Burgled!

Well, yesterday I was planning a great evening catching up with all my on-line activities. my blog reading list alone is getting really long and I'm very aware that people might be beginning to think I've lost my "voice" due to the lack of any recent comments from this direction...and I've hardly stepped into a forum for what feels like an aeon.

None of this was to be, however, just as I was winding down ready to make my way from work to Sainsbury's yesterday I got a phone call from Roger to say we'd been burgled. Aaaaargh!!

We have been fortunate in that not much was taken - our DVD player, a few DVDs, Roger's Play Station and his guitar and - for some bizarre reason - the base unit for the phone. My computer had been toppled over but is working fine, thank goodness.

The Play Station had Grand Theft Auto in it but they'd dropped the memory card, so when Rog gets a replacement he'll be able to carry on building up his huge scores!!

It must have been a very small burglar because he/she entered after having smashed a pane of glass in the front door. They clearly thought they'd be able to open the door that way - not so, it's deadlocked. And the alarm would have been going off nineteen to the dozen so they'd just have been grabbing what they could in the shortest space of time.

Well, that's it for now, loads to do as you can imagine. And we'll see just how accurate those Lloyds TSB ads are that promise a super fast insurance claims service for customers who bank with them...!

I'll be back when the dust has settled.

Snap! Well, sort of...

There's nearly always some discussions going on in both the Folksy and the Etsy forums on the subject of copying and an awful lot of paranoia can be generated in these threads. I thought I'd post this as an illustration of how similar creations can arise totally genuinely and independently of each other!

The necklace below is for sale in my Etsy shop, I made it a month or so ago but only listed it very recently. The other day I bought my regular copy of Bead, a brilliant UK magazine that mainly features beadweaving but also includes some wirework and polymer clay projects. Right at the end there's a project called Tubular Belles, which is strikingly similar in in construction to my necklace but which must have been submitted a good few months ago!! So clearly neither of us can possibly have been even subconsciously influenced by the other.

Here's my necklace, I can't show you the similar one but see below for a full description of it and some more details...











If you are a subscriber to Bead's bead.tv you can log on to see the similar necklace, which is designed by the talented Jo Porter. (If you have the latest edition of Bead, it's on page 104.) Her necklace uses very different colours to mine and is made with translucent seed beads rather than with matt ones. She also uses different peyote stitch patterns for each beaded tube whereas I've used the same pattern for each, plus the distance between the peyote tube and round bead sections is longer and the whole necklace is long enough to not need a clasp.

Given that the beaded peyote tube is commonly taught and that there are, after all, only so many different colours, finishes and sizes of seed beads to make them with, only so many different ways creating pattern in them and only so many different ways of arranging the end results then similarities such as this are bound occasionally to arise. So please everyone, let's not be paranoid about copying! There is obviously individual creativity at work both in Jo Porter's creation and in mine.

I'm going to send a photo of my necklace to Jean Powers, Bead's editor, as they do ask for readers' work and are interested in what people have created as a response to patterns published in the magazine. But I'll also mention that I made it before I even opened the magazine!

An interesting thought is that originally I was going to arrange the peyote tubes in a completely different way, with them all in one central section with a length of thong on either side. I did it and it didn't look right, so I changed the arrangement to how it is in the photo!

10th wedding anniversary tomorrow!

Just a quick post to say I won't be blogging or hanging around in the Folksy or Etsy forums for a couple of days as it's our tenth wedding anniversary tomorrow and we're taking some quality time out to re-vitalise ourselves!

Here are some more photos, this time of Whitby, to entertain you while I'm gone...

Moody, atmospheric shot of the graveyard of St Mary's, the parish church, with the Abbey looming mysteriously behind.








Greedy seagulls who just love to attack unsuspecting tourists eating their fish and chips! Talk about cheeky...








The Huntrodd Memorial - in St Mary's graveyard - an unbelievable (?) set of coincidences...

I've finally done it!

Yes, after ages of deliberation I've finally set up shop on Etsy. Only three pieces listed so far but "great oaks from little acorns grow" as they say! Here I am: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7316923 And I had one person heart my shop and one person heart an item within half an hour of introducing my self in the forums, so I'm feeling pretty hopeful.

