Sunset over West Kirby

 Nothing to say about these photos except that I love taking sunset shots and these came out particularly well. I love this time of day - it has always been special for me. I should like mornings better, but I am an owl by nature, and have stopped apologising for the fact now. So I don't do sunrise - but I do love sunset.

Milo - the new dog on the block

 

 Next door have just acquired a cavalier king charles puppy called Milo and its fun to see how he plays with Martha  who is 8 years old. Seeing them run together makes me laugh and makes me wish that Martha was so young again - although she can still outrun most dogs. Life goes on, and time goes on, faster and faster. So much to do, so little time as the saying goes.

I wish I was young again, and fit and minus aches and pains. Oh - and with the benefit of hindsight as well. Of course!!

Hand Painted Lace

 Having had such fun dyeing wool I decided to have a go at hand painting some lace to go on my crazy quilt - and here are some of the results. I love the effect and will do a lot more as time goes on. I might even hand paint threads - except that I have bought such a lot of beautiful threads that need using up. I have horded them for ages and now I am 60 I really think I should start to actually USE them rather than use ordinary threads and stroke the special ones!I am enjoying my stitching more than ever now, and it means more as well. One of the few things I can do that does not cause a lot of pain and discomfort, and which brings a lot of fulfilment for a little effort.

First attempt at dyeing = more pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

Dyeing wool -first attempt

 

 

 

These are my first attempts at dyeing wool - proper wool - with acid dyes. I thought that the process would be difficult but it wasn't, It just takes patience and a little care. I used dyes from colourcraft in Sheffield, I bought my wool from Texere - and that took ages to skein! I would like to find a supplier of ready skeined wool. I dyed 400 gms each of 4ply (crazy colours) double knit (blues and flashes of deep purple) and a silk/wool mix 100gms that I picked up in a charity shop! I have bought quite a lot of wool from charity shops lately - including loads of mohair which I shipped to Abigail in Amsterdam along with all the wool show above. I have skeined another load of wool, but want to wait until I have done a little more of my quilt, and progressed my knitting etc a little more. And I still have modules of Moral Philosophy to do!! And there are loads of books I want to read. Hmm. I am not bored!!

First blocks to be embroidered!! At last.

 

 

These are the first blocks that I am embroidering. The bright colours of the actual quilt mean that the embroidery has to be quite bold. At the moment, I am dyeing and painting pieces of lace to attach. I am enjoying doing the hand embroidery and learning new stitches. I need to get a move on as I would love to have this up on my wall. Well, with dyeing wool (pictures to follow) and knitting and studying and dealing with a lot of pain issues, time seems to run away.

Such a long gap!

I don't know why I haven't posted here for such a long time. My creative spirit seemed to disappear when I turned 60 although I had a lovely birthday in Spain and things were fine. My pain levels increased and perhaps it has just taken me time to get used to this new level of discomfort, and life has just been busy busy doing nothing nothing!

I did get away to see Abigail in Amsterdam and we had a wonderful day in the formal garden there photographing flowers - I will blog some more later.

Perhaps now I have started again I will actually continue. I hope so.