Flag day

A few weeks ago I wandered into a hall in the local village that was advertising flag making workshops. Now, I've been planning to make some kind of flag things for my workshops at buddhafield festival, so I went in to see what they were up to. They were all beavering away making flags out of old tents! to display around the village during various festivals. So, I thought I'd have a go as it might give me some ideas about making some for myself. So I went off and came up with an idea for a design based on flowers (hey-I'm a gardener!), but also using the shapes of the railings with baskets that line the high street. Here's my design taking shape.

 The basket/railing shape stitched in place

 and then cut out. It's a clever technique as it's basically applique, but it means that the design can be seen from both sides, and I love that they are made from old tents, what a great idea!

 Here are a couple of other people working on theirs

 This one is to go outside the church

And here is my flag flying

 The post office

 The deli and butchers

 the mini 'industrial' estate on the edge of town

 ...and a general view of the high street, there are tons more flags than you can see here. What a fab display it is and I feel really proud to have been part of it.

A visit to our new boat

A few weeks ago we went down to see our new boat. We don't get to see her very often at the moment as she's over near Portsmouth. She's out of the water and is having some maintenance work done on her.

 One of my jobs was to un-bolt the anchor winch, which was easier than I thought it would be. The winch is now at a neighbours being taken apart and possibly repaired, if it's worth it. Otherwise we'll buy a new one.

 Chaos down below again, spice jars holding little collections of screws as we take panels off to work out where water is getting in in a couple of places .... oh the joy of living on a boat eh?

 We were lucky with the weather, it was cold but dry all day and we were treated to a lovely sunset.

Vince did suggest that perhaps we could just leave the boat there on the shore and go down and stay on it from time to time. Gosh, what a great idea I thought. Unfortunately I think he was joking, and I still have a boat trip from Portsmouth to Plymouth in April to look forward to. Please let it be lovely and sunny and warm. Tell me it can be lovely and sunny and warm in April!

Rubbish book

I might not have been blogging much recently but of course I have been blog browsing and I found a lovely blog for book lovers and scavengers called 'Jennibellie' (see below for link).
 I was so inspired I sat up all night and made this book

 It's made entirely from scavenged scraps (and a bit of p.v.a.), and I called it 'Rubbish'

I love it, it's a real departure for me from my other books, I'm scheming some more..

Here is a link to the post that really got me going, she has SO many beads on her book!I haven't had time to put quite that many on my book, perhaps I'll keep adding them.

http://jennibelliestudio.blogspot.com/2011/12/weirdo-art-book.html

Book repairs

For some time I have tended to avoid doing book repairs. This is because, when I went to classes, my book binding tutor always made me do it so perfectly that it took far too long and I lost interest and it became completely uneconomic.
Before Christmas a friend asked me to repair a very falling apart old Mrs Beeton, and as I have a soft spot for old cookery books I agreed. A neighbour also asked me to repair a book, so I thought why not, as I'm in the swing, and I even got round to repairing a cookery book of my own.
Mrs Beeton had to be completely taken apart,

And re-stitched (I've posted this image before, I've worked on it very intermittently!)

 then have a new spine

 And here it is finished. As you can see I didn't spend hours perfectly colour matching it so you couldn't see the join, I just made it strong enough to last many more years, and made it as neat as I could. The pale stripes are where it had been patched up with duct tape!!

 Again, you can see the join inside the endpapers, but the owner seemed happy.

The other book didn't need re-stitching, just needed a new spine. Here it is pulled apart, looking worse before it gets better

 New spine being made

 And here it is finished

 An easier endpaper to repair as I managed to find some paper of a very similar colour. It's quite amazing how many different whites there are when you are trying to get something to match!

So, because I didn't have to do them perfectly (sorry Mary if you ever read this), I quite enjoyed it, and it was almost economic. Well I didn't actually count the hours, that would be silly wouldn't it? But it is good to have indoor work when it's raining or frosty.

p.s. for Belinda
I'm still working on my lambing writing, I'll be back working in the lambing sheds in March, so will try to get it blogged then, when it's 'live'. Also sorry I haven't replied about the dog/sheep thing, I'm thinking about it and will probably e mail you when I've got some ideas together.

A christmas present

Ok I know it's now February 3nd, I'm a bit behind with my blogging!
A bit of embroidery

 A pink leather cover

 A book for the parents of my new niece

 And some stickers to put in the book to record her first years

They seemed pleased with it, and I met her in person last week.
I'm not a baby person at all, but as babies go (she's about 6 months now) she was pretty cute!