Felt pebbles without real heavy pebbles

I've been making felt-covered real pebbles for a long time, to use as paperweights, but was recently contacted by a lady interested in lightweight felt pebbles to replace some ornamental rocks belonging to a friend of hers.
She'd asked for a mixture of colours rather than just greys, with something that represented the striations in rock- so I tipped out all my colours and put some greys and purples together, and made each one wrapped with some white silk - I used the cut-off edges of silk mawata squares but I'm sure strands would have been easier and worked just as well. It took ages to build up the layers of felt for the larger ones as they shrink down so much but I always enjoy a challenge!
Here's the first set I did.

Having sent my customer some photos, she then asked for a few more larger ones as well. I'd just about reached my limit of size by wrapping wool, so off I went to the chemist for some bath sponges, which I hoped I could cut into shape as a base, then I just wrapped the tops round it.

The largest one was quite a challenge as it ended up SO large I couldn't keep hold of the layers as I wrapped,

so it ended up being pretty loose and took ages to felt as I had to make sure I didn't rush it and crease it.
But in the end I'd got a good range of sizes and off they went in the post this week. Archie helped with the packing up.

I wish I'd been able to get a photo of when he stuffed most of himself head first into the envelope. He'd been trying to run off with any available pebbles for ages so I'm very relieved they're safely in the post - I'm hoping they'll be just right for my customer's friend!

Archie happily sleeping

Archie is very, very comfortable here in his favourite place for sleeping. He has been bouncing around in the garden all morning and has snuggled up on his hammock bed on his cat tower. He's getting very long now and doesn't really fit on unless he curls up, so he's done a lot of stretching his toes out today and has paws dangling over the edge.
But surely this is the most un-dignified position to choose?

I felt unable to take a photo from directly above to preserve his modesty, but almost wondered if I should start a most-un-dignified-cat-pose competition. I expect there has already been one somewhere.
While Archie has been snoozing I have been gardening and picking blackcurrants, then I realised I'd have to defrost the freezer so I could put them in. So I'm very bored waiting for it to finish.

Thank you for all your helpful comments on my last post - I'm actually really enjoying having no sweet things as it's made me eat really healthily - lots of avocados and green veg and fish (I had smoked salmon for breakfast this morning which was a bit odd, and also a bit expensive but at least it was on special offer - Archie was very happy to sample a bit - he's just learnt that people-food is very interesting!)
I do feel better for it so far, so will carry on as long as I can. And I will pop to the doctor too to ask for a blood test just so they can check everything's working properly, it can't do any harm and I'd never thought of low thyroid function, but it does fit with some of the symptoms so would be good to rule-out. So thank you once again for all your support.

Redcurrant Jelly

Aren't these just so beautiful - the way they are so very red, and shiny, and translucent, against the green leaves? They are right at the end of the garden and I usually forget to net them so the birds often get them all. This year I draped a net over most of them and the birds enjoyed what they could reach, but I got the rest. There are still some ripening so we'll have another picking session next week.
Quality Control approved them:

then I had my fist go at redcurrant jelly. It was immensely cheering working with such a deep red liquid, here it is in the pan:

I heard you had to dissolve the sugar thoroughly before boiling so I stirred it for ages.

In the end I only had enough for one jar, but it does look very lovely when the light shines through it.

Sadly though I boiled it too long, it seems to need about a minute or even a bit less and I wasn't watching carefully enough - so it's set very, very firmly making it un-spreadable, in fact probably inedible in its current form. But I shall save it for Christmas recipes- you either need a spoonful for red cabbage or cranberry relish or both, can't remember without checking, and I'll have another go at the jelly next week!

