Rags to Riches

I WILL be creating with those lovely papers from Whimsy but for now they are being hoarded with my other treasures while I felt and stitch and build shop pages. I've been busy and really feel like I am making progress at last.

Meanwhile I met Cairi to discuss the next Wool Gathering which has a recycling theme and I just happen to have scheduled it for the day after the annual jumble sale in the village hall! I'm hoping that the leftover clothing and any other textiles we find will inspire us to create new and stunning works of wearable or usable art...or at the very least that we have fun with scissors.

Hugh was away from early this morning so Ash and I enjoyed a wonderfully peaceful walk in the frosty fields not far from home. Did I take the camera... of course not. Mind you by the time I had gloves and drawing pins (thumb tacks, folks) and a rolled poster in my pockets there wasn't much room left. Well, said jumble sale needs to be advertised (you know, so we get lots of quality clothes and bric-a-brac to sell back to each other) and I knew I would be passing the church noticeboard on the way. Ash was not amused at the delay as I fumbled about removing out-of-date notices - Christmas Service anyone? - in order to fit mine in.

I'm fitting this post in round baking flapjacks and drinking a cup of tea, or in my case, spilling a cup of tea on the keyboard. Bad move. Just removed them from the oven and they smell delicious. I added chopped up brazil nuts and dates and some linseeds so now they are an entirely justifiable snack food crammed full of cholestorol reducing, magnesium boosting, gut strengthening healthiness. Yeah, right.

The pic is of a big jacket I knitted for myself at Christmas. I bought yarn, I didn't spin it. What a treat! Forgot buttonholes so I fashioned a toggle idea out of coconut buttons either side with a plaited yarn loopy thingy. Well, I'm probably not going to fasten it anyway...

And this is The Border Tart! Drawn for me by the talented Maureen but I coloured her in all by myself. She'll be minding the shop for me.

Art and Soulful Secret Fairy

Oh the delight in arriving home to find a parcel full of goodies! My not-so-secret fairy is Whimsy

and she sure did her homework! Lots of lovely papers for my collages, and beads, and tiny mirrors and refreshments for Ash and us! Her ladyship sussed immediately that there was something in the package for her and we got no peace till she sampled a chew. Yip, we all think SOSF parcels are a GOOD thing!

I've been making new contacts in blogland and adding links. Have also acquired myself some delicious sock yarn and plan to speak verrrrry nicely to ace knitter Cairi who could have them knitted years before I ever could.

All Gathered In

February already - scary, really. On Sunday we had Wool Gathering No 2 - nearly twenty of us gathered in the hall, looking quite industrious and laughing lots too. The crochet lessons were a challenge for some but others were already a whizz and producing amazing things. Alison, who makes very fancy drapes for mansion houses amongst other things, was creating crochet LACE with a tiny hook that would not have looked out of place in a dental surgery. There was fancy sock knitting going on, sales and swaps of yarns and patterns, munching of Lorraine's delicious traybakes, felt ball making, tassels and wrapping and fringes and, well, just STUFF going on.

(Just discovered that Cairi took pics and posted them here on her blog - good girl! - and look how industrious everyone is!)

In March the No 3 day will have a recycling theme - rag rugs, crocheted plastic bags, uses for felted sweaters, making fabric bowls and more besides.

As for The Border Tart webshop - it chugs along, developing gradually. I have a few more mountains to climb but progress is steady and I'll have another photo session at the weekend of all the things I forgot to do the first time.

I'll leave you with this delicious snap of Hugh's late father Stan on a day at the beach in the early 1930s