Happy Scrappy completed At last lol

It's done, yippee - though its not perfect and I don't mind that at all.
Its part of its story and its 'Cat Approved', both cats have had a snuggle on it and survived contentedly.
Its been my scrappy hexi learning curve over the last couple of years, might be three years even.
All hand stitched throughout and largely scrappy bits - some were left over from fussy cutting the New Hexagon shapes last year.

I survived going back to work and have got lots of interesting work to get my teeth into which is really nice.

One such thing has been a storysack for the book The Westwood Troll, written by Marion Gamble ( who wrote the delightful Mooncat children's book)

The author gave us a copy of the book for us to adapt into braille and she is making an appearance at a book event in Beverly in October and  will use our Storysack as part of her presentation.

Then it will be available for our VI children to use along side a brailled version of the original story.

The various items from the story can be taken on and off the back board.

The Westwood Troll is a story all about a troll who appears to live on the Westwood common land that lays to the side of Beverly in East Riding of Yorkshire.

He lives off wild berries, dodges the cows that graze there, frightens passers by in the dark and lives in a cave.

He's sometimes cross when cars drive through his Westwood and peers out from bushes at folks walking and playing ball, flying their kites and having picnics too!

Our Portage team needs a variety of resources which will keep me steadily busy for a while and I'm currently making up 5 sensory cushions for them.

Each cushion is different but all have a squeaky gadget in them and also a removable musical unit.

( Each tune will be different too)

These two brown furry covers  were the first couple made.

The left hand 'pocket' below is completely stitched round and has a large and smaller marble inside it.

The child can manoeuvre them around the two stitched lines, a sort of tactile maze - of sorts.

The squeaker is in the dogs nose and the musical unit fits in the right hand pocket, but of course anything can be put in that pocket for a child to find.

These are quite simple because they will be used with early years children and all the materials used are different textures - and washable!

This one has a squeaker beneath the fur on the top left and a zippy bag stitched on for the musical unit or anything else that might be tucked inside.

I've made 2 lighter, differently textured fabric ones too but will post their pics when I take a picture, completely forgot to do that today duhh

Our weather is changing, colder nights, misty mornings, the gardens looking tired and there's an autumn touch to the days.

The tree leaves are slowly changing from green too and its all as it should be I guess, the days shortening and winter approaching.

Must buy some vitamin D to get through the darker days lol

 

Back to work and already my mood is lowering!

Not a happy bunny here, had a letter from a locally well known car parking charges firm after I was 5 minutes late -
after paying for 4 hours.
They are charging me £100 as a fine!
If I pay fast, I need only pay £60 - the bastards!
The car park had 2 other cars parked there when I arrived and they were still there when I left, all the rest of the car park was empty!
AND I'm back in at work on Tuesday too - double bummer lol

My scrappy happy hexi quilt is certainly taking shape now - though I lost the plot on colour stripes on the right side, but I can live with that.
I had a bit of help to get it finished -

I have hand quilted across the horizontal hexi lines in a zig zaggy manner and was going to keep the sides straight, but now I see it this way, I don't much care for it, so have some unpicking to do - when I find my seam ripper!
I will keep the castellated hexi effect down the sides and am stitching a reverse hexi edging to avoid having to bind the higgledy piggledy edges.

Harvey is doing well, desperate to go outside but I'm still keeping him indoors although no longer confined to my bedroom.

Its been a lovely summer break but I am really dreading the winter and can feel the downer of dark days already lurking behind my shoulders.

I haven't done that much but have had both grandkids quite a lot, so its hardly been a relaxing break lol

Jack and I have been looking for the Amy Johnson Moths, thankfully they are around the city and beyond until March next year, so we have time to see most of them in their exhibition places.

Tried to get granddaughter interested in them too but she only had eyes for her Mum -

My daughter took us a picture of one in London on a recent trip which helps us too.

I was given a 1/16th scale dolls house that was in disrepair, so painted it up quite simply for Evie, for her little pony toys.

