Saturday 29 October 2016

Stash pic update, Elsa Tree and the Speedweve loom

Nannette said she would like to see the cd cabinets stocked with fabrics and so I've had a go, who knew I shook so much taking pi!
AND who knows where the lead is to transfer pics off my phone to the laptop?
Come on, own up!
Well after several emails from my phone to my email service
and then several more because the first batch were fuzzy wuzzy lol
Here's a view of the inside of the odd little curtained off part of my what is my back room downstairs.
It was once a shower and loo, then it became a little office then I came along and turned it into a curtained off glory hole, where now, its theoretically a stash-behind-the-curtain area.
It also houses a table behind the camera : ) - on which the cat food is and beneath which the litter box sits, so its an altogether multi functioning area.
I had no idea over the years I had accumulated quite so much fabrics ...

: )
 looking right are some ore cuts and a layer cake or two, paper patterns and boxes of ufos ..
 looking further right is another stand tucked away ..
 and looking left at that point is the dark wood, odd cd stand the store threw in as a freebie since Id bought all the others lol  which is fuzzy because I sneezed, sorry!
Years ago someone gave me a lot of perle threads and I am slowly working my way through them, some of which hang on the metal hoops.
Looking down you will see that the floor area is still in chaos but its perfect for throwing bags in when someone is due to arrive and you want the illusion that the living room is tidy - Ha!
The blue bag is my Singer One machine, not very expensive but super!
Don't ask whats under the table there!
Well, okay its 2 huge bags of scrap fabrics, a big container of beads and notions I once thought would be fine all jumbled together - big mistake really that.
And another big bag of used fabric offcuts, denim etc.
So there, my confession is over.
That's the downstairs stash ..............
then there is still some large fabric lengths and the wool stash upstairs .....

I forgot to show you this natty little gadget, I paid 25p for it, or did I?
Well anyway if I did, its worth looking at again : )
It intrigued me that's why I bought it, so I could look it up on the all knowledgeable and too powerful Google.

The Speedweve Model 2 is a natty gadget from yesteryear, made by a Lancashire Firm and was basically I think Lancashires smallest commercial weaving loom. For a full update on it, please go to the following informative blog post, with a full step by step how to use it!
https://tomofholland.com/2011/06/23/the-speedweve-lancashires-smallest-loom-directions-for-use/

Now is that natty or what, rather wish I had the accompanying mushroom bit now but I simply adore the method of changing the warp!
Inspired : )
Oh and I have finished an Elsa tree, so now must make a few more for the stall. Now I know how I want them to basically look, each one will be slightly different and there are some Anna's to make too.
This one is 8" diameter the others may well be 10", this was the prover size.


And finally a gratuitous pet picture: companionship reigned this afternoon whist the sun shone, my washing wafted briefly and I had a cupper out back, hoping there might be some vitamin D in the weak suns rays!



Thursday 27 October 2016

Tis the Season .....

How come Christmas is almost upon us?
Come on own up, who dragged it closer to me?

Just found out today that my angiogram (with an angioplasty if its found to be required on the day) - is to be the 10th November.
Anyway I have been making some dangly decorations for a craft stall on the 26th ( assuming I will be able to do it of course now!).

Nothing special, just scrappy bits - though the cats look too scary, they'd do better for Halloween! Might dish them out if I get trick or treat'ers at the weekend LOL


 I started a Fusion Quilt with some Tilda pre-cut squares I picked up in a sale.
I was busy before half term at work, had to make up a storysack for the Marion Gamble children's book - Mooncat.
I used the Velcro on/off boards again -






Think I have mentioned we are licensed to make an adapted version of books used by our children and this is a large print version which goes in the storysack too.


I had never read the Five Little Monkeys nursery rhyme you know, but was asked to make 5 copies of it in book form for sighted children this time.
Anyway there are some great resources available free on Sparklebox
http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/index.html
one of which is - Five Little Monkeys Sitting on a Tree - so I used the
graphics to make up laminated pages in book format and simply added Velcro on and off monkey heads.



Okay, these pics are the right way up on my USB ............ come on Blogger! get a grip!
Did I tell you I found some cd storage units? In fact there's a darker wood one to the left that I bought too from a charity shop : )


And they are now choc full of fabric, I can at last actually see 50% of what I have stashed away!

We have had a new statue recently put up locally for Amy Johnson, sad to say the local street kids appeared to have smeared her with mud - bloody little tykes.
Grandson thought she was ace though : )



 Being half term I've had Jack for 3 days so we have been making lots of things which he enjoys doing.
He had me adding (torn cotton strips, dyed with coffee) additional wraps to his Egyptian mummy costume and mask, ready for Halloween.
He had done the Egyptians at school so we had the big book out and he drew Horus and various other figures, wrote a shorts tory in hieroglyphics and then decided he needed a mummified cat for this weekend lol
So more torn cotton strips, a juice bottle and a polystyrene ball stuck on top and voila - and neither of my own cats were harmed in any way!
However, Harvey was a bit concerned ......