Now this is rehash, infact it may even be posted earlier on the blog somewhere.

I had made it originally with a green dble knit, crocheted foliage then added a nobbly yarn as an additional edging.

But it always looked top heavy to me and the tree foliage was too dense.

So I finally sat and unpicked all the crocheted greenery, leaving just the bare branches and then added the lightweight leafery and now I'm happy with it at last.

It hung on my wall, and each time I looked at it, I knew it was 'wrong' but when I stumbled on the voile fabric, for 50p a 60" wide meter at my local Scrapstore............I'd found what it needed.

It has hand made felt for the foreground and hand felted rolls to the right side, with a stump work hodgeheg centrally.

Ive made quite afew of these circular hangywotnots recently and find them pleasing to make, each a little different - or I'd get bored making them - this one was half a an embroidery hoop.

Okay I'm off to feed the dogs and remaining 3 cats, all of which are sat round me willing me to move!

Pins!

and a felted vessel, which of course evryone should have at least one of..........its sideways on in the piccy but does actually stand upright in real life!

I made it on a workshop with the felter Ewa Kuniczak and though mine was not gossamer fine, which is the ultimate way to make a vessel (and the point of the workshop lol) enabling the sun and light shine through it.......... I was chuffed with my end product. It holds the mother of pearl buttons just fine and Ive lined it with a fine pinky tissue paper.

Of course, its of no use to man nor beast as a vessel, water would pour through it, despite it having been sealed with a sealant.........I forget which I used now........and it doesnt hold its shape if you fill it with goodies but as an aesthetically pleasing item, it's okay!

Im catching up on alot of missed posts, so geta cupper and pop back!

:)

More of my work, aren't I just the luckiest in that I am paid to make stuff like this!!!
The book 'In Wibley's Garden', which is an updated version of Jack and the Beanstalk, in this case was to be used with hearing impaired littlies, to encourage them to talk.
Asked if I would make a little Pigley..........which is what Wibley goes looking for in the story........I got abit carried away lol
I photocopied the original book, laminated it and put in all the lift the flaps, like in the original.
I can ONLY do this, without infringing copyright, because it is being adapted for children to access it as an educational resource AND because I am not making any profit from it or making it for resale.

If I were asked to do this for a visually impaired child, then I would make a laminated version of the book, with braille laid over the text and adapt the flaps accordingly, using tactile fabrics, paper or whatever I felt might support the original story and try to keep the original illustrations in mind when doing so.
Here I have made the carrying box into a castle, the action man into the kindly giant, Wibley has become a hand puppet and Pigley is as he apears in the illustrations. Theres a green bean stalk that hangs down from the castle, a bean that grows.........a ladybird, a caterpillar and an antlike thing ... that also appears in the illustrations.
The idea is that the laminated book can be kept clean after use and that the interaction is easier if the child can enact the story along with the peripatotic teacher, in this case. I also made a magic hen finger puppet and a gold egg to go along with the story.
Funny.........when I started to paint the golden egg, which was a polystyrene egg........I sat and shook the paint tube..........and showered myself with gold paint...had to go home and change my clothes and put what Id been wearing striaght in the wash!
Of course the graphics guy who works in my room too, fell about laughing lol

Okay now these are pics of some book pages I made at work for a child with special needs. The idea was that he had a sturdy book with different fabrics/textures that each had different kinds of 'pockets', that he had to locate and then put something in.

The book had 7 pages to it and on the front page there were examples of all the different openings. The pages were to be used singly at first and then all put together, in this case with circular ring closures...
The burgundy fabric features an elasticated pouch, the teddy has an openign at the top of his head, behind the ribbon and the red and white diagonal overlaps, so you have to tuck something into the bottom triangle. The white braid is so that a child can locate the seperate flaps more easily. Many special needs have limited mobility with their hands of course.

It needed to be washable, because this child often wiped his nose on the resources they used with him lol so central to each page is the thickest curtain vilene.....am sure thats not the name of it but hope you know what I mean!

Thankyou to Shelagh Folgate for suggesting I use it!! It worked a treat.

Well, you have to smile at a face like that dont you!

Jack's nursery has swine flu apparently, not sure if its a child or a member of staff, but they are still open for business, so fingers crossed miladdo doesn't pick that up too.

He's had some 7 weeks of chest infection and they reckon he has asthma now, not uncommon in prems though I'm assured.
He's a year old on friday bless him.

Isn't it a bizarre feeling when you hold the child of your child, especially when they look so much like your child did at that age!

Okay got some more pics to post...........firstly a fabby, fabby gift from Joan at calanacrafts.blogspot. com, who invited comments about what we had on our needles and my name came out of the hat, so I received this simply sumptious bag of goodies from her. I can't tell you how wonderful the yarns are........the colours havent come up that well with my naff camera but they feeel simply fabulous.

There are some stunningly pretty little stitch holders too!

Please drop into her website or blog and see what amazing things she has for sale and what her work is like. She lives way up in Scotland and the spirit of the area, somehow shines through her work, it may sound daft that, but it's how it seems to me. And yes, I'm sober!

Okay now that pic was supposed to come out on the right, beneath what I'd just said............okay.......lol

Sad day for me

I have included a pic of 3 mail art postcards, I have finally framed up. I found these frames at a car boot stall, they may be old Ikea ones I think and they were just what Id wanted.
So the first 3 are framed up and Ive another 6 to do yet, to match.
I swapped mail art postcards with overseas colleagues, afew years ago, and they had sat in a box, which is such a shame.
I lifted the stamps off and stuck them near to each card and also wrote in pencil who had sent the card and from where they were.

