Duh and double Duh

I have been doing a grand impersonation of a headless chicken the past couple of weeks. I went to a family wedding in Sheffield (lovely ceremony, lovely family atmosphere, lovely to see people I haven't seen for a few years) on the way home we had to do a bit of a detour as there had been a shooting and the road was blocked off. I am so glad I live in a sleepy little rural town.
The following day I was teaching atcs to the Bailgate guild in Lincoln. I think that went well everyone worked very hard. Then I went to see TAKE THAT in Manchester with C, (those boys still have the old magic.) Got home from that in time to pack my stuff up for the workshop with Pauline Verrinder.
For the last few weeks my pc has been playing up, with dire warnings of hard drive failure popping up and it would not log on to the net. I un-installed and re-installed stuff and decided that I needed a new modem so ordered one. Whilst waiting for that to be delivered I thought I would decorate the study. In a heatwave! My walls are now lovely and clean (and I lost a couple of pounds)
The modem arrived and I attached it to the pc and ran the set up programe but it wouldn't talk to the pc. After a few hours of tinkering, swearing and sitting in front of the fan to cool off - (heatwave, not all temper tantrums) I worked out that the ethernet switch on the pc isn't working. Duh!! The new modem needs an ethernet connection but the old one works wirelessly, so I re-set that one and it now connects just fine.
It was my birthday last week and my lovely in-laws paid for a new chair which I can raise and lower as needed. This is so that I can raise myself to the right height to sew on my new Janome 6600. To get my shoulders to the right height to use the machine, I raise the chair seat. But then my feet dangle and I can't reach the foot pedal. Not a problem, I will make a wooden box to put the pedal on. I have a 15% off voucher to use in the local diy store as long as I pay using a particular credit card. So I go to the diy store to buy a sheet of mdf with the intention of getting them to cut it to the right size - they do that free of charge. The machine was out of order (or there was no-one in to operate it), so that was out. But I had the voucher so I bought a small and lightweight staple gun to use to make print frames. Went to the checkout and handed over the voucher and the credit card and couldn't remember the blooming pin number for that card. Duh! By the time I got home I was hot and harrassed. I pulled the bag out of the boot of the car and forgot to take my hand out, pulled the lid down. DuhDuhDuh. Goodness I did say a naughty word. The first finger on my left hand took the brunt of the damage and is a bit swollen and turning a funny colour, but at least I can still move the joints so hopefully it will be ok. It doesn't half hurt though.

John James Needles

Karen from 'John James' came to talk to us (Sleaford Embroiderers) about needles. We learned how they were made and a little about the history of needles and the company that make them. She had some interesting ones with her, some were huge and very ferocious looking. It was fascinating stuff, I use them but had never thought much about needles. Pictured are some of the harder to find needles that I bought. Well, the pebbles are not that hard to find but they are a delight, and that is why I had to have one ;)

There is now an on-line store for buying at www.NeedlesbyJohnJames.com and you can contact Karen by emailing her at e.karen@entaco.com

Embellisher workshop

I went to Belstead House for a weekend workshop with Pauline Verrinder. We started at 7 on Friday evening, worked until 10.30, slept and then back in the classroom by 9 on Saturday morning. Although we did stop to eat we worked until 10 again and on Sunday from 9 until 3.30. Some from the group were in the classroom from 7 each morning!!!

Pauline worked us very hard, each time we thought we might catch up she would show us new ways to use the embellisher machine. We are having a heatwave in my part of the world and it was very hot in the room, huge picture windows let in fabulous light, but also the sun, and the heat from 15 machines added to the heat from 15 women of a certain age meant that we sweltered and melted. Didn't stop us working though :) I have done a little collage of some of the examples I made, more on flickr - see link on sidebar.

Some days..

Imagine, himself is away from home doing something very important so I have the house to myself. I am sitting in my comfy chair, feet on desk, morning cappacino in my hand, reading e-mail and surfing the net when I hear a scritchy scratchy sound coming from the ceiling. I had left the bathroom window wide open and a bird must have gotten in. So I run upstairs and check. No sign of any bird, must have flown out again. Close window. Go back to my comfy position. scritchy scratchy sound coming from the ceiling! I checked outside to see if there was any way a bird could get into the house, but can’t see anything. Or was it a mouse scuttling about between the floor upstairs and the ceiling downstairs, in which case I don’t really want to know. Whatever, the sound stopped so I decide I must be imagining it.

