Out for a Walk

The great outdoors!

Look at those chickens... I'll get them one day...

More inkle-ing, and a Disaster

A few more finished inkle woven bits and pieces...

Some bookmarks:

A guitar strap:

A belt made with recycled sari silk and handspun merino. These are definately not the easiest materials to weave with. The silk snags in the heddles, and the merino spends the whole time trying to felt to itself! The colours went well together though (they don't show up very well in this photo, it's too bright). Since taking this I've finished the ends properly and added some beads.

And now the disaster. I spent yesterday morning finishing off a new guitar strap. I'm trying to teach my naughtiest cat the difference between right and wrong (i.e. yes you can play with the toy mouse... no you may not climb the curtains... NO you may Not eat the yarn!!), so I stupidly tried to weave through the attack, accompanied by the spray bottle that makes no difference. I managed to get it finished, but in my haste to get it off the loom and away from danger, I unbelieveably managed to cut right the way through the band itself...

So things were thrown, and the diet was abandoned. I suspect the neighbours knew all about it too. It was a full-blown hissy fit.

I think I can just about salvage the pieces though. I can get a couple of bookmarks out of the little bit, and I have just about enough of the big bit left to make a non-adjustable strap for something or other. It's not the end of the world, but it felt like it at the time! What an idiot!!

And the culprit...

What an angel!!

Carrie xxxx

Inkle Weaving

I've been inspired to dust off my poor neglected little inkle loom lately. I made some bookmarks to practice pick-up patterns, and they came out not bad! (someone even bought one of them!)

The cats give me no peace at all in the house to do anything crafty, so I was lucky to get a couple of sunny days to give it a proper go in peace and quiet.

I made a guitar strap, that I'm really very proud of :) ....

And now I'm making some more practice bookmarks to try and get used to this more complicated pick-up pattern. I thought I'd be able to knock a few of these out pretty quickly, but I was wrong! This takes forever! It doesn't help that I'm using a lolly-pop stick as a pick-up stick. I bought a lovely little handmade pick-up stick on etsy, which arrived yesterday. Unfortunately I made the mistake of leaving it on top of the parcel on the kitchen worktop overnight, and when I woke up this morning it was gone. I found it under the shoe mat, chewed to bits by kittens (Pixie - I know it was him!). So it's back to the lolly-pop stick till I can afford a new one.

It's nice to be making things again. I have 10 days off work soon, so might actually get some time to do a bit more!

C xxx

The Chickens have Landed!

Yesterday evening I brought home 4 new little additions to the family...

I don't have names for them yet, I really need to get to know them first! They're all very lovely, and surprisingly tame considering they've been 'free ranging' in a field until now, with not much fuss from humans (until now!). They settled in pretty much straight away, and were down the ramp and into the run as soon as I put them into the house. They even managed to put themselves to bed when it got dark!

I opened to coop this morning full of expectations, but there were no eggs to be found.

But then...

... as the day went on...

... there was one little egg from each of them!

They turned out to be 'jelly eggs' when I opened them, really not very appetising, and I couldn't bring myself to eat them. I'm not sure if this is because they are young (26 weeks) and have only just started laying, or maybe if there has not been enough protein in their diet before now. Hopefully they'll be lovely and delicious before very long!

They're lovely!

Carrie xxxxxx

An update

I'm about to embark on a new project that I'd like to record on my blog, so I'd better do an update to fill in all the gaps since last summer. A lot has happened, so here are the main bits.

We had a lovely summer and autumn, and enjoyed watching the farm and fields going through all the changes of the seasons.

Christmas was just around the corner when my little Charlie was knocked down and killed by a van on the farm track at the back of the house. I was devastated and moved out that day. I stayed at my mum and dad's for two months (it also didn't help that the boiler burst, and I was without water for all of that time). I very nearly gave up on the house altogether then, I could hardly bear to come home. I'm glad I did in the end, but it was miserable all alone.

So I got two new kittens, Pixie and Willow, to come and live with me. I can never replace Charlie, he was a very unique little cat, but he left such a void in my little world. I would like to keep these two as indoor cats. They will certainly be staying indoors until they are spayed at six months, and if they show no interest in going out after that I'll be very happy.

And so we've slowly gotten back to normal. Spring is slowly bringing the garden back to life, and the nights are getting brighter.

I've made some improvements to the garden, including the addition of a raised bed for veg.

My new plans have to do with the garden, but more on that next time!

Carrie xx

P.S. I finished my blanket!!