...mending, making, growing, laughing

Mending:

A favourite hat 

the moths ate holes in, 

using some scraps from a ball of wool 

the moths ate holes in.

Making:

Another Mini Mania scarf,

in (mostly) shades of blue, 

hoping to make a dent in the stash.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

But the dent in the stash is almost indiscernible.

Plus...

...a reversible bucket hat for my Mum,

who saw mine and wanted one of her own.

I don't need asking twice, 

but have arrived at this conclusion: 

attaching circles to cylinders is 

an exercise in patience I'm not anxious to repeat.

(With a fully reversible bucket hat 

imperfection is not an option).

If at first you don't succeed, 

baste, baste, baste.

And finally...

Thanks to my daughter for the back-of-head modelling!

...mask-making is still a thing

for now.

Growing:

Delicious things in pots -

Courgettes

Salad leaves

Strawberries

(Copper tape and wool pellets

are keeping the slugs at bay)

And...

...flowers galore,

including a glorious surprise Iris 

from bulbs planted 3-4 years ago

(and long since given-up-on).

Laughing:

At our dear, silly XXSCat dog

running futile rings around a tree

in pursuit of a squirrel.

No matter how fast she ran

the squirrel was always on the other side of the trunk.

Since XXCat dogs  

aren't familiar with pantomime jokes,

the only logical course of action

after three fruitless circuits

 was to commence an intensive search 

of the surrounding area.

Feeling all the while, as though someone was watching...

Seahouses VII

• Friday - late afternoon - with bare feet in the sand just after high tide. The sea looks greener in June, but the endless sky is still that glorious powder blue.

• Saturday - a walk along the beach between Seahouses and Bamburgh, collecting sand art images along the way...

...and pausing for a spot of kite-flying. Ice creams in Bamburgh, and then back to Seahouses for a wander round the harbour and some fish and chips.

• Sunday - up early to walk the XXSCat dog down to the sand dunes, where these extravagantly flamboyant Oriental Poppies had self-seeded in swathes along the roadside...

...then into the car for a pilgrimage to Lindisfarne, with barely a cloud in the sky...

...stopping for an hour at Beadnell beach to have a paddle in the shallows on the way back.

• Monday morning - we packed up the car, had a final walk along the beach to look for a 'Shell of the Day'...

...and then back through the dunes to the coast road, taking one last lingering look across the fields before heading home. 

Au revoir Seahouses!

...mish-mash

• After the bungled first attempt at a nostalgia-themed birthday T-shirt for my son that featured in my previous post, I had to wait a day or two for a replacement "blank" T-shirt to arrive. In the meantime I decided to have a look through the little collection of my children's art-work I've kept over the years, and came across some tiny paper collages that he made when he was a little boy at primary school. Although they're very faded, you can still see the careful cutting and sticking that went into making them, and I thought they might make quite an apt design for someone who just finished building his own house last year and is still obsessed with power tools! I photographed them on a sheet of yellow card and then added a black border on the computer. I checked and double-checked the positioning of the transfer on the T-shirt, and literally held my breath whilst peeling it off. Thankfully it worked perfectly this time, and the T-shirt went straight in the post for his birthday the following day. "It looks cool", said my eldest son. "Very creative", said the recipient!

• Next up, an Extra Pocket Bag for my daughter, made from a pair of completely worn-out (but formerly favourite) jeans. I was pleased to be able to incorporate the back pocket, but not so keen on the stretch denim fabric, which kept bunching up in front of the presser foot when I was inserting the zip. I'm pretty sure there's something I could have done about this, but was far too impatient to figure out what, so there was a lot of stopping and starting and tugging instead.

• We did a couple of long park-walks at the weekend and I had a lovely time squirrel-spotting. They are everywhere at the moment, and it's very amusing to see the XXSCat dog's utter bewilderment when time after time they vanish into thin air behind a tree trunk. She spends ages looking for them, in every direction except up!

