Finished Necklace

Some pictures taken in better light of the necklace inspired by Karen's ceramic beads. Some of the fabric beads are scrunched up squares of different bits from my stash and wound-around with tapestry wool. The tie-died pieces were a swap with Marion (from http//www.Artmixter.etsy.com )- I've got some stunning colours in the collection. There are some lovely velvet ones and I made a few with vintage crochet lace, which is a soothing creamy colour. Of course there had to be some felted beads too and some tiddlers made of balls of the same tapestry wool used to wind the larger fabric beads. I've used three of Karen's beads in this one, and they add some nice weight to the necklace, without making the whole thing heavy round your neck. The necklace is strung on some discreet ribbon, so that you can wear the necklace at a length to suit you. I think the whole thing has come out quite summery and feminine.

Spring-Cleaning and components for a Necklace

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat."


Extract from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame,
illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard


So guess what we've been doing! Dear Husband has been on annual leave for a few days and when I saw him standing at the open garage door with slumped shoulders, I knew the time had come to brave the big hairy spiders and get in there with the bin-bags! Surely we're not alone in having a collection of empty screen-wash bottles, rusty paint tins from years ago, and curtain tracks that won't get used again?

As we excavated, we found enough spare parts from our old Willys Jeep to make a new one, a crate of apples wrapped in 8 year-old newspaper, heaps of surveyor's chains that Might Come In Handy, a lobster pot and two silver-plated gravy boats. After several hours of choking on dust, stifling screams at spiders and many trips to the council recycling tip, we had turned the garage into a palace fit for a king. But, like Mole, I eventually declared 'hang spring-cleaning' and bolted out the door without waiting to put on my coat!

As an antidote to all that dirt and physical exercise, I treated myself to some fabric and felt bead-making. This was all inspired by some gorgeous ceramic beads from Karen at HodgePodgeArts. I bought a string of 18 beads, which I shall eke-out sparingly in some necklaces I'm planning to make. The one that sparked off this necklace is the 'raspberry ripple' one below. Karen is a very generous Etsy seller and included a couple of her divine ceramic heart-shaped buttons in my parcel - what joy! But they bring out the worst in me - I'll never be able to share them!

laid out in potential pattern for a necklace

Camping it up

My dad was a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force in the 1950's and 60's. This was the era of the Cold War and the RAF were sent out on low-level training missions, night and day, protecting the country from the perceived threat coming from behind the Iron Curtain. Well, that's what was supposed to be going on, but what my dad was actually doing (it seemed to me) was sussing out places to take the family on holiday!

He would return from night-flying at some ungodly hour of the morning, crash into our bedrooms (his four daughters), fling open the curtains and announce that we were off to the Wye Valley on the Welsh border, or to the seaside at Camber Sands, or the Peak District in Derbyshire - whatever part of the realm had taken his fancy from the cockpit as he flew over in his fast jet.

Mostly these were day or weekend trips. However, after one detachment with his squadron to a flying base in Germany, big plans were made for a Continental Camping Holiday. We girls (aged from 2 to 8 years) had no idea what this meant. In preparation, we were required to lie on the lawn in the back garden in a square formation while dad paced out the area we covered. This, we were told, was to determine how big a tent we would need to hire.

So, came the day, off we set in our battered Standard Vanguard, packed to the rafters with sleeping bags, canvas camp beds, a CampingGaz stove and enough clothes for six people for two weeks. Well, it would have been enough clothes, had not my dad got one of my sisters so excited about the trip on the Channel ferry that she was sick over all the luggage before we got to Dover.

Seasick and fed up already
on the cross-Channel ferry
in a stiff breeze!

Once in Dover, we had to collect the hired tent. It turned out to be not so much a tent as a military-style khaki marquee that reeked of creosote. Property of the Dover Marquee Company, who had stencilled their name in 12" high letters on the side of the canvas. On the first night, we discovered that there were a great many complicated guy ropes and I had to stand on my father's shoulders to attach them to the tops of the tall tent-poles. This tended to draw attention to us on the German campsites, where most of our genteel Continental neighbours had brightly coloured, stately pleasure domes.

Our whistlestop tour of Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany was full of misadventures. My littlest sister was washed downhill on her rubber mattress in the middle of the night when the campsite was engulfed by torrential rain, my mum had to be left as surety at a petrol station while the rest of us rushed to the nearest bank before it closed to get more foreign currency to pay for the fuel, another sister fell in the Rhine trying to reach for wine corks bobbing in the river. I remember too that my dad was constantly stared at because of his large handlebar moustache and a complete stranger bought us all ice-cream one day.

Not long after this holiday, we were posted to the Far East, where my dad's flights mostly took place over the Borneo rainforest. I lived in dread of being woken by the sound of the curtains swishing open and a jolly announcement that we were going for a family jaunt in the jungle. Although we did escape that fate, there was the time we had to sleep in parachutes slung like hammocks in a WW2 pillbox on an island off the south coast of Singapore ......

