, very spectacularly, for three weeks in June! She’s a little confused!

It’s been a little hectic this week, and again I’ve had moments of ‘Humph, what is there to be cheerful about?’ but it’s always there when you look for it.

We had a bit of worry over my mum. She struggles heroically with all sorts of health issues and keeps amazingly positive but this week new pills rendered her a bit more wobbly than usual and for the first time she had to use her alarm necklace and we had a call to rescue her. She’s less than a mile away so we were there within minutes to find that she had gently capsized rather than fallen, and had only damaged her dignity. It was so fortunate that Tim was home though as I could never have got her off the floor single handedly and probably would have had to call the emergency services. Knowing my mum, she’d have said, ‘Ooh, lovely, firemen!’

So for a couple of days I’ve been going round every couple of hours but now the doctor has been and the pills sorted out we are back to normal for the moment. Such a worry though.

Any way, The sun’s been shining through the last remaining cherry leaves this morning…

I think over the next week the rest of the leaves will be down, but there’s been a lovely sparkly carpet for a small dog to rush about on!…

If you look in the top left hand corner of the first Higgins photo you’ll see my Drummer Boy rose which is still blooming too…

I rescued it from the ‘Nearly Dead’ bin at the local garden centre some years ago and it has been gratefully flowering every year since! And talking of buying plants, I was very happy to find hyacinths to buy at the Farmers Market last Saturday.

You might remember last winter I had these…

…and now I have these to look forward too…

This morning Selvedge arrived…

Which has gone into the pile with Country Living…

…and Country Homes and Interiors…

…to be read, sometime, when I’m not wielding a a red hot felting needle!

Which reminds me. Thank you for all the suggestions which were made about listing the Felty Balloons on Folksy. I’ve taken them all on board, but I think I will wait now until after the Pick’n’Mix Market which is in 10 days time. It would be rather lovely if I don’t have any left to list, wouldn’t it? We’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the studio with express intention of have a good tidy up, walked in, spotted a particular piece of fleece, had a brainwave and ended up needlefelting again! But it was very productive, because I made this little chap…

I thought if he had a couple of brothers, they could go carol singing, and here they are! This one has the music…

…this one rings the bell…

…and this one knows all the words!

They are quite wee, just over 2″ tall, and look SO cute on the mantlepiece. However, I will be sensible, and they ARE for sale! (Ed. to add: and were sold, the very next day! Another reason to be cheerful!)

I hope that you too have found some ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ even if you felt it’s been a tricky week so far. And I hope too that you’ll be able to join in with the ‘Linky’ so that we can spread a little happiness about. I’ve really enjoyed popping off to other blogs, and sharing the cheerfulness. I’ve decided to start the Linky slightly earlier, Wednesday afternoon rather than Thursday morning to give as much time as possible for people to find it and join in and so here it is!

See you soon xx

Silent Sunday

Bringing the Rainbow Home…

Hello, and Happy Monday! And it’s Handmade Monday too, so lots of lovely links on the Ist Uniques Gifts blog to follow to see what other crafty things are going on.

I’ve just about recovered from our long day on Friday, which ended up with a Chinese takeaway at 9pm! I’m so glad we had a nice coach driver to get us there and back too, or I might have been found still in the hall on packing up day, asleep round the back of a stall on a pile of wool…

So much to see at the Knitting and Stitching Show, I did try to focus on the knitting, crochet and yarn, and not be distracted by embroidery, cross-stitch, dyeing, machining, fabrics, jewellery and…and…!

It was actually quite hard to photograph. Not everyone was happy with photos being taken, and a lot of the time it was hard to get past the crowds, but here is a flavour…

The venue, Alexandra Palace, has an interesting history and a wonderful view of London…

…and inside…

There were exhibitions too…

…I think this might give Higgins a fright!

I found Sasha Kagan and a blast from the past, I remember my mother knitting this one in the eighties…

I could have spent a fortune, so many beautiful yarns, but at least I could gather up cards for contacts and websites so I can browse online. I was very happy to find this company…

because they have a fabulous shade card…

It was lovely to find Sarah at Blooming Felt, I did spend a bit there ….umm…

There were big jars full of little felt balls like a sweetie shop, SO pretty!

Fell for these gorgeous buttons…

…and some bobbly blue yarn..

…and then I found something completely different, but it was just my colours…

I know. You’re looking and thinking, but there’s black, and orange, those aren’t Planet Penny colours.

But look…

…and watch this…

…and now I have a rainbow ball to hang from the ceiling to add a little happiness to the forth coming winter gloom…

So after that paper folding episode, I’d better get back to business, and my crochet rainbow…

Tonight’s the night for the Naming of the Cow, and the draw so do call back in a couple of days and find out what went on!

See you then x

Flapping About!

Hello, Hello, I’m home and doing what I always do, too many photos, so much to say don’t know where to start…..flap, flap, run round in circles…….

BREATHE……….

…..and out….

Phew, that’s better….

We had a wonderful few days away in East Sussex, the weather was fab, we had time with the family and Higgins is still trying to catch up with his sleep! He had boys to look after, and he couldn’t possibly do his usual napping in a sunshiney place in case something good happened and he missed it. Also, he had a Very Important Job to do as an Artist’s Model, and he kept forgetting which was his best side…and if you’d like to see all the sides, you’ll find them here…

Until very recently Sussex and Kent were counties I travelled through on the way to the ferry, and I just got tantalising glimpses of interesting places in the mad dash to the port. It’s been lovely to have a reason to visit and explore, and you can catch up on some of the places we’ve been in these posts.

We visited Hastings Old Town on the first morning where the locals are fairly laid back…

…or a little scary…

…but the shops were very pretty…

…and they had the flags out for us…

well, I say flags…

of course not all of us are really into shopping…

I’m not going to gallop through everything in one session, we’ll all lose the will to live – so the trip to Dungeness will be in the next post!

I did manage to get the knitting out, and I’ve finished the birthday socks…

…and I’ve been experimenting with the lovely cuddly yarn I showed you before to make a sort of cosy collar.

It’s like a scarf without trailing ends. I’ve knitted it on circular needles and it’s just five rows of knit and five rows purl to give the ridged effect. I didn’t use all the yarn, I was being impatient, so I’m going to put it back on the needles to make it longer as the ridges make it scrunch up quite a lot. I’m going to experiment some more as I think it would be great with more stitches so it can be looped twice round the neck, or just adding an extra ball of wool so it’s long enough to pull up like a hood. I’ve a feeling I shall be fighting my daughter for this one!

Once again I’m linking this to the lovely Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts and Handmade Monday. Do go over and say hello and find all the links to other crafty blogs.

I’m being particularly ‘handmade’ this Monday too. I was very excited last week to find out I have been selected to take part in the UK Handmade Showcase, in the ‘Wonders of Wool’.

Have a lovely week, I’ll be back very soon…x