Felt and Stitch

My sewing machine is getting a good workout lately! :)  This week has found me felting boots - I have 2 pairs 'on the go' - neither quite finished yet - and making hanging felt hearts for a commission.  I went to town with the stitchery on these.. adding abstract shaped felt appliques & machine embroidery to a nice textural piece of felt. 

Absolutely stuffed full of lovely lavender buds.. these are nice fat hearts :)
This is just 6 of the 11 I made..

I had so much fun applique-ing and embroidering these..
I just LOVE the dimensional effect of stitching into felt!

Working on the heart project got my imagination going.. as soon as I had finished them I stitched a hanging Christmas tree filled with allspice berries and cloves to smell like Christmas :) ...

And then went  off at a tangent thinking about holidays & seasonal stuff - Halloween.  The night before we had watched Batman Begins (Christian Bale is my fave Batman!) and I guess this must of still been in my mind 'cos I suddenly started picturing a felt bat with stitched details & swarovski crystal eyes

You cant really tell in this pic but the eyes GLOW.  They are AB swarovski crystal and sooo irridescent.  He is nice and chunky too - I used 2 layers of felt to stitch into

And THEN following the Halloween vein I felted a witches pointy hat! Hows that for random?  Its still drying at the mo.. pics to follow soon :)

Anyhoo.. time to go rustle up some food for my lot - enjoy the weekend folks

xx

New wall art.. and a week away

I just HAVE to show you this..

My son is 14 and about to start his GCSE subjects in September, one of the subjects he is dropping is art (OMG school with no art class would of been sheer purgatory for me!) as such he brought home a folder with all of the work he has done over the last 3 years.  When we were going through it my heart almost leapt out of my chest when I saw this.. I LOVE it!  It is now mounted and framed and hanging in pride of place in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs :)



'The Blue Ladies'
sorry about the glare across the glass.. really should of brought non-reflective



A3 size, worked in oil pastels.
I love this so much

I cant believe that his art teacher actually marked him down on this piece because he strayed from the red,orange, yellow tones.. isnt art about doing what feels right?  He is getting lots of positive comments from our friends and family who have seen, and I'm hoping this will boost his self confidence (which has been ground out in art class!) and inspire him to keep drawing & painting.

We have just spent a wonderful week camping and ocean kayaking in Cornwall :)  The weather was a bit dodgy, but my goodness did we have some fun!



Gary & Rachael on Daymer Bay

We camped right on the cliff overlooking Polzeath beach (a lovely place to camp).  Polzeath is a great surf beach! The first half of the week, while the weather was not so good, the waves were pretty big on Polzeath - too much for us with the kayak,  so we stayed on Daymer Bay just inside the Camel Estuary.. the water was calmer here.  When the weather changed for the better the sea calmed right down - the surfers were seriously unimpressed - and we could get out there!  So lovely kayaking up close to the sea birds bobbing around & diving, or nesting on the cliffs - they took no notice whatsoever.. if only I had a waterproof camera!  Here are a couple more pics anyway..

 

Polzeath looking out to Pentire Headland

Daymer Bay.. so peaceful

I had an awful head cold for the first few days (I'd had it a week before we went too).  It really fuzzed my poor brain up for a few days!  I did quite a few daft things - most noticable of which was my mishap with hair removal cream..  Night before we went I did my legs (as you do)   and didnt realise I had hair removal cream on the back of my hand when I put my hair up..  I didnt notice until I put my hair up the next day..  luckily its just a short chunk and not a bald patch that I'm left with - and I'm due a hair cut anyway. 

I also managed to fall in a humungous rock pool!  (Blame it on the head cold) Sods law it was on a cold day and we were on a nice long walk so I was all layered up; trousers, t-shirt, fleece, coat, scarf, backback..  I went in upto my armpits and soaked the lot - I've never been so unintentionally wet in all my life.  Amber was swimming across it at the time - she though I had come to join her lol.  It was funny though I must admit.  And it proved the water repellant qualities of felt too!  I had my phone and camera in my felt backpack - both were perfectly dry.

The kids just have 2 weeks of their summer holiday left now - where has the time gone?  Its flown by!

Hope you are all having a good summer too

xx

A Tale of Treasure... Allen style

OK, this post is going to be told by images more than words... the photos speak louder than words anyway :o) A tale of adventure from our holiday in Cornwall, it happened a week or so ago...