Thank you all of you for your support after my last post, I'm feeling a little better and calmer and am also trying a healthier diet recommended by more than one person as helpful - basically it's no sugar at all, as little wheat as possible, preferably none, and lots of protein and vegetables. Strictly speaking you're supposed to leave out sugary fruit too for the first couple of weeks but I'm looking at my ripening pears knowing nobody else will eat them, so I'm going to have to give in a bit, I'll compromise by having them with some nuts to slow down the sugar release (all very scientific). I'm sure there are many eating plans that recommend this way of eating, I've certainly seen a few before - but it's putting it into practice that's the hard part. I think the main thing is the no sugar because processing it stresses your body and can worsen your mood when the levels dip again, so I'm trying to love nuts and seeds instead of cereal bars for snacks. Apart from a tiny taste of my redcurrant jelly I've left all other sugary things well alone, and I'll stick to it as long as I possibly can because eating unprocessed nuts, seeds, protein and vegetables has got to be better than eating biscuits and jam sandwiches at tea-time, which is what I was doing!
So I'm sure that will help - it also gives me something to focus on and means I'm concentrating on looking after myself, which we can tend to forget about when we're low. And if it doesn't quite help enough I won't hesitate to seek other solutions. Now I'm off to make a cup of (healthy packed-with-antioxidants green) tea and resist the tub of mini chocolate cakes my son wanted for himself yesterday!

Catching up

It's been a busy time recently, as I'm sure it is for a lot of us with gardens to tend, although it's been such lovely weather it's been a joy to have a garden as well as a slight chore! Here is our bench which I've newly sanded and oiled for the first time in years, I must remember to take the time to actually sit on it now! I even have a few ripening strawberries in a hanging basket. The small white globes are IKEA solar powered lights which have been great, I ended up leaving them out all year and they even glowed gently in the winter!

And here is the best view of the vegetable patch:

from this angle it actually looks like I'm growing vegetables, because the runner beans are in the foreground, although a lot of it is just flowers. Of course flowers are very nice in a vegetable patch too and attract bees, it's just I didn't quite manage the amount of veg that I'd hoped for.
I'm trying to contend with the pigeons.

So far the score is me 2, pigeons 8 - that's how many purple sprouting brocolli plants they've stripped of leaves so far. In fact you may have to look hard to see the stripped stems on the left. I didn't realise how difficult pigeons were and am hoping to try and save the remaining plants with some netting.
Archie likes the vegetable patch too:

No prizes for guessing what he's up to here. As long as he's not doing it in the neighbours' garden I'm quite happy.

Archie has only just discovered catnip - he's literally turned his little nose up at it before but something must have clicked in his brain because yesterday he was rolling around and hugging it and squashing the little plants to pieces.

I re-planted three inside an upside-down hanging basket to protect the roots - we'll see who wins that one!

Lots to be thankful for, and yet I have to confess to struggling recently with keeping up with life in general. I have been functioning slowly but have been very, very anxious about everything and pretty low, in fact very low. There are particular reasons, but the reasons don't justify my reaction - I am one of those people who has spells of being unable to find a proper perspective on reality, cycling through anxiety and worst-case scenarios of things that probably will never happen - this is just the way some of us are I guess. I'm feeling a little better this week and am trying to take steps to keep calm, including herbal tablets which I think may be helping a bit. But a lot of us get these periods where everything is hard, I guess we must all find our way through in our own way and wise friends have advised me to use whatever 'tools' are necessary to help, even if that means seeking out a doctor's advice and possibly medication. I've fought against this a lot, as many of us do, but the sensible thing is to consider all options, you don't get a medal for struggling on, and life's too short to waste days if there's help out there. So I'll take it steady and see how it goes.

Frustratingly hard to create when you're low though - I've done bits and pieces of familiar designs but nothing new. But there will be time for that later.

Yesterday though I did do a craft fair - my first one outside - it was a good location in a local village square and they had live music and entertainment on all day so there was a very good atmosphere and thankfully lots of people. I was a bit stressed setting up because of course being in the open people just came early as there were no doors to open at a specific time!! But once I'd settled and contended with the wind lifting light felt things off my display, I did enjoy the day. This is the view I had - they even had the Town Crier ringing his bell and announcing things.