Loads more listing to do, both on Folksy and on Etsy, but I'm having a break for a couple of days to relax and do the garden! Let's hope the weather bucks up a little, it's been odd here today, sunny and then cloudy in quick succession.

A few flower pics :

These irises in our garden just get better and better each year!












Breathtaking delphiniums at Temple Newsam, near Leeds. I can still remember the fantastic shock of turning a corner and totally unexpectedly seeing these!







I'm not entirely sure what these are, I think they are a variety of primula. These beauties are at Harlow Carr, the RHS garden near Harrogate.








Will be back and blogging again in a few days, happy MayDay holiday to all!

Just a quickie!

Well, thanks to the (mainly) lovely weather yesterday we managed an outdoor product shoot. Now I have hours and hours and hours of photo editing, listing and listing editing to do so I'm not going to be blogging for the next few days!!

I will be back when it's all done but till I blog again I'll entertain you with some shots we took yesterday of Stanzi up her favourite tree, an ash that when it was younger we mistakenly thought was a rowan and wondered why it never bore berries...duh!


And also some lovely shots of our lime tree, destined to play a part in my new shop banners (yes, banners in the plural, some of the pieces we photographed yesterday will end up on Etsy, not on Folksy; I've finally decided to take the plunge!)

A bit of holiday nostalgia.

Well, right at the moment I'm slap bang in the middle of so many things I don't know whether I'm coming or going so I thought I'd share a few photos of one of our favourite places, Wells Next The Sea in Norfolk.

(What things, you may ask? Well, besides the day jobs, I'm aiming to make enough pieces to be able to open a shop on Etsy as well as on Folksy and to have a decent amount in each of them. I'm also, for what feels like the millionth time, doing another complete re-shoot of all my photographs. And in and amongst I'm waiting to catch a great shot of our linden tree with all it's new leaves so that I can make myself a new banner. Gah!)

OK, here's one of the beautiful sunset we experienced on our last evening in Wells in 2008:








This really just didn't know when to stop, it was amazing!


And here's one of the lovely pinewoods that fringe Holkham Beach.











"No digging here!"


What's with this "No digging here!" lark, then?! Well, we discovered Wells by way of the ghost stories of M R James. Back in the late nineteen-seventies (yes, we are old!) one story was dramatised every Christmas by the BBC, over a number of years. Both of us are especially fond of "A Warning To The Curious" and, guess what, the dramatisation of it was filmed in Wells! We didn't know this till we picked up a copy of "Coast" and there was a photograph of the Old Custom House (where we stayed on our first visit). We though, hey, that looks very familiar, so on went the DVD and lo and behold, there it was!

On both our visits to Wells so far we've spent some time trying to identify locations for particular sequences in the film. With not a huge amount of success so far but we did manage to identify the steps that Arnold, the "boots", sat on while polishing shoes and whistling "Tea For Two And Two For Tea".

And since I seem to have lost the photo of said steps (*!*?!) here's one of the many skeins of birds that we witnessed flying en masse while we were there - a truly magnificent sight!

Cat and wind induced insomnia...and the craft cupboard.

Well, this is what we should have been doing at five o'clock this morning and it's also what Stanzi does best, I sometimes think she's trying for the Guinness Book of Records for sleeping!

However we weren't, due to the fact that aforesaid puss was ballooning around the bedroom and up and down the corridor like a creature possessed. It was extremely windy here last night and wind is guaranteed to get Stanzi into hyper mode within seconds. She just wants to tell us all about it, in every possible permutation and at great length, bless!

It's also guaranteed to get me into paranoid mode as I lie there wondering just how much tossing around the huge lime tree in the corner of our garden can withstand (yes, that's why LindenTree!) Colleagues in our Parks Department, which is in the same building as the one I work in for one of my jobs, have reassured me that "lime trees are very supple". I so hope they are right... And Roger keeps telling me that it's been there a lot longer than he has (which is forty odd years at the last count).

