Selling my soul

This could be the most terrifying thing I've ever done: it does feel like I've just put my soul up for the whole world to gaze on and judge. So **gulp** go visit my Esty shop, I'm not sure if I care if anything sells, I just hope nobody goes "Oh would you look at that rubbish!"
Here goes. . . SOUL FOR SALE! ! !

On another subject: I am finally getting a few projects finished at last. And my beautiful lamp which once was rather boring and plain is now a smorgasbord of buttony goodness! !

I had seen this on a lamp where they had used just the metal frame of the shade and had the light through strung/wired (?) buttons. However the light in our lamp is something like 6 gazillion candle power and will fry your eyeballs if it hits you right on so I decided to sew the buttons to the shade. With the light off it looks like I like: kinda grungy and handmade-ish but in the evening it turns into the star of our living room. Buttons which previously looked normal turn into the most stunning visual feast.I didn’t use any special bits, I purposely used buttons I was going to donate to a charity shop because they were so very ordinary.
yum yum yum yum!
For any who might be interested we are planning a trip WEST!! It is going to happen in 2012 it is just a matter of when the tickets aren't going to be totally out of proportion due to the Olympics being a couple of hours away from our house. Okay must stop before I hyperventilate with excitement.

Pottery love

Last night was my first evening in an 8 week ceramics and pottery class which M. gave me for my birthday. I've never really had a drive to do ceramics. I keep myself neck deep in projects that need finished without the necessity of three days cooking in extreme temperatures (thank you very much). Needless to say as people moved into the ceramics room and were chatting like old friends and began to raid cupboards and pull out almost finished pieces I began to have a creeping sense of how wrong this class could be for me. And I wished for a sinking hole in the earth to swallow me and save me the embarrassment of admitting my ignorance. HOWEVER…

Oh my giddy wonderful racing heart!! I LOVE it!

I was encouraged to start with moulding but. . . err. . . being a bit hard headed and not having been at all interested in doing moulded clay I said with total ignorance of the processes, limitations, and qualities of clay "No I want to either throw or do sculptural stuff." So I was sat down with a piece of paper and pencil which is no hardship as sketching is my favourite diversion.

What came out was a regurgitation of something that I have been sketching on the borders of notebooks and corners of sticky pads for at least 16 years. This (above) is the earliest sketch I have of it which is from 2002 but it has been bouncing around my head for much longer. Then I sat with clay and just did what I had in my head. And it was so peaceful and soul centring, like a meditation on form and touch. I sense that I could have closed my eyes and felt what the clay wanted me to do with it. I learned a few things about the process and how to make sure my piece doesn't crack in the kiln or take four years to dry for that matter.

I cannot wait till next week. I have a coral reef in my head and hands which is burning to escape and become tangible!

As a BIG aside I am about to go onto ETSY and see if my makes are as nice to anyone other than me. . . eeeek! This embroidered broach (modelled by my obliging but terribly embarrassed 12 year old) is one of the few things I have to sell. It is slightly larger than life size and a Peacock butterfly which is very common in our area of England. It will be on sale in a day or two. Wish me luck!

Too many needles.

I'm afraid I've managed to cast on too many projects. I have a half finished *ahem* summer jumper for E, just started shawl for K and a half finished jumper for M. I don't know which to work on so I'm not. I am polishing up the perfected art of procrastination.

In all honesty I feel a bit inclined to do K's and leave the others. After all E's is for summer wear and I already made one for M... to be fair it came out a bit... errr... BIG and technically he isn't allowed to wear it out of the house (though he will try drat the man!).

I think I might just have a coffee and put on the second Pride and Prejudice disk while I make up my mind.

Autumn returns

I love this time of year as the whole world starts turning to paper and gold. We have pulled up the last of our potatoes (Desiree- by the way- they are the most delicious lates we've ever had!) and the chickens have been allowed on the bed to clear up the hoard of slugs we discovered sheltering under the plants...

We have returned to our homeschooling routine. This will be our first full term of everyone at home learning. We only withdrew from school last April and the summer term could only be described at best as experimental. I tried lots of different methods of recording activities and many many different time-tabling ideas all of which were wrong for one child or another. So this term I have made a simple timetable which covers all the curriculum and our own interests in textiles, cookery and home economics. And we have been working on it about two weeks now. The girls have all been enjoying it immensely and it has the added benefit of incorporating enough flexibility that when school-of-life opportunities arise we can take them and enjoy them without any pressure to make up subjects.


Tonight is cookery for E, and M and I found the most glorious field of parasol mushrooms ever- there were at least a dozen full grown and glorious. We only passed back by them when it was dark so we went scouring the field with a mobile phone flashlight examining parasols for slug damage by pale blue glow. We probably looked quite suspicious but we got a lovely enormous specimen! So E will cook Wild Mushroom Stroganoff with me tonight and it will be worth the evening scrabble in the field.

And as the vegetable garden dwindles my mind turns to Christmas gifts and winter warmth. You may hate me for mentioning it in September if you must but I have many many ideas and only so many hands and days!