September.. getting back to 'normal'

The children have been back at school for just over a week now.. and things are slowly getting back to normal.  I'm still struggling to figure out how I fit in everything before the holidays.. there really just are NOT enough hours in the day!

After a few weeks without making any felt (yes I was getting very twitchy!) I think I went a little felt-mad!  There has been a flurry of scarf, bag, purse, hat and boot making .. with a fun picture panel thrown in too.  Here's a quick catch-up  :)

Turquoise & Chocolate brown Icelandic wool with navy leather soles

A little while back I thought that I had found a solution to save having to wear my hats for photos (I'm quite self concious).. A nice canvas head shaped hat / wig block found on ebay.  Unfortunately I had a 'mad one' when placing a last minute bid and bid on the wrong one!  I brought a mans sized block for ladies hats DUH.  Thats likely to be going back on ebay.  So I'm stuck having to photograph them on me head

Nice rich autumn colours.. won't be long till the leaves are these colours

This one was inspired by one of my lovely ceramic
buttons handmade by Sharry at Buttonalia

The next bag was inspired by a piece of driftwood brought back from Cornwall last summer.. it was a piece of bark which had been bleached by the sea and sun, lots of barky texture but smooth and lovely, cracks where it had dried out and tiny old barnacles in and around the cracks.  I used BFL in white and oatmeal for the body of the bag, with linen fibre, boucle yarn and tussah fibre for the lines and cracks.. and wool nepps for the barnacles.  Its fully lined with a remnant of wool-blend fabric that I've had for quite a few years now (left over from kids Dark-Age clothing sewn for a local museum :) I stitched the handle and fastener loop from the same material.

Lovely chunky ceramic button handmade in Scotland by Julia Smith
in perfect sea colours.. been hanging onto this waiting for the 'right' project

Nuno scarf in blue, green and orange

Burnout silk chiffon and satin fabric -
quite a lot of work needed to get the fibres to work through the satin pattern areas

And apart from all of this I have been totally engrossed in my new book!  Second Skin by India Flint.

India Flint actually commented on my last post, the one about my eco print shawl, pointing me toward her blog and this book.  Within a week I had my copy from Amazon :)  and I am thoroughly enjoying it.  I don't get time to sit and read for long, but I'm taking every opportunity to pick this up and read another page or two.  Its full of useful and interesting tips and info on so many aspects of clothing textiles, with lots of lovely anecdotes from the authors life, family and travels.  The photography is enough to get me drooling!  Very, very inspirational.

I havent actually read the section on eco printing yet, its toward the end of the book and I'm only about a third through.  The fact that I haven't read it yet shows how spellbinding it is.. usually I'd read the relavent section first :)  (I'm a bugger with books.. I excitedly flick through from front to back having a quick look.. then hungrily from back to front stopping and reading the bits that catch my eye.. THEN I start reading properly from the front).  I think I will be adding India's other eco dye book to my collection at some point too.. her ethos is right up my street!