Recycle: trousers

I have vowed via my 17 for 2017 Challenge not to buy any new clothes in 2017.

Part of this challenge is to recycle or upcycle existing clothes. These trousers were bought over 12 years ago and I haven’t worn them for at least 10 years. The colour is a bit startling all in one block, slightly darker and more purple in reality. We are in the middle of a heatwave here in the UK, I need some shorts, so …..

The (long) shorts come just below my knobbly knees and I shall leave them to fray with wear. The colour is more bearable when there is less of it.

With the bonus of two pieces to play with …

…. on the left an idea for a small shoulder bag, just right for a child to take to the beach and on the right, fabric for textile books or another piece of textile art – fun!

Have you revamped any clothes recently?

 

Fiction

deep thinking

even at six years

darkness lurked

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Ronovan has given us DARKNESS and DEEP this week in his weekly Haiku Challenge.

Mixing that with our Photo Prompt – FICTION.

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My childhood was not always a happy place to be. There is a hint of that in my expression in the photo of me at about 6 years old, that little frown. The photo is in its original 1950s frame.

My Grandad and step-grandmother, Dabbity, provided me with a haven of books, cooking, gardening and needlework, I was always supremely happy when I was with them.

I learnt to read early and loved reading fiction as an escape. Perhaps that is why I hardly ever read fiction nowadays – no need to escape.

These are three favourite books of my childhood: Swiss Family Robinson, Monty Woodpig’s Caravan and Miss Richard’s Mouse

The illustrations in Miss Richard’s Mouse are a bit deep and dark and I remember feeling a bit scared of this book

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Please leave your link to your work of FICTION in the comments, we’d love to see them.

Happy Vase

Erigeron or Fleabane, neither are names pretty enough to describe this little gem of a daisy that grows on my patio, interwoven with what I think is a type of campanula. Both seed themselves liberally and I love them together.

The vase is a pot I bought in Florence, Italy in 1987 when I went there with my Dad. We had a wonderful time together, I have such happy memories of that long weekend .

It was Father’s Day here in the UK yesterday and he has been much in my thoughts. He died in 1998 and would have been 96 this year. He worked hard and played hard, loved a party, had a huge sense of fun and was never happier than when playing with his Grandchildren.

Teamed here with another of the textile pieces I’m working on

Title: “You are my happy”

I have to have several on the go at the same time. I seem to need to be able to have a rest from each colour combination in order to see each piece of work afresh.

Joining Cathy and ‘In a Vase on Monday’.

and

Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Sunshine

Matching the temperatures outside today.

Nothing between me and the Sea #2

Joining in with Scrap Happy June, hosted by Kate at Tall Tales From Chiconia

Still a work in progress: more beads have been added and some shells were first glued with PVA and then sewn on.

I’ve placed the seahorse there for the photo – I think that is where it will go, but it is not sewn on yet. I am so enjoying having the time to immerse myself in stitching. I drift off into another dimension and an hour or more goes by without me noticing – bliss.

This will be my second “Nothing between me and the Sea” piece.

You can read about the first one here.

The pattern for the crocheted seahorse can be found here.

Happy Scrapping!

Playful Butterfly

 

When I took Little Miss M and Little Bro to the park, after school yesterday, there was a Red Admiral butterfly that seemed to want to play with them. It kept fluttering back to them, around their heads, landing near to them: on posts, the grass and the climbing net – this went on for at least 10 minutes – it even landed on Little Bro’s arm at one point.

A school friend joined in and all three were first chasing, then leaping and dancing around with delight, then creeping up slowly and at one point the butterfly was on a post and all three were putting a finger on the post edging closer to the butterfly to see if it would hop on, totally focussed on that moment when time seemed to stand still.

 

Magical, utterly magical.

But – did I have my camera with me – no!

A beautiful memory to hold in my mind’s eye.

As I was writing this I remembered that over 25 years ago, when I was doing a City and Guilds Embroidery course, there was a competition

to create a greetings card with butterflies as the theme.

(apologies for the quality of the photos, something has gone wrong with my ‘Photos’ programme and I am unable to do any editing – so far long phone calls to Apple, whilst they have tried to sort it out – with more to come)

We had to show our folder of workings as well (click on any photo to see it bigger)

and after much experimentation, this was the card I submitted into the competition, it has lost a few star sequins

these were some of my experiments made on thick watercolour paper

Well – I won!

It is the only competition I have ever won, so I’ve kept that folder dear to me and never used the cards – I’m wondering if I should send them now and let go ………..

……………   No, I can’t just yet.

Have you ever won a competition? Or danced with a butterfly in the park?

One-a-Week Photo Challenge: Cross

the stars in my world

creativity blooming

with needle and thread

~

Three generations of cross stitch.

The blue and yellow Binca pieces on the top were made by my children (now 35 and 41) at school. The white Binca is being decorated by Little Miss M (4) and Master R (7), he has made the first arm of the cross stitches, but got frustrated when he came to the corner, his mathematical Virgoan brain could not get it to be precise enough, so we had to take a break. I hope we can return to it next weekend. Shall I undo the corner bit? …… Hmmmm these moral connumdrums we Grannies face.

You can see my cross stitches on the fabric collage underneath, the start of another textile experiment.

Linking with Ronovan’s weekly Haiku Challenge.

This week’s prompts: STAR and BLOOM

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Cathy and I have put together a list of subjects for the whole year – jump in as and when you feel like it with current or archive photos, and leave a link in the comments to be included in the monthly Round Up.