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Sunday 6 April 2014

Busy Week

It's been another busy week but unfortunately not in a creative way, my day job has been going more than a bit crazy. It's been as much as I can do to make myself eat something before crashing into bed each evening. This weekend I have really thrown myself into textiles to make up for an otherwise rubbish week. It has been a very productive weekend though...

Mr TB was out on a stag night on Saturday so I put the evening to good use, watching trashy TV while applying wax to an apron I rainbow dyed with blues and greens that morning:


This is the batik pattern I have been doodling, it's taking a surprisingly long time, 4 hours so far and I'm only half way finished...
I plan to over-dye this with a deep purple and then spray with plasti-dip spray to waterproof it so I have a felting / dyeing apron (no more soggy felter's middle for me!).

I have finished a couple of C&G "samples" that I started last weekend, the assignment is to explore natural wools with a view to creating a wall hanging but to my mind these pieces are too large (approx 40 x 60 cm / 16 x 24") to be samples and I like them as wall hangings in their own right:


Do you remember this piece of ice-dyed felt from a few weeks ago?

I turned it into a bag, this is the front flap: 

Inside the front flap:
I plan to do a lot of hand embroidery on this piece, mostly blanket stitch around the edges and bit of embellishment on the front flap. If I can get it finished in time I will submit it to the Yarns in the Cathedral exhibition in May.

And finally, some blue tits have been showing a lot of interest in the bird pod I hung a couple of weeks ago. I can't decide if they are nesting in it or just stealing the cat fluff I put in it as welcome present...
Linking up to nina-marie, off the wall Friday

8 comments:

  1. Can't wait to see the apron when it's finished. It looks great so far. The top natural wool "sample" is my favorite and looks like a wall hanging to me. The bag turned out great too. Good luck with the birds.

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  2. I also love the first wood sample, it turned out great. I know what you mean about the day job and coming home feeling like a zombie then trying to do it all on weekends. I've enrolled in an online felting workshop with Fiona Duthie and that started yesterday, I made my first sample today. Hope the birds decide to stay and nest, they're fun to watch.

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    1. Thanks Laura. I am very tempted to join Fiona's online course too, from what I have seen it will be a lot of fun, I just need to free up enough time to commit to it properly, let me know how you get on?

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  3. Beautiful pieces Teri! I can't call them "samples" they are too good! Ice-dyed felt is amazing!

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    1. Thank you Felicity, I love the iced dyed wool too, it's just so colourful! I have a new bag pattern to try so might have to dye some more to play with :)

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  4. I love the ice-dyed bag and it'll look great with a few stitches.

    I hope you get birds using your pod.
    According to the RSPB, the entrance hole size depends on the species you hope to attract:
    25 mm for blue, coal and marsh tits
    28 mm for great tits, tree sparrows and pied flycatchers
    32 mm for house sparrows and nuthatches
    45 mm for starlings

    I really like the first C&G sample and I think you could hang it just as it is.

    I'm looking forward to seeing your finished apron - it's a lot of painstaking work.

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  5. Thanks Lyn, I've just been out to measure my bird pod and think the hole may be too big, it's 50mm. We have a few nuthatches but no starlings and I definitely don't want the nasty magpies (they mob our rather dopey cat) moving in.

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