Rabbiting On. (again)

Well I promised you bunny parts, and that's what your going to get, but first a little message for Alex at Pink Feather Paradise...

It's on its way!

Carefully packaged up and in the care of Royal Mail.

~~~

Bunny

The prototype

The second bunny, more the shape I had in mind.

Actually wonderful man thinks it looks more like a hare!

Maybe that's because the ears are so big?

Gosh! Now there are two! They're breeding like ra.....

Rabbiting On.

Our son turned 16 this weekend. Sweet sixteen and never been k... er, not sure about the last bit! What happened to that little baby I held in my arms, that little skinny kid who 'zoomed and whooshed' and all those other noises that boys make whilst playing? The time has passed in the blink of an eye. I'm not old enough (come off it Fi! ) to have a 16 year old. I should still have toddlers wanting the playdoh out, or the paddling pool filled, or their shoes buckling! I should still have a little, soft, pudgy hand, holding mine; not a strapping young man looking down at me from way above! Oh how I enjoy being a mum. It's the best job in the world!

What ever size they are!

On another bright note, I've kindly been given an award from Sal, over at Sals Snippets. Thank you very much, I feel like I'm having a second Christmas!

It comes with these rules:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog
2. Put a link to the person who sent out the award
3. Nominate three blogs for this award
4. Put links to their blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Heck! only 3 other blogs, that's going to be hard the list of blogs on my favourites has me scrolling and scrolling!

My first nominee is Lucy over at Attic24

I don't know what she's on, but I wish I had some. Talented, bubbley, vibrant, zingy. That's Lucy, oh and a little bit bonkers. (in the nicest possible way)

My second nominee is Lesley at Lesleys Creations

Lesley has enriched my life enormously, she is so kind and generous, sharing her skills and her friendship. I feel truly blessed to have her as my friend. She makes a mean piece of felt too!

And last but not least my third nomination is Hen at HenHouse

This young lady makes me smile every time I pop by her gentle blog. For me Hen's little world is a bit like the 'Darling Buds of May' homely and pretty, and I can always smell cakes baking!

OO! I enjoyed that more than I thought I would. I smiled all the way through typing that.

I promised you bunny parts last time, and I'm all ready to give you bunny parts, but apparently my computer is not!

Why?

I haven't got the faintest. It's just decided to play silly beggars, and won't let me open my picture files. And, since it is now eight minutes past midnight, I'm afraid the will to sleep is stronger than the will to sort the computer out. Sorry and all that!

So hopefully next time we'll be fully bunnied up!

Night, night.

love Fi x

ps. I've tried three times to space the paragraphs out in this post, but everytime I press publish, it just squishes every thing together. I'm seriously thinking of changing to Typepad!

Rewarding Time.

Hello.

Thank you, thank you. I've had the most lovely blogging week.

It started with lots of very lovely comments left on my Swaledale wall hanging post. I was really touched by your kind compliments. On a high I popped over to Pink Feather Paradise to say a little thank you and found I had been given an award and even more compliments. I was overwhelmed! I'm not the most confident when it comes to my own work, but your words gave me a great boost.

So once more THANK YOU. Having your support and being part of this special creative community means a lot to me. My days truly do sparkle because of you lot out there!

Heck! I'll be blubbing in a minute. Don't worry normal service will resume over the weekend, I've got some embroidered bunny bits to show you. (Oo, that sounds a bit odd.)

love Fi x

My Art.

Just a quickie! I know these pics are a bit random, but they are meant for Alex over at Pink Feather Paradise.

The two pictures are both hand felted from merino wool and then machine and hand embroidered with ribbon embroidery, beads and applique.

Both are framed.

Sorry these pics aren't great but it just gives you an idea of what the frames are like. You can just see the foxglove pic on the screen in the middle of the photo.

'Swaledale Wall', Textile Wall Hanging.

Hello from a very blustery Yorkshire Dales. I'm in the attic trying to keep warm and hoping that it won't snow any more today. We've got to venture out later this evening to a meeting at my daughters school. I really don't want to go, and I certainly won't want to go if it snows again. In the dark it's a very bleak and winding 16 miles when the weather is bad. On the other hand though, when the sun is shining, it must be one of the most breathtaking school runs in the country!

I've been pondering what to show you today. I appear to be in between projects at the moment, so I thought you might like to see a pre blog project.

What do you think? Fancy a trip back in time? Have you got a cuppa and a bickie?

Good. Here we go then.

Today I will show you my 'Swaledale Wall', wall hanging.

This was a project from my one year, one afternoon a week, textile course that I did in 2005.

Our brief was to make a wall hanging. Yes, as simple as that, anything we liked.

Back in 2005 we still lived over in East Yorkshire and only holidayed in North Yorkshire. I don't think we'd even thought of moving here then.

But we came here for little breaks when ever we could.

My inspiration came from all the lovely mossy, lichen covered dry stone walls.

I especially remember taking lots of photos of fairy glade mossyness in a beautiful little place called Keld over in Swaledale. There are more pics of Keld on a previous post here