• We're off to Seahouses for three nights this weekend, and if the recent hot weather continues (fingers crossed) then sun-screen and sun-hats will be in order. I can never find hats to fit me properly - a combination of thick hair and a large skull mean they are always either bone-crushingly tight and uncomfortable, or simply won't go on at all. With all the sewing I've been doing this year my DIY confidence levels are pretty high, so I downloaded a free pattern off the internet, sized it up a bit, and made myself a fully reversible "bucket hat"  out of remnants I had in my stash. It actually turned out a little on the big side, but that just makes it feel even more airy and cooling to wear. I love it!

• Flushed with the success of the hat I also made myself an Extra Pocket Bag out of the remnants of an old pair of jeans  belonging to my husband. They've previously been used for patching other jeans and there is very little of them left now - two lower leg sections, the other back pocket and the button fly, which I feel could come in handy for something I haven't quite thought of yet! I'd been so busy bag-making for other people that it seemed only fair to make one for myself, as I didn't have a zippable everyday version. Since it was only for my use I was 100% lazy - made the wibbly-wobbly top-stitching along the zip into a "design feature" by adding a few more wibbly-wobbly lines of stitching, and didn't even bother with a lining - just zig-zagged the raw edges together on the inside and called it done!

• I have to include this photo of a perfect rose from my Mum and Dad's garden. It's my absolute favourite colour for a rose - all the gorgeous peachy shades between yellow and pink - simply divine! 

...hotchpotch

• One of the benefits of being an aging insomniac is that when you get up at 4:23am (or thereabouts) for a trip to the loo, every so often you will catch a glimpse of the most heavenly sunrise through the landing window. Of course this doesn't make up for the absence of restful slumber, but it definitely helps.

• The XXSCat dog and I had an early morning walk through the woods last week, after dropping my husband at work. It was like being immersed in a huge Pointillist landscape - just a textured wall of green in every direction. Fabulous! It's only now that I'm looking more closely that I can also see a bear face peering through the leafy curtains in the tree on the left...

• This week there was an accidental poppy in the front garden. The photo is a little blurry (I had to dash out in the rain to get it) but still worth sharing - because that juxtaposition of vibrant orange and pale purple is just too delicious to keep to myself. I love poppies, and I gather seeds to sprinkle in the front garden whenever I see them, but years go by without any growing. Then suddenly a single poppy will appear as if by magic, like Mr Benn's shopkeeper, and I love it more than I would if I had a whole field full of them. 

• The latest Extra Pocket Bag is a mixture of hand-printed cotton and velvet. It's really tactile and looks nicely aged, even though it's brand new. I've listed it on eBay to see if it attracts any interest, although I'm not really expecting it to sell. Just trying to figure out a way of funding my hobbies going forwards!

• Yesterday I experimented with the transfer paper I recently bought for putting photographic images on fabric. It's my son's 31st birthday this week, and I thought it would be nice to give him a T-shirt featuring a painting he did when he was at nursery. I love this painting and have it framed and hanging in my hallway (out of direct sunlight to avoid it yellowing/fading). I started by ordering two plain white T-shirts online - I wanted a spare in case the first attempt wasn't successful - and took the painting out of its frame to get a photo. The transfer paper came with very lengthy, very detailed instructions about how to proceed - e.g. remembering to print a mirrored version of the image onto the transfer paper so it wouldn't be back-to-front on the T-shirt, using a hard surface and not an ironing board, pressing for exactly 3 minutes, peeling the backing paper off straight away for a matt finish, or leaving everything to cool before peeling for a glossy finish.

Unfortunately, when I took the first T-shirt out of its packaging it had a small yellow stain on the front, making it unusable for a gift. This meant everything was riding on my first attempt, as I no longer had a spare. I read the instructions thoroughly again, spent ages positioning the transfer sheet, face-down, precisely in the middle of the T-shirt front, and then set the timer going on my phone and started ironing. I was practically holding my breath after 3 minutes, as I peeled the backing paper off. It was quite sticky and tugged at the fabric a little, but the transfer remained intact. Hooray! 

Sadly, my celebrations were shortlived - although (bizarrely) it did take a full 30 seconds or more for me to realise that the image was upside down, and that in all my careful instruction-following I'd failed to check this most basic aspect of the task! My daughter, who had noticed the problem immediately but waited patiently for the penny to drop, came to the rescue by offering to use it for a pyjama top. I'm currently awaiting delivery of a third and hopefully final T-shirt (having already returned the first). 

