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May 15, 2011

Various bits and pieces

I realise my blogging has been sporadic at best lately.  I'm not in a very good place right now due to one thing or another (mainly one thing) but I won't bore you with that.  Suffice to say my mojo is largely missing right now.  I have not been idle though, gentle readers, perish the thought!  I have been doing some bits and bobs of yarnery and stitchery that consists of following designs by other people thereby utilising their mojo while mine is off wandering.
I learned to knit and crochet when I was a child and have done most kinds of both crafts.  One branch of knitting eluded me though... lace. I can crochet lace no problem but have never got around to even trying knitted lace (i.e. shetland/orenburg/estonian).  My first attempt to rectify this lack was made 4 years ago during my chemo/radiotherapy treatments.  Needless to say it did not go well! Trying to focus on new and complicated techiques while your brain is fried by chemical and radiation poisoning is not really a good idea.  So, on clearing out some dark corners of storage cupboards I came across the patterns and yarn and decided to try again.  Here is where I have got so far:
This is one a third pattern repeats of the edging, and there are 49 repeats in total for just the edging.  It's taken me over a week to get this far, so I figure at least a year just to comlete the edge.  I think I'm doing ok, although I think the vine pattern may have gone adrift a couple of times by the look of it! It is intended to be the Magikal Earth Shawl by Sandy Terp and this is how the finished article should look
 
I have a long way to go!  In the meantime I found the level of focus and concentration needed for lace knitting was so high that I needed something simple to fit in between, so I took up the crochet hook and did a simple shrug for DD which I completed just yesterday
Finally I did get around to some papercrafting.  I decided I needed somewhere to keep cards I had made.  I had intended to use an empty cereal packet  but DD had a tidy session and threw them all away! I therefore scoured the net and found a tutorial from Inking Idaho which almost fit the bill. I wanted something a bit bigger though so I started with some 12 x 12 cardstock then covered it with some old K & Co papers from my stash
So, lots of little bits and pieces keeping me out of mischief.  Hopefully my mojo will come home soon and I can get really inky and messy!
Hope everyone is keeping well x

May 07, 2011

Playing with Art Parts

Inspired by the gorgeous sample THE Linda Elbourne had on her demo station at Ally Pally I bought the Studio 490 Art Parts Cake Stand.  I've finally managed to have a play and made this for my DD
Wren is her family nickname, and she loves playing scrabble, so using the tiles was and obvious choice.  The "vase" of flowers was inspired by this genius idea from the wonderful Lin Brown, I just shaped the grungepaper fringe to make the leaves a bit more spiked then added some tiny lilies.  Here is the back view




I needed something to cover the frame at the back of the mini canvas so it looked ok from all angles.  I just coloured up a piece of paper, stuck that on the back then used and image of Peter Rabbit and his cousin Benjamin Bunny (regular visitors may recall DD is a big fan).
Thanks for visiting x

May 01, 2011

Here he is.......

the fairy elephant in his magical glade in a cage! He's a bit shy, so it's difficult to take photographs, but if you look closely you can see him wandering around in amongst the prima vines and flowers. 
He was a decopatch elephant and I gave him a coat of eco paint in Ocean as a base then blasted him with every glimmer and shimmer mist I owned (that didn't have a clogged valve), then stuck some wings from a butterfly I had in my stash (yes I pulled the wings off a butterfly but, to be fair, one of them had already fallen off anyway).
My DDs bought the cage for my birthday last year and I have been gathering bits for it ever since.
Here is a top view
I found some stuff in a model shop that was for making landscapes for train sets and used that for the base, it started out green and I covered it with flower soft, glitter and some bling and Prima pebbles.  I used some mirror card surrounded by moss as a pond, and then went mad with Prima vines and glimmer misted flowers.
Here's a glimpse inside with the lid open.
and this is the "sun" made with a t!m rosette and a CI image.

Had loads of fun making this :)

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine today x