Happy International Womens Day!

March 8th is International Womens Day, and though I received this card in respect of another celebration - my recent birthday - it still seems appropriate. I loved the image so much I've been attempting to recreate it in needlepoint. This is my first practice attempt.

It's clumsy and I haven't got the bonnet right, so I'm part way through stitching another version which'll hopefully turn out better. This idea is to send it to the friend who sent me the card, as a Thank You.

I haven't been watching the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, but I remember when I first read the book, and it's impact. How disturbing this dystopian vision of a future society is.

At the moment I'm reading Elizabeth Kostova's 'The Shadow Land' which is proving extremely good. It's one of those books I picked up in a charity shop, and has sat on my To-Be-Read pile for ages. So far, the central character Alexandra has arrived in Bulgaria to take up teaching there. She's managed, due to a mix up, to pick up another passenger's luggage, inside of which are someone's ashes from a cremation. The chapters alternate, going back to Alexandra's childhood in Virginia and her brother going missing while out hiking. It's beautifully written, and it's interesting to have the novel set in Bulgaria as it's a country I know nothing about.

That's all for now. I'm not moving off the sofa tonight. We've had a few, sparse snowfalls today, but it should be much colder and snowier tomorrow. Ideal weather for staying indoors and crafting, huh?

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Sari scraps, PVA, a couple of books and a necklace

I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

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