I don't know whether you can see the strange monsters opposite - you may be able to if you enlarge it -the man was selling his fantasy book and these must have been his creations, there were quite a few of them, rather odd to see a row of 6-foot aliens at a craft fair but all good fun.
Here is my stall:

lovely stripy cover and larger than I've been used to which was great. It's really nice to meet people and chat to them about felt - I was surprised that two of the most enthusiastic customers were men- one bought a felt bowl and the other was looking at things actually trying to persuade his wife she might like something (she didn't in the end but he did apologise to me and say he tried hard, which was lovely of him!)
And now onwards into another week. Hope you all have a good one.

To frame or not to frame...

I've just collected this piece from the local gallery who have been trying to sell it for about 9 months. It's been an interesting experience raising all sorts of questions about the cost of framing a textile piece, in fact framing ANY piece of art, and gallery commission.

I made the felt as a sample for a larger wallhanging with more leaves in it, that I sent in for an Open Exhibition last summer:

(not a great photo but it gives some idea). The gallery co-owner bought the larger one for herself and then she is going to frame it, well her partner at the gallery is, so it will just cost her the materials. Now I can't exactly remember how large it came out, I think it would have been about 50-60cm square-ish, but to have a piece that large framed for ordinary people would surely cost a lot of money.

Anyway, the gallery ladies said they would like to frame the smaller piece and see if they could sell it. I personally like the idea of textile wall art just being hung as it is, like you would hang a quilt, so that you can see all the textures really properly, but everyone has their own opinions, and of course it's easier to dust if it's behind glass.
I think they have framed it really well, the frame compliments the piece and doesn't detract from it at all, I was really pleased, and I think it probably changed my mind about framing felt! The framed piece is about 40cm square - the cost came out at £45. So to re-coup the cost of framing, plus the gallery commission of 35% which is at the low end of what commission can be, they ended up putting the picture up for sale at £95, fully expecting it to sell. Now I'm not saying that galleries are unfair in taking commission, of course they have to, and you are paying for their running costs and customers and display and reputation, it's only right.
Now I was in the shop while my picture was displayed in the window (a very proud moment for me, probably never to be repeated!) and I could hear customers saying how expensive it was, which it is for a small picture, I quite agree!

So framed it's really expensive for someone to buy, and yet if it had sold for £95, I would have got slightly less than £17 for my several hours of designing and making, once the commission and framing cost had been taken off.

Isn't it all complicated?
Anyway, I decided I'd take it back and possibly try and sell it direct at a craft fair, which would mean that I wouldn't have to build the commission into the price.

But now we've put it up in the kitchen we like it so much where it is that we're just going to keep it!

So there we are, the dilemma of framing and costing and galleries.

Now to end on a different note, in the spirit of complete honesty about what my house really looks like, I'm showing you my magic curtain, which I made on Monday evening.

Here is my horrid utility room:

It's a bit like Monica's secret cupboard in Friends if you've ever seen that episode, it's really terrible. Note the sacks of wool and mess and broken cupboard doors (also you might be able to see that our kitchen bin is held together with duck tape). And that's only one half of the room, the other half is worse and has a computer and years of paperwork stuffed sideways into shelves (the papers that is, the computer is upright).

So here is my magic curtain:

Mess....what mess? All gone away. Surely now it no longer exists at all?

Archie helped.


What is it about cats and ironing boards?

A Senior Moment, or 'Spot the Deliberate Mistake'

I needed to make tea and re-fill the tea-caddy, my mind was on something else, can you see where I may have gone a bit wrong? At least I managed not to pour boiling water on the two teabags I'd put in the tea-caddy.
This was completely genuine, sadly. I'm currently 43, how much worse do you think this may get?

I post this in the hope that it will make any of you who have ever done anything similar, feel better, and that you might know you are not alone. Of course if there are none of you out there who have done anything like this, I should begin to worry now.

Archie recommends....

These hand-woven hogla fibre baskets from Traidcraft.

But which one to choose.....

One just about perfect for squeezing into (just):

the other one a little too large but useful for sharpening claws on the bottom and turning round and round in, and hiding treasures in.

Elsewhere there's been a bit of an incident. Archie says the important thing to remember here mummy:


is that I caught the tiny fly that was at the top of the window flying about before I crash landed on your things, you really should have moved them earlier like you were thinking about. Never put off till tomorrow etc.....