The allotment year starts and the craftiness continues...

Saturday was a write-off as far as anything sewing related was concerned. There was a day out in Scarborough, lots of eating and walking and - oh boy! - it was cold there. Despite layers of warm clothing I was still freezing, though of course it was lovely to be near the sea. Having been born and raised in a land-locked county - Worcestershire - I'll never be tired of seeing the waves rolling in, and that seemingly limitless horizon.

Scarborough's got a working harbour, and I would've taken photos of the picturesque scene if it hadn't meant taking my gloves off! There were lots of fishing boats and seemingly endless stacks of lobster pots. Amusement arcades, shellfish stalls, enormous ruddy great seagulls swooping and diving, families on the beach, dogs splashing about at the water's edge and even a few people swimming in the sea. I mean, actually swimming! Must be crazy.

Anyway, today's been more productive. I don't venture down to the allotment during January/February, but come March I'm itching to get going. I visited my plot for an hour or so today, pulled up some weeds and did some general tidying up. I might not have accomplished a massive amount, but it felt good to get started on the gardening year. Then, it was home for lunch and down to some craftiness. I did hand-stitching, listening to podcasts and half-watching YouTube videos while I sewed.

There's a lot to be said for machine stitching. Patchwork blocks can be speedily made, and you could assemble a quilt top in a day if you buckle down to it. But there's also a lot to be said for slow stitching.

It's got a meditative quality to it, and the stitches - whether they're perfectly formed or unevenly spaced, neat and precise or a bit rough & ready- they reflect the character of the person wielding the needle.

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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...

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....

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites. I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs. It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know. Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world! I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them. Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters - I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet. Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining. I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar. Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint. Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste. Applying paint with a ATM card wa...

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