QUICK!

Come and have a look out of the attic window.

Isn't that beeeeaaaauuuutiful?

I hope you enjoyed that.

I just wanted to share it with you :0)

Hmmm.... Maybe this little bunny should be an 'Arctic' hare!

Talking of the 'Arctic', it's felt a little chilly of late around here. So when I spotted a rag 'hookie' rug at our local auction I snaffled it up sharpish. (well wonderful man did. I'm a bit shy.)

It's living in the kitchen at the moment but it might have to move to in front of the wood burner in the front room.

I have no idea how old it is, but it doesn't matter, I like it and I bought it to be used.

It has a few tufts missing here and there,

and there are a couple of small stains on it, but I reckon it'll have a few more when it's live with us for a while!

But best of all... it says Home Sweet Home on it.

A very long bus ride!

Hello, just a quickie. Its 4:40pm and I'm waiting for child #2 to come home. She set off with school at 2:30am (yes AM) to travel to Zrece in Slovenia. Obviously the weather was against us from the start. It was touch and go whether we'd get child #2 and her best friend to school this morning as it was already snowing. Best friends mum has a 4x4 and braved the snow in the dark to get them to the coach in time. The school coach managed to get from Cumbria down to Stanstead Airport in London. When they got there their flights had been cancelled and they've had to turn around and come all the way back.



Hi, its now 5:09pm and she is home safe and well. Actually she's not home now, no, she gone straight back out in the blizzard conditions to sledge in the snow with her brother and a friend. Oh, to be 13! The view above is the usual from my attic window.

And this is what she's just gone sledging in. Mad! The snows coming down that fast we I can't see the hills! But I don't care, she's home.

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?