Testing, testing

You know what a sucker I am for Clover goodies?

I found this in a basket of similar things in the Quilt Shop in Sedona and thought that, before I find a home for it, I’d better give it a try.

Kanzashi flowers have been doing the rounds here, beginning a couple of years ago when I trained a group of craft judges, one of whom shared her knowledge and skills with the rest of us.  We made them from scratch, broadly following the instructions in this book, along with a few tutorials online.  Since then, these little flowers have popped up all over the place and it’s always good to know what’s what when faced with something like this to judge at a village show.

I also had a bottle of this to try.  I went for the unscented version and gave my fabric a quick spritz before cutting, in the hope that it would stabilize it a bit during the manipulation.  It was great – can recommend wholeheartedly.

So, I cut my squares as instructed, undaunted by the huge sheet of instructions, because by now I know that only part of them are for me – the largest proportion of that huge sheet is translations into a wide variety of languages.

The gadget is a piece of plastic into which the folded square of fabric is clipped.

Having cut around the shape with sharp scissors (I had to go and find the smallest, sharpest pair to do this well), the instructions offer advice to use a 70cm length of strong thread to stitch in and out of the numbered holes on the plastic template.  There are slits for the thread to carry through and this part is quick and easy to do.

The plastic template is then opened up to reveal these long stitches.

Having removed the plastic template altogether, the thread is pulled tight and the kanzashi petal is formed.  Best bit  (and the reason for needing 70cm of thread) is that the next petal can be formed using the same thread – I made all six petals in a row and simply pulled them together.

Quick, easy and totally foolproof, the best bit about making the petals like this is the consistency of size and shape.  Each petal is spot on, there’s no tricky bits to fold or anything – in fact, the hardest bit was deciding which was the front and which was the back.

So, I sewed a button on each side, just in case.

WI Craft judges would be a bit picky about any raw edges that might still be there – a larger button would have concealed those a little better, but hey, for a first go, it’s not bad.

If you’ve been reading my WI Craft Blog, then you’ll know how I’ll store all of these bits as well.  I might just have to get hold of the other sizes/shapes too, now I know they work well.

What might I do with them?  Well, Clover’s blog this month is full of ideas.

South sea pearls

I had a few of the pearls I bought in Komodo left, so inspired by these

and spotting these for sale,

I found a reel of this

and started to thread them together

to make this.

8.12 am

I heard about the Cultural Olympic event of “ringing in” the start of the Olympics and thought I’d join in the fun.  I had a meeting starting at 9am this morning though, so would likely be getting my things together to set off for Gloucester around that time.  Never mind, I had a clever idea.  I’d set the alarm on my iphone to go off at 8.12am and then, wherever I happened to be, I’d be participating in the whole affair.

I set the alarm to make the bells sound rather than the usual marimba setting which I am used to.  Well, it seemed to be the most appropriate one.

As I manoeuvred my car out of the garage, the bells started to ring.  Yay!  I wound down the window to listen out for any other local campanologists, but heard nothing – but my iphone chiming away, of course.

I drove out of the village and down the hill, thinking that it might have been a good idea to have taken the phone out of my bag before setting off.  Because, you know what happened ten minutes later?

The bells rang again.

Fortunately, by this time, I was in a line of cars waiting to turn right, so I was able to rummage in my bag and find my phone.  But I didn’t have time to hit “snooze” at this point and the bells continued for a while.

From there, every ten minutes, those ******* bells rang out, until I reached Gloucester and was finally able to turn the thing off.

Of course, whilst driving I hadn’t noticed that if I’d simply been able to slide that bottom button across, all would have been peaceful again. 

Pah!

Distractions

I’m procrastinating today.

I’m lucky enough to have the luxury of a day at home and of course, if I want to fritter such precious free time away doing not very much, I guess I can.  Even so, I feel as though I ought really to be sorting out one or two of the piles which have gathered in my studio over the last few days.

It’s Albert Sidney’s fault.  I know he looks as though he’s sitting on the beach there in his flat cap, causing no bother, with Auntie Vi looking restless and Phyllis maybe wishing she were elsewhere.  However, my Great Grandad is actually proving to be quite a distraction around here right now.

I can’t really lay the blame on my Great Grandmother Alice, who sadly died when Phyllis was born.  I really don’t know a great deal about her, because the variations in spelling her name (Furniss, Furnes, Furness) and large number of people with that name in the area of Warwickshire/Northamptonshire where she was born meant that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

Until I received an email whilst I was on holiday, that is. 

This email led to a conversation with another Ancestry user who had come across my Great Grandparents’ names as witnesses at Alice’s sister’s wedding.  There was more, too, because another sister had married the groom’s brother.  Suddenly, my family tree has grown another little branch and when I added details, someone else noticed a link with their family…

Suddenly, I have a whole new raft of rellies and a couple more family trees to work out.  Not only that, but there is a possible link elsewhere in the trees, because I spotted another family name in there, too.  It’s not easy, though, and I realise that I need to take my time, take it slowly, don’t get too excited and rush at it and make mistakes.  I’ve discovered the hard way that with Ancestry, there is no “undo” button when I accidentally save information to the wrong person.

So, Albert Sidney, if only you could just put down your pipe and step out from that photograph to tell me a few details about your lovely wife and her family, you could save me a little trouble and let me get on with tidying my studio.

You know that’s what I’d really rather be doing ;-)

Journal bling

One of the first tasks on arriving home is to complete my journal, binding it properly and tieing off all the loose ends.  I know that, if I don’t get on with it right away, it will sit there until the memories have faded and I’ve forgotten the little details which bring it to life.

I like to gather a little bling along the way, so that when the finished book sits on my shelf, it’s easily recognisable.  Identifying the cheap geegaws in trashy souvenir shops is all part of the fun.

On here is a brass luggage tag from the railroad at Promontory.  When I caught sight of the name Thomas on it, I knew it had to be there.

I’d picked up a few rocks at Zion, which were so very fragile and which I felt sure would crumble to dust.  Well, so far, they have almost crumbled – but not quite!  There is still a little of that chocolate wafer biscuit formation in that Tim Holtz glass bottle we found to contain it. 

Sitting there alongside is a sweet  little yellow phone charm given to me by a group of young Korean women, to say thanks for taking their photo at Bryce Canyon.  I fixed it to my camera strap for a while, until I took a few photos which unintentionally featured it in the corner!

The two remaining trinkets are a luggage tag from Mount Rushmore and a steel bookmark from Taliesin West, featuring a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright in that unmistakeable font.

There was one further piece of bling in the form of a small dreamcatcher, from the Grand Canyon.  I thought it would work well on there with a couple of feathers, but sadly, it’s too big and elaborate. 

So that is that.  Another trip gathered in and finished.  Here’s to the next one!