Bags of work.

This afternoon I was a bit fed up and wondering why I bother making stuff, and then I had a session with a new colour combination of felt and velvet and realised why.

Its quite hard when you need to make volumes of stuff.
'The Great Christmas Fair push ' is on.
Slightly soul-destroying at times especially when you are trying to fit it in with hospital visiting neighbours, now thankfully back home.
It seems an age since I made these bags.
Harris Tweed.
I have to confess that the design isn't my own, it was from a bag Helen asked me to copy, but the interpretation is.
So hanging on my scruffy pin board we have a rather blurry bag.


I just decorate the band on the front so its a bit like making a cuff..

As you know I am a fervent admirer of Harris Tweed.

All I do is add a little strip of silk perhaps and some velvet.

The Tweed speaks for itself.


I enjoy accessorizing the colours to match,



and change the direction where appropriate.
This is a more modern tweed,



and this one is a traditional dog tooth.


I had fun deciding which colour to focus on in this 'plaid'

so I picked out the turquoise.

Finally here is a 'brown tweed'


It looks plain...


but take a closer look.


Since the bags I've made 15 round Harris Tweed brooches, 12 silk cuffs, 20 silk heart brooches and started some felt brooches.
I really must focus on the felt brooches.
Look what Lynsey sent me from a magazine called Craft and Design


An add for SPARKLE featuring yours truly.

I have been looking at some of the competition other exhibitors and am a bit worried.
Lots of beautiful pale blue and chintz dream purses and handbags. (With extra vintage buttons)and Karens beautiful pristine creations.
Mine all looks a bit homespun.

Thank you for all your votes. I am a bit ahead at the moment but there's a close follower behind me...

Calm

Thank you for responding to my tantrums and voting for my blog. I don't know whether to keep on 'thscweaming' until the end of the month, or be satisfied with the considerable number of votes I already have.
I'll leave it with you.
There are other blogs catching up.
The link for voting is above .

Now..I wrote the previous post before I went away and had it scheduled to appear on the first of November.
We had a very welcome escape to Northumberland, where my Goddaughter was getting married last Friday.
We stayed 36 miles away from Newcastle. A journey of about 40 minutes to the church.
However, it took one and a half hours so we were a bit late.
(It was the Friday of the Autumn half term week almost exactly a year on from this post in which, among other things, we were stuck in a traffic jam on our way to something important.)
We asked directions of a man coming out of a pub with an Alsation dog.
He answered
'Yer gan doon heeya and torn reyt then torn reyt again at the leyts and ye cannamissit.'
(Apologies to Geordies reading this)
We didn't believe him, but he was reyt. Correct.


On Saturday we rested, walked, and forgot our cares.


Taking time to look closely at the tiny things,


as well as feeling the warmth of the sunshine,

listening to the waves,

tasting the spray


and smelling the beautiful fresh sea air.

(If you click the above picture you will be able to smell the sea too. I'm sure.)
Of course we ate a lot too.
The breakfast speciality was smoked haddock and poached eggs. It was the creamiest most delicious smoked haddock ever.

Sunday's weather was another story so we went to Alnwick (pronounced Annick in case you didn't know) and to the old railway station which houses a huge secondhand bookshop.
There were roaring fires and old sofas, tea and books..lots and lots of books.
A toy electric train chugged around the tops of the shelves, which were joined by wooden bars painted with quotations from appropriate books.


The above is from the Song of Solomon, very appropriate in the Religion section.
Also pertinent as it was one of the readings at the wedding.

EDIT: Junorth posted the exact same picture on the same day..what a coincidence.
And I forgot to tell you that this bookshop is the place where That poster originated. It was found in a box of books there years ago and because I forgot, its funny I called this post 'Calm'.

It was pouring down outside...

The roof of this old building leaked...



We couldn't get into the town of Alnwick due to very deep water in the road.
We had a long journey ahead.




We had a small glimpse of the Angel of the North as we said goodbye to Newcastle.


Since I returned I've been chasing time to sit and sew.
(Haven't even unpacked my case yet.)
I have managed to make some bags which I'll show next post.
Byee.

I'll sthcweam and sthcweam until I'm sthick

Once, long ago, there was a little girl, who was usually a very good little girl.



One day her mother took her on a long journey to visit her Aunties who lived near a place called 'The Arboretum' , a beautiful magical garden with a lot of trees and a silver lake.
At the edge of that lake were rowing boats.
Now, as soon as that good little girl saw those boats she wanted to get into one with her Aunties and go out onto the lake.
But her Aunties did not want to get in a boat.
Not at all.
But that usually good little girl made such a lot of moaning and misery-ing that eventually her Mother and the Aunties hired a rowing boat and they all got in.
Sadly, her mother and the Aunties were not very good at rowing.
The boat rocked and rolled and they were out in the middle of the lake and the little girl was afraid that the boat would tip up and that they would all end up in the water.
But all the Aunties and her mother could do was shriek with laughter.
So do you know what she did?
She moaned and cried and made such a fuss that they had to row back to shore and get out of the boat which had once seemed such a good idea.

