A Birthday trip to Lincoln.

Today is my birthday, it started off like this, what a great start!

Sophie the Cat gave me extra special cuddles, she has not been so affectionate in ages.  I must also say I do not normally eat so much for breakfast, this was a big breakfast to see us through the day as a trip to Lincoln was planned.

Our arrival in Lincoln didn't start terribly well with an encounter with some drug users and a phone call to the Police but from there on it was great!

Our first stop, after the bank where I paid in some birthday cheque's, was Spins and Needles where I got some beautiful hand spun undyed BFL DK yarn.  This was purchased for a particular project which will be revealed soon, once the creator has blogged about it.  The shop had a beautiful selection of yarns and the owner was lovely, I do love a friendly yarn shop owner, especially one who understands the need to grab everything and squish it.

From here we made our way towards Steep Hill, I feel the need to type DUH-DUH-DUUUUHH to reflect the sense of doom I felt standing at the bottom looking up.  Annoyingly this photograph makes it look rather mild.

We easily made it up the first and easiest part with a quick stop at a lovely old sweet shop called Goodies, we got some Rhubarb and Custard sticks and some Rhubarb rock.  From there we trudged up the hill.  Fortunately Steep Hill is lined with beautiful shops and art galleries so it broke the walk up a bit which was good for my legs which sadly spend most of their days under a desk.

We called in at a lovely gallery called Harding House Gallery.  It had a beautiful selection or art including some pieces from David William Sampson who we have met a number of times at the Long Eaton Art Rooms, it was lovely to see a local artist exhibiting a bit further a field.  There were lots of artists displaying there and it was all very impressive.  Well worth popping in if passing.

Next we called in at a shop called Annushka.  They sell hand painted stacking dolls, aka Russian dolls, and my word are they beautiful.  I was admiring some of the 10 piece sets and the tiny final doll that does fit in the slightly bigger one when I was pointed towards the 20 piece set.  This just took my breath away, I cannot begin to describe how beautifully painted it was and how small the final pieces are, and yes they do all open and go inside one another.  Each set takes two months to complete and the eyelashes are painted on with a single hair, just wow!  I took a photograph with my little finger in for scale, my little finger is reasonably small.

 

As we wandered further up the hill I stopped to take a photograph of the view from where we were.  The view was amazing, the sun may have prevented the photograph from doing it justice.  I don't mind though, I would rather have the sun on my back than a nice photograph.

 When we made it to the top we stopped in at the Castle, it is undergoing a huge and very exciting renovation so we couldn't access most of it.  I did manage to take a photograph of Lincoln's Crown Court though.  What an amazing Crown Court, made me briefly think about committing a crime just to get a look around.

We took a walk along the short stretch of wall that was accessible.  The views were great but I suspect they would have been better from the other side.  We also stopped for a quick selfie, got to be done.

After the Castle we wandered to locate a cash point, on the way we stumbled across the Whisky Shop, we get through a fair amount of single malt in this house so though we would pop in.  We left however with a bottle of Rhubarb Vodka, what a Rhubarb themed day we had!

 

 From here we went to the Cathedral, it stole the tallest building in the world award from the pyramids when it was built, I can see why.  How the heck did they get to the top without a crane?!?

We didn't pay to visit the whole Cathedral so we wandered around the free area, it is such a stunning building and the stained glass is beautiful.

Just look at the houses outside the Cathedral, we both questioned how much this beauty would cost, we decided on the figure of a lot.

 

Next we made our way to the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, a great Museum with a huge collection of items.  

Rooms arranged as they would have been, here is the bedroom.

A large collection of military memorabilia including at least 8 Victoria Cross medals, it was lovely to see these and to read the stories of bravery that earnt them.  Here is a giant WWII tank called Flirt, it was huge.

We also visited the Victorian School, it's like they knew we were coming.

