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I woke up this morning to frost outside and a very definite chill in the air.  Inside, the central heating's chugging away, and I keep imagining my energy bill going up, up, up, but what can you do?  A family member's just had a heat pump and solar panels installed at his home, and it'll be interesting to see how low his energy bills go in the winter months ahead.  I honestly don't understand why our government doesn't launch a huge investment programme across the country, insulating homes and installing solar panels wherever possible.  I know it'd cost a fortune, but it'd be good for the nation's health & well being.  Whether that's pensioners shivering in cold, damp homes, or poorer families not having enough money to eat well or pay childcare costs as they're struggling with huge energy bills.   Anyway, enough of that.  I've been carrying on with various crafty projects.   My 'colour study' efforts are continuing.  So far I'

I'm still immersed in trying to uncover my family tree, but in between I've been catching up on 'The Archers' (George - what a nasty piece of work he's turning into) and re-watching the grim but compelling Scandi Noir series 'Wisting' on the BBC iplayer.  I've also been making a couple of art journals, using papers I'd painted and stenciled ages ago but that'd sat around waiting for me to do something with them.  There are certain crafty activities that're immensely pleasing and that definitely includes putting simple books together.  Compiling signatures, using a bone folder to make sharp creases in the paper, choosing fabric or a printed paper for the covers.  If I can get my act together I want to make three as Christmas presents, but with December just around the corner I really need to get a wiggle on.   I'm also sewing another Jude Hill inspired piece of slow stitching.  A moon in a starry sky.  It's going to be a little wall ha

  Monday morning and after at least a week of grey dreary skies we've finally got a sunny day.  It's amazing what that does for our collective mood, isn't it?  I've spent a lot of the weekend happily - and sometimes irritably - going down various rabbit holes.  You see, the Find my Past website had free access for those two days, so I was merrily building a family tree and scouring old newspaper articles for mention of long-gone family members.  It was enjoyable, but also frustrating when you hit a brick wall and can't get further than a couple of generations ago.  I can find endless records for the Pughs, Dunkleys, Thompsons, Arnolds, etc but can I find my Keyte ancestors?  Their name's liable to be mis-spelt in old records, so I'm looking up Kites and Kytes too.  Anyway, I decided to buy myself a month's access to Ancestry as they were offering an initial month for a tenner.  I just need to remember to cancel before it auto-renews in early December!  

I had a go at eco printing, though I didn't use a mordant - like alum - so the leaves I included in my dye pot didn't transfer on to the white cotton as I'd hoped they would.  I'll know for next time.  (It would've helped if I'd bothered to educate myself on the process before I started, but that would've been too sensible, wouldn't it?)  However, I still got some interesting results with red and brown onion skins, tea leaves, blackberries, bits of rusty metal and string!   I've a slow stitching project in mind for some of these pieces, and I'll definitely have another go at natural dyeing.  I'm hoping to go to the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching show and I know there'll be plenty of other craft stalls there, so maybe one will be selling dyes, mordants etc.   In other 'news', I gave up on 'The Lost Apothecary' as it wasn't well written enough to maintain my interest and life's too short to soldier on with a medi

  I'll start with this gal because - be honest - if you were a kid and given this doll it'd give you nightmares, wouldn't it?  She's a scary-mary and no mistake.  I spent a few hours yesterday in Leeds city centre, and nipped into the museum where she's housed.  To be honest, it wasn't that appealing to me.  The museum I mean, not the doll.   It's one of those places that're aimed firmly at the younger demographic.  Which isn't a bad thing as kids need somewhere free to go and they have to be entertained when they're there.  But all the ' open this drawer and what can you find?', 'try on this wig!', 'oooh! look over here! ' stuff isn't for me.   I mooched around for a while, but my heart wasn't in it.   So I wandered over to the art gallery instead, and found some lovely stuff.   'Mount's Bay with St. Michael's Mount' by Alfred Wallis (1855 to 1942).  This was a man born in the Victorian age, when t

  It's been one of those restless kind of days, beginning awkwardly when the clock radio besides my bed wouldn't tune into the radio station I wanted it to.  The radio's not broken.  It just flatly refused to do anything other than make crackling, hissing noises at me, like a thing possessed.  Very disconcerting.  Then I somehow broke a glass that'd been on my bedside table.  One of my nice Harvey Nicks tumblers too.  No idea why it shattered, but it did.  A malevolent poltergeist?  Nah, more like a still-sleepy me being clumsy.  Anyway, the restlessness has continued all day, and resulted in a lot of tea drinking and snacking.  Far too much snacking!  You know when you buy a multi-pack of chocolate bars and think I'll be sensible and ration them out, eating one a day ... yeah, well it wasn't a one-a-day kind of day.  I've eaten 'em all!  On the crafting front, I managed to get myself together enough to make some painted papers, stenciling and stamping o