Cats, the Musical

Just been to see 'Cats' at the Opera House in Manchester.   I confess to having cried four times.  I never knew that a central part of the story was a cat dying.  Not so much what you need when one of your own cats has recently died.  I could hear a lot of people snuffling as well.  Oh well, its not just me then.     What an amazing performance, the costumes were astonishing and we were lucky enough to be near enough the front to see every little detail.

Lambs in Wooly Coats

Hall Hill farm in Lanchester, County Durham, have invested in hundreds of wool coats to keep their Jacobs lambs warms during the prolonged snow in the UK.  Cute and cuter!

Patricia Heirloom Tiara

 
 This is a tiara I made today using a vintage (1950's) crystal and Bohemian glass necklace - it was a lovely colour but over the course of time had lost part of it's original clasp and this is just the sort of piece of jewellery I love to upcycle into something new and fab.  The greens in this tiara are gorgeous - and I can't seem to capture them, no matter how much I fiddle with the settings on my camera.


I love the bi-colour of the Bohemian glass/crystal - it's so unusual - and the original crystal in the necklace is a very unusual green/gold colour.  I made the band (as I do with 95%) of my tiaras, it makes them exceptionally comfortable.  It's always difficult to decide which way to go with a vintage piece - what to add, what not to.  I always, always find myself stumped for a brief period of time once I have the initial components sitting together in front of me - the band made, the piece of donor jewellery.   Then its just rumage and think and accumulate potential beads and components on my desk until I have that 'aha' moment. Sadly this CAN take ages - not always, but it does on occasion.  What I would hate to do would be to rush the process and then decide I hate it at the end.  Its rare that I do, but it sometimes happen and then I have to take everything apart once again and restart.

I had these lovely minty-green Czech glass daggers sitting in front of me.  I'd had the vintage piece sitting on my desk for ages.  Maybe it was because they'd come in proximity of each other that my head started to consider seriously what was going on with this piece.  It still didn't gel until I added the Swarovski crystal pearls, and it wasn't right until I added the blue Swarovski crystal along with the various shades of green.  And then I was having getting the Czech glass daggers to stand upright until I made little 'cups' of gold plated wire.  

Eventually, at just after four in the morning (seriously!), I realised I'd finished.  The first thing I always do when I complete a piece is tweak it, then trot down the stairs from the studio to find a mirror - plonk the thing on my head and pretend I'm not as old as I am!  Who wants to see someone as old as me in a tiara!  But it does give me a good idea of what the fit will be, if there's anything else that needs doing to it - whether there are any stray little 'poky bits - no one wants poking in the head when they wear their tiara.   

I love this - I didn't think I'd like that colour on my head at all - but hmmmm....strangely it brings out just a little red in my hair  which I never knew was there and overall the piece looks fab - it's a bit 'midsummer night's tale' - and I fell into bed quite happy with my nights' work.  Now I'm looking at making a red tiara....maybe...

This tiara is now for sale at my Etsy shop - here's a link - Patricia Heirloom Tiara

Nuno Felted White Scarf

This is a nuno felted scarf which I made using silk organza fabric, merino wool, silk and lace.   When you 'nuno' felt you encourage the wool to make it's way through a layer of fabric in order that the two bond to create one whole.   

This was a bit of an experiment to see how I might be able to incorporate lace into a piece - so I laid the silk organza down with pieces of lace over that, then laid a layer of shining beautiful creamy-white silk with a layer of merino/silk mix (50/50) so overall a huge amount of silk in this. 



The difficulty was trying to get the lace to bond to the wool and form a close fit between the fabric and the wool - there are areas where I have managed to get the three (fabric, lace, wool/silk) to bond very well, and other areas where I've not managed this - and I like both - the complete bonding looks very neat - on the other hand, the areas where this hasn't happened, the lace sits inside a little pocket which has been formed between the fabric and the wool - quite interesting - this was a reflection on how much effort I put into working on the bond, and clearly in some areas, I didn't work as hard as others.  

Once I'd got as much bonding as I felt I could, I threw the scarf down onto my work surface, hard and repeatedly (wonderful for working off any grumpiness or bad temper!) and this created a wrinkled effect where the wool shrunk against the silk fabric.  I love this piece. And I'm keeping it. 

 

 

A Felting Commission for Sharon B.

Sharon is a customer who has had jewellery and a couple of my ribbon scarves in the past - she wanted one of my felted scarves and after chatting to her and my casually mentioning a colour scheme to her of green, grey and yellow, she decided that is what she wanted - the rest of the brief was to have some lace and silk in it and that was it.   It took me a day to lay out the piece, which I then left overnight, dry.  I often do it this way - everyone knows I take ages to lay out my felting, and I find it less exhausting to do the wet stuff the next day.






I felted it using merino, huge amounts of silk, vintage organza which I cut into leaves, lace, collected threads and fabric including some sparkly angelina, wensleydale locks in both the body of the scarf and at the ends of the scarf. I love that it's so different on each side - one side is quiet and muted, the other bright and vibrant.
Once I had the first lot of wet felting done, I spent quite some time needlefelting curls and waves with a solid green colour (merino) wool before giving the wrap another wet felting to give the piece a 'final polish' before ironing the piece.   I mailed it out in an embroidered silk bag. 

Sharon later called me to say she was utterly delighted with the piece - which of course I was delighted about!

  

 

Moving - and an Adoption....

I've just spent the day moving Merlin from my old stableyard to my new one -we'd been very happy at the old place, but I was tempted away by a lovely yard with fabulous facilities.  Sadly I had to leave behind many friends including Martha and Sheena, Susan and Amy, Kim, Kelly, Leila and various others, and we had to drug Merlin absolutely off his face in order that we could get him onto Sheena's truck to make the short journey to the new place.  
Merlin will just about do anything at all for me apart from get on any form of horse transportation - we all have our little foibles I guess.   So my dear friend and equine vet Vicky prescribed Merlin a drug which virtually put him out. I think in actual fact I was supposed to take it, because once I had got it into the horse (no mean feat) he was fairly unaware of what was going on.  It took seven of us to get him up the ramp and ready for travel - not because he was drugged, but because despite being drugged, he still wasn't going up that ramp.
When we got the other end I was absolutely convinced he was going to fall down the ramp and was ready to jump for it but he managed to stay on his wobbly little legs.

Several hours later he woke up in a new stable with a new view with look of amazement on his face (trust me, horses can do amazement), not quite sure how he got there.

At the same time, we have now adopted Olly, who was the cat we had been taking care of for some time at the old stableyard - we've loved him as long as we've known him - about 3 and a half years.  He's coal black from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail and is a prodigious hunter, but he's going to have to get used to living in a house rather than a stable now - fingers crossed that our cats Harley and Mia will allow Olly to become part of the feline family without too much difficulty.  Olly's previous owner, Grace, had given him to me last year - before my darling Harry was killed on the road at Christmas, so he was a planned adoption - and I am glad of this, because I don't feel I am trying to replace one cat with another, which would never be the case.  The loss and the heartbreak doesn't get any easier and Harry is missed every single day.