I have another beef and I know some others amongst you have had similar issues.

Windows 10 did an update which took hours and hours and several stop n starts, before I could use the laptop again.

And now, half the things I use aren't there any more and I cant find things the way I did before - so frustrating!

I don't mind change if I am told about it but it infuriates me when something works fine for me and then, its altered to suit the whizzy computer folks out there lol

Clearly I'm in training to be a grumpy old woman and

I'm sure to get the bloody job!!

Where do the weeks go to?!

So-  who snook away with the past few weeks then? Come on, own up!
Its the summer school holidays and I seem to have been busier than when at work - another conundrum to wonder about!
I got wind of someone needing knitted/crochet flowers and pom poms for a 'secret' yarn bombing which is being planned.
Thanks Jean for the heads up!
So I had chance to use the natty pom pom gadget I bought the last time I went to the NEC.
It makes pom poms so much easier and faster - and in multiples too, up to 20 littley ones at one time for example!
Multipom  
http://multipom.com/
I knew there was a reason I felt obliged to buy odd balls of yarn at the charity shop I get my best craft bargains from.
The chrysanthemum-ish flowers are crocheted but to my own pattern and I was amazed that it worked!
Their success is due to my using one novelty yarn and a 4ply in all but the same colour.
Mind you, the yarn bombing wanted orange not peachy pink - but will send them anyway and hope they can be of some use : )

You can see the various sizes of pom poms you can make with the Multipom gadget and I haven't made the largest

or the smallest sizes there!

I do have a 100 knitted and crochet flowers book - somewhere - but actually found it easy enough to just sit and devise a shape, although my daffodil trumpet, does leave a lot to be desired lol don't look too closely at that one!

On 25th July, Harvey cat went in for a rear leg patella luxation operation, where they adjust the patella and pin in it where it should actually be.
When I homed him off the couple with two heavy handed children last year, I soon saw that he had a leg injury and limped, something they denied had ever happened before.
His leg also often splayed outwards at 45 degrees when he walked so it couldn't be missed.
I took out insurance but it was a pre existing injury, so of course the £2000 cost wasn't covered!

However with a change to another veterinary practise, I managed to reduce the op cost to £1150. So it pays to shop around and ensure your vets are not charging you orthopaedic surgeon prices from the off!
Such an operation needs 6 weeks cage rest to prevent him jumping up and down and to allow the bone to grow over the newly placed alignment.
So Harvey is cooped up in my bedroom, in a cage at first but now out of that since hes doing so well.
But he is a loving soul and hasn't been any bother really and now manages jumping onto the bed and off again easily.
Given that he hauls himself up fences and the garage, I'm not letting him out and about outside again until I'm certain the leg is healed well enough lol
So his night time rodent chasing, when he refuses to come in at night, has been curtailed for a while!
Any gardeners out there at all?
Does anyone have any idea what these weird, but almost hexagon like things are on my plant?

I kept an eye on them to see if they opened up but we had torrential rain and that washed most of them away although they had altered the leaf colour dramatically I noticed.

I dont think they weren't spiders eggs -  but that reminds me the other night, Harvey was agitated in the bedroom and wouldn't settle down to sleep, so I switched the light on to see him avidly watching the curtains. Uh Oh .......

I finally caught sight of a huge wolf spider and went on a spray and catch session which of course left me wide awake!
I put the fan on to cool down the air and ventilate the room better, put Harvey in the other bedroom and I went downstairs for a cupper. 
At 0125 !
I mean why come into my room when it was balmy and calm weather outside?!

So as you do, I sat outside in the garden thinking I might just see the Perseids meteors -
and I did! I did!
Wow, what a wonderful thing to see, they whizz this way and that, with not even a seconds notice!
I saw several long whizzes across the sky and many more shorter ones, then a whole bunch of teensy movements I wasn't sure of but next day, I saw on tv that they were also meteors.
So thanks go to Harvey for waking me for both the spider and the night sky fun!
Of course next day my neck ached quite a bit lol

I had a wonderful surprise in the post from my bloggy pal Mary Anne, I wasn't expecting it at all but I need to download the picture, so I will come back to you and show you what she sent to me, in the next post, tomorrow.
Bloggy people are some of the nicest people aren't they!!

