rubykittyruby

Okay, let's start with some prettiness.  Growing on the allotment are these pink Californian poppies.   Calendula, lots of 'em.   I intend to gather up handfuls of petals and make some calendula oil.  Have been googling how to do it.   This photo doesn't quite capture the intensity of colour with these Catananche.  Grow them if you can, they're lovely.   After trundling along to the allotment, taking pictures of flowers and picking raspberries - mmmm! fresh raspberries, delicious- I came home and made a little fabric fox.   As with the leopard's head I made, I was influenced by the work of Instagrammer ievate.  It was only after I'd finished that I realised my fox has the look of a shocked kangaroo ... Doesn't matter, I like him anyway. He's hanging around with the leopard, the bee, a felt picture of a winter's scene and a crumpled postcard of Edith Sitwell.   Honestly, I wonder at my sanity sometimes! ...

  It's been a mixed kind of day, from a crafty perspective.  I'd seen on Instagram the collages of Clare Youngs.  Including a length of bunting, several paper birds strung together, all vivid colours and eye catching shapes.  I'll have a go at that, I thought, but in fabric rather than paper and card.  Hmmm, didn't quite work.  I cut out my simplified bird, trying to get it as close to the original design as I could.  Added applique details for the wings, beak and eyes, and backed with green felt.  But it didn't look right.  I've not got the overall shape right after all.  The whole thing doesn't 'read' as a bird in flight. Oh well, you try these things and some succeed, some fail.  Never mind, it's only fabric and sewing thread after all.  Having put aside my avian misfortune, I finished off a smaller version of the dragonfly slow stitching piece I made recently.  Here are the two for a comparison in size.   I w...

After not having any homegrown strawberries so far this year, and pretty much giving up on them, the recent heavy rainfall along with lots of sunshine has had berries ripening like crazy.  I've been starting every day with fresh fruit for breakfast, which is a lovely treat.   This last week's been oddly enjoyable.  The house is looking much better after it's ever-so-late-spring-clean, and hopefully I can keep it this way.  Out in the garden everything's windswept and there're lots of plants leaning drunkenly over, me neglecting to stake them.   I made a couple of little changes to the angel fabric collage, not having been entirely satisfied with her face.   I outlined the eyes with thread and added a faint indication of a nose! This textile piece ended up being about 21 x 23cm, and it occurred to me that I might make a smaller version and use it to decorate a Christmas card.  (Sorry to mention the 'Ch' word in June, but you have to think...

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  It's been sunny and warm, an oddly enjoyable kind of Wednesday given that I spent a fair amount of it cleaning.  I'm not a natural 'housewife'.  If the sun's shining or there's a chance of going outdoors I'd rather do that.  But do you ever have those moments where you look around your home - maybe the sun's beaming through the windows, illuminating every corner - and you suddenly realise how dusty that shelf is.  How there are smudged fingermarks on the door.  A cobweb in the top corner of the room.  The carpet could do with a really thorough brush and vacuum.  In short, everything needs sprucing up.  So, I spent the morning cleaning the hallway and stairs, washing down the paintwork and suchlike.  Not the most fun in the world, but it looks much better now it's done.  I'll have a good go at the front room tomorrow, and start on the conservatory after that.  It might ...

  The pink poppies are in full swing on the allotment.  Masses of them.   I'm not the biggest fan of this particular variety as they're a bit too 'pink frilly knickers', but I love them when they're in bud and just about to bloom, also when the seed-heads appear.  I always collect way too much seed for my own needs, so scatter handfuls on grass verges, hoping they'll pop up at roadsides in years to come.   Once home, I had the urge to do some simple stitching.  Ages ago I cut out and kept a picture of these little fabric pieces by Janet Bolton.   I intended to make something similar.  Plain fabric background, simplified image of a dragonfly.  Initially I gathered together orange material, along with neutral pale browns and cream.  But I didn't have quite the right brown for the colour scheme I wanted.  Anyway, I always tend to drift toward pink.  So instead I picked out a scrap of pink with gold hearts, as well a...

Hello from my corner of sunny West Yorkshire where we still - still! - don't have any rain.  I mean, the sun's gorgeous, but my plants are thirsty and the allotment soil is dry as a bone.  I'd better head down there in a while and tip cans of water over the squash, at least.   The photo above shows the Alice Hoffman book I've recently finished - terrific - and the novel I'm reading at the moment, Andrew Taylor's 'The Shadows of London'.  It's set in London 1671, and is clearly written by an author who knows that period inside out. The historical details are fascinating, while the murky murders and court intrigue make for a gripping tale.  Apart from catching up on my reading, I've also had a go at making a leopard head brooch ... as you do ...  I'd seen a fantastic embroidered brooch by an Instagramer called 'ievate' and loved it, so had a try at my own version.  It's a simplified effort.  The original had a plain fabric for the a...

Today's been hot, hot, hot!  I mean, it's lovely, don't get me wrong.  Wall to wall sunshine makes you feel good, but - but - you see, the gardener in me is pining for rain.  A deluge.  A downpour.  Thunder and lightning would be an added bonus as I love a good storm.  The garden and allotment are desperate for rainfall, and the two water butts by the back door have barely a thimbleful left in them.  I keep topping up the makeshift bird bath, and refilling the bowl of pebbles and water left out for bees, wasps and other fluttery, buzzing creatures, and I worry that lots of people aren't doing the same.  Our thirsty wildlife need all the help they can get.  At least I can turn on the tap when I'm in need of drinking water, but the poor things can't do the same.   Anyhow, on to craftiness.  I've started patching up a shopping bag.  It's one of those just-in-case bags that I bet most of us have lying around.  It's unblea...

  I made a Japanese style rice bag the other day, and thought I'd have a go at another.  This one's larger, a good size for storage or it could even have a long strap attached and get used as a beach bag or similar.  Initially I used a ribbon for the closure, but swapped it for a length of cord, as you'll see from later photos.  The fancy ribbon came from a stack of four posh soaps I'd been given as a present.  I'd tucked the ribbon away, knowing it'd come in handy sooner or later. The fabrics chosen were mainly pink on the outside, and more varied on the inside.  After finishing that bag, I impulsively decided to make another!  I'd some pieced-together stripey fabrics lying around, made a few weeks ago without any real idea of how I'd use them, so I incorporated them into the third bag.  I backed the stripes with interfacing, then trimmed them to the size I wanted.  7 inches square, if I remember rightly.  More fabric was chosen for the...

Here's the allotment.  Not providing much in the way of food at the moment, but oh boy!  Isn't it pretty?   Yup, no doubt about it.  Prettiness everywhere you look. Back at home, my sewing machine's playing up.  I changed the needle which improved things, but the tension's not right and I've tried different makes of thread and that helped a little.  I think the machine needs servicing, so will find out where I can get it done locally.   While it was grudgingly behaving itself, my stroppy machine obliged by sewing the seams of this little bag.  It's based on the Japanese rice bags that I've seen being made in YouTube videos, and was an easy make.   Five squares of fabric for the outer, five for the inner, small rectangles for the loops, cord and beads for the tie.   I used cotton material, without interfacing, so the bag's quite floppy.   A denim version would look rather handsome, don't you think? ...