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One lovely sunny day, the Allen family and their 2 dogs went rockpooling; the tide was waaaay out so there were many more rockpools to explore than usual. A very enjoyable morning was spent mooching around, finding little treasures - shells, bits of driftwood, buoys, fishing weights. Moma Allen took lots and lots of photos for inspiration, peering into rock pools trying to capture the colours and textures of rock, sea creatures & sea weed. A large rusting anchor needed several photos to capture its beautiful colours.

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As they got to the furthest point, they discovered a sheltered place with high rocks around 3 sides... and lying in the middle...

Was a huge, very interesting, and obviously very old piece of driftwood, lying in a murky puddle.

Daddy Allen is a carpenter by trade, and loves wood. This big old piece of oak got his imagination going straight away... where did it come from? How old is it? HOW long has it been in the water to be so shaped by the tides?

How am I going to take this home? He was figuring out just how to get this huge (6 1/2ft) and very heavy soaking wet piece of oak up the cliffs and a mile or more in either direction before we could collect with the car.

Ever resourceful - the dog leads came in useful. The dogs thought he had gone mad & mistaken a log for one of them :o)

Once at the top it took Matthew & me at the front with a dog lead each, and Gary at the back. Rachael was overseeing the operation and carrying dog water bottles etc. What a funny sight we must of been! Luckily about 1/4 of a mile up the coastal path, we took a chance and headed up a tiny walkway toward some beautiful houses - my reasoning being they were sure to have road access. This was very narrow so Gary shouldered the log by himself.. fortunetely it wasnt too far till we reached a rough road. Gary and Matthew jogged back to collect the car.

It had 4 days to dry out sitting raised on slate outside our tent (looked like we had built a bench :o) Before it was time to come home...

Dont worry, it wasnt really as low on the arches as the picture suggests - it was very uneven ground here & the back tyre was at the highest point.

First day back home...

Sculpted by the gentle hand of Mother Nature - 'the Needle'

Gary set our new piece of garden art in place, the bottom 18" are buried.. its very steady. The corner with the picnic bench has been a bit of a dead area until now, characterless & unused. Its going to be our coastal corner now :o) Ive strung the buoys on fishermans rope and hung them on the fence. There is going to be a shingle area around the Needle, with boulders, sea pinks and Livingstone daisies (they`re the closest I know to pink sea daisies). Just hope they can survive there - its quite shaded most of the time being right by the woods.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun... and we do love driftwood - this really was treasure to us (all 4 of us)

xx

There and back again...

Hi folks :o)

Hope you have all had a good couple of weeks! Ours have been spent exploring new places and enjoying lots of precious family time. I LOVE our family holidays - we have a couple of weeks in the summer and a week at Christmas that are just the 4 of us (and the dogs of course) I do my best to soak up the warmth & serenity and store it to keep me going through the rest of the year when outside influences do their best to disturb my equilibrium! With the children getting older I know that these times are precious... pretty soon they are not going to want to spend a week or 2 just with mom & dad...

We have been camping in Cornwall - yes, again; we love it there. Although next summer Im determined to visit Scotland! The weather was rather mixed... we had some lovely days, a cold day, a rainy day and a windy day - but every evening was beautiful strangely enough.

We spent the 'rainy' day walking up and over Pentire Head and along the coastal path to the Seven Sisters rock formation. On the walk up the headland the rain was coming horizontally at us - we were soaked through! But by the time we got to the top it had stopped... and there looking totally chilled out were these sheep - arent they lovely?!

We didnt want to go to close & disturb them so bypassed the bench, much Rachaels dismay. The day was warm and rather windy so luckily we dried out quickly :o) The cliffs where we walked are where the poet Laurence Binyon wrote 'For the Fallen'... very moving. Im sure you are all familiar with it.

Along the way we crossed the Rumps - an saw evidence of iron age fortifications. They are mound and ditch earthworks... I didnt manage to get a very good photo of them to be honest, you can just make out the lines going across the middleground. Matthew & Jess are just in this photo. Must get a better shot next time! We have wanted to explore here for years but up till now there has always been something thats stopped us; weather, health, unable to drag ourselves away from the surf :o) etc.

