Annie
So it's nearly Chrimbo and once again I'm too late to make a real Christmas Cake or Pudding, so instead I'm making a handmade felt Podding! So far I've got the component parts made - the puddingy bit, the icing, the berries and some felt for the holly. Just need to cut out and stitch the holly and assemble it all. Then, of course, fill it with sweets :)
My long suffering husband is not as rubbish as me in the kitchen and is always making great food from scratch - delicious pies, stews, lasagne and this week, soup. He was perplexed as to where his ladle had gone. He forgot to look in my sewing room! It was the perfect shape to form and dry my felted icing on :) You can see it in the first picture. I'll sneak it back into the utensil pot later when he's not looking.
So far, on various occasions he has "lost" the cheese grater (perfect for grating soap), the cookie rack (great for drying felt), the mixing jug (cmc paste), various bowls (brilliant for forming felted bowls!).
Ahem.
So, what else has been happening....me and mum had a lovely day out in Romsey at a Printmaking workshop at Rums Eg Gallery. Neither of us have done this since school (a long time ago!) and have been wanting to try it again for ages. We had a lovely day and started by carving stamps out of erasers then moved on to linocuts and we got to use a printing press. Something else that has now landed on our ever growing arty crafty wishlists!
I've also been doing a ceramics class for the past 6 weeks one evening a week. It's nice to have a different creative outlet and try something you know nothing about. I find it helps me to see new possibilities in feltmaking when I see how other people approach their work in different disciplines. To start with we've been learning some basic techniques and I've made several things - some are OK and some only my mum will ever like! :)
I was quite pleased with my beads and my tealights (they are fine in the dark!). We also made some little porcelain decorations that we imprinted some lace into. They are made so thin that the light can shine through.
What else...Me and Grae (the long suffering husband) went down to Bude for a weekend away last weekend. We got a drop of winter sunshine which was was very welcome - it was still very cold but we had a nice walk to the beach cafe at Widemouth Bay and back (about 6 miles). As always I took lots of photos of sheep and random things to inspire me later. The sheep were really cute with their funny expressions and blue fleece and "earrings"! Just look at their little faces!