5 am next day, I wake up to the sound of our neighbourhood pigeon coo-cooing at the top of his voice from the tv ariel. Turn over to go back to sleep and hear scritchy scratchy sound coming from the ceiling. I tried to go back to sleep but the thought of a poor little bird trapped in the attic was too much for me. So I got up – yes me, at 5am!!
I checked outside to see if I could see anywhere a bird might be getting inside. I go into the loft to see if I could see any sign of a bird. Not a thing. However there is something looking suspiciously like a feather floating just above the guttering. There is an air vent in the roof just above the feather so although there is no sign of breakage I decide to use mesh to cover it anyway. Drive to diy store, buy plastic mesh.
I climb back up the ladder into the loft with the mesh, staple gun and scissors. Think “if there is a bird flying around in here, how will I catch it”? Need something to catch bird with. Back down ladder to look for the large piece of fine black net which we used to use to keep flies out of the back door. Find net in kitchen drawer and put it into back pocket of jeans.
Back up ladder to loft. I clear a few cartons so that I can climb though the gap to get to the vent. This is at the lowest point in the roofline in the part of the loft we didn’t bother to board out as it was so shallow we knew we would never use it. Realise I will have to very carefully crawl along the joists to get to the vent. Back down the ladder to find a box to put the mesh, staple gun, scissors etc in so that I don’t have to carry them. Be brave and go into shed for large cardboard box, hoping the giant spider that lives in there is asleep and doesn’t get me. Saw friendly mouse trap on shelf and got that too. Baited that with caramel and sesame covered peanuts and a piece of chocolate (if a mouse has to be trapped in a can, he may as well eat nice things).
I climb the ladder again. Push the box with my tools in it through the gap, then decide I need to go to the loo. Down the ladder. Do the stuff and turn to flush toilet, Yikes! There is something huge and black in loo. It’s the bloody net that was in my back pocket, must have fallen in when I sat down. Of course I had peed on it. Fish net out of loo and put into sink, wash hands. Go and search for something else to catch the bird with.
Back up ladder. Did I mention that it has been rather warm here recently? I don’t know what the temperature was in my attic, but it is a well insulated enclosed space and it was like a blooming sauna up there. Anyway, I push my cardboard box through the small gap I had made in the stacked cartons and climb through. The ceiling is so low I have to somehow crawl along the rafters, which are around two feet apart, with only fibre glass insulation covering the plasterboard ceiling. I manage to get to the part of the roof with the vent, cut the plastic mesh and by laying on my back, at a very strange angle and trying to keep my weight on the joists, cover the air gap with mesh. I found a small tear in the roofing felt so stapled gunned that to fix it. Then to be extra sure I covered the whole area with mesh. I slithered back across the insulation, through the gap in the stored cartons, put everything back. Climbed back down ladder. I was dripping, smelly, had splinters in my knees, was itching everywhere from the fibreglass, when the phone rang. It was himself, he was having a bad day…


p.s. I did ring back and apologise for swearing at him once I had had a shower. The net washed in the washing machine and so far the trap is still empty. I guess the bird got out the way he got in when he heard me coming.

Paddy Killer machine embroidery workshop

Lincoln Bailgate Guild had Paddy Killer come and teach a one day workshop. Paddy's stuff is awesome and I just had to take the class. http://www.paddykillerart.co.uk/
Anyway this is what I produced in one day. We had lots of tuition in the morning with slides etc, then we traced part of a design and drew it onto antung silk fabric using a pigment drawing pen. (The silk had been sprayed with starch on the reverse of the fabric.) I lightly shaded in the areas that I wanted to fill using stitch. We could have painted the design with textile paint at this stage. The piece of silk was layered with cotton batting and had cotton organdie as the base. We used a very fine thread both in the bobbin and through the needle - I found it so much harder to sew with this thread, every tiny wobble showed. I did start to sew around the edge again but ran out of time. As I was using Paddy's thread I won't be finishing the started sample! The pen worked really well with no smudging or bleeding and I would use one again but I think I need lots more practice before I use expensive silk and organdie again.

Dyeing day

I followed the instructions from 'Dyeing in plastic bags' by Hazel Deighan. I don't usually bother with following instructions and when I did this batch I was convinced I wouldn't get nice fabric. There seemed to be far too much fluid in the bags. The duff pieces are definately due to my bad scrunching, the recipe worked just fine. I may even follow it again :)

Some of the pieces will need over dyeing or maybe printing over, but I don't mind that. They do look nice and bright drying on my washing line. The one story building in the background is my studio, now finished and a joy to work in. Having this super space hasn't made me a better artist though. Shame about that...

Alcazar

We had a couple of hours to wait for the Cathedral to open so walked across the square to the Alcazar Palace. Typical huge stone walls but as we walked through the entrance there was a hint of what was inside. I started to perk up a bit when I saw this.

The orange tree planted right up against the stone wall was lovely, loads of ripe oranges too. Hmm, but Seville oranges are used to make marmalade so they weren't for eating.





The detail on the stone wall in the garden was great too.









Then we went inside












There were many amazing archways like this one, check out the detail and the colours
























The doors had texture and colour and pattern too.

















This is a detail from the door on the right




Did I mention the floors and the ceilings













I turned 360 degrees, looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor and was sure I had died and gone to design heaven.

There was far too much to see in one visit, I want to go back for a week with a pile of sketchbooks and pens and paper and crayons to do rubbings and and









If anyone is inclined to look at more photos from the places I visited you can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmaemmeline/ and while away an hour or two :)