rubykittyruby

  The sun's shining, it's warm, the central heating's off.  Those are definitely reasons to be cheerful.  My back garden's home to glorious cobalt blue, highly scented hyacinths and lots of cheerful yellow daffodils, and the tulips will soon be in flower too.  Yesterday I tidied all the ceramic planters and gave the cold frame a wash & brush up, ready to be used once more.  The birdfeeders are constantly in demand, and I'm enjoying watching the starlings demolish the fat balls I've put out.  The robin is smart enough to take advantage of their messy eating, and it hop arounds underneath the feeders, pecking at the crumbs they scatter.   I've been carrying on with my Ann Wood stitchbook challenge, finishing a mainly yellow page, complete with green dragonflies and pink silk butterflies.  Now, I'm partway through my next page.  It's day 63 of the 100 day challenge, and I'm amazed I've got this far.  I've also decided to ditch one ...

  It's Friday afternoon and I'm sat on the sofa, full of chocolate and tea, ready for another rambling blog post about what I've been up to.  Mainly eating chocolate and drinking tea, to be fair.... actually, I have been reasonably busy, in between bouts of whingeing about the cold weather.  The above page is another finished one for my Ann Wood 100 days stitchbook challenge.  This embroidery is probably the most traditional kind of design I've done so far, and reminds me of those embroidered tablecloths and tray cloths you find in charity shops.   This is my next page that's just been started.  I'm using a piece of calico that's been coloured and stenciled with acrylic paint.  The paint makes the material rather stiffer to push a needle through, but it's manageable.   Apart from that, I've been revisiting some YouTube videos I first watched several months ago.  They're by Shana who goes under the channel name of Shanouki Art - link...

  March is Women's History Month.  Not that most people are aware of it.  The event doesn't seem to have captured the public imagination outside of certain circles.  Which is a shame as there're a heck of a lot of fantastic stories about women's achievements which should be more widely known.  (Incidentally, if you're still on the binfire that is 'X' - formerly Twitter - you really need to follow @theAttagirls for the most inspiring, sometimes jaw dropping stories about women inventors, educators, campaigners & so on.  Take a look and you'll thank me for the recommendation, I promise!)  Anyway, I was at Leeds Art Gallery last Wednesday for the monthly Stitch Art group, and our crafting was tied in to Women's History Month.  The central library, which is in the same building as the gallery, holds an archive centred around women's history, including of course the fight of suffrage.  'Votes for Women'.   Textiles played their role ...

  It's Ash Wednesday, which is a very solemn day in the church calendar.  So it seems odd that it's such a bright, sunny day.  We had the most glorious rosy pink sunrise this morning, but I couldn't capture the colour on camera.  It washed out the pink, but my trying to take the picture was accompanied by a beautiful dawn chorus of birdsong.  I'm going into Leeds today, for this month's Stitch Art meeting at the gallery.  I'll also attend Mass at the Cathedral.  Then I'll  spend the afternoon having people tell me I've a black smudge on my forehead.  Or I'll feel guilty as I've rubbed the ashes off to avoid people telling me I've a black smudge on my forehead....  Oh well, on to other matters.  I'm making progress with this page of my Ann Wood fabric book.  It's sashiko / boro insipred, and I'm liking the simplicity of it.  I think we're on day 48 now, so nearing halfway through the challenge.   I finished readin...

I woke to a foggy morning.  Cold enough to have frozen over the water in the bird bath.  It didn't last long though.  By the time I'd walked into town to buy groceries, the fog had lifted and the sky was a flawless bright blue.  Back home I didn't have the energy to mooch down to the allotment, so instead I did more of my crewel embroidery.   I'm trying to make every square slightly different, despite my limited range of stitches.  The crewel wool is so thin and delicate.  I'm using a single strand of it on the needle and you get a lovely soft effect but oh, it is fragile.  Tug too hard on a stitch and the wool breaks.  I suppose it might not help that I'm using mainly vintage wool.  Age might've weakened the fibres. This is the latest page of my  Ann Wood inspired stitchbook.  It's a piece of gell printed cotton, and has been stenciled and stamped.   Apart from that stitchiness, I've been catching up on my readi...

  I've ruined yet another laptop.  Honestly, I can't be trusted anywhere near them.  My previous laptop was killed by me spilling a cup of tea all over the keyboard, and this one died a death when I dropped it.  The screen looks like an abstract artwork.  It will probably be futile but I'll enquire about getting it repaired.  In the meantime I'll have to look at the small print on my contents insurance to see if it's covered by accidental damage.  It's not like I even dropped it from a great height, but it's massively annoying.  Anyway, enough of my whingeing.  What's done is done.   The weather was mild and dry enough for me to venture down to the allotment for the first time yesterday.  I pruned back brambles and a wild rose, and have the scratches on my arms to prove it.  There were a few purple crocuses flowering, and thankfully the weeds haven't got too much out of hand over winter.   Back home I finished re...