At Karen Lane’s textile group this week I was very much influenced by the colours I’ve seen around me the last few weeks, particularly during my walks in Broughton Woods.
I’d selected the colours from my stash of fleece before I left home: oranges, yellows and browns, no greens!
I started with dark brown for the background, working first vertically then horizontally, but fanning out at the ends to give a softer edge when it’s finished. I had several shades of brown, building up the layers before I started adding yellows and rusts randomly across the piece.
Although I was being loose in using colour, I did try to keep each layer even across the whole length. After several layers in each direction I started to get looser with my teased-out fleece.
Then added some loose leaf shapes, trying to make sure the layers were in a different direction from what was directly below.
I had no idea if this would work, but thought that there were enough layers going vertically and horizontally lower down to keep it all together once I started to felt it.
I added a few wispy bits of dark brown to add some contrast.
I then started adding hot water and soap to pre-felt it. I liked the wispy edges, but knew they would disappear as the process progressed.
I do like the wavy edge. The brown looks like a leaf skeleton, which I thought could well disappear later……
……. but I was pleased to find it was still obvious once it was fully felted.
I didn’t want a scarf, more a cowl, so the finished length was more than I wanted. Karen confirmed it was OK to cut it at this stage. This is the cowl end.
And I plan to cut this more or less in half and make into hand warmers. They aren’t going to be symmetrical, and will need some crochet or something to make them big enough.
The warm colours will add to the feel of warmth from the cosy felt on grey days.
Walks in “our” Wood always fill me with joy. Last Sunday I managed two in one day, with two different friends that I’d not caught up with for several weeks (the morning one) and several months (the afternoon one). Not only are they both good company, but the colours in the Woods are stunning at the moment.
It was a bit foggy and damp in the morning, but the greyness just made the yellows, golds and oranges glow and pop.
The leaves had made carpets under some of the trees. Unfortunately, they were much too damp to scrunch through.
However, we did manage quite a long walk and saw lots of colours. Although it wasn’t actually raining, the grass was very wet and I realised my left boot was letting in the wet. Shame, as they are really comfy boots, I’ll just have to save them for dry days.
My favourite beech trees are so beautiful at the moment. I’m never sure whether these or the spring colours are the best.
In the afternoon we went first into the Woods on the other side of the village, and did a big loop. We nearly had blue sky for a while.
A different pair of boots kept my feet dry, but not so comfortable. I will have to break them in a little and I’m sure they will soften and become good friends.
The Beck was running well at last, after all the very dry weather we had over the summer. And in a few places the leaves had dried enough to have a good scrunch through. They will be around for a while, so hopefully lots of chances to scrunch through them.
This week at the Allsorts group Gill, one of our members, shared a little of her calligraphy knowledge with us. She had prepared us all a piece of fabric with the word “Joy” written out to stitch over, and the “Y” was drawn like a little sprig of mistletoe. Gill gave us the suggestion of using reverse chain stitch, easier to get even than ordinary chain stitch I always find. I decided to use bigger chain stitches, getting smaller and smaller to fill in the top of the “Y”. Then I added a tiny pearly bead in the centre where the leaves meet, and little groups of beads on the “J” and the”O”: very simple, but effective.
Gill had also brought lots of beautiful examples of cards that she had done and received over the years. It made me want to have another go at calligraphy, which was the first night class I went to after having Miles thirty years ago. I made coasters for Christmas for everyone except myself, but kept the one I did for Nanna (Colin’s Mum – Doreen) when we emptied her house. The “ebbie” is superimposed on it in PhotoShop for a project I did as part of my degree. It now sits on my bedside cabinet with a glass of water on it every night.
I’m well out of practice, so took up Gill’s offer to write “Merry Xmas” on my piece of fabric. I’ve started stitching it in stem stitch. Another work in progress.
I’ve had a very exciting trip to London this week, a long weekend with Miles and Lera. It’s a very long time since I last stayed in London overnight, and only rarely had day trips. On the Monday morning Lera needed to get a visa to travel for work, so they decided to make a weekend of it and asked if I wanted to go with them. Yes, please. Now we are fully vaccinated and taking all the necessary precautions I felt it would be safe to go.
The train was very well socially distanced, on the way home from Doncaster to Scunthorpe I even had a whole carriage to myself. We didn’t use the tube at all, all preferring to walk so we would see more. We did use an Uber, but only once each day when we had time constraints on timed visits, and to take our luggage to Kings Cross left luggage on Monday morning, before Lera’s meeting and Miles working in the London office for the day.
Comfortable shoes were essential, as we walked 70,000 steps / 54 kilometres over the three days. Colin was pleased he’d stayed at home! We were staying in an Air B&B on the other side of Battersea Park, so a long walk along the river and through the parks to get to and from the places we visited.