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This post was inspired by Penwren's wonderful photos of her vintage camping and hiking book, and magic sense of humour.

Spring Chicken

As an Etsy seller, I belong to a couple of 'street teams' one of which requires me to be over 40 years of age. No problems there! We are the Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team, or BBEST for short. Though most of the team is from the USA, there are half a dozen of us holding out on this side of the water! Besides all the daily chatter (and boy can Boomers chat) we have regular 'swaps' and competitions so that we can get to know each other better.

This month, we were asked to make an ACEO (2.5" x 3.5" in any medium) illustrating 'Spring'.

Well, in between hospital admissions and daily out-patient treatment, I found it hard to concentrate and had one or two failed attempts. As I sat disconsolate at my very messy worktable, my eye fell on a cardboard template I've had for about 18 years, which I made when I did a papier mache workshop with my sister in Gloucester. It's a little birdie, which we made brooches from.

So, after a rummage in the fabric stash, I decided to make a Spring Chicken for my swap, using the template for the chicken shape and machine-sewing some legs and tail feathers. There's a little bit of embroidered grass and buttercups decorating the base. I hope my swap partner will be happy with it, but I'm going to enclose a little something extra as an insurance policy!

A Pretty Package

Today I just wanted to show you what I hope you will agree is the pretty way I package the goods I sell in my Etsy shop.

When I buy something handmade from Etsy I love it when the parcel arrives, as so many Etsy sellers take a lot of trouble to make their wrappings and presentation so special. It's like receiving a lovely present, and often the seller will enclose a little something extra, which is always a nice surprise, but never taken for granted.

As my items are mainly felted and therefore not breakable, I like to parcel them up in some vintage dressmaking pattern tissue and then tuck them into a little muslin or cheesecloth bag, on which I stamp 'handmade' with a little heart. The bag is tied up with a string bow with two little dingly-dangly handfelted hearts. Lots of my buyers have said how they love the packaging, which is great to hear - I like a happy customer!

Where have I been?!

A thrifted 'pinny' awaiting its fate

Sorry for the absence for a few days - I had an unplanned admission to hospital last week and I'm only just home and catching up.

There's lots of stories to tell about the last few days in hospital, and there are some strong images that stick in my mind, snatches of conversations and insights into human nature that I'm not often exposed to.

In front of me in the queue to register at the Accident & Emergency department was a man holding his thumb on with a blood-soaked cloth. He had been using a wood chisel, when it slipped. "Why were you using a chisel?" the receptionist asked. "I'm an artist". "Well, you don't look like an artist." "Sorry, I didn't have time to brush my hair."

The ward I was put in when first admitted was full of elderly confused men and women, loudly demanding their walking sticks, bedpans, something to eat, wanting to be helped to sit up, then lie down again, then sit up once more. Never a thought of please or thank you to the tirelessly accommodating nursing staff. "We've had the campanology club in" said one long-suffering nurse, "They've been ringing their bells all night!" On one side of me, an old lady sat swaddled in enveloping robes, picking her nose and calling on Allah every now and again. On the other, Frank kept falling out of bed.

Fortunately, before bedtime, I was moved to a quieter side bay with some ladies nearer my own age. A chuckling Selma pushed my bed and me out into the corridor, "C'mon, Mamma G., we goin' cruisin' ".

There's something about the enforced intimacy of a hospital ward that opens the way for camaraderie. Something about those open-backed short gowns emblazoned with 'Property of ****** General Hospital' and the loud discussions with medical staff about bowel movements and other personal matters that breaks down the normal social barriers. How on earth does anyone think that drawing the curtains round your bed prevents anyone else from overhearing what's said?! So we quickly became a mutually-supportive little group, sharing laughs and passing round our magazines and chocolate biscuits. Our one gentleman (89 years old) told us two cracking jokes which I've added to my repertoire.

Of course, the biggest joke of all is hospital food. I suppose it was my own fault that I expected there would be actual chicken in my 'chicken salad sandwich', or, indeed, salad. But what a great excuse to regress to childhood and have jelly and ice-cream or tinned pears!

We were all hoping to be discharged on the same day, but I was the first allowed to go home. As we hugged goodbye, my bed-neighbour sent me on my way with a cheery, "Well, you look 10 years younger with your clothes on!"

1952

Busy, busy, busy day ahead today, so just thought I'd download a funny family photograph. Perhaps taken in October 1952 - don't be fooled by the winter coats, we're talking Scotland here!

It must have been a real treat for women to have the luxury of fabric to be frivolous with, after the restraints of wartime and clothes coupons. Big cuffs and full skirts couldn't have been contemplated just a few years previously. And don't you just love the little girl looking in the shop window in the background!

In the foreground we have Boudicca, fearsome warrior leader of the Iceni tribe, gripping her chariot.

Are my eyes narrowed in steely determination, or did mummy just tie my bonnet too tight?!