Home is the wanderer, home from the sea.

I have to confess to having done very little in the past 10 days or so, I've just come back from a cruise to Norway so there was packing to be done before we went, and lots of washing to do now we're back!   What a beautiful country, I've never seen such majestic scenery, so many waterfalls and so much green.   It was breathtakingly beautiful and especially so at midsummer - daylight for almost 24 hours a day.    We were so lucky with the weather too - apparently it rains an awful lot in Norway but we managed 4 days of good weather with only a few isolated showers.   So far, today, I've downloaded 460 photos (more to come) - despite the fact that the autofocus on my wide angle lens gave up the ghost on the first day.   As I was having to use the manual focus, what with my dodgy eyesight, it remains to be seen how many survive the delete button but, heigh ho, it was a wonderful holiday nevertheless.

I came home on Friday and, on Saturday, went to the usual Craft Fair at the Old Police Station, Lark Lane.   I don’t know why,  but it was really very quiet and I spent some time finishing another scarf like the one pictured in my last blog,  and I started another one, white/cream, this time.

I'm expecting to be busy with family things this week but I'm hoping to squeeze in a bit of time to make some more poppies, perhaps an organza brooch or two and finish the felt landscape picture before we go to the Adult Education College in Lancaster on Saturday - I think I may be a tad optimistic, we'll see.

Flaming June

About a fortnight since my last blog and I have been so busy.   I knitted several scarves for the Craft Fair at West Derby but only one sold - a lovely black, white and grey one.   In the week after, I seemed to be quite productive, another 8 blocks for the quilt - 52 and counting.   I'm afraid it seems to have come to a halt for the moment, but I'll get back to it eventually.  Here's a picture of one of the scarves in shades of jade green - they're all in really wonderful colours

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The felt poppies I made weren't so disappointing after all, they sold so well that I have made (and sold) 2 more. I think I'll have to make even more!  Most of the  maple leaf shapes which I stiffened were, I thought, too stiff so it's back to the drawing board on that one. All was not lost, however, I managed to get the stiffening out of them and have made some lovely, brooches in autumnal shades-in fact I think autumn is already here - it certainly doesn't feel like June!

The corsage which I planned to make out of organza turned out so well that I made another one as well.  The first one was in shades of fuchsia and purple and will be going on holiday with me to be worn on a black dress.   The other one, in shades of jade green (a favourite colour of mine) sold in the blink of an eye at Ormskirk last Saturday.

Speaking of which, we had a lovely day in Ormskirk at the Chapel Gallery.   It is always a pleasure to go there, everyone is so helpful and cheerful.    Margaret from the Soap Corner in Halsall was great company and we swapped some ideas for new products.   Apart from that, it was quite a quiet day but I sold lots of cards and several brooches and Liz sold some scarves so it was most successful.

For a couple of weeks now I've been experimenting with felt and nuno felting - small pieces,  to see what happens!   I've made some pretty flower brooches - pink and white merino wool on a diaphanous white fabric - the composition of which I'm uncertain - I don't think it's silk.   Whatever it is,  it puckers up nicely and is very effective - I made a corsage of 3 flowers which was beautiful and also sold at Ormskirk.   Another one, from the same batch is shown below - it reminds me of a  peony.

On Sunday, we ventured as far a Barton, near Preston, to quite a large craft fair.  Unfortunately, it was a horrible day and not a lot of people braved the elements.    Again, we met some lovely, interesting people, Anne, Sandra and Coleen, who made the day go quickly.  

Now, it's catch up time - I've got a little felt landscape picture and some experimental, 3 dimensional,  poppy buds to finish and some Lake District prints to mount.  Oh, and I forgot the umpteen photos waiting to be uploaded and 'photoshopped' - I may be some time!