We crammed a lot in, but somehow it all felt leisurely. Some of the things were planned, others things we found by happy accident. Miles and Lera’s train from York arrived about 10 minutes before mine from Doncaster, so it was lovely to be met with hugs. Then I had my photo taken at Harry Potter’s Platform 9 3/4, and even here there were only a couple of people queueing. The first photo of many, because Lera takes photos of people. I’m usually behind the camera not in front of it!
Into another world
We had several hours before going to the theatre to see “J’ouvert”, a bright, lively performance about Notting Hill Carnival. We tried to get into the British Library, but it was fully booked. Another time, and so close to Kings Cross that in normal times it’s a good place to visit while waiting for the train. We spotted an interesting church, St Pancreas and the gardens, with a huge London Plane Tree, and the old gravestones that had been collected up from the cemetery to make space for the station with a tree growing through them.
London Plane The Hardy TreeTree growing through the old grave stones
Lera wanted us to go to a Georgian restaurant that she had found, so we headed towards it and found Coal Drop Yard by chance “en route”, a relatively new development with interesting walkways near the canal basin, little shops, cafes and restaurants. This led into Agar Grove with outside exhibitions.
Agar Grove
We got to the restaurant just before it opened, and explained we had limited time because of theatre tickets. We asked what would the lady recommend: the casseroles dishes would be the quickest, so we had a lamb, a chicken and a beef one and shared them with a big basket of their own bread. Very good. An Uber to the theatre and a quick walk through China Town. This was the busiest place we were in, but we walked briskly with our masks on, somewhere to linger in other times.
China Town
We walked along the river and through Green Park where we saw a herd of elephants, there’s a bigger herd in another park (72). I can’t remember where the lady said, I was already on overload! So much visual stimulation everywhere.
Lera with the elephants.
We walked past Victoria Station and the bus station where I recalled catching the bus/coach back to Birmingham about 40 years ago, carrying a huge plastic bag of polystyrene beads to make a bean bag, which Miles thought was crazy, until I explained that you couldn’t buy them easily then.
We were all relieved to arrive at the Air B&B; aching feet and aching shoulders, in spite of travelling light and Miles insisting on carrying my roll-along / rucksack for much of the way and me only carry a cloth bag of stuff needed during the day. The place was modern, clean and well-appointed.
My single room was in a different block of flats / maisonettes from theirs. On the map it looked to be around a few corners, in reality when I came out of my front door to meet them, I could hear Miles calling me. I couldn’t see him until he waved out of the window two floors up directly opposite across a quadrangle. Both had well fitted kitchens, so we found a supermarket to get a few supplies. Miles cooked and there was outside space with a picnic table at mine, where we ate. On Sunday night it was too cold to do this, so we ate in their room which had two chairs and a table at the end of the bed, so Miles sat on the end of the bed.
On Sunday we walked a different route, then along the river to the Tate Modern where we had timed tickets. We spent a couple of hours on one floor and one more gallery. I came out with lots of ideas and things I want to try.
Artist that I was suggested to look at when I was doing my degree.Beautiful fabric covered books
We had tickets booked for late afternoon at the Science Museum, where we saw a superb exhibition called Medicine. We were all fascinated by this, and spent a long time looking at an interactive body showing X-rays, MRI scans, etc. of different areas of the body. We had barely finished looking at that before announcements started giving us time warnings of closure, so we separated and looked at the rest of it individually, wizzing round and looking at the bits that caught each of us. The part about Thalidomine made me think / realise how lucky we were that mum didn’t suffer with morning sickness as both my sister and I were born in this time period. One of mum’s friend’s oldest daughters, only a couple of months older than me, was one of the victims. We could all have spent a whole day just on that exhibition.
Monday was rainy for most of the day. I had a quieter day at the Barbican, with its fabulous library. Unfortunately the art section was closed because it didn’t work with the one-way system, but one of the Librarians brought out a selection of embroidery books for me, three or four that I already have. There were a couple of interesting exhibitions, one about Matrix, an architecture company that specialised in building for women in the 1980s. One bit had black and white footage of the centre of Birmingham in the late 1980s, including the Rotunda (long ago demolished) where my nanna used to work.
I met Lera in the cafe for lunch, where she worked for a couple of hours after her meeting at the Embassy. I left her working, and met up with her later to visit the Conservatory, where she found a new hat.
New hat!
Lots of photos taken in there, close-ups of flowers and leaves, giving me ideas for future work. All in all, a great few days, that have recharged my batteries. I’ve had a productive few days in the garden and three more long walks, good to get my walking boots and thick socks on to cushion my feet the first day back! And I was certainly pleased that the weather was cool and mainly dry over the weekend, if a little grey at times.
