Re-organising my craft room

I haven't done a lot of art the last few days, but I have had a huge re-organise in the room I do my creative stuff in. I finally splashed out and bought some shelving. These are so fab I'm going to buy some more.

I completely re-arranged the room so I will have space to have workshops in here for 3 or 4 (5 at a squeeze). It has been through several stages of chaos. This little corner is fairly sorted.

 The rest of is is still a little chaotic. (and the new shelves have now moved into the corner you see below).

Chaos

It's easy to sort things like 'watercolour paints', 'decorative paper' 'plain paper', 'books for re-purposing'. Filing the 'other stuff' has not been so easy. I have 3 big boxes of 'other stuff'. I'm not going to be able to find a lot of things for a few weeks!
I'm running some afternoon crafting sessions here on Monday afternoons, this is what we'll be doing this Monday (if anyone comes)

Yo Yo flowers

I also did some doodling in my diary, but it's dreadful, so I'm not going to show you!

"Do it with a passion or not at all"

One of the things I love about getting older is the understanding that comes with all those years of experience. Something about myself that I am getting used to is the fact that I am rather an all or nothing person. I will spin wool or play the guitar or sew obsessively for several weeks, then won't touch it again for six months. This used to bother me. I would feel haunted by the spinning wheel/guitar/sewing and worry that I'd never do it again. Now I am ok about being like this. I know that the urge to do things that are special to me will return.
So, right now I'm into blogging. I've no idea why, I just suddenly feel like putting 'out there' all the things I've been up to. I find it slightly disturbing that I don't know why I'm doing it, I like to know the whys of things. I'm hoping one day it will become clear to me. In the meantime I'm enjoying sorting/labelling/resizing my pictures, and good grief I've even got a little notebook for keeping blogging ideas in. That's a bit disturbingly organised. I'll probably mostly ignore it and ramble on about what comes to me when I sit down. I do dream of being one of those people who is really organised. I dream of being the sort of person who would keep a track of what they spend their money on, what the weather is like every day, when the sowed what in the garden. Occasionally I get to be in that place for short periods of time, but ultimately it's not me, and that's ok. I'm really quite happy as I am, but there's no harm in aspiring to be better.
And so, from my library of (currently) well organised and labelled pictures here are two things I'm working on ..... when the urge takes me.

 One finished hat for the winter for me. One hat in progress for Vince. I'm a slow knitter, and I get bored after a few rows. It always makes me chuckle that a friend of mine will think nothing of knitting a couple of blankets and a  jumper in the time it takes me to knit one hat. I'm hoping to have Vince's hat ready for this winter, I'm making fairly good progress.
Both handspun wool (of course?)

Patchwork quilt in progress. These are quite large pieces, you can just see the toe of my left foot for scale. It's all made from scraps/offcuts/old clothes. Being a peasant at heart I think it's cheating to buy brand new perfectly good pieces of fabric from a shop and cut them into small pieces and sew them all together again.
The plan for this is to make it triangular for our triangular bed in the boat (the bedroom in the boat is in the pointy bit at the front of the boat). The longer term plan will then be to extend it into a normal shaped quilt when we get back from our travels.
These are pretty long term plans, which is a good job because I can see this is going to be a long time in the making..

Snow and sewing

I have been aware this week that other people have been getting all excited about the snow thing and I've been all 'bah humbug' because it makes it difficult for me to get to work (I'm back lambing this week), and impossible for me to do my other work, gardening. Gardening, ha what's that? I've done so little since November because it's either raining, frozen or snowing! 

This morning I went to a new yoga class which was wonderful, so I'm looking forward to more of that, and then, as the ground wasn't actually frozen, I went to the allotment to dig up some parsnips and horseradish to go with the aforementioned beef. And I got SOAKED. It rained and rained (I was home by now) and then it turned to snow, and I thought that actually it looks very pretty, so I took this picture from our sitting room window. (You didn't think I was going to go outside did you?!)

So there you go, pretty snow, I feel better now.....

Do you see the date stamp, that's a long story relating to my new computer, which has sorted all my photos by date, but as I never set the date properly on my camera....imagine the chaos, I won't bore you with that!

This afternoon I got out my lovely hand crank singer sewing machine. I'm planning to take it on the boat with me when we finally go off on our big adventure, to make stuff and do repairs with, so I thought I'd sew up these hatch covers for the boat with it. It needs a bit of attention, I haven't got the correct bobbins for example, but in general it works really well.

