rubykittyruby

This is my allotment, where everything's lush & green & growing like it's been put on fast-forward.  Sweet marjoram and mint are taking over the beds they've been planted in, and there are so many foxgloves in flower.  I did think about cutting some and bringing them home to put in a vase, but I always feel guilty if I do that, depriving the bees of their food. An hour and a half of mainly cutting overgrown grassy paths left me tired and a bit headache-y, so I've been spending time this afternoon messing about with paint and fabric again.   I applied paint to various pieces of cotton, calico and synthetic material, and while they don't look like much as yet they'll be prettier when this layer of paint's dried and I stencil over top of it.  I've got something in mind for these pieces, and it's a light bulb moment I had this morning while I was slurping tea and trying to fully wake up.  It's to do with two mini stylized dolls I made a while...

  It's a glorious day here in West Yorkshire, sunshine and birdsong and - possibly - a chance to catch sight of the Aurora Borealis later on tonight.  Fingers crossed as I've not managed to glimpse that wonder of Nature before.  I've got lots of crafty pursuits on the go at once, as usual.   I've got various plastic storage tubs filled with scrap fabric, and sorted roughly into colour groups.  For some reason I got it into my head that I wanted to piece together some of 'em, probably as I've not done any machine sewn patchwork for a while.  I grabbed the tub with browns, oranges, yellows and greens in it, and tried to be really spontaneous about piecing scraps together, not spending any time deliberating over which colours or patterns complimented each other. I chain pieced lots of small scraps together, so it looked like I was making raggedy bunting!   Out came the quilting rulers, and I cut my sewn-together scraps into 12 and a half inch sq...

  I'm in a mood to tidy things up.  It's not often that mood strikes me, so I better make the most of it.  But more of that in a moment.  I'll start off with these embroidered birds.  I'd already made the blue tit, and followed that with a robin.  Now, there's a second robin.  I reckon the first was a more pleasing shape than the second robin.  Plumper and with more character.  But either way I'm fairly happy with how these turned out.  I'm thinking of the robins in terms of Christmas tree decorations, but are they Christmassy enough, do you think?   Sorry to drop the 'C' word in there, by the way.  It seems absurd to think about the festive season when we're not even into summer, but sometimes ideas pop into your head and you just have to go with them.  The other absurdly-timed idea involved a post on Ann Wood's website.  She wrote a blog post about making fabric triangles she called tetra charms.  The link...

  There are lots of these beautiful blossom laden trees around, and the gusty winds we've had lately have been scattering pink petals across grass verges and pavements like confetti.  I've still got a garden full of tulips, joined now by bluebells and anemones in their jewel-like colours.  There are even flowers beginning to appear on my strawberry plants, so lets hope for a bumper crop of berries this year.   I nipped into a couple of charity shops today.  Two interesting looking historical novels for 50p each, plus three crochet magazines for a quid each.  I don't crochet, but my niece does and these will be going to her.  The magazines are good quality and full of patterns to try, but if you really really peer at the small print on the cover you'll see their original price.  £7.99 each.  Yikes!  That's why I don't buy glossy magazines any more, the prices are way too high for my taste.  I'd rather spend on craft books. ...

  I finished a little embroidered bird this morning, and overall was pretty pleased with it.  I'd tried to cover all of the calico with stitching, and in particular to get the markings on the head and the eye position correct.   This started out as calico with a pencil drawing of a bird's outline drawn on it.  I didn't want the threads to be all one shade of blue, one shade of yellow, one shade of green and so on.  Instead I used a mix of colours to add interest to the body and wing.   It definitely helps to have this in a hoop.  There's a little puckering with the calico, but not much.   When I finished the embroidery I took the material out of the hoop, selected my pale blue felt for the backing, then put them both into the hoop, the embroidery face down on the felt.  Then I sewed around the bird's outline, leaving a gap of about two inches so I could turn the blue tit right side out.   I inserted light padding in t...

Us Brits are never happier than when we're either drinking tea or discussing the weather.  Preferably both.  Today has been unseasonably warm.  I mean, it's April.  It shouldn't be so mild you don't even need a coat or a jumper on.  I can't decide if it's just a routine weather event or yet another scary sign of global warming.  Anyway, on to craftier matters.  The day began with me unearthing this buckle while I was rummaging in a button tin.   I realised the colour meant it would look good as part of a fastening for this fabric wrap that I'd almost-but-not-quite completed.  I sewed the buckle on, and paired it with this dotty black ribbon.   The ribbon's not totally perfect, but I need to remember the ' better done than perfect ' saying, don't I?  Right, that fabric wrap's finished and I can tick it off my work-in-progress list.  The other thing I finished is this circle bag.  It didn't really turn out how I en...