 

After the museum we decided we would wander back towards the car and stop on the way for a cup of tea.  I had spotted a lovely looking tea shop of the way up the hill so we went back in search of it.  I couldn't remember what it was called but when we arrived I took note so I could share it, it's the bookstop cafe.  We had a lovely pot of Earl Gray and a bite to eat.  The building is a beaut, it even has some Roman Pillars in it.

Now we are home and I am drinking a chilled glass wine and relaxing before a trip to Suffolk for the weekend.  What a great way to start the last year of my twenties.

A Handmade Mothers Day gift.

A few weeks ago I asked my Mum what she might like for Mothers Day.  She had no idea until this happened but afterwards decided a knitting bag would be useful.

 

She wanted me to make her one so feeling inspired by Nettnot's applique bunny bag I got to work and ordered a basic bag, purchased some trimming and raided my fabric stash.

My applique skills are not great and sewing around shapes is not a strong point either so I decided on a basic heart shape to adorn the front of the bag.

I started by making a template and cutting around it.

Then I cut some bondaweb and ironed the heart onto the front of the bag.  I love bondaweb!

Next I stitched around the edge of the heart in a zigzag stitch.  In hindsight I think I should have used smaller stitches a lot closer to the edge.  I may go back and add another row of stitches.

Next was the trimming, I started with the fancy ric-rac and stitched along the centre to secure it in place.  I learnt a valuable lesson here.  I stitched both ends on at the same time and then worked my way around.  The ric-rac was slightly too long for the bag so I ended up with a gathering as I was unable to adjust where the end of the ric-rac joined the start.

I decided that a green ribbon would look lovely along the centre of the ric-rac, so I started to work sewing this on using one of my special stitches.  Unfortunately my needle snapped halfway around.

After a quick change I was ready to continue and to finish the edging.

Overall I am pretty pleased with this for a first attempt at applique and decorative edging.  I am still new to sewing afterall.  I get to hand it over next week when I visit my parents for my birthday.  I do hope my Mum loves it as much as I do.

Custom made gifts and supporting local artists.

Over the last few years my crafting has taken me on a real journey and along the way I have met some fantastic local artists.  All of whom I would love to commission to make me something but I have to be restrained due to space and finances.

I have however decided that custom made gifts are a great way of supporting local artists and giving a gift truly original and specific to the person being given it.  It also helps drum up a little publicity for the artists.

This Christmas my sister asked for something she would like and that she wouldn't necessarily buy for herself.  I struggled here because she buys herself most of the things she wants, unless they are out of price range which means they are way out of mine.  After racking my brains I had a sudden brain wave and decided to make contact with my friend Kate Cloud who is a textile artist.  I first met Kate when I was introduced to her by my boyfriend at the Long Eaton art room, a great place!

Kate makes the most incredible peg dolls, needle felted characters and other wonderfully colourful items, here are some of my favourites. 

My sister is a Paramedic in London and I thought it would be fantastic to ask Kate to make her in peg doll form.  Rheanne loves quirky things with little smiley faces and bright colours so I knew Kate would not disappoint.  I started by asking Rheanne's boyfriend to take a few picture of her in her uniform, a surprisingly easy task as she didn't question a thing due to the fact he was testing his new camera.  I then sent these on to Kate and she worked her magic.  Here is the finished item which Rheanne and everybody who has seen it loves.

 

Kate has captured Rheanne so well in this peg doll, there is a small London Ambulance Service badge on the right pocket and an NHS badge on the left.  They are so small its hard to believe they are so perfect.  Rheanne is also well known for her scuffed boots so even the peg dolls boots have scuffed toes.  Her smile is spot on as well, I am amazed by how perfect this is.  I also just love the background which is perfect for the bright lights of the Capital.

I have also recently had a custom pet print made by the very talented Amy Blackwell for my boyfriends Mum.  I asked for one of her tortoise Humprey Bogart.  I met Amy at my knitting group and have admired her work ever since I learnt what she did other than work in the cave at the Broadway Cinema.  Here are some of her lovely cat portraits.