I realised that I hadnt put a title on the pics of Challenge 2 that I am doing, following Shelagh Folgate's Challenge instructions ... dummy.. soz.

Its a sad day for me, because I finally made the decision to have my much loved old Siamese cat put to sleep. I 'rescued' Shuggie, whom I named after the tarty lady in The Colour Purple, from a small night shift work unit, where she'd arrived one night, and was being fed by big daft blokes.
I thought she was pregnant but actually she was so well fed she looked as if she was about to drop kittens! They took in chicken, tuna, fresh fish and beef for her to eat along with their own sandwhiches and she obliged them by eating whatever they gave her in exchange for hugs and cuddles.

I adored her from first sight but did infact home her on to a lady living alone. A week later she came back to me, because she hadnt taken to this woman and told her so, vocally all the time and the Siamese has a distinctive meow...more of a yowl and it drove this lady to distraction.
So 'Shuggie' stayed with me from then on and was adored, and completely contented and rarely ever yowled again. She became my shadow and completely altered my preconceptions of what I thought of as 'designer cats'.

She took to my dogs who also adored her, despite her reguarly tugging at their ears if they got too close to her from time to time lol She tolerated all the rescue cats as they came and went and was indeed a Duchess. She became pals with the cats that stayed with me and snuggled with them at every opportunity and they all seemed to enjoy her company.
Ive had her for about 17 years and she was about 2 years old when she found the night shift workforce guys.
No one had reported her lost in the area and she wasn't micro chipped.
About 3 years after I had rescued her, I established who had once owned her quite by accident, they had assumed she had been cat napped by lorry drivers who parked up near there small holding, so didnt bother reporting her lost or advertising for her whereabouts.
I was able to show them her pics and they were thrilled to know she was with me and happy for me to keep her.........little knowing that by then, I'd have murdered to keep her!
She had had kittens the previous year and was indeed about 2 years old. She had got out one night in a storm and crossed through 2 large fields and then found the blokes working who on seeing her bedraggled no doubt, made her a bed and fed for her for a month or two then felt she was probably pregnant thought they shoulkd really have her rescued and homed on.

I resolved not to keep her alive on a cocktail of tablets because she was such a dignified old dame and shes been on borrowed time this past 18 months, but the time had come. I could see she was weary and I had to make one final act of devotion for her.
Its not easy is it that.

You know I hope someone will care enough about me, when I reach that point, to allow me to go as peacefully. Or I hope I have the faculty and ability to make that decision for myself.

Think I need a cupper, sorry if I've upset anyone, but its helped having it said somewhere, you know?

Fab mailed postcards finally framed up

Jack my Delish Grandson

Shelagh Folgate - Challenge 1

Aren't grandchildren and work time consuming! I could fit it all in if they would allow me to remain at home, on full pay and I'd even be prepared to do some of the work for them, at home.....I'm generous afterall.

Jack is a year old next week, he's got a real personality now and is going to be a determined little soul. From being prem he has developed well but has had a nasty chest infection for several weeks, which has left him with suspected asthma, thrush from the inhalers and he contracted hand, foot and mouth disease too .........which is ulcers in the mouth and on the hands and feet.

I'd never heard of it, my own bairns never had it, so you learn another thing every day.......

great that though isn't it!

I managed to catch a bug off jack at the onset of his illness and ended up with 48 hours which may well have been swine flu for all I know, and a bleeding ulcer and then pleuracy!

Im still on treatment for the ulcer and the pleuracy lol

The ulcer I put down entirely to the ongoing repairs from the flood, when I wasnt actually internally flooded but my home was gutted anyway. The workmanship has been appalling.

For example the plumbers fitted the multiquix attachment from the loo in to the ground........upside down!

Comedy shows are made of things like that.

Big surprise, the loo flooded at the base, especially since to make it fit in the ground, the guy had removed an essential rubber seal.

All hail the British Tradesman sic.....

I'm awaiting analysis of the plaster used throughout on the walls, there's a suggestion they have not used the right plaster, which would mean the ground floor being gutted back to bricks again..... I'm going to need intavenous gin if that happens.

Okay what have I been up to creatively?

Ive been creating like mad, as therapy!

Smaller things to sell on stalls at craft events and some others to sell through a local store and then others just to see how something might look, or work out, IF I did this, that or the other.......playing in effect.

However I have also become a follower of Shelagh Folgate, a very clever lady who is resurecting the City & Guilds and who is also running a couple of Challenge groups via Yahoo Groups.

Shelagh has an interesting and fun blog, whose link I should have to hand but hadn't the sense to do so before this entry! So I will post it after this entry.............because otherwise Im going to lose what Ive finally sat down and nattered about so far!

I have some pics too of work I've done with her groups so far .....however most of them are on my memory stick............which is somewhere safe at the moment, along with 3 of my work flash drive gadgets.......... cough, I hate it when this happens!

What possible use can The Borrowers have with my memory sticks?

Have they got computers now down there where they live?!

The first challenge involved collecting the thicker plastic carrier bags, I won't give you the instructions of course, out of courtesy to Shelagh , but I ended up sending a package of UK carriers to Anne Marie in Canada, since they have been plastic carrier free, well ahead of us here in the UK. Good on Canada!

I nearly fainted when the post office wanted £7.20 for the postage! Plastic carrier bags weigh heavier than you think lolol But Anne Marie hopes to use them in making a clutch bag and I look forward to seeing what she does with them.