So I'm pretty bleary eyed right now and my early morning resolve to photograph our Little Shop Of Horrors of a craft cabinet to post (inspired by a blog post from Julia of East of the Sun which was in response to the challenge by Nic of Nic's Knots to blog about craft spaces) has dissolved as I am somewhere near to the left of exhausted. Tomorrow, all being well - prepare to be horrified! (It's not that bad, really...)

More pics of the early morning madness cat, in awake yet relaxed mode!

Odd behaviour on trains...

Well, last Monday I had to go to Doncaster for a meeting. I had to take the train, because the local authority I work for won't pay car mileage to travel outside of West Yorkshire.

I didn't mind, I quite like train travel and was pleased to discover that I was travelling in an almost empty carriage on my outward journey. I had settled my self down with my magazine and cup of coffee when, lo and behold, there was a woman stood looking very pointedly down at my bag on the seat beside me, intimating that she wanted me to move it so she could sit down. She didn't say anything, she just kept looking at the bag and looking at me.

What.....? The carriage was nearly empty, she had about thirty other seats to choose from and she wanted to sit right beside me. Why?!

I was feeling a bit Monday morning-ish so I somewhat ungraciously moved my bag onto my lap and let her sit down beside me. No sooner had she done so than, being now somewhat cramped, I managed to spill the remainder of my coffee all over the table (thanks, missus, I was enjoying that drink). I said "Damn!", rather loudly, and she promptly got up and went into the next carriage, leaving me scratching my head and yearning for the rest of my coffee.....

As if that wasn't enough, on the journey home I was with three of my colleagues. We wanted to sit together as we only meet up every six months and it's good to catch up. We walked through quite a bit of the train in search of suitable seating and finally found a spot. There was a man sitting across the gangway from us, who commented something to the effect that he had "thought he'd got the carriage to himself". We must have mumbled something in response but sat down anyway, since it wasn't one of the designated "Quiet" carriages.

We were soon deep in conversation but as our journey progressed I became acutely aware that our neighbour was listening to everything we were saying. And he was making no attempt to conceal the fact, he just kept looking across at us with undisguised interest. Two of my colleagues had their backs to him but even they felt uncomfortable - that old psychological trick of staring intently at the back of someone's head to make them turn round certainly works!

It wasn't even as if our conversation was particularly riveting. OK, it was of interest to us but I wouldn't have thought it would have captured a total stranger's attention for more than a few moments! I became so uncomfortable that eventually I withdrew from the conversation altogether and studied the view from the window instead. Perhaps I was over-reacting but boy, was I glad to reach my stop!!

Creative Plastic

Well, somewhat over three years ago I applied to buy my computer through the "Computers At Home" initiative where I work. I've just finished paying for it (hooray!!!) and have also recently re-discovered some of the little extra bits and bobs I bought at the same time and somehow forgot about.....one of which was a box of Creative Plastic.

I do hope Creative Plastic doesn't have a "sell by" date (I certainly can't see one, anyway!). Because rediscovering it has coincided with my having got really excited reading the latest issue of "Bead", where the regular "Bead Soup" challenge involves shrink plastic and coloured pencils, no less.

It reminded me that some time ago I did some designs using the Gimp photo editing programme, with the Creative Plastic in mind. I began with images of flowers and - er, well, basically just played around. I can't now remember exactly how I achieved the images you see at the top of this post but suffice it to say that many, many filters were used.....

So this weekend, as well as completing and framing in acrylic (see post below) my next piece of embroidered felt, I may well also be cooking up some Creative Plastic!!

(Sorry, still trying to work out how to show links!)

First in the hand felted pendant range finally listed.

Lightning quick post as it's taken ages to get this listed - but here it is, folks, hopefully the first of many:

http://www.folksy.com/items/22465-Glorious-Garden-OOAK-pendant-hand-felted-and-embroidered-red-green-orange-black-silver

Will post at greater length tomorrow when there's more time...

Have a great evening, all!

Edit, March 17th: And this is the lovely Folksy seller I bought the roving from to make the felt: http://www.folksy.com/shops/babylonglegs

And while I'm at it, happy St Patrick's Day if you're celebrating tonight! Saw a few guys dressed up as leprechauns in town today, looked like they were getting ready to have lots of fun. Don't know why we had our St Patrick's day parade here days ago, though...?!