Now that little girl grew up (and learned to swim) and computers were invented and she started to write a blog.
She tried very hard to please everyone because whatever she did she tried to do it the best she could.
One day her blogging took her to a place where she saw there was a thing called
'The Dorset Cereals Great Little Blog Award'
and she wanted to get on that boat.
(She loved Dorset Cereals and had three varieties in her cupboard.)



So she waited and waited until eventually one of her blog friends nominated her blog.
But nothing happened.
Then another friend e mailed her to say she had nominated her blog.
But still nothing happened.
Then a third person said she had nominated her.
Still nothing happened.
And then in desperation she nominated herself. (She is quite ashamed of that)
And all the time she saw, on almost every blog she read, that they had been nominated for the award.
So that once usually good little girl moaned and misery-ed and wondered what could be wrong with her blog?
She had to know.
So one evening after she had had a glass of wine she e-mailed Dorset Cereals and asked them why her blog hadn't been added to the list.
She told them she didn't want a 'pity nomination' but just wanted to know why?
Should she do more crochet? have more buttons? more baking?some bunting? another baby?(But really she was far too grown up for that last one)
So the kind lady at Dorset Cereals said it had been 'An Oversight' and that after all her blog is now on the list.
But the grown up little girl feels a bit sick now.
A bit like she did on that boat.
Will she be tipped into the water..will anyone actually vote?

Might she just be a bit too obsessive about her blog?



If you would like to help row her safely to shore, please click this picture and vote.

( You might win a prize.)

Compilation

My 'Box of Delights'* is ready for off ..actually its gone..to The Platform gallery for Mirrorball their Christmas show.
It took a while to get into the swing of creating things but I feel quite happy with the overall package.


I love piles of things, boxes of stuff, rather like folded quilts.

They are all peeping out trying to get you to look at them.


Clamouring for attention.
Allow me to introduce a few.
Its great to be re-acquainting myself with my stash of Harris Tweed. This time I've added some felt shapes. (You may have seen one of these before)

As usual I've found that Harris Tweed has hidden depths and a piece I dismissed previously, because it didn't match my idea of HT, is now the love of my life.
Just look at the colours here.

There's another colourway but I don't have much of any of it sadly.
Just enough for a little purse or two and some hearts and circle brooches.

The round brooches take longer to make than you would imagine.
I tried them with big beads.

I especially like the blue ones.


The Autumn sun provided the light for these pictures.

I was doubtful it would be bright enough but I think the glow is perfect.


There's always a bit of fluff where you don't want it though isn't there?



*Please excuse me for judging my own work to be delightful..I just like the turn of phrase

The Turning of the Year

Its that time of year again.

The time when I wish I had been driven to stitch other things than felt brooches a bit earlier in the year.
The time when I work to get a delivery for a local Gallery Christmas show.
But my 'silk muscle' has withered. Its taken me a while to get back into shape and some of these pieces, cuffs and brooches, are my limbering up exercises and not quite up to performance standard.


We have been under stress lately and its hard to be creative when you have a worry.
I go through well tried motions and the results are ..well.....neither here nor there.

While probably quite acceptable
I feel they lack the verve and spontaneity of earlier pieces .

It was very difficult to take decent photographs this week with such dull conditions and low sun.


There was one little strange I-don't-know-where-this-came-from piece.



I had just seen a TV programme about Madonna.


I would have made more things today, but I had to make three trips to the Hospital .
One to take an elderly neighbour, with his wife, for an appointment.
He had to be admitted so the second was to take his wife back with his necessary belongings and for a visit in the afternoon.
The third was because when I got home from the second I couldn't find my purse.
I drove back 5 miles to search the car park.
There was no sign of it.
I went inside and on my way to the main reception I just happened to pop into Outpatients where two receptionists were huddled over the computer screen trying to get in touch with me.
They had my purse.
I wish I could thank the man who had found it on the car park and handed it in.



There are good people out there.


(I do love our newly painted garage.
Ball Green and Clunch.
With red leaves.
Occasionally.)

On Hand stitch

As I work on struggling to regain my creativity and meet deadlines, I envy those who are able to sit and hand sew.
Please, don't misunderstand this..I love my tiny machined adventures in textile art, each one a new beginning and and as exciting to me as the one before. You just never know where the line will take you. Where the colour will take you or where the texture will take you.
But I cast my mind back to earlier days. Days when I earned my crust by other means..and a much bigger crust it was, but left me hungry for creativity.
In those days if I had the time, I could sew just for pleasure.