 

Sadly people have stealing Amy's images recently and have been having them mass printed onto terrible cushions.  This is an ongoing problem so if you see any for sale please report these people.  They seem to pop up all over the place.  Bad people!!!

I was talking to Amy one evening and asked of she had ever made a tortoise portrait, I could instantly see the cogs in her brain working and the excitement was quite apparent.  We discussed what I might like and when it was needed by and I left knit group with a plan.  My boyfriend was heading home in a few weeks so he was tasked with taking photographs of Humprey Bogary (aka Humpy) for me to send over to Amy.

Once I had sent these with a brief description of Humpy and his favourite food stuff strawberries I was soon sent back an image of the illustration Amy had created.  He was perfect and his blissfully happy strawberry covered face was captured perfectly.  We handed Humpy over this week and he has made his way back to Devon now to meet his namesake.  Don't they look happy.

 The reactions to both of these gifts have been priceless, I felt so happy to hand over something completely unique to the person receiving them and I will continue to source as many gifts as I can from local artists.  Please join me in my bid to support local artists and consider getting gifts commissioned, you would be surprised at just how affordable and how satisfying it can be.

With all my crazy heart batik workshop.

Yesterday I went to a workshop taught by the wonderful Louise MacIntosh-Watson (aka Miss Mac Designs) at The Beetroot Tree.  Louise made us our wonderful meadow panting but has started to focus more on the art form Batik, a beautiful technique that creates layers of deep and rich colours using dyes and hot wax.  Her collection can be viewed here but here is one of my favourites.

The workshop focused on her series "With all my Crazy Heart" so that we would leave having learned the form of batik but having been given a starting point to work from.  Here are a series of Louise's crazy heart Batiks.

After a brief introduction we were let lose with the tools.  The hot wax was ready to go in a wax warming pot, like the ones used by beauticians.  These had little tools called tjanting's waiting to be used sat in them.  They hold the hot wax in the body and it flows out the small spout which is used to make drawings.  Some were a little faster flowing than others but I found one that worked for me.

First we just had a little experiment on some smaller pieces of paper to get used to using the tjanting.  Until I had got the hang of it I made a bit of a mess but this all part of learning.

Once we were familiar with the tools we were given a heart to draw around in order to start off

our crazy heart batik.  This was very exciting.

The wax we put on at this point would keep the paper white after the dye had been painted on.  I started by creating my outline and then adding some decoration.  At this point I will point on that I made two batiks whilst I was there so the pictures will look different at different points of the process.

After the first application of wax it was time to paint on the first layer of dye. The thoery behind the dyes is to start with a very weak solution and gently create a more vibrant colour as the dyes are layered.  This also ensures that when the dye is removed there is a real variety of colour rather than it all being the same.

 The first one I made (on the right) was more of an experiment with my doodles, the second was more of an experiment with a more refined design. 
The hot wax cannot be applied to wet paper as it will not stick so the hairdryer did have to be used at points but I worked on both at the same time to allow the other time to dry  After the dye had dried, it was time to apply yet another layer of wax.

Then another layer of dye, this time mixing the colours at the seams a bit more to create new and exciting patches of colour.

After the second layer of dye it was time to introduce darker dyes to add more depth and to create new colours.  After approximately five wax and dye applications it was time to go over the whole thing with some black ink.  I was a bit wary of this but having seen Louise's lovely pieces could see it would be worth it.

At this point the wax needed scraping off with a pallet knife to reveal the colours underneath in their true vibrancy.  It was so exciting revealing the beauty underneath.

After a quick iron between newspaper sheets the pieces were finished.

The one of the left is bay far my favourite of the two, I just love the uniformity of the dots against the colours and scribbles in the middle of the heart.

I went straight out today to purchase a frame for it hang proudly above out spare bed.  I am so proud of it and would love to start creating batiks in my own style.  I am not sure I have the room though, such a shame.