• In the face of adversity, when one has literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, it's important to find something positive to focus on - to lift one's spirits. So I will end with a photo of an inquisitive young squirrel in the greenest of green woods, who posed like a statue for nearly a minute, while I fumbled in my pocket and struggled to open the camera app on my phone, and let me get just one perfect shot before frisking his tail and disappearing into the leafy canopy above. Some you lose, and some you win!

...pleasing myself

It's been just over seven weeks since my early retirement started, and I'm still trying to get used to being my own boss. As much as I used to grumble about my old job, at least I knew what I was supposed to be doing for 7.5 hours per day, whereas now I find myself in the (incredibly fortunate, I know) position of being able to (mostly) please myself. I'm still taking and/or picking up my husband from work (he used to cycle the 10 mile round trip every day, but after being knocked for six by Covid in December he's having to take things steady to rebuild his stamina), and I walk the XXSCat dog with my daughter during her lunch-break, but the rest of the day is basically my own. So I've been making lots of to-do lists, and telling myself I have to do something really constructive every day, and then feeling horribly guilty if I don't. My friend, who early-retired a couple of months before me, tells me that she's "loving life", and wakes up every day feeling like it's Christmas morning, but I'm not quite there yet! I don't regret my decision, and I certainly don't miss the stress of work - I just need to figure out a routine that works for me. 

So the past week has been an eclectic mix of activities. Cleaning, gardening in the occasional gaps in the rain storms, taking the car for its MOT, getting a blood-test and discovering that I'm Vitamin D deficient after a year of lockdowns, and indulging my creative impulses in between:

• The Gnome Rejuvenation Project continues. This little chap started life as an Ikea Santa Claus, but was looking very pale and worn, so he's been given a regular gnome uniform instead.

• After longing to escape the constraints of my 2.5" fabric squares for the #100DayProject, I sat down to play with watercolour and acrylic paint on a sheet of A5 paper...and ended up with this little painting of a cornflower - in the middle of the page and almost exactly 2.5" square! How did that happen?!

• I cast on 54 stitches (multiples of 18) and knitted myself another stripey multicoloured scarf - in feather and fan stitch this time - because a person can never have too many stripey multicolured scarves. It's made with Sirdar Hayfield Spirit variegated yarn in two colourways - one predominantly shades of blue (because I live in jeans) and the other a pastel rainbow sequence (because who doesn't like rainbows?). I love the colourful squishiness of it, and the non-stop rain provides the perfect justification for me to be wearing a knitted scarf at the end of May! My hands are already itching for another knitting project though...

• There is a print-maker/sewist called Margaret Molinari on Instagram (@margarts) who I started 'following' after I discovered her through the #100Day Project. Her project was to use different found objects for printing onto fabric, and I was completely captivated and amazed by her work. I couldn't resist having a go myself - so far with some leaves from the beautiful whitebeam tree at the park, and a slightly-past-its-best kiwi fruit. I'm nowhere near as proficient as Margaret, but I still think the results are fabulous! I'm deciding whether to add some more colour with my Setacolor paints, and thinking of using the fabric for some extra-special Extra Pocket Bags.

• I was dusting the windowsill earlier in the week and came across this gorgeous Giant House Spider, which had spun a funnel-style web in the bottom of a reflective glass tea-light holder and was patiently lying in wait for passing flies. I'm a bit wary of spiders (having been bitten by one many years ago) but I thought it was such an ingenious (not to mention beautiful) choice of location that I immediately went into full-on 'Charlotte's Web' mode, and announced to the rest of the family that we had acquired a new pet. I'm probably biased, but I think she's extremely photogenic!

• Finally, although bluebell pictures are absolutely everywhere at the moment, there is always room for just one more. Doesn't this little path through the lush green woods look so much more inviting when it's edged with a carpet of blue? 

 

...the 100 day project

The 100 day project is finished, and I'm so glad I saw it through! Here are the squares from days 91-99...

