Gingerbread men in the post...

I was woken up this morning by the sound of a package falling onto the doormat. That noise is enough for me to scurry quickly out of bed, far quicker than I ever would if it was a workday! Delivered this morning was my prize from the asking for trouble blog giveaway. Kawaii notebooks, badges, gingerbread men & an uber cute bread slice charm. Thank you!
Back to my crafting, my opt art blanket is finished and in the post, will share photos soon. In the meantime I have cast on some Wise Hilda socks for me, using some beautiful variegated drops yarn that I won from a playful day podcast giveaway.
The pattern is suitably simple, so that I can knit away whilst daydreaming or watching tv. And, I'd forgotten just how much I like using a variegated yarn, I find myself calling out the colours as I knit along "oooh, purple", "oooh, green!" :)

Back to the birdies...

At the last local craft fair there was a haberdashery stall. I had to resist the urge to spend all my pennies on more craft supplies. Some yarn managed to slip through! The ball (unlabelled) is of blue textured yarn with brown thread running along. Using a variety of crochet stitches I created a frame with it to weave embroidery threads through, trying to recreate the colours found on a kingfisher.

I have also been playing around with blue organza & cottons, using crayon coloured bondaweb or angelina fibres as glue, finished off with rough feather finger shapes on the sewing machine. I like the richness of combining the layers and the ghostly fibres trapped between.
I also tried to bleach a selection of blue fabrics I had. However they all resisted the bleach to a more or lesser extent. So I painted the samples with acrylics, trying to show feather movement.
Next, I have brought some beautiful Indian silk dupion which I hope to use for my final piece, though I better first check how it takes colour!