Where is my picture browser?

I have not been able to post any pictures for several days now, I understand that it is a wide spread problem and that the blog team are trying to fix it, or am I being hopelessly naive and really should change to another blog enabler.
I'm still working and have all sorts of crafty things going on - about which I will blog once my picture browser comes back. Frustrating........

Playing Cricut

 

I've been layering up some cut-outs from my new (second hand) cricut machine and adding a few beads and stitch, very frivolous but just the colour hit I needed today.

 

 

I stitched one frame down completely and just stitched the second frame very lightly. I like the fact that it frame stands away from the background making the image 3D. I wish I hadn't stitched the first frame down flat, must try another sample and layer the the frames with minimum stitching.

 

 

You can see how the curly frame sticks out on this side view, definitely more play to come.

 

 

 

I've made some memory pebbles to remind me of last week's outings with my friends. I've added the date and their names on the back of each one so that I can recall the exact day we went to various beaches. I find it more and more important to record  good memories in some physical way. My blog is a great aide memoire I just wish I'd started it sooner - like fifty years ago, ha ha! 

 

 

My last little piece of work was a very plain felted purse that I have embellished. I bought in a craft fair last week in the tiniest village hall on the Gairloch coast. It was heaving with people despite being miles and miles from anywhere of significance. The tables were filled with the absolutely amazing local produce and crafts and the little kitchen was turning out the most appetising stuffed crepes I've ever seen.  People live so well up here. 

Talking of which I've ordered the christmas fare today -  a haunch of venison, a side of hot smoked salmon and some scallops (weather permitting). I must look out for some Stornaway black pudding for our all time favourite starter - Scallops and black pudding seared with chillies and olive oil. Sounds an unlikely pairing but it is scrumptious. I think I will have to climb a few mountains to burn off the extra calories in the new year (as though that is going to happen). 



 



Ipad Art Addiction

It's been quite a while since I last posted as I've been enjoying time with my son, gardening, cycling, cooking -  in fact everything apart from stitching. The arrival home of my son ( besides being a great pleasure for me) meant I get to play with his Ipad.

I invested in a 69p app for making art, very quickly I got to grips with it ( trust me it's easy) and produced some quick 'paintings'. I can't say it is easier than actual drawing and painting but it is a much faster process than doing it in 'real time'.

 An obligatory sunset made want to use a more complex app. For the grand sum of £5.95 I down loaded 'Brushes' which is the app that David Hockney uses. What fun!! At first it was quite daunting - seemingly lots of different 'tools' but actually it soon became almost intuitive to do and very addictive.

I love the way this looks so 'textiley'  the lines look so threadlike. My son will obviously take his Ipad with him when he goes back to Shanghai in 9 weeks time (sob).  I will not be purchasing an Ipad in the near future so I shall just enjoy it whilst I can. I would never get any stitching done if I had this to play with all day.

Name and Shame

I hope that by publishing part of my stack of U.F.O.'s I will somehow shame myself into finishing a few! The crazy thing is  that 80% of them are a day away from finishing and what am I doing? Playing with a pleater/smocker that I borrowed from a friend. I had visions of turning out yards and yards of Fortuny like silk all pleated and stashed for future projects.

I don't think this machine likes synthetic voiles very much. I'm sure that if I removed the threads the fabric would bounce back to normal very quickly. I'm going to try some silk and cotton organza next. Any one had any experience of this machine?

The cording session is well and truly over  - indeed we have probably produced enough cord to supply our needs for the next century or so. I tested the machine to destruction level by running torrn fabrics and novelty wools and ribbons through it and still it persisted (ah.... British engineering).

Now if I set myself the goal of finishing one UFO a day I could have a self - righteous glow by the end of the week.

It's not going to happen is it?



Cord Mania

 



It started with a rather out of proportion tassel that  I finished off during  my Tuesday 'Calico' meeting, the outcome was rather disappointing. I wanted elegant - and ended up with a dumpy looking thing  that was far from what I had wanted to achieve. Whilst making it I needed some co-ordinating cord which took ages to make by hand. (I'm not very partial to those quick make zig-zag cords that you make on the sewing machine). I want a proper cord. It got me thinking how often I use cords and wouldn't it be useful to have a good selection of colours and weights of cord to hand.

Looking through my stash of threads I rediscovered about a 150 skeins of stranded cottons that I had inherited from a friend, I rarely use stranded threads and every time I glimpsed them I felt a twinge of guilt that they were going to waste. 

The next thing to do was to buy a cord maker - £195.00 put paid to that idea. Beloved husband - source of all things practical, took one look at what I wanted and emerged some time later from the loft bearing what looked like the very first Meccano set ever invented. A bit of trial and error and the mark 4 version works perfectly.

I'm producing 2 metre lengths of cord from this wonderful Heath Robinson set up and it hasn't cost a penny. With John's help I have made 36 pieces today of a medium weight cord. Tomorrow we will make the same amount of a much finer blend.

A double length of stranded cotton is used on each hook and then spun so that each colour is twisted quite tightly - then with a small adjustment to the machine all four strands are twisted together giving a multi -coloured cord.

When we had achieved 36 cords we wound them onto cardboard tubes - and gloated!!

A good day's work!

Steam Driven Laptop

Bear with me folks if my blog looks a little eccentric at the moment, lots of crazy stuff happening on this ancient laptop I'm using here in Ullapool. I can't seem to stop alien images popping up all over the place, to say nothing of the fact that the machine switches itself off every 10 mins. So read between the errors to get the picture of what is going on up here. I'm determined not to replace this ancient piece of kit until the new Kindle tablet is available next year.