Laughing Yaffle

Bags, scraps, legs and turnips.

I've been chained to my old pal Jones again this week. Mostly making bags for the shop (they're up now, have a look!).

When I sew, I have very bad habits. There's the not putting the spare sewing feet back in the tin, not putting the sharp snippety scissors back where I can find them, leaving stuff on the floor (more about that some other time) ...oh, and this:

Pincushion, meet pins. Pins, here you go, it's your friend the pincushion. Now why can't you two get along nicely? Why can't you pins find your way back to the pincushion instead of a) dropping inside the sewing machine b) dropping onto the floor point-up so I step on you c) drop onto my dress so I stand up and drop pins on the floor and then step on them while they're point up d) disappear. I swear I must go through a pinmaking factory's entire output for a year in this house. I have no idea where they end up. Oh, except when I stand on them.

Another bad habit is this:

Can't. Throw. Things. Away. Which is how I came to have this (oh wonderful 35p IKEA plastic) box of scraps. Oh, there's more. There's an attic full of similar boxes of scraps. There's a floorboard-groan-inducing curator's dream of a fabric collection in this house. "But!" I say. "It might come in really handy!" And I keep it. Even if it's only big enough to fashion a gnat's loincloth from. 

Apparently, I am capable of some good sewing habits though. There aren't many of them. But I like my threads organised. It's chaos enough round here without having to hunt under endless boxes of fabric for the right thread. So I use a set of old transparency/slide drawers with the dividers taken out:

And the spare dividers (the numbered bits of wood you can see in the picture) I put in the top drawer so I could use it for bobbins:

The numbers don't mean anything! I am not that organised!! I love the drawers. I think they were old medical teaching slide drawers because when Mr Yaffle brought the treasure home, in one of the drawers at the back there was a slide of some poor unfortunate soul's leg...! Bleargh!

Apart from all these high-jinks I've managed to get my camera out on some walks. Doesn't happen that often because I haven't mastered the art of simultaneous lead-and-camera holding. Maybe there's a course I could go on :) Anyway, here are some fields that had caught my eye during this week's walks.

I love these stripy turnip fields. The colours! The stripyness!! The undulation! It's just asking to be turned into embroidered form! Isn't it?! I think I'm going to have to make a few more bags and get dyeing before I can justify the time spent on such a project but we'll see...Right. I'm off to dislodge a pin from my foot...

 

Yarn update coming soon!

Yaaarrrrrrrrn! Here's a sneak preview of this month's update...they're drying on the line in the garden:

 

There are some scary bright orange and black ones too, but they're cooking in a cauldron at the moment. I'm hoping the update will go up some time next week unless there's an attack of the Thyroids, in which case, send help!

When not dyeing, I've been sewing quite a bit lately. I love sewing! I can't get enough of it at the minute. First there were the cushions (strip patchwork. No straight lines, no measuring, no stress!):

 

Then there was the embroidery...(click for bigger)

This is another one of the hogweeds I've been embroidering (not quite finished!). It's all done on the sewing machine and it's a bit bigger than the ones I did last time, about 10cm across. I'm hoping to get an exhibition together one day, or get a gallery to start selling the pieces. Hmmm. Eventually!

Meanwhile, autumn continues apace out there in the garden...

Sigh. Lovely lovely autumn! Right, better go and check on the skeins in that cauldron before they boil dry! eep!

Autumnwatch

We all went for an autumnal walk in Priddy Mineries the other day. Here's the view from the top of the hill:

We usually stick to the paths, but you don't see much wildlife up close that way (the Mineries site is an SSSI and has so much stuff to see), so we went for a little diversion and waded through the knee-deep grass. Look what we found...

This is a fox-moth caterpillar (I think!). I've never seen a caterpillar so furry! We found that in the grass, along with some Devil's-bit scabious:

and then, as I was leaping (urgh, bit energetic, that!) from one tussock to the other, I looked round and saw this:

An Adder! I'm rather glad I spotted it before Dylan decided to sniff/lick/paw it. I've never, ever seen an adder before in my life. This one, I think, is a female, resting in the grass...not that clued up about snake habits, but I'm guessing the warm spell had brought it out to bask. I got fairly close so I could take this pic, but the moment she heard the shutter go, she turned round and hissed at me, unsurprisingly!

It was like all my birthdays had come at once, spotting that. (yikes, that phrase, when you think about it, would make you really old. I've just turned 'old enough' thanks)

After Priddy, I got around to experimenting with some reverse lens macro techniques with my camera. Basically, if you can't afford a macro lens, you can (literally) reverse the lens on your SLR (thanks, Mim for telling me this!!) and take close-ups that way. I'm not really an expert, but this wasn't bad for a first try. There are poppies out in the garden at the moment, and this is as close as a normal lens will get me:

But when I reversed the lens, I could get a little bit closer:

Then I thought I'd have a go at the flowers on the mock strawberry:

OMG, that's all I need, another hobby to get carried away with. Watch this space for some more fascinating yet ultimately pointless macro photographs :D

Finally in today's Autumnwatch, here's a squirrel visitor, who's been busy burying his/her stash of cobnuts from our tree. Believe it or not we don't get squirrels so often in our garden so I'm always way too over-excited (along with the dog) when we get one!