We stayed in Thwait. This was the view from our cottage window.

Look at all this lovely purpley Aubritia hanging down this wall in Muker. How could I resist!

Here are the pages from my sketch book.

I was seduced by the gardens and rockeries in Muker,

but my final working sketch took me back to the moss and lichen covered stone walls.

This piece for me was very different to what I usually do. It's much larger than I usually work (19" x 35") and much freer, not so precise. And certainly not as 'girly'!

Everything is hand stitched to a hessian backing fabric. I loosely felted merino wool to look like moss and lichen.

I hand painted calico to get stone colours and embellished them with lots of little straight stitches and crocheted bullion circles.

Each ivy leaf is made individually and some of them are attached to wire coils to make them spring off the hanging like real ivy would.

My 'Aubritia' is hairy green crocheted spirals with lots of little individually attached hand dyed fabric circles.

Not a very good photo, but it's the best I could manage with the lack of light today. Not to mention having to almost perch ontop of my book shelves to get the whole thing in shot.

I hope you enjoyed our little pre blog trip, maybe we can do it again some time.

How about it?

Friends Challenge Completed, Ta-daa!

Gosh! It's been a funny old day weather wise. We started off with blue sky and sunshine and now we're ending the day with gale force winds, snow, hail and rain! Brrrr, one things been constant though, it's been freezing all day.

I did manage to take some photos of my finished Friends Challenge while the sun was out though.

I've completed two curtain tie backs to go with the pelmet.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to get something made for my home.

For someone who sews and crafts, I seem to have very little in my own home that I have actually made.

It's a bit like, when someone asks you what you have done all day, and you don't really have anything to tell them, but you know you haven't stopped all day long! Strange!

Anyway, Lesley and Sarah I'm looking forward to seeing your tie backs at the end of the month ; ) No pressure then!

Now then, I think we've had enough texture and tone over the last couple of posts, so lets have some colour.

Here are my little crochet squares for my granny blanket.

I think I've got enough of these now.

I'm just working on the larger squares, and they seem to take a lot more effort. I'm definitely a little square kinda gal!

It's not going to be a huge double bed blanket, just a snuggling on the sofa size.

Did you guess what it was?

Ok. No more teasing. I shall reveal what I've made with all those treasured pieces of French lace and crochet doilies. Although I must tell you, I did enjoy your comments, you did make me giggle!

Just to explain first, this months friends challenge was set by Lesley. The challenge is to make a curtain tie back, using anything we liked, fabric, felt, wool, yarns, beads, tassel's, wire, melted plastic etc etc.

I sat and pondered. I didn't really need or want any tie backs. Maybe I could make some for my bedroom curtains. Then inspiration hit me. When we moved into this house, well over a year ago, I bough some very cheap (£4) cream curtains. I didn't have any old ones that would fit the new windows, so these would tide us over until I had the time and money to do the job properly. I had to shorten them quite a lot and decided to make a pelmet with the fabric I had cut off. So I stitched together the lengths of fabric, but that was as far as I got, the barely started pelmet was consigned to the loft.

This is what my bedroom window has looked like for over a year. Yes you can plainly see a pelmet rail, kindly put up by my lovely Dad, waiting forlornly to be dressed. It has looked very unfinished until now.

Here's my sketch book page with my idea for a lacy tie back, which as I'm sure by now you have surmised, has turned into a lacy pelmet.

What do you think? I'm a little miffed that the light shines through and shows the seam up the middle of the pelmet, but it was either that or have two seams either side. Apart from that though I'm thrilled with the outcome.

All the vintage French lace and most of the crochet doilies came from a box purchased at our local auction, for £8.

I've decided that although I didn't want tie backs, they really would finish off the window. So I best get cracking.

Thank you Lesley for setting this challenge. I started off not wanting to do it and now have a unique window dressing and one of my many unfinished projects finally completed into the bargain!

Hello. How are you? Good? Yes, me too. A bit of a stiff neck, I must have slept funny, but nothing to complain about.

I have the day off work today. Hooray! So I've been out and about this morning down at our little market. Eight stalls outside lining the main street and three in the Market Hall. I know, it's all hustle and bustle here isn't it? Two of them were selling slippers and one, walking sticks, not exactly everyday necessities but we do have a rather good veg stall and a little van selling fish. In the summer there are far more stalls of course. Now though, in the middle of winter we are happy with the few stalls we have, especially when the weather is bad and you think of how far they've had to travel to get to us.

The photos are of my latest project.

This is a long over due project.

It was started probably well over a year ago.

It was this months 'Friends Challenge' set by Lesley that made me forage in the loft to retrieve it.

There has been much placing and pinning.

Lots of sewing.

Some embroidery.

And the odd swear word.

And in my best Australian accent, "Can you tell what it is yet?"