The day gets better!

After a rubbish morning at work, I came home to stitch. Finally the embroidery on my kingfisher piece is finished! No more fiddly beads - hurrah!
It needs to be backed, so for now here is a peak of the messy back.
My jam jars are all cleaned, so my buttons can all go to their new homes. Looking very pretty indeed.
The postman brought me a CD-Rom of the 2008 editions of FiberArts. I shall enjoy looking at this later, whilst supping some hot chocolate. As it is definitely hot chocolate weather here!
Finally, there is a wonderful winter raffle in aid of Rabbit and Guinea Pig Welfare, with some fantastic crafty prizes. See here for more details. Meanwhile, I am prototyping a guinea pig scarf. It is very warm & cosy, the downsides are that it does squeak a bit, is a bit musky and occasionally poops!

Autumn!

My favourite season is upon us. Yesterday was a sunny day, but it marked the start of scarf wearing weather. We took a trip to the very pretty Lake of Menteith. Beautiful colours & scenery.

Buttons, Beads & Birds

I have been bringing some order to my button collection.
My favourite jar is the assortment of novelty buttons. I love rummaging through this, rediscovering old finds. It reminds me of when I was little, my nan always had a tin or two, filled with buttons and old spools. And remember my kingfisher project, sidelined for a little while, well I'm on the home straight!

Doors open!

Today was Doors Open Day, we checked out the marvel that is the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. Opening in the late 1850's, this was the place to go for entertainment. Comedy, theatre, cinema, carnival, wax works and at one point it even housed a zoo! It also holds the rather impressive claim that Stan Laurel made his stage debut here. The music hall closed in 1938, and a charitable trust are currently trying to restore and reopen this amazing venue. Today Victorian and Edwardian outfits were on display, including some very fetching swimming gear, and a flapper inspired wedding dress.
Old films were shown and there were some very interesting posters on display.
Tickets for the bearded lady anyone? A walk along to St Andrews in the Square led us to some interesting street decoration. We finished off the day out with food and a couple of music purchases. The perfect accompaniment to fuzzy felt folk is casting on herringbone rib socks in bargain grey sock wool.

Tapestry Bedlam...

There is currently a tapestry exhibition at Bethlam Royal Hospital (the very place we get the term 'bedlam' from). A 10 metre long woven tapestry coordinated by artist Mark McGowan depicting mental health experiences and thoughts of patients, carers, staff and volunteers.
One participant, Fiona Guy describes tapestry as "illusion of image telling a story about what might be". This notion resonates, art encourages us to look and think about our lives, whether you have been affected by mental health issues or not. All the more reason for this. It's a shame I can't make it down to the exhibition.

Elephants & Spiders

Ages ago I attended a Kantha class, my samples of printed fabric lay untouched in a box. Until I realised that the elephant would be a great thank you card for my friends. So I started stitching.
I had a great idea to outline the elephant in a golden thread. This thread split, hurt my fingers and generally was a pain in the arse! Remind me to never sew anything in gold again!
Still feeling in a creative mood (but with sore fingers!) I decided to attempt free motion embroidery. Inspired by my current reading The encyclopedia of Machine Embroidery by Val Holmes. I had been putting this off, as I knew if meant getting out my sewing machine manual! Surprisingly it was super easy to switch my machine to free motion embroidery, all I had to do was take off the foot & put a cover plate on the feed dog. I used felt, so that I didn't have to use an embroidery hoop to stretch the fabric. Firstly an ode to this blog...
The blue at the start of 'gets' is the bobbin thread coming through - shhhh! Then getting excited by learning to write with the sewing machine, I decided to write the title of this song by Billie Jo Spears.

I like the spidery stitching! Great fun to do, just mind your fingers on the exposed needle!

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