Earlier Nights…

I am having my end-of-summer wistfulness…the point where I forget how much I managed to do (two installations in parks?) and instead feel winter is going to shut me in and I’ve done nothing, wasted so many sunny days…

This is all unfounded! But somehow it happens every year, I just get better at reminding myself of truths to be grateful for:

my favourite season is AUTUMN, not summer 😉

as the nights lengthen I must make more effort to sit outside on sunny days and take vitamin D and play in the garden: look what I have to plant out: leeks, apricot agastache (mmmm) and cyclamen:

life is BEING not DOING

I have not made enough art this week because my hands hurt and I have been listing art and craft materials on Amazon, Gumtree and Facebook. Cherise has helped set all that up and she is doing the hardest bit (Ebay!) so my brain is a bit full now, but I also have ideas, I have cleared lots from the studio, but I still don’t have that crucial space to lay out my new mandala ideas (that have were sown in the halcyon retreat and are now pushing to the surface, just like the ginger root i planted 2 months ago 😉 ) too much and not enough, all at the same time!

it is full moon….fooooolmooooon….and feelings are amplified 😉

And here is some of why I am frustrated: this lovely collection cost £6.50 and a barter with TrulyHooked for her gorgeous bluefaced Leicester homedyed yarn…eye candy indeed, but I want to get started! And I know my hands hurt too much already…but I see the chiropractor tomorrow, so maybe at the weekend! Hold that thought, it is a candle for the next while 😉

Can you imagine how beautiful all this azure and sand and turquoise and burnt umber is going to be?

A candle for the early nights indeed…

things that like to be together

So I have cleared every last cone of skipped and gifted yarn in my studio – I have NO, repeat NO, cones of yarn…I’m reeling! (sorry, bad pun!)

I have a small collection of metallics and serging silks/nylons on cones, mmm, kingfisher blue, silver, copper, mmm…. for embellishment, but all my yarn now fits in the small plastic 4 drawer unit that sits on top of some project crates.

Wow! Where did it go, you ask? The largest/fullest cones and some fluffy acrylic that will go well with the fake mohair on some of the cones is going to the refugee forum, a bag so big I can barely lift it 😉 Luckily my home help volunteers at the forum, so she will happily drop it off with some baby toys my child visitors no longer use.

For the story on where I get this skipped yarn and tips on winding yarn to maintain good tension:

skip for joy: a yarn winding tutorial

The 47 cones I cleared (in slow stages! it was a lovely anti-anxiety aid when I was fretting about the missing benefits – now sorted, only the appeal to not worry about now 😉 ) are now divided into yarn for ‘whispering wall’ and balls to use for fundraising for the exhibition next year. What you see below is for the netting and bedizeners and is now stored in a newly cleared 80litre crate of materials and components for whispering wall and cradle for stones – they only both fit in because about 80 cones and cardboard inners that I will use for scrolls are now stored in a big cardboard box, waiting for winter when I can dry the brusho painting by the fire.

I want to make the most enormous braid/dreadlock so will bundle several of these together for one huge freeform crochet chain…I wonder what the record is for the most strands/ply in a crochet/finger knitting chain?

Some of these were so pleasing to mix – they may look a little brash in the picture but once mixed will hopefully be rich and sumptuous 😉

My principle for choosing what yarns to mix is based on paying attention whenever I am in nature – there are colours and textures that like to be together. Too harmonious can become bland, so a little contrariness often pays off, too 😉

The smaller balls are to be corded with a zigzag on the sewing machine, I have some dark golds, metallic brown and gold mixes and a dull orange that shows up as sandy gold against blues, oh yum!

The blood orange mixes will be corded with a metallic plum and black mix…oh yessy 😉 colours are so pleasing to work with!

The other mixes are a fluffy fake mohair based set, and a wide range of landscape inspired mixes…my favourites are the ones with flashes of turquoise and the strawberry sherbet mix 🙂 I might knit some up as scarves, they would look lovely with machine cord tassels …

It looks as though I used picasa neonize for the bottom images, but I think my camera did some funny flash/solarise effect..no, I don’t understand the settings on it, it came free from a charity shop because it didn’t work properly and had no manual!! I will take better photos when I set up my fundraising site, promise 😉

taking a yarn trip

So, I was supposed to take a trip into my overdraft at a fancy yarn supplier, but life had other plans…instead I have been upcycling more factory yarn into hand work friendly balls… some yummy landscape mixes are coming through, very Cornish heath and autumn woodland, the holiday I want to have is happening in the winding 😉 Nonie gets mesmerised by not just watching me wind, but the long dreadlocks of freeform crochet as they accumulate on the floor. The next mix is sand, blues and browns, driftwood on the beach and white horses on the North Sea colours…mmmm….

But first a trip down memory of yarn used  lane 😉