'10 in a bed' ( settle down!) and Moths

Only a week and a day to go till the school summer holidays begin -
yeahhhh : )
I do like working term time only, although shed loads of work came in last week for me to do, for our Councils Porterage group.
One job was to replicate this old resource, long past its best and mucky as 'eck!
It was made with pelmet Vilene and you can tuck the teddies in behind the bedding, a cute idea isn't it!

So this is my prototype interpretation of it, making it tactile with differing textures.
The 'spotty' numbers on the pillows are hefty French knots, 1 -10.
The pillows I colour coordinated with the bears hats.
Most of the children the Porterage team see will have sight, so no Braille needed on this and the colours will be seen and become a matching activity for this 10 in a bed gang.

This beaut Hawk Moth was hanging about in my back garden, killing time ...

an hour or so later and she had company - nooky time!

I've had a couple of these canoodling in my garden before, too often and my garden will get a bad name!

I made up another fastenings waistcoat last week

We have a display in Hull of painted moths, to commemorate Amy Johnson who lived here for a while.
Here are a few of the 56 scattered around the city -

When I was about 12 I had my ear syringed with water to try and reduce my tinnitus, a wierd experience but happily the tinnitus  eventually went away.

After about 2 years with a blocked sinus on one side and the ear on that same side, feeling as if I'm under water, crackling and swelling internally from time to time I finally got a Dr to take it seriously.

I was at hospital today to see an Ear Nose and Throat Consultant and had my right ear hovered!!

Yes hoovered LOL no water in this day and age : )

It was a mini Dyson gadget and would be perfect for hovering sewing machines and keyboards I thought at the time!

I also had my hearing tested ( its fine thankfully ) but the sinus tube is narrow and blocked, as Id suspected and if I cant get it cleared with persistent use of nasal spray, I may have to have a grommit fitted!

Trust me to have something out of the ordinary .....

I watched the footage on tv earlier of the prat in a truck in Nice, France.

Appalling carnage, wanton killing, children included -

So many dead, in so many places in our world, in the name of religion or an ideology -

Sickening, heart breaking and So bloody wrong.

Im still Scrappy Happy : )

I do wonder why I'm fixated on using the bags of scrappy fabric bits I have, when I have such a lot of untouched fabric to yet cut into!

So from this to ...

this ...

Not as easy as it looks mind you. The block ended up smaller than Id anticipated, have yet to understand why lol but I fancy a few blocks with skew whiff inserts.

The fun part is that these strings can be done whilst sat watching tv,
on your lap, by hand and you can use up smaller scrappy pieces.
I didn't use the till roll method, I just stitched the scraps together in roughly straight vertical lines.
Though again I have included some diagonal angles, simply because some of the fabric scraps were angled themselves.
Many are leftover pieces from my fussy cutting for The New Hexagon hexis.

I have also made some strips now in single colourways, different scrap fabrics with a single colour theme -  that too could be a fun idea to play with.

I'm still making circle blocks and have started quilting some of the blocks.

I finally placed the textile human digestive system onto a back board for work. It is held in position by Velcro, so it can be taken off if needs be.  I also made a Key to accompany it, the large print text has Braille laid over it too.

 

of Amy Jihnson

 

Here in Hull we have some 50+ moth shapes on display, to commemorate 75 years since the death of Amy Johnson, who lived in Hull for a while and went on of course to become a famous Aviatrix.

 

This is the first I have been to see so far.

