Blown Away

Wow it's been windy over the last few days - not the best of days for standing in a muddy marquee at an Arts and Craft Fair, still I was wrapped up in my ski trousers and coat and its been lovely. As always I've had a really pleasant time chatting and laughing with really interesting people, I was lucky enough to be next to Georgie and her friend Beth from http://www.pixel-portraits.co.uk/.  They were both really nice and have the most amazing idea - pixelated protraits, but the pixels are actually symbols (numbers, or hearts or ducks etc) if you click on the website you can play about with a photo and change the colourway and the pattern.  They had the idea after creating portraits of family actually using dice, and the more I think about it, the more I realise how difficult that must have been.
I've met some lovely people coming up to my stall and had some really interesting conversations with people who love trees, or who love playing about with different textile techniques, and of course with people who love touchy tactile things.  it's always really nice to see the people who are buying my pieces, it sounds a cliche but I love knowing that people like my work, maybe thats the warm feeling that stopped me feeling cold all weekend! 
Packing up, though, proved a challenge, the rain had started falling really heavily, the wind had picked up, and the road had closed, so I had to carry big boxes in the dark to the car park, which is a fair distance away.  I think it must be there that my TreeHuggery table cloth, embroidered and appliqued with the words "TreeHuggery. Textile. Tactile. Unique", got blown away.  With a wry smile I'm wondering it it has got blown into a tree somewhere, and if it has, what passers will be wondering if they see it. 

Thank you for being my friend

I'm really meeting some lovely people at the moment, in the last week I've been given the wensleydale curls from the shepherdess, have been gifted a dyson hoover from a fellow freecycler, our hoover had burnt out, and small world that it is, the gifter was also a fellow allotmenter (although not the ones with the angry snake) and have met up with some lovely people by going to art and craft fairs.  Yesterday somebody was kind enough to take the time to email me to thank me for the cushions that they'd bought, feedback like that is so lovely - I'm extemely insecure about my work....and then somebody else took the time to contact me to tell me how I might find some inspiration from olive trees (they live on a farm in Portugal) and are going to take some photographs and forward them to me.
Another friend has spent hours constructing bags for my heart decorations, and only wanted paying for the card that she used, and didn't want a penny for her time.
In a world when so many people are rushing around, and so many people are only "out for themselves", I think I'm very fortunate to be in contact with so many generous people

snakes alive!

I bumped into our old allotment neighbours yesterday, and they were tell me how they'd had an adder in their allotment.  We've had one down there, but ours was quite friendly and was basking on the compost heap.  Theirs was trapped in some netting and so was very very angry.  My poor old friends only had a stanley knife available to try and rescue it, and it was obviously very frightened and got very nasty - Not sure if Adders can bite?  but I'd have been terrified even if they can't/  At one point it "played dead", went very still and let off a horrible rotting smell, which is probably just as scarey as it being angry.  And when they eventually let it go?  it slithered off and got stuck in the netting on the other side......

And to think I'd been such a drama queen when I discovered a wasps nest in the box that protects the water tap!

Wensleydale

Well I knew this month was going to be a busy one, but its already gone through the roof!  It was really nice to have a nice calm day at Craft in the City which is inside the most beautiful church.  As always I've spoken to some really lovely and interesting people, and this time I had the added bonus of been given some wensleydale (wool - not cheese).  The woman at the stall opposite me had brought along felty soaps, but it turns out that she's also a shepherd. Like me she hates wasting anything and has been horrified that huge bags of fleece are sold for so little, sometimes only 8p a kilo, and so she's started felting soaps.  I'd always understood that this is really difficult to do, because the felting process starts as soon as you start adding the dye, but I've been told that I should try using kool-aid (the drink) rather than acid dyes and heat the combination in a microwave.  So will wait and see.

Where's the month gone

I can't believe it's November already; which means the start of a really busy month of art and craft fayres.

October has been soooo busy, we're starting to get into running again, and since moving into the countryside, we have lots of lovely new routes to explore, I've been doing some casual work for the police commissioner elections too - I can't believe how much work is involved even prior to the elections - people who haven't filled in their electoral registers get up to 3 personal visits, and then of course, all most everybody these days opts to have a postal vote, which requires a huge amount of preparation, and of course we're still working on the house (cleaning up the lovely old quarry tiles which we'll relay) and of course TreeHuggery and my degree - so much to do and so little time!