I've also been playing my fiddle a lot. I've had it for two years now and have have played it very little. A few of us from the singing group have started a music group. I played a slow but passable version of the Skye Boat Song last night along with a whistle, a harmonica and two guitars. It probably sounded dreadful, but we were pleased with ourselves and we can only get better!

Quick sewing project

Vince treated himself to a new phone. It's one of those all singing all dancing things that only cost a few pounds a month if you don't use them too much. It will be useful for keeping in touch and getting weather forecasts when we are on the boat. Well it will be useful if we can ever work out how to use the thing.
He bought a case for it to protect it when he throws in in his lunch bag or in the van, but the case only covers the back and sides and doesn't protect the screen (!?) so he asked if I could make one for him. Never one to turn down a quick fix sewing project I produced this. Sorry I haven't rotated the image, I had enough trouble re-sizing it, then finding the re-sized image (new computer!)

leather phone case

When he was asking me to make this he went slightly into silly mode and asked if it could be monogrammed in gold and have the family coat of arms on it etc etc .........
.....So he got a gold 'V' on it!

The next best thing to a family coat of arms?!

Alphabet Quilt.

I've been working on this alphabet quilt all year, and I was just about to post about it 'in progress'  during the summer when the person it's for put a comment on my blog, eek I didn't realise they were reading it, so I had to save up posting about it until after Christmas!
 I  took some of the squares along on the boat on our summer trip to do embroidery on them, it was  a great way of relaxing in the evenings.

My original layout

 B is for boat, O is for owl, and C is for cat.... of course!

I had a vague plan it would be a summer birthday present, but  I realised there was no way it would be finished by then. However, I did get it finished for Christmas.

Terrible picture, but you get the idea, I was in a rush to get it in the post..

Finished quilt, backed and edged

I'd better start on next years sewing project now ...

A quick bit of quilting

One of the things I've been working on while at home, sheltering from the wind and rain is (one of!) my quilt(s).
Here are the three layers spread out on the floor. On the bottom is the top (?), on top of that, for the padding, is an old blanket I bought from our local recycling centre for £1.50. On top is the backing, which is a not-quite-big-enough old sheet. This is a traditional frugal quilt made entirely from reclaimed/recycled offcuts and scraps. I don't quite understand quilters who buy new bits of material, cut them into small pieces and then stitch them all together again.

note what a not-very tidy room I have?!
here's the back, pinned and partly stitched together

 A close up of the stitching on the front

 And a general view of the pinned and partly stitched front/top.

I've been putting this bit off for ages because I kept reading that it was difficult, that it's easy to end up with wrinkles and uneven bits. But of course that doesn't matter, this is a quilt made to keep us warm and look pretty. It's not been made to win any prizes, and it certainly doesn't matter if it has a few wrinkles, after all it will match Vince and I as we grow older together!
There's still lots of stitching to do, and I need to resolve the not-quite-big-enough backing sheet, but I feel I'm nearing the end now, and I think it will be stitched together enough this autumn to go on the bed, even if it's not quite finished.

For Belinda

I got the machine out and had a sewing session one rainy day this week. One long awaited project in the textiles trunk were t-shirt extensions. I had been thinking of doing this for a while, then back in December I saw this picture on Belindas blog, and it made it ok for me to do this crazy thing



http://belinda-whitworth.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/making-do-and-mending.html

So here, finally are two of mine.
I hadn't looked back at Belinda's picture since I saw it in December, and now I've put the two together they look spookily similar! I really hope we get to meet up one day. We should definitely wear our extended t shirts when we do!

Hmm, mine are a bit beige-y!

On the hand sewing fronts I made these on a different rainy afternoon (it has rained a lot recently, and it's not much fun gardening in the rain). I copied the design directly from an image I saw on someones blog, but I'm sorry I didn't note which one. If you recognise them I'm more than happy to credit you. I've only made these few for myself, and might give one or two away to friends. One is destined for the boat. I have plans for a pussy cat cushion to keep it company.

 And below is an on going project that uses up bits and pieces from other projects and worn out clothing. I don't have a final size vision yet, I'm just sewing 'flowers' and collecting white hexagons for the background at the moment.

Hot Tip

For those of you who keep saying you don't blog enough...announce that you aren't going to blog anymore, seems to produce the opposite effect for me!