I still used the machine but the fun was in the rhythm of the needle.
And the sound. That sound..even on a machine. That' in and out' of the needle and the thread is magical, entrancing and addictive.
But best of all by hand.
You have probably seen these before but they illustrate my point. Th ephotographs are old and not great but you can enlarge them by clicking on them.


Machine sewn felt, in much the same way as I do my current work, finished with gorgeous Stef Francis hand dyed threads handstitched.

I made 15 for this screen.
Heads from Ancient Greek 'Attic' Vases.


These led on to other Faces.

Apologies for repeating this.
A while later I was working to a group theme of 'Arabian Nights'.
This was my Scheherazade.

Good in parts (but I hated the hair)
I learned lessons from this piece. Tiny pieces of chiffon and velvet held down by running stitch.
I discovered a technique which I promised myself I would return to.


I was reminded of this when I caught up with Spirit Cloth today.
Jude is the Doyenne of the hand stitch. She needs no introduction and reigns supreme in the realm of 'Slow cloth'.

Other lessons were learned.



Stored up for future use.
You learn something with every piece you make.

A Grand Day Out.

Preparation is all important.
The night before.
Tube map:tick

Make new bag:tick
Train schedule with all important reference number for retrieving tickets from worrying self service machine:tick
Credit card:tick
Tissues: Tick
Paracetamol:tick (EDIT: For Americans! Paracetamol=painkillers)
Comfy shoes:tick
Camera:tick
Phone: tick
Lipstick for meeting blogger friends: tick
Money:tick
Sandwich ingredients at the ready, and an early night with very little sleep and that which I had was filled with many bad dreams of not being able to input correct number on ticket machine at Preston station and friend getting fed up and going home.
At 5 am I jumped out of bed, showered and rushed down to make aforementioned sandwich. I had prepared the ingredients but forgot we had no bread other than a frozen unsliced loaf and some frozen rolls which I managed to saw in half.

We caught the Virgin train at 7am and two and a bit hours later we country mice arrived at Euston. We cleverly managed to get to Alexandra Palace, I must have had retained a little tube memory from my 6 years living in Twickenham, can it really be 40 years ago?



The Knitting and Stitching show, of course,was spectacular.


but by far the best bits of the day were when I met fellow bloggers, Gina, Gill, and their friend,Val, and Carol, and Lynda.
I was recognised by my bag by Sandy from Dangling by a thread.
What an absolute pleasure it was to get together and chat with my imaginary friends!



I'm sure there were a lot more bloggers there who I didn't get to meet.
My preparations had as you all know if you read the last post, included research into eating places.
For the sake of convenience we decided on Carluccio's on St Pancras Station. My friend cleverly realised we didn't need to change trains to get there from Wood Green and as it was only one station away from Euston it seemed the best option. The food was lovely especially the panna cotta.
We had a touristy photo taken with this gentleman..I am the one on his right who bears an uncanny physical resemblance. Dishevelled, portly, with a big square..... bag..I am glad I wore my scarf so you can distinguish between us.



Our return journey was first class so we could relax in the lounge at Euston, and if I hadn't eaten so much Italian I could have availed myself of allsorts of lovely stuff.

The day was a great acheivement for me.
Having become rather sedentary lately I was wondering if I could manage a whole day ..a very long day.. wandering around but I didn't feel tired at all.

I am so lucky to have a friend like the one I went with because we instinctively like the same things so enjoy going to shows and exhibitions together.
There were one or two really beautiful pieces or artists we enjoyed. In the Pfaff embroidery challenge we loved the pieces by Barbara Lee Smith and Jean Littlejohn.
Janice Gunner's beautiful selective stitchings on Indigo dyed fabrics were subtle and understated and underlined the 'less is more' theme we began to feel as we walked around.
We enjoyed Tom Lundbergs glorious little pieces of embroidery. He must have been working for ages and we didn't even know it.
Of course the graduate Showcases were entertaining but one in particular appealed to me. She had large printed textiles but had made some very small pieces with animals illustrated on fabric with just a little stitching. A fox in particular caught my eye with the tiniest ever sequins across the top of its head.
Anyone who saw them couldn't fail to be impressed with Kerry Mosleys amazing knitted and stitched portraits.

There was a lot more to see but I didn't get the feeling of wanting to rush home and try something.
We both felt that ultimately stitch, fabrics, threads, are like paint, and its what you do with them that matters. Someone can use the simplest of materials and techniques and put them together in such a way as to delight.

Now here's something you don't see on my blog very often...


Buttons?
Good grief!! I'll be making bunting next!!
But how could I resist them?
I also spent an inordinate amount of money on 'things to hand pendants from'. What else would you call them?
I am intending to hang some of my felty pieces and silk hearts from them.



Now I'm back with my very small new stash working with my very limited techniques and doing my own very limited thing.
This is a 'Little and large' order for an American gentleman.


I had some very helpful and kind comments on my last post (not counting the Japanese one and they were not helping with dress patterns) so thank you for saying lovely things.
Lovely .