A Little Needle Felting Goes a Long Way

At the shows I'm often asked "What's it made out of?" Well, I use sheep's fleece, but in very small quantities, so this year I thought I'd take some fleece along with me. A splash of colour in the corners, I thought. 

I cut a large sack to size and then loosely stitched some of my dyed sheep's fleece to it. I'm not a great stitcher, so this was a tad tedious for me

The first dyed fleece stitched to the sack:

This shows my beautiful stitching!:

As I stitched on more blocks of fleece, you can see the gaps: 

And you can see that I had a little "help" from a certain rescue Staffie/lurcher (Coota by name): 

I needed a bit more rigidity to the whole sack thing, so took a little trip to the local garden centre for some of this:

Once all the fleece was added to the sack, I then needed to attach the whole piece to it's plastic backing and fill in the gaps.

I roughly stitched it all in place 

This is where the needle felting came in. I lay the sack of fleece over the plastic trellis stuff and needle felted it all together - very loosely as I didn't want to loose the fleece look, with all the locks of wool

And then the completed piece was tried, and approved, by the aforementioned dog

Here's the finished work, ready to take to the show:

I was on a needle felting roll now, and had found this plastic plant support at the garden centre.

I felted some undyed fleece to both rings, changed the plastic legs for dowels and had a relatively weird display for my handmade paper gift bags

Simple, inexpensive and environmentally quite green. And, not heavy to transport!

A Gentle Border Walk

I thought I'd take you for a gentle walk today with Coota; he's our rescue staffie/lurcher cross who's been with us now for 7 months. I think he's doing really well, and to be honest, I think we're doing pretty well too since we've never had anything like him before. He's nothing like a collie! 

So let's grab the lead and whistle and set off on our walk.....today I'm taking you to Broomscot Common on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders. It's part of a community conservation project, so it's lovely to have it on the doorstep and we love it there. A very therapeutic place, and good for inspiration.

 

To get to the common we walk across the village playing field and have a quick belt round with a ball

The common itself is fenced off, so perfect for a sight hound.

It has one area that is really quite boggy, and therefore not visited by Coota who doesn't really do watery things

Around one side there is gorse and small trees and under foot it's all tussocky and lovely

Sheep graze here for some parts of the year, but weren't here on this walk, but here's the sheep's fleece evidence in the trees:

The middle area is empty of trees and perfect for chasing rabbits. 

The rabbits are an important part of the project as they, and the sheep, keep down some of the vegetation which allows this beautiful mossy carpet to grow (Sorry, Coota just doesn't understand the concept of lying on the ground with a camera!)

I find this common particularly good for letting thoughts sought themselves out in my mind. It's when I get inspiration that seems to come from nowhere - the ideas for new card designs or a month on the calendar come in when some of the other stuff is allowed out. I can relax as I know Coota cannot run off, so it's a happy place, whatever the weather. 

And then home, via the playing field again for another burst of energy, chasing the ball.

Snowdrop Pilgrimage to Walsingham

Yesterday we made a pilgrimage to Walsingham in North Norfolk for the snowdrops. What a fabulous few hours, with some rare sunshine and carpets of snowdrops to inspire and uplift. Here are a few too many photograpsh:

Rescue lurcher/Staffie Coota sat beatifully for a photo 

And just to show you how blue the sky was:

I love red bricks, and patterns, so couldn't resist some details from the buildings:

And then we had a quick dash to The Victorian Tea Rooms in Cromer for a cuppa and a cake 

and to pick up a table and chairs for outside the studio - for summer time coffee breaks

Our Norfolk round trip took us to Burnt Fen Alpacas on a bit of a whim. They are such beautiful animals - sorry the photos aren't so good, but they were very unsure of their introduction to Coota. I came away with a bag full of more fibre for my work too.

Coota made a real friend with Red. They played themselves to a standstill!

 A lovely day out, finishing off with another cuppa at the home of wood turner, Paul Williams where I think I have finally decided on the fountain pen for me

Inspiration from a dull grey day

What a treat this morning was - the best walk with our lively rescue dog Coota. He met dogs to play with, he ran, and the best bit, he didn't race off after squirrels and deer. He's responding to the whistle too. It's such a good feeling when the training goes well... It gives me a chance to unwind from a busy week, and to delight in the treasures found on a grey and dull day in Norfolk.

Sitting beautifully at the start of the walk

So far, not a playmate in sight, but all those molehills had to be pee'd on so that kept him occupied

Thankfully pigs don't seem to interest him much, although I found it fascinating to watch them wallowing in all that mud - what on earth do they find to eat in it?

I was determined to look for the beautiful today, and for inspiration, it being such a grey dull day. Some gorgeous lichen caught my eye, that lovely bluey green sitting on those deep brown winter leaves.

These grasses took me back to my student days in the 70's when I studied environmental archaeology. It was the inspiration of Dr Susan Limbrey that led to my love of grasses. You could learn so much about the prehistoric landscapes from the grass seeds in the soil samples.  I've forgotten all their names, but I still absolutely love their beauty, even here. 

Environmental archaeology again - tree rings, and dating episodes in prehistory. Fascinating.

Back to Coota - yes, he found plenty of playmates today - in this blurry photo Coota is having loads of fun with a black lab and a labradoodle. (The photo could be nothing but blurry, the speed they were all going!)

One worn out staffie/lurcher cross, loving his life in his new(ish) home.

Where do you like to go on a dull grey day to unwind?