I have yet to find a way of turning my existing camera lens into a super-zoom lens. Damn!

Ooh, anyone been watching the Tweedy documentaries? [the link is to all three: watch them if you missed it, it's great] Very interesting...but I do wish they'd make a documentary on Welsh Tapestry. Tweed's nice enough and all that (and the programmes were fascinating)...but I'm desperate to find out more about Welsh Tapestry. Maybe I'll start a fan club and make my own programme :)

Thanks for all your nice messages and emails by the way. I'm getting better thank you! Hurrah, now I can stop discussing thyroids at great length and get back to craft blogging :D

I'm back!

That's right, folks! I've won  my own invented sad an award because I've been a neglectful little blogger.  From Twee Cereals, the cereal that has a Lovely Personality! I don't know about you but I can't face That! Much! Lovely Personality! from a Sodding Cereal! In a Morning! Once your cereal starts talking to you, you know it's time to go back to Blandflakes...(Imagine a world where, eventually..."Hello! I'm your morning cup of coffee! I get the feeling you're a little angry this morning! Aw, Don't Be! life is so beautiful, don't you know! Look! I have no dust! Look! I'm so organic and fairtrade I even make myself feel a bit sick with my own self-righteousness! Drink Me!" ...continued on p.899, appendix II. Where's my sodding coffee?)

During this month or more of absence, what have I been up to? You might well ask. Well, I have been struggling, sysyphus-like, against the mighty Thyroid, mostly. If you've ever struggled beneath the weight of an elephant whilst trying to walk through treacle, wearing lead-lined boots, and waving ten copies of Flora Brittanica in each hand,  this gives you a good idea of what an underactive thyroid does to you. Ha, it makes you really, REALLY weird! Ahem. Anyway, I'm a bit better now. Earlier on in the month, due to elephants and stuff, I was confined to the sofa though so I did quite a lot of this when I could lift the needles :) :

 

I frogged the orange one because it was just too curly. I can't make stocking stitch stay straight. I love it for making tubes (socks, jumpers, cardigans) and things that need to curl (um, curly things), but for scarves, well, I just can't make it work. The pink scarf also curls like mad (despite rigorous blocking) so I've just hooked a load of heavy crochet round the edges which at least makes it wide enough to shelter my neck from the prevailing winds. Before that you could've used it as a hose pipe.

No matter how crap you feel, the dog always needs walking, so we've been on some slow walks! However, it's forced me to get out and about and see a bit of nature, and I've been collecting umbellifers - hogweeds and wild carrots and all that - and drawing inspiration from them like countless embroiderers before me. When I had a few days of energy I even managed to do some actual embroidery...

The Two New Pence is just there as a scale guide. Unless you're into 2p pieces, in which case then, it's a part of the embroidery. I've dyed some silk for a few embroideries I have in mind. I haven't dyed any fabric since my (abandoned. Sob.) City & Guilds so this was fun!

 

Another inspiration has been trees and landscapes of course...

 

 

And here's what I came up with.

 

Ha! nothing like the photos but that's not quite how I work :) Again they're about the size of your two New Pence. I was always reprimanded at school for working in miniature (I mean in Art lessons. I don't mean I tried doing rounders with a subbuteo ball, although tempting. Nor did I work with a teeny tiny dolly's chemistry set. Miniature essays in history were a surprising failure also), but it was how I worked best. All I've used is embroidery thread, hand-dyed silks and my old Jones machine. You can drop the feed dogs inside it instead of having to use a silly plate thingy so that makes life easier. I used felt as a stabiliser, and worked without a hoop - I can't work with a hoop but have to watch my fingers like a hawk! Anyway, I might cobble together a collection of stuff and sell it on Etsy or in the shop or something. I haven't really done any free-motion stuff for a long time, mainly due to having a crappy modern machine which had an inaccessible bobbin tension system (tech fans!) so it's a relief to be up and running with it again :) Watch this space for more miniscule embroidery. I think I'll leave the miniature out of the yarn side of my creative endeavours though!

Winging it

Butterflies! Nooooo not the Wendy Craig sitcom (btw - if you know it, I am as good a cook as Ria if ever you fancied popping round for tea. No? oh. shame that.)  - these pretty insects! (click to see it bigger like)

 

For fact fans: L-R starting with top left: Common Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Painted Lady, Cabbage White, Peacock & Small Tortoiseshell, Common Blue, Small Copper, Red Admiral, Peacock.

