Felting

I've been experimenting with needle felting again. I still find it a tad slow, but I've made a bear, and there is another in the pipeline.
I say a bear...but , well, don't you think he looks a bit canine?


I will post links to needle felting websites if anyone fancies looking more into this..it is pretty satisfying - I especially like when the item gets to the "crunchy" stage...it feels very rewarding. And I am even getting better at avoiding stabbing my fingers....
But it's almost 1 am and bed calls. Middle aged women need all the beauty sleep they can get!

Clear out!

Well....not exactly!
For several years now, my daughters have housed, in their bedroom, some of my fabric stash.
Some? 9 boxes??? OK, I admit, I'm a hoarder.
Now, some of this fabric - OK, most of it - was bought over 20 years ago.......
I used to be a sales rep, and in most of the towns I visited, there were shops selling ends of rolls, last season's fabrics, fents, seconds....hey! this was in Lancashire, home of the cotton industry!
Sadly ,now, very few stores sell fabrics, and specialist fabric shops seem to be a thing of the past. I'm talking dressmaking type fabrics now, not curtains or patchwork fabrics.
ANYHOW.....check out this lot...

Each piece is a minimum of 3 yards in length, and there are over 25 lengths there!
The 2 pieces you might be able to see with white labels on were half price Viyella fabric at nearly £18 each (at half price...what was I thinking of!!)....
The shop I got them from (Gordon Thoday) in Cheltenham, has long since gone the way of all those specialsit shops....so I am told. I moved up North over 30 years ago, and so visits down to relatives would have been the only channce to indulge this compulsion to buy....so these pieces may even be close on 30 years old!!!


The aim is to check the length (and condition ! - I have a gorgeous 4 yard length of purple wool...and I know it's wool, as the moths have enjoyed a snack) of each piece and hopefully might be able to Ebay some...

I wonder why I bought all these lengths of lining ?....it has to be that dread phrase..."It was a BARGAIN!"..

Growing up

Don't you feel old when your youngest child leaves high school??!
Katy had her prom last weekend, and although I am bound to be prejudiced....I thought she looked lovely! It was worth the hour (and more!) it took me to do her hair.
It's not been easy being a twin, with a severely autistic brother, but she has been amazing and I am SO proud of her.

James attends a residential school - coming home during half terms and holidays - and he is blossoming there, gaining daily in self esteem, and starting to cope much better with life. He will always need one to one support, but we are confident that he will achieve his full potential.


















Neil has just completed his first year at St. Chad's College (University of Durham ) where he is reading Maths.











Jenny has just completed her AS levels at Aquinas 6th Form College.
We are off to Canterbury (Kent) tomorrow to go to the open day at the University there - she is hoping to start there after A levels.

Am I a proud Mum? You bet!!!! 4 wonderful kids who are great company to be with....what could be better?!!

One and a bit completed creations

OK, so it won't set the world on fire, but I've FINISHED a bear!
She was made as a belated birthday gift for a dear friend who always wanted to be choir leader.
So what better bear to make?
The birthday had come and gone unbeknownst to me (she is a new friend, but it's like we are twins...)...so in the need for speed I admit to cutting corners.
SO... I omitted paw pads on the arms.
I used a head I had already made (no ears though....).
and because i couldn't find the piece of material I used for the head (I save all my tiny pieces, which works well - until one needs to re-find a piece) ..I used Ultrasuede for the ears.
The medal was a tiny jewellery finding I had in my stash.

The head is jointed using the traditional cotter pin joint, and the limbs are jointed using small quilting buttons.


Isn't it just so annoying when you look at photos you take and see things you missed when you just looked with you eyes ....I see a sneaky bit of the stuffing sneaking out through an arm...and I am sure I could have sewn the "medal" on more invisibly...but in my usual inimitable way (*grin*) I was finishing this at the last minute..

This will give an indication of the size of the bear...(and of the state of my hands!!)


As I said, she won't set the world on fire, but she makes me smile (you can see, if you look closely, that she is grinning - I try to have all my bears with a smile!), and it does feel good to actually FINISH something!

I may EVEN finish something else this week (wow!!)...
I've been doing a sampler beaded art doll on one of my Yahoo groups - Beaded Art Dolls.
This has been a HUGE learning curve - not least in discovering that maybe I am not cut out to be a beader!!
This was my initial idea...

Then I did the face - in size 15 TINY beads!!! And strangely, I discovered that, although I was dreading this part, I actually quite enjoyed the exercise! My colour choice was a bit odd though...*grin*

Each "stripe" is a different technique for adding beads...
One at a time; small on large; "moss" stitch, small tubular beads (? the brain has gone...!!!..BUGLE BEADS !! blame it on my age!!) with a seed bead at each end ..
Then there is cross stitch, and the bottom one will be back stitch, 5 beads at a time.
I'm enjoying being taken outside my "comfort zone", but I will never abandon the bears!!