Playing with silks

There are so many things I want to post about - the autumn colours, Folksy purchases and supporting other craftspeople, the interesting world of Royal Mail Recorded Delivery (where you pay extra for the peace-of-mind that comes from knowing your item has been delivered, only in my case 75% of the time I've used this service they've not collected a signature thus leading to extra stress rather than any peace-of-mind whatsoever), Special Delivery versus FedEx ( I really will try and fill you in one day because it's all quite interesting if you need to send stuff out), but I am struggling so much with time I'm just going to stick to a bit of felt for now. I'm in the middle of many projects but recently went a bit mad with ordering silks - here are my packs of dyed silk hankies:

I must, must, must look into dyeing my own, but no way is it going to happen quite yet, so I took the plunge and paid for them ready-done. There's also a new hank of sari silk in there - they're from Fibrecrafts, which stocks a more purple sari silk than some other places, although there are always lots of lovely colours mixed up together.
I've used the plain silk hankies over cream wool tops before just to give a bit of texture and sheen but cut these ones up a bit to make a contrast with the background.

I really like the effect although would love even deeper colours - I'd hoped they'd be more jewel-like and that I could use them against black but I think they're a bit pale, but I'll enjoy experimenting, if I can find a parallel universe in which there are 40-hour days.

Here is the card my OH got me for our wedding anniversary last week - 22 years this year. Very like Archie indeed, eyeing up all the butterflies:

Archie himself has taken to watching TV while assisting with any technical computer problems I may be having - he'll be demanding a salary in salmon Whiskas Temptations soon.

Finally some bright and cheerful felt

I have been pretty low recently and it's taken me a long time to get out my wool, but today I had nearly a whole day at home so I tipped out my sackful of beautiful colours, opened my cupboard so that yet more bags of wool tops started falling out onto the floor (they're really crammed in and never fit properly) and had a good look through all my supplies.

I settled almost straight away on an extremely bright scarlet and cerise to make a notebook cover from, decorated with this recycled sari silk yarn.

It's very hard to capture the richness of the colours but it is such an intense red and the silk makes a fantastic contrast both in the cooler tones and the shimmery texture against the wool fibres.

It was good to be felting again and I had lots of ideas for new things to make, but have succeeded in getting almost everything out and spreading different colour combinations of wool and silk all over the place, so that most of downstairs looks messy again.