I love butterflies. Can you tell? We have a massive, overgrown buddleia in the garden, and every time Mr Yaffle goes out with his pruning equipment I always run across the lawn flapping about and yelling out for him not to chop it. At all. It's covered in butterflies every year and I love it. I don't care if it's grown over the path, through the shed roof, over the allotments and into Council Complaint territory, the butterflies love it. I think they must get drunk on the nectar, as they stay still long enough for me to get really close with the camera. Unlike this creature which I snapped when I was out on the dog walk this morning:

 

A deer! You can make it out, can't you? I know I'm no Simon King but the zoom on my point-and-shoot seemed to capture it. Ish...I must've been 200 yards away (hey! that's nearly half a skein of yarn!).

Away from naturewatch and in yarny news, I've been busy crocheting (non-crochet fans look away now!).

 

It's for my pal Rosie (helloooo!!) who's expecting a mini hooman bean fairly soon. I've almost finished it, just a few more rows and all the ends to weave in. It's a ripple pattern from this book - I think it looks like a helter-skelter!

 

And here it is just before the dog came and lay on it. (only joking...it'll be free of Dylan hair, honest). Although keeping my dog off the best drapes, the newspaper, an open book, the naked sofa (get a cover on it! get a cover on it! it'll be covered in paw marks!!), new bedclothes, new jeans, new clothes, best suits, new doormats, fabric laid out for pattern cutting - well, keeping him off anything is an art in itself. With treats for bribery and a cunning plan known as 'putting my work back in the basket' I've managed to keep him off this blanket so far...paws crossed I can keep it up!

Incredible! Finished Objects! (IFO's!)

Look! I actually finished stuff!

 

Here's the blue flowery thing that used to be a skirt. It's billowing in the wind here so looks a bit crumpled, but it's a dress, honest! One day I'll get a mannequin thingy so I can show things off better. Oh and probably sew things better.

 

And here's the finished Broccoli dress! I'm pleased with how both these turned out. Dresses, not pictures that is (look at this dress's sloping shoulders! ha! I think it's a dodgy coat-hanger...) I'm making a start on another one in this Kaffe fabric, which I possess thanks to the wonder of Ebay. I sold a whole load of Crap From The Attic on ebay, and spent the resulting paypal cash on two metres of this:

 

What's that you say? An Iron? Pshaw! it's not that kind of blog! I'm not ironing stuff 'til I have to lay out the pattern on it :) Then I might think about it. 

Meanwhile in Nature News...here's my favourite tree from my daily Dylan walks.

 

I think it's an oak, but there it stands, all solitary like. Love it. It's not just any old tree though. This tree is famous. Look closer:

 

Yes, that's right! It's a famous BBC TREE! He's also a star in the US:

 

sigh. Loltrees. A whole new genre of internet fun! No, really!

Thanks for all your nice comments and emails and stuff after the last post. I'm feeling a bit better thanks...getting there slowly - ha, how else could I get there?! arf arf :)

The 'roid to happiness...

I don't usually blog about illness and misery but hahahahaha I'm going to do so today! lolz!! Well, there I was, tired all the time

inexplicably emotional

and generally on a bit of a

 Doctor says 'oh, that's ok, nothing to worry about. You're just mental. Have some pills'. After a while the pills didn't seem to work. So I ask for a blood test (doctor: 'Are you sure you want us to do this test? You don't really need it?') and it turns out I've actually got thyroid problems! Now then, say the word Thyroid and being a Yorkshirewoman I think of Thyroyd as being, perhaps, a small town near Huddersfield (Welcome to Thyroyd! You'll never leave! er, because you'll be too tired to) or something. Or worse, High Royds, an infamous psychiatric hospital/former asylum (kind of fitting, given how I feel!) But it turns out that my Thyroid is actually a

shaped gland in my

which is too bloody lazy to make enough of some hormone or other (ie, it's hypothyroid, fact fans!) so it leaves me feeling like a

unable to do basic tasks such as

let alone

or even

Anyway. I have some Levothyroxine pills to take every morning, and apparently they should be working soon (I just love the jovial uncertainty of medicine. 21st century and things 'should start to work soon') so normal service should be resumed in a few weeks, with any luck. I hope you'll forgive my blog neglect, stitch'n'bitch absenteeism and email pants-ness in the meantime :) Right...I think I need a lie-down...

Sewing and knitting. What else?!

I've been raiding my wardrobe and slashing everything into pieces again :) I'm stuck for summery tops so over the past few evenings I've been sitting unpicking some old skirts and then turning them into dresses.

This dress which I'm just hemming used to be a maxi skirt - I think it's a 70's fabric. As a long skirt it was a bit headache-inducing. But if you thought that was bad - take a look at these...