 

 

Oh yes and here is Nellie, my Yarndale sheep, which folks are being asked to knit a version of and send off to form a display at the Yarndale show later this year.
They will help to raise funds for this years chosen charitable group
Martin House Hospice.
http://yarndale.co.uk/

http://yarndale.co.uk/little-woolly-sheep/

There are free knitting and crochet patterns for you to make your own sheep.
I used a nobbly unbleached 100% wool but I should probably just have used a normal white double knit perhaps.
There is also a great little sheeps' coat too, but Nellie would have been too hot, so I didn't make her one!
 I am going to make a few sheep for myself and the grandkids, so Nellie may stay with me and another go to Skipton yet!
Hilly got in on the act at the last minute lol

This is her 'Feed Me!' look ....

The wonderfully talented Lucy from Attic 24 supports Yarndale whole heartedly each year and has come up with the superb crochet sheep pattern. Lucy can be found on Facebook and has a blog too.

http://attic24.typepad.com/

Lucy has an interesting post here too by the way, showing how she works out a placement colour scheme, for when she plans a pattern.
 Its sensibly clever, would never have occurred to me and worth looking at even if you don't crochet!
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2016/06/colourwash-granny-blanket-the-beginning.html

Playing with fabric scraps

So, I was looking at the till roll, scrappy strip
and thinking ....
what if I used it as centres in log cabin blocks...
so I had a go and now have 9 x 9" blocks, still using the same bag of scrap fabrics.
I will put them together with more scrappy strips, maybe have them between the blocks, maybe not, haven't decided yet.
Maybe I should draw a plan but that would be far more disciplined than I generally am lol
I will keep you informed, but there's still a lot of fabric in this one scrap bag, so the next step is more scrappy till roll strip : )

Car boot buys and till rolls!

So I nipped to the car boot this morning and struck lucky as well as buying my bananas for work this next week : )

Someone on a Facebook patchwork group had posted a tutorial for using till rolls as a backing, making with her instructions,

attractive strings of flying geese.

I imagine most of you will already have seen the idea but it was new to me. She was using up her scraps and 2.5" width till rolls and the result was really nice, so of course I thought I'd try it too, some-when or other.

So this morning, 2 x packs of 5 till rolls for a £1 - bargain!

The lady who sold them, said -

I suppose you've got a machine they fit then!

Her face when I said,

No I'm going to use them for patchwork ....lol...

I didn't explain!

Now the lass on FB, drew vertical lines down each side of the till roll strips

and then found the centre line between them and drew that in vertically.

Then she  drew diagonal lines, in V's towards that centre line,

all down the length of the till rolls.

She then placed fabric pieces in a flip and stitch format down the length of the roll, forming a flying geese strip.

Well I wasn't going to do all that drawing of lines down 2 miles of till roll obviously, since all I want are scrappy strips which will use up some of my scraps!

Not so much flying geese as skew whiffy V's!

Once stitched together I cut them half an inch wider than the till roll itself, then spray starched them on the front.

It was surprisingly easy to tear off the till roll from the back since it was serrated anyway where it had been stitched through.

Clever that!

Then I starched and ironed the back too for some stability.

Because I've used scraps and lost all sense of fabric bias,I ran lines of machine stitching down each outer edge, which may be overkill,

but it will keep them intact till I use them.

It hasn't made a dent in my smallest bag of scraps, so I will be making several more!

The other thing I couldn't leave at the car boot was this for £1.50...

 Its clearly an old frame and canvas and it is so charming, I couldn't resist it. I have washed the canvas already and the yellow eye has come up beautifully and thankfully we had a couple of hours of sunshine with a breeze, so its dried nicely.

I think I may cut Percy Parrot out at some stage and use it in a textile collage, though he is almost worth framing exactly as he is, even though he is not finished!

Oh and the other things I got were 1 full Au de Toilette and a 2/3's full PERFUME! bottle of Lair Du Temps for £10!

There's a chap comes once a year with all the ex display stock from various  stores, they must replace the display bottles once a year and he buys that stock and sells them at the car boot.

I have bought from him several times over the years and struck lucky today as he reduced the prices of what was on the table.

Instead of £8 each bottle, I paid £10 for two - but I don't think he realised one was actually perfume : )