This is the furthest point we got to, as you can see a sea mist blew in and got thick fast. It was very rugged and beautiful... possibly due to the weather that day it was SO quiet, there was nobody else about, just the sound of wind, waves & gulls - wonderfull.

We also explored Trebarwith Strand at low tide... when the tide is high there is no beach (and it comes in pretty fast!), but when its out its huge - and fierce, rugged and beautiful. Trebarwith is a few miles south of Tintagel.

We had wildlife treats too; we saw many Merlins and Kestrels and birds that I really dont know what they were, but they were lovely. And walking south along the coastal path from Tintagel, we were the only people about, we were saw a wild deer about 30 feet from us. He bounded up the path and away before I could take a photo unfortunately.

We investigated many rock pools and coves (kids and dogs swimming in many :o) This activity led to one of our biggest adventures! We found treasure! Well, treasure as far as the Allen family were concerned anyway :o) and on that tantalising note Im going to leave you for today... I think this post is plenty long enough lol. Will post soon about our treasure

xxx

Holiday pics

We had a wonderful camping trip in North Cornwall last week! And for once the weather did exactly what the met office had promised; Tuesday, the day we went, they said it would rain till 1 ish then clear up and be nice for the next 3 days. Driving down the weather was absolutely dreadful... rain so bad you could barely see anything - especially with the spray on the motorway. I kept think "ooooh, I hope theyve got it right" ... 4 of us plus 2 dogs in a tent in rainy weather are not my ideal (I hate the tent getting damp!) Lo & behold though, come 1.30 the rain was stopping & by 2.30 when we arrived it was great! We pitched in sunshine and a light sea breeze; the tent was up and all the stuff sorted within 30 minutes :o) and we were off! The weather just got better and better. Tuesday afternoon and evening were delightful, Wed, Thu & Fri were absolute scorchers - definately needed the factor 40! Here are a few of my favourite pics...

It was bloomin` cold at night though, I must say! I was wearing; shorts, thermal vest, thermal leggins, bedsocks & a fleece with my sleeping bag drawn up as much as possible just to be warm! First night I rather stupidly got in (while it was a pleasantly mild 11 o`clock) in shorts and T-shirt OMG I WAS FREEZING! I barely slept... was glad when I woke up down the gap between the 2 blow up matresses cos it was warmer :o) so I stayed there for the rest of the night.

We did loads of walking... out between 8.30 & 9.00 and walking pretty much all day till about 7.00 - there was lots of paddling, rockpooling,ferry rides and stopping to enjoy the scenery too of course.

We were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins leaping in the mouth of the camel estuary heading toward Polzeath, a seal floating sunning himself at Tintagel, and what Im 99% certain was a Peregrine Falcon over the cliffs between Polzeath & Daymer Bay - AWESOME! Could only see him from beneath though and it was against a very bright sky so couldnt see his markings... the shape & size suggest Peregrine though and they are fairly common there. I didnt get photos of any of them though... I was too busy watching & enjoying them to take my eyes off long enought to find the camera!

Since we got back we have been playing catchups... Yesterday the kids were back to school & Gary at work - so I got a little felting time! Played around with the silk saries... shall have to post pics.

Anyway, Im off to felt ...maybe a cushion cover?

x

Felting Fun

Well, perhaps not the best start ever - but being as its the school summer holidays I'm not doing much of my own stuff. Having lots of lovely family time though - which is what its all about isnt it?!

I have a 12 year old son & a 10 year old daughter - who are both very crafty (in both ways ;o)

These are the felted birdies we made a couple of weeks ago. If you take a peek at my website, theres a Crafty Kids Gallery where you will find these and some of their other creations. We`re doing some experiments too (more about that in the future) we have been felting with our feet... here are a couple of pics of the kids hard at work :o)

Treading down the fibres to make sure theyre all nice & wet & flat

Fulling the Felt

Other than family projects I have been doing smaller / quicker stuff - things that I can easily put down & carry on with at a later time. I've done quite a bit of jewellery, the latest has been for the lovely Keiara of The Jewelled Path

Keiaras goodies

These bracelets are a new design and turned out so well - I'm thrilled with them! Infact I love them so much that I'm going to HAVE to make some similar for myself ;o) Im actually going to start them now...

TTFN

xxxx