Yikes! Pass the Imigran! Look at those patterns! I wonder if they were curtains even before they were made into skirts...! Needless to say the effect when spread out over 3ft of lower body is, um, like being hit in the eyes by a big flowery THING. And no-one wants that. So they're going to be transformed into pinafore dresses. And if that fails, special dusters :)

Enough of all this sewing malarkey, anyone would think I couldn't hold two sticks and some yarn and call it knitting! Here are my wips:

An Odd Couple! The one on the left is for Mr Yaffle, who looks disapprovingly whenever I pick up the one on the right, which is for me. Mine is in Bowl of Petunias, and Paul's is in one which I'm thinking of putting in the shop. (both a bit brighter in real life - that's me not using my f-stops properly like) I often mess around with the dyes to see what happens. Sometimes, er, sludge happens...so I don't tend to knit with those skeins...but sometimes I get a happy accident, which is what the red and yellow is. I like the way they're spiralling - it fascinates me how it can spiral in my hands, but give it to another knitter and it will turn into stripes. I'm just waiting for the face of Richard Dawkins to appear in one of them and invite his followers round to worship it. (oh ok, so I saw that joke on Mitchell and Webb - but theirs was in a Melon, not a sock) Let me know if you get a skein which does that, ok??

Sewing, vintage style.

Over at the Sew, Mama, Sew! Blog they've had a 'Sewing Machine Month' so, right at the end of the month I thought I'd witter on endlessly about my sewing machine(s). If you don't want to see the results, look away now!

I have three sewing machines. Shocking really. I do feel a bit guilty. But they all (well two of them) do different jobs, and if you sew as much as I do, you need at least two so that when you've burnt one motor out or broken the drive belt, there's still a machine that works! I suppose you could call me a bit of an enthusiast, which is the new, more polite name for 'sad person in anorak'. It's quite hard to go out spotting sewing machines though, have you ever tried?!

This one is a treadle machine, from the late 1920s, which Paul bought me :) (click on the pictures to make them bigger). It wasn't expensive either - you can buy them for about £30 these days. I've had a go at sewing with it but I think treadling and me need to spend time together and get to know each other. Ahem. It's like trying to rock back and forth with your lower half, while keeping your arms still enough to feed fabric through the machine and not keep waving about like an utter fooool! So helpful when trying to sew flat-fell seams!! How did they do this in the olden days?? Do you think they had Treadlerobics classes? Hmm...I think I'll stick a motor on it, then I might get more use out of it - at the moment it folds into its neat little table shape and serves as an extra desk...(sorry Paul)...

These two Jones machines are my favourites, and they are the machines I use all the time. For everything! (go here for a history of Jones machines...it's fascinating, she said, in a geeky voice)The brown 1970s one (they loved their brown in the '70s, didn't they?) belonged to my late mum, and all my clothes as a kid were made on it! Oh boy, the Terylene, Crimplene and Bri-Nylon that machine has seen...! I love sewing with it, it is so mechanical, smooth-running and such a heavyweight old girl. The only problem is it gets hot really quickly and I think it really needs a new motor. So I have the other one for back-up (you know, like shoes?? or spare yarn??) I found the blue one (1960s I think) on eBay - it was £35! You can't buy a decent dress for that these days! I do like vintage machines though. They do free-style embroidery so well, and free-motion quilting - I don't need a modern computerised one (luddite!) or indeed a particular brand of Swiss machine they're always recommending (paying £500 for a second hand machine makes me feel queasy) But that's just what I'm used to. You have to be prepared to get the screwdriver out and adjust the tension if you want to use a mechanical/vintage machine but I think it's worth it for the stitch you get from it. I'd love to hear about your machines - do you use vintage or modern ones? There's lots on the Sew Mama Sew Blog about all that, it's interesting to see what people are using...Right. *rolls sleeves up* I'm off to find my oil can :)

Springwatch!

We've had our own Springwatch in the garden this week. There were blackbirds nesting in the hedge, and I'd been checking on them periodically from a safe distance to make sure everything was ok. When I checked this weekend, look what I found:

An empty nest! Yikes! I was crossing my fingers in hope that nothing bad had happened. And then I heard a little "cheep cheep" from the bottom of the garden so went to investigate...

A dumpy little fledgling, no tail, all beak and fluff...so cute! I've heard it in the garden since then, so I think he's doing ok so far and hasn't fallen prey to the local cats :) Oooh I'm all Kate Humble with enthusiasm! Shriek! a baby blackbird! Will it survive?! Oh the drama!!

In non-Springwatch news...I'm busy dyeing a small batch of yarn for another update. You should see my hands this time...I'd also better get on with sewing some more bags since I've cut out all the pieces and they're waiting patiently by the sewing machine. Bah, not as fun as crawling around in the undergrowth looking for fledglings though!