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Wednesday 31 July 2013

Crafts at last!

Hello there
If you keep calling by to see the latest - Thank you.. I'm rubbish at updating, aren't I? lol
If you've only arrived here for the first time - Welcome.

Anyway, this time I have actually been crafting... I know, right! Amazing! A few of us at work have met up a couple of times, because a colleague does "felting" and offered to show us how to do the basics. So we met up up.. and Wow! I'm loving it... This is the first thing I made:

Case for my Kobo
Yeah! And? I can hear you saying... :-D Well.... The case itself was made by Wet Felting. Gosh Zumba has nothing on wet felting.... lol It's hard work, but so satisfying as you watch that fleece being turn into a piece of fabric. Susan then showed me how to do needle felting, and I started it during the session. When I got home I carried on and completed the poppies, still unsure what I was going to do with it - it was just a piece of felting with some poppies at this stage. I sat and looked at it for 3 weeks, trying to decide if it would look good in a frame or not. And then suddenly I knew.... I made it into a pocket and it was the perfect size for my Kobo. If I had to price it up, I guess the materials cost me about 50p at the very most - probably far less than that!

By now I realised that I was loving the needle felting, and had some ideas for Christmas presents (still in the pipeline, so not giving anything away - sorry) and needed to practice. So my very first project was this:





I know... his ears of very big, but for a first project I think he's gorgeous!!! :-D I'm so pleased with him. And the "girls" that did the felting with me have been making some very rude comments about how I must be fibbing about having done this before.... I haven't, honestly! Susan was very kind and said that some people are just naturals, and I am one of those... bless her!!! :-)



And then.... Well! Hubby said "Make an Alphie"... Yes dear!!! lol. Never one to pass up a challenge - no matter how daunting it seems, I thought I could at least try.




So here is the beginnings of Alphie. I'm plucking up courage to add his outer coat - he's long haired, as (fairly) regular readers will have seen. I have the perfect coloured fleece, it's just getting going! 

I have a video of the puppy "eating" water, but I don't know if it's going to work... If it doesn't can anyone tell me how to load it onto blogger?



And then.... when I was leaving Los Angeles, Elizabeth said "Can you make me some socks"? No problems, said I... Oh! How I laughed when I tried..... not! I am now on attempt number 3... This is what it looks like..... ;-)


Although to be fair, it is bigger now... I get as far as the heel and then lose what I'm supposed to be doing! lol. I'm now trying a pattern for beginners, which really is an Idiots Guide to making a sock, so fingers crossed this works! hahaha

And finally. The canal was "de-weeded" before it got too bad this year (although the recent heatwave has ruined all the good work!) and I thought you'd like the see the "Killer teeth" that clears the water...

You see the little boat at the back? They use that to push and pull along the Killer-teeth boat, which doesn't have an engine to power it. Now see where it is on the first photo? I closed the lock gates (because once in the lock, these guys realised they weren't able to do the gates themselves because they couldn't get out of the boats... :-) I raised the paddles to let water in......... now look at the second photo and see the boat at the back now?


Yep!!! It was about to turn over in the lock... It had got caught up on some over-hanging bricks inside the lock, and the guy didn't realise at first... It was a close call. Mostly because I couldn't close the flippin' paddle because it is so stiff, but with a bit of rocking, the boat came loose. The guy at the front is the boss, and while not at all happy, he did take the time it took to bail the boat out, to have a cuppa I made, and a smoke-break!!! :-) And the canal was weed-free at last! The water colour is NOT because it's polluted as some visitors come to tell us, but because it had rained heavily and a lot of mud and silt had been washing down from the river. 

So that's what I've been up to. Thanks for calling by. Hope you are having a good summer? Enjoy the rest of it. I'll be back when I have some more to show you.

Jude.x

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jude, I found you and what a lovely blog - so much to read. I adore your needle felting, I have tried and tried to do this without success - you are very clever. Loved your photographs of your wonderful Son getting married, so lovely for everyone but hard on you Jude - we never stop being Mums do we but have to step aside when our babies find their own loves. I am so glad that you found you at last and will be putting you on my favourites list. Don't worry if you can't post that much because what you put on your blog is really interesting. By the way I just adore your little fish, how did you do that, so so clever.
    Thank you for supporting my blog Jude it is really sweet of you.
    Lots of love
    Dorothy
    :-)xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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    Replies
    1. Hi Dorothy. Thank you so much for calling in and for your lovely comments. I try to tell myself that I haven't lost a son, but gained another daughter, a room for me and cheap holidays; but still miss him! :-D Luckily his wife (!! Wife! My baby has a wife?) is lovely, beautiful and caring.
      The little fish is just one of those applications that you can put on the Design page of your blog. I'll see if I can find the link for you.
      I don't think I'm at all clever, but I have always loved crafting. I was making cards even before you could buy "ready-made" bits. Mother-in-law always thought I was being cheap, despite the finished products costing more than if I'd gone out and bought a card - she was probably the only person who never got hand-crafted anything from me! I think you are clever for putting blogs that you follow (including mine!!! Thank you. :-D ) on your side bar - I need to go and find out how to do that......
      I need to do a "general chat" blog post, don't I? This comment could get very long and boring.. lol
      Thank you again for calling by. Look forward to your next blog post. Jude.x

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  2. Hi Jude thanks for the lovely reply - the blogs are just in the design page under blogs I follow and then just follow the instructions - it takes a bit of time getting the addresses right but once on you can add or delete them. Jude hope you are going to enter my giveaway, would love you to - haven't sorted out the prize yet but will in the next few days, have a lovely weekend Jude and keep in touch, I do love to hear from you. Your blog is brill, I love it.
    Lots of love
    Dorothy
    :-)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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