I’ve (we’ve) had a lovely week, both of us have had birthdays. I now have a golden oldie for a husband, but he reckons 78 r.p.m. is far too fast for him! And I’m now sweet 16, the sweet is pushing it a bit! Not something I’ve ever been!
Lots of long walks in the woods for me, whatever the weather, what you have to do with a dog (see below!). Sitting outside in the sunshine with friends bringing birthday presents, luckily the first one brought cake, so there was cake to share with the impromptu visitors. Yes, it was cold, but we were well wrapped up and it was well worth it to see them all.
We’ve had the first proper meal with our son and his wife since Christmas Day. We’ve missed their craziness and banter. After we’d eaten, I was told that my / our present was in the back of the car. I was handed a dog lead with a little shaggy dog attached, and told her name was Nelly (our Golden Retriever was called Nellie). My response was ‘you’re joking’. Miles has been trying to persuade us to have another dog for a dozen or so years, even before we lost Truffle, our black Labrador, that we’d decided was our last dog.
It hasn’t stopped him trying to change our minds over the years, coming up with lots of arguments for, and tying me in knots about what he reckoned were illogical or not valid reasons that I’d responded with. I did think I was being wound up and that it was theirs. Many times he’s asked ‘what percentage of a dog do we want?’ in the hope of having one himself, and us looking after it when he was away, either for work or on holiday. Zero, has always been my answer.
They had only collected her that morning, but he said they had met her several times. She got out of the car a little apprehensively and slightly nervous. She was a lockdown puppy, and there had also been a little terrier who had tried to bite him, so they didn’t choose that one. She was not really used to being on a lead, where she was from she didn’t need one and she would stay with her owner, but she needed to be on a lead until she was familiar with us all and to know the places where she was being walked.
We needed to be patient and go at her speed to walk along the pavement and get to the woods, and she was not sure about the traffic and the pedestrians, but seemed quite happy, calm and well-behaved. No obvious reason for anyone to want to give her up.
While we were walking I quizzed him about where she had come from, why she needed rescuing, who had had her, why they wanted / needed to get rid of her, etc. Several times I was aware he couldn’t give me an answer, or evaded the question, or changed the subject, all of which made me suspicious. If she was theirs I felt sure he would have wanted the information to the things I was asking.
I’d insisted that he held her lead, she was at least a little used to him, but did hold it myself for a short time, once she was more comfortable and confident with us all. It was a lovely, bright afternoon if very cold, and good to walk in the woods with them.
She was quite happy with Colin when we got back, going to him for fuss and attention. Neither of us was really convinced that she was for us. Miles knows that a dog is not just for Christmas or birthdays, and is a long-term, serious commitment. He knows we don’t want the tie of another dog, but kept repeating that she wasn’t theirs.
We were both very relieved at the end of the day to find that she was one of his colleagues’ dog, and that they were in on the joke. Cruel on the dog, no. Miles and Lera will look after her when the friends go away, and it will be better for her in the long term if she knows them and feels safe and secure with them.
Wound up? A little, we were both very relieved to see her go, and would have enjoyed her more if we’d known she was only a visitor! He assured me at the end of the day that he’d not lied to us, just evaded the truth and been very careful about what he’d said. A couple of friends suggested we should have called his bluff and pretended that we wanted to keep her, but that would only have given him reason to think he really could present us with a dog. Bluff and double bluff.
It will no doubt become another of the stories of crazy presents from him and now them: Lera is just as bad as him!
I haven’t done much stitching, but have finally finished ‘Nanna and me’. It’s been on the arm of my chair ever since. It feels nice, very tactile as textiles often are, often difficult not to touch them at exhibitions etc., so I tend to walk round them with my hands in my pockets to remind myself not to touch, quilts especially.
Finished at last
I’ve scanned a load of photos from our 1999 trip to America, relatively few to choose from as it was before we had a digital camera, but plenty picked out anyway. So the quilt is progressing, just nothing more to see yet.
Below is a lovely quiet, still place for a drink on one of our less regular walks. The birds were singing away, and coming down very close for a drink. I love the reflections in the water. This walk was also when I saw the first bluebells of the year.
And I saw these incredible bracket fungi, the centre of which looks like the inside of bones, or coral. Stitch project? Crochet? Lace?
Bracket fungi on the top of a tree stumpThis was on the side of the same stump
My little fix of green on the kitchen table is coming out, a beech branch broken off in the wind a week or two ago. The one from a month ago is still not showing any green, but the buds are still getting fatter. The leaves are so delicate and fine, they look like pleated silk. Yes, there are two tiny wooden eggs peaking through from the back. But Lera’s Russian Easter is not until the 2 May, so I’m leaving them out until then.
debbidipity 