...and one final square (below, top right) completes the project. I ended with a clematis painting because I'd started with one. From bare, knotted stems in January to a mass of flowers in May! 

Looking back on the project, the paintings I'm fondest of tend to be the ones that were done from visual impressions/memories, rather than relying on photos for source material:

The fabric paints I used are from the Pebeo Setacolor range*. They come in gorgeous colours, and several consistencies, which give different effects depending on how much you dilute them and the type of fabric they're intended to be used on. So, moving from left to right in the photo below:

• Setasilk (the clue's in the name) is primarily designed for painting on silk - it has an ink-like consistency (hence the dropper top) and is very water-colour-like in effect. A little goes a long way, especially if you're working on 2.5" squares! The Seta-Skrib bottle on the far right is from a 'vintage' set I bought approx 30 years ago which is still going strong. The watery background of the square below is Setasilk - the fish are Setacolor Opaque.
  
  
  
• Setacolor Shimmer Opaque is a smooth, metallic paint, which can be watered down or added to other colours to give a more subtle, irridescent effect. I only have this in gold so far, but will definitely be adding to my collection when birthday/Christmas present suggestions are needed in future! The peacock feather square was done with a mixture of Setacolor Shimmer and Setasilk.
  
  
  
• Setacolor Opaque gives maximum coverage on any fabric - if Setasilk is like watercolour, then Setacolor Opaque is like acrylic - I've been using it a lot in a kind of 'wax resist' fashion as the Setasilk colours slide right off it. The hawthorn blossom is Setacolor Opaque, with a wash of green Setasilk over the top. 
  
  
  
• Setacolor Light is semi-translucent and very smooth - it's intended for use on light coloured/white fabrics. When watered down it acts like Setasilk, but still retains a little of the 'wax-resist' effect of Setacolor Opaque when used neat. In the square below I was experimenting with it for the first time - there's a bit of gold Shimmer in there too, just because I love it so.
  
  
  
• Setacolor Glitter is probably my least favourite of the range - it is a bit like glitter-glue for fabric, in that it dries almost clear, leaving a glittery residue behind. Best used over the top of other colours as it has the same 'wax-resist' qualities as the Setacolor Opaque and won't allow subsequent washes of colour to sink into the fabric. The square below was another experiment with using it for the first time - turquise glitter stems and silver glitter dots, with a wash of orange and yellow Setasilk over the top.
  

*Other fabric paints are available, I just decided to stick with Pebeo as I liked the Seta-Skrib coIours I already had in my stash!

...all the small things

I was doing the rounds of some of my favourite blogs on Sunday morning, when I came across Ann Wood's latest tutorial for a miniature wood stove - made out of cardboard (loo roll tube and an egg box) and other crafty bits and pieces - and fell head over heels in love. It shot straight to the top of my "To do" list like a rocket and everything else (breakfast, laundry, conversing with family, etc.) paled into insignificance. I had to set to work immediately and make one of my own!

As luck would have it, I'd put an egg box in the recycling bin a day or two before, so I didn't even have to turf any eggs out to get my hands on one. Ann's tutorials are always clear and easy to follow, so after a couple of hours (and a few silly mistakes, like accidentally cutting up the piece set aside for the legs and having to cobble it back together using spare parts) I ended up with this:

Ann's instructions were to let the glue dry thoroughly before painting - "Or you will be sad!" So I decided to make a little Dutch Oven style pot to sit on top of the finished stove. I was in the Making Zone by this point, so I reached for the moulded inlay from a chocolate box I'd saved "just in case", cut off one of the pot-shaped pieces, sprayed the outside with the speckled grey stone-effect spray-paint I'd bought from Aldi "just in case", added a little garden-wire handle with a painted masking tape grip, and filled it with some hearty baked beans (air-drying clay, painted and gloss varnished in situ). A (cocktail stick) wooden spoon to stir them with was the finishing touch.

This is the finished stove - painted with a couple of coats of acrylic paint (Payne's Grey), highlights picked out with a soft 4B pencil. It is simply too cute for words, and every home should have one.