A quiet fourth day and some arty stuff

A few statistics today. I'm usually hopeless and not very interested in numbers, but today I had another ride in the the landrover with the farmer, and as he loves talking about his farm and I love listening, I thought I'd make an effort to remember some numbers. There are about 500 ewes due to lamb in this three week period. So far there are about 55 doubles numbered and turned out, 15 doubles still in pens and about 20 singles. The singles lamb outside and are left outside as long as everything is ok. We are nearly a week into the lambing now. So, with 400 still to lamb it's going to get very busy at some point!
As a result of it being quiet I got to go off on a jolly again today. I spent the first hour and a half doing pens and turning out ewes and lambs. I turned out 10 today (see, I've been keeping count for you!), and every one followed quite well. The up side of this was that I got it done fast, the down side was that I had to carry 10 pairs of lambs, and some were big and heavy, and several wriggled a lot, so my shoulders were definitely beginning to ache by the end. The teenage daughter was about today, doing stuff with her horses and hand feeding the few jacob sheep that are technically hers. I always think of them as an attempt by the farmer to get her interested in the sheep, but I may be wrong!

A photo I took a while ago of a jacob shouting,
 probably for more food!

I hadn't quite finished pens when the farmer whisked me off in the landrover to collect up some electric fencing in some fields about 4 miles away. He doesn't own any land (as far as I know) but rents land all over the place. We were collecting up electric fencing from the perimeter of three fields. The fencing is plastic stakes and two wires. The farmer has a clever gadget that fits onto the wheel of a small trailer towed behind the quad bike. As he drives forward it reels in the wires onto two reels. My job is to trot on ahead, detach the wires, pull out the posts and leave them in piles which he picks up and puts in the trailer. It works pretty well most of the time. The only hiccups are when the wire gets twisted or a knot gets stuck, and today, because the wire had been left there for a while and not switched on something, possibly a deer had pulled it and broken it, so I had to find the two ends and join them. Here is the farmer on the quad stopping to take a phone call. If you look at the picture in large format you can just see the wire wrapper to the left of the trailer. And you can just about see the corner of the field.  I'm standing about halfway along one side of a roughly square field. Thankfully the two other fields were smaller and only partially fenced.

On the way back in the landrover he also told me about a lambing saga last night. He'd been to check the mules in the early evening and had left the quad bike trailer in the field as he thought it likely that he'd need it later that night. At about 10pm (in the dark remember) he went out to check the singles and one had a head out, and he knew she'd started trying to lamb at least an hour ago, so she needed help. He and his wife couldn't catch her, so they got the dog, herded the whole lot into a corner of the field and caught her. They got a healthy live lamb out, but the ewe just wasn't interested. They spent some time trying to persuade the ewe that she really should take some notice of her lamb but she was having none of it. He was by now getting cross with her (it's late, he's tired, he wanted a bath, and the trailer is several fields away), so in the end they lifted the ewe up onto the quad bike and tied her on the front rack (remember this is still all in the dark with only the bike headlights and a torch). They finally got her back to the farm and in a pen, tho it was gone 11 by then, and by morning she was happily feeding her lamb. A happy ending, but a tired farmer.
Back at the yard I had a few more pens to finish and a few bales to distibute with the bike.
This is my favourite little row of 6 pens. They have lots of character, and because they are at the top of a little south facing paddock they are always the warmest pens when there's a bit of sun about.

Well, it's Saturday evening and I've only just finished this, so the 'todays' are now 'yesterday', but I don't think that will spoil the story. I don't work on the farm on Saturdays.
Last night we went out singing, this morning I was gardening, and this afternoon we went to a local 'Food, Drink and Arts' festival which was lovely, and I saw some fabulous quilts, some of which you can see here

http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/art-quilts/

She spent ages showing us round and it is so wonderful to find such talented people living just down the road.

I am now really inspired me to get my quilt finished. Here it is when I started it, over a year ago.

These bits are now all stitched together and I just(?!) need to edge, back and quilt it.

This evening I finally got to use the drum carder that my mum leant me a few weeks ago. I've produced a few batts of wool so I can do some more spinning (before or after I finish the quilt?). Photos sometime, maybe. Off to the farm again tomorrow...

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.

Collecting seeds and sewing birds

In case you think I spend all my time doing wooly stuff...well, I do spend a lot of my time at the moment..here are a few other things going on..
These are some beans I grew this year. A friend gave them to me and they were labelled 'Dalmation bean'' you can see why can't you, they're really pretty. They were also labelled 'climbing french for eating/drying' Well they weren't climbing..they stayed resolutely down at ground level at the bottom of the canes I put them next to! I didn't eat any as I wanted to build up my stock of seed, and I'm not sure if you're meant to eat the pods or dry the seeds for eating...I must ask her...or look it up on the internet!
Let me know if you'd like a few to grow. I've got some other fab purple climbing french beans, it would be good to share them around too.

