IQ test

Free-IQTest.net - IQ Test

I’m not convinced by this one. The test was relatively short and there were far too many pages of adverts and “sign up for a chance to win” pages to trawl though before you actually get your results for my liking. There’s only one point where you have to say yes to something and you can say no on the next page.

It would be nice if were accurate though, I’ve always scored well on these things but I think this is definitely the highest score to date.

(Don’t panic - I promise not to start filling this blog with silly quizzes and other such fluff)

Wildlife

We have two cats who like to go out hunting.  We live on the edge of a market town so there is plenty of varied territory for them to explore.  Apart from the normal fare of birds and small furry mammals they are also very fond of playing with frogs.  They rarely seem to hurt them but they do seem to get a sadistic pleasure out of making them scream (trust me on this one, frogs scream).

However, in warmer, drier weather their  favourite playthings are reptiles.  Mostly slow worms.

This handsome chappie was brought in a few days ago.  From the look of his tail it wasn’t the first run-in he’d had with a predator.

I tried really hard to get a picture of him with his tongue out.  Sadly this was the best I could do.

In this shot you can see some of the scarring and the re-growth of his tail.

If we get any more grass snakes this summer I will try and remember to get some pictures.

I’m not dead!

Apologies for the long absence.  I’ve been somewhat under the weather lately and that combined with having piles of tedious not stitch related stuff to do has left me without time/inclination to update.  However in my usual way there will probably be loads of posts over the next few days.

One warning in advance, people with reptile phobias may wish to avoid looking at my next post

Tast Week Two

Well, only a day late so I’m fairly happy. Here is my buttonhole sampler:

I had problems getting motivated with this one, but then I decided to let myself doodle and ended up with the flowers and everything else went fine from there. There are a few mistakes here and there but overall I’m fairly pleased.

In other news, Doreen has created a lovely piece of embellished felt from my photo of the bluebell woods which has reminded me that I still haven’t posted any pictures of the ATCs which I sent her. So, better late than never here are the two ATCs which I sent to Australia:

This one has a silk ground with various fibres, ribbons and a skeleton leaf, covered with organza and then machine stitched with some hand beading accents added.

The second one is fairly unusual for me but that was the way the paper and fibres wanted to play that day. It is made from handmade paper with fibres and organza overlaid and then machine stitched

Fabric postcard swap

This lovely hand felted postcard arrived this morning from Tricia Cook:

And this is the postcard I sent her, which she has said some extremely nice things about here.

Inspiration: Foxgloves

Time for a couple more photos. Kerrie Slade and I seem to be taking photos of the same subjects at the same time at the moment. I took these a couple of days ago, before it started raining.

And to match Kerrie even closer, here’s another foxglove with a very busy bumblebee

I have to warn you Kerrie (and anyone else) that once you have foxgloves in your garden, lovely though they are, they self seed everywhere and can be a real pain in the neck. We don’t currently have a garden as such, it’s just a kitty jungle at the moment so I’m really happy to have lots of foxgloves to look at, I’m just not looking forward to trying to sort it out at some point.

( I did warn you about the buses thing didn’t I?)

Stitchin Fingers: TAST Re-run

I think I have mentioned some of the lovely people I have met in the Stitchin Fingers community but I don’t think I have actually said anything about the place itself.
Stitchin Fingers is a new online community for anyone interested in textiles, set up by the multi-talented Sharon B of In a minute ago.  Barely a month old and there are already over 600 members from all over the world.
Discussion groups cover everything from weaving to wearable art, cloth dolls to stash busting and building. There are also groups for re-runs of Sharon’s Take it further (Tif) and Take a stitch on Tuesday (Tast) challenges.

Having missed the first run of Tast, I decided to be brave and join in an effort to improve my hand embroidery skills. The basic premise is that each week the participants explore a different stitch in whatever way they chose. The people taking part this year have decided that in order to account for pressures of daily life which sadly often get in the way of important things like stitching, we would do three weeks at a stretch and then have a catch up week. The first stitch on the list was herringbone and this was my effort:

I decided to work in a fairly traditional sampler style way so that I will be able to make some kind of book out my finished pieces as a permanent reference for myself.
The second stitch on the list is buttonhole which is proving a little trickier to find inspiration for.  Please feel free to nag me if I don’t show you what I’ve done by this time next week.

Belated update: More ATCs and Postcards

Apologies for not updating for a while. I have a feeling my posting habits are going to be a bit like buses i.e. none for ages and then three at once.

Anyway, the first update is about ATCs and Postcards. The cards I chose from Susan Lenz’s Cyber Fyber swap have arrived:

They look much nicer in person than they do in the pictures. It was very hard to capture the sparkle. These are the cards I have sent Susan:
The Postcard

and the ATC

I know that Doreen and Ebony have received their cards in Australia, I have also sent a postcard to Tricia and am looking forward to receiving hers. Pictures in a later post (did I mention the buses theory?).

Passing on an Award

As mentioned previously, Paula Hewitt nominated me for this award

for sharing beauty, love and joy. I have spent the intervening time mulling over who I should nominate in return. If Paula hadn’t nominated me in the first place she would definitely have been on my list, but even taking her out of contention there are still so many deserving people out there (I really must update my blogroll soon).

In no particular order I have narrowed down my list to:

• Judith who blogs at threadspider Her blog was one of the first textile based blogs I started reading on a regular basis.
• The talented Kerrie Slade Her beadwork is incredible and has recently graced the front cover of Bead & Button Magazine.
• Sara Lechner’s fibre work is exquisite and I am seriously in awe of her studio.
• Doreen has to be on the list as she sent me such beautiful ATCs (See previous post).
• Last but by no means least, Tricia whom I also met over at Stichin Fingers and who said nice things about my work.

Whew. It was hard work narrowing down. The above list is a nice mixture of people I’ve known for a while, people who’ve blogs I’ve been lurking on and people I’ve just met recently.

An honorary mention should go to all the other lovely people over at Stichin Fingers, especially Sharon B for taking the time to create such a great community.

ATC Swaps

I would like to show you the lovely ATCs I received yesterday from Doreen and her granddaughter Ebony.

This is Doreen’s beautiful creation of needlefelt and hand stitched embellishments:

And this lovely card is from the eight year old Ebony:

I think there could be some serious talent forming here. Thank you very much Ebony and Doreen, I hope you like the cards I’ve sent you as much as I like these.