Dalmatian beans

I didn't have a very productive year on the allotment because it was so dry and everything stopped growing in July. The beetroot are just swelling to about golf ball size now. Because the veg weren't doing well I let more free range poppies than usual fill in the spaces.

see photos of them here (oops, I've lost one photo!)

 It was very pretty, and I now have a HUGE harvest of poppy seeds to put in bread, cakes and puddings. This is the bowl of empty seedheads, so pretty.

Poppy seed heads

And finally here are some birds I made after a late night blog browsing session. They are stuffed with some not very good wool (oops, did I mention wool). I thought that with red breasts they'd make good Christmas decorations. I haven't decided if they need eyes or wings adding yet. I found the pattern here.
http://www.spoolsewing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/birdpattern1-1.pdf

'Art', (and a bit of sewing)



I did an art degree a few years ago, but I'm always more comfortable calling myself a craftsperson. Part of me would like to have the confidence to say that some of what I do is art, or should that be 'Art'. People tell me I'm 'creative', which always feels slightly closer to the 'Art' thing.
For several years I've been involved with West Town Farm near Exeter. It's a working farm that produces beef and pork. On the farm are the offices of Organic Arts which promotes the arts and rural issues. I help out on open days, teach book workshops, show school children round the farm and help with playdays and playgroup visits in other locations, some paid, some unpaid.
Organic Arts takes part in the Devon Open Studios event each year, and artists are invited to exhibit at the farm. Last year I bottled out and just made some nice farm related books and displayed them, staying safely in the 'craft' zone. This year the theme is growth, and I'm doing something more wacky, that I'm going to have to call 'Art' even though it will only fit into what people think of as art if they've been to art college because it's not conventional painting or sculpture. So, having made all my excuses I'll show you some pictures of the 'Art' in progress.
It's based around the ideas of patchwork, as a symbol of the patchwork of our lives, patchworks of fields, gardens, lah de dah and all that lovely artspeak stuff...

................a patchwork garden and some patchwork flowers

my choice of site at the farm

digging

and sowing

bags of soil and compost

the start of my patchwork garden

the start of my patchwork flowers

Sewing

Just a couple of little things, while I work on gathering together some images and writings on other stuff that we've been up to.
Here's me (with very short hair) in a pair of crazy patchwork trousers I made some time ago. I'm pretty fond of crazy patchwork.. what does that say about me?

Crazy patchwork trousers

And here's some less crazy sewing I've been doing

A bit of embroidery on one of my HAND MADE BOOKS banners

And some less crazy patchwork that's part of a bigger project..

Grandmothers flower garden

Lots of sewing

So, lots of exciting things been happening, where do I start?
Vince was away for a whole day and evening last week, so I took the opportunity to make a terrible mess in the sitting room



assisted by the cat of course

 I pretty well tipped most of the contents of my textile collection on the floor and had a bit of a sewing spree. I've always wanted a 'Welcome' banner over the door. You can see the beginnings in the above picture, and it currently looks like this



do you like the toes..for a sense of scale?!

 It's a bit dull at the moment, needs more flowers/colour somewhere...into the 'Work In Progress' box with it...
I hung up my 'handmade books' banner to think about it

Hmm, I think I'll put scalloped trim on it...but I didn't get any further than this...more W.I.P.
And in case you think I didn't get anything finished I finally put the zip in the patchwork skirt, which was easier than I thought AND I replaced the broken zip in Vince's fleece jacket with a 'reclaimed' one from another fleece which I picked up cheap and didn't like much.
I think I'll put zips in more things now...thank you again Ren for nagging me!,



fleece and skirt with new zips


Then I went completely mad and made a hat. I'm not a great hat wearer and I don't know what came over me, I just saw the pattern in an old magazine and I was away



I crazy patchworked the pattern pieces with the sew...




...and flip, technique. This is the band of the hat




Top and band ready to sew together



It's a bit 'tall' at this stage!



brim ready to sew on



lined and finished the following day

and it's reversible too!

As I say, I'm not much of a hat wearer, I'll probably give it to someone who likes it one day. If anyone would like the pattern and instructions I could share them with you sometime. Might have to put them in the snail mail as I 'm not sure my technological skills are up to putting that sort of thing on 'tinternet yet.
Last week we had two students staying who were taking part in 'Dartmoor Arts' week,
....and my mum has lent me a spinning wheel
....and I'm working on a website for Vince with images of all the lovely carpentry and building work he does..
so much to tell you about..
and finally....
 I think I may be suffering from a little bit of 'caravan envy', look at this

I belongs to Ren and family..wow it makes ours look a bit dull
Go here to see them transforming it..
http://fairysteps.blogspot.com/