Well, today I was still feeling pretty ill so I continued doing very little -  and I continued to try to stitch despite the lack of fine motor skills and consequent finger pricks drawing blood.   A little while ago I purchased a lovely book called “Mixed Media Explorations” by Beryl Taylor.  It was very inspiring and while it doesn’t give a lot of detail on the techniques, it’s a good jumping off point.  So, thanks to this book I’ve been experimenting with fabric dye sticks to make a background colour and slight pattern and then embelishing with embroidery. 

I quite like the tiny fairy person.

and my little star

Today I worked on TAST week 20 - Butterfly chain stitch.  It looks terrible.  I had an idea behind this, truly.  But it just didn’t pan out.  Perhaps it’s because I’m taking some drugs (prescription - don’t get worried)  that are making me really spacey today.    Perhaps they also affected my fine motor skills because I found it really difficult to line up the chain stitch in the right place whilst keeping the line it’s forming from one stitch to another taut.  And so I will be mightily glad to move on from this stitch.

About all I could do today was listen to one of my favourite podcasts, Stitch It, and wind a ball of wool on my home made nostepine i.e. a large knitting needle.  I do like this ball of wool though.  It’s spindle spun from two colours of merino top from Virginia Farm Woolworks.  It’s my first go at combining colours…I realise it’s not totally original but it was still fun. I have two more skeins to wind of about the same size.  It’s probably only enough for one scarf, but that’s ok, that’s alright, that’s fine…Ummmm do you see how spacey I am?  I don’t think there’s quite enough twist in this one.  I’ve been trying to ply a balanced yarn.  I am getting a bit better but it’s nowhere near perfect yet.  But it’s still fun, and that’s the main point of this, right?

I just had to play with it, I couldn’t help myself after buying a “cheap as chips” polymer clay book.  I’ve joined a couple of spinning groups on ravelry including “spindlemakers”.  I really  wanted to try a bottom whorl spindle…so why not make one, right?!  Several people had made theirs out of polymer clay so I thought I’d give it a go.  Mixing colours was a little difficult as I don’t think the primary colours are “true” - so mixing red and blue did not make purple.  But blue and yellow gave a nice green so maybe the problem was with the red?  Anyway, here’s the result…the shaft is a 99cent wooden knitting needle.

And it spins like a dream.  I was so suprised.  It doesn’t spin out a lot and it spins for a really long time.  The fiber is a wool/silk blend.  It’s a bit sparkly…both the fiber and the spindle.  I pressed pearlescent powder into the fimo before baking.

And since I was onto the fimo - I tried to make some canes.  Not perfect.  Not good enough for beads, but OK for stitch markers I think.

What can one do on a rainy day without a car?  Dye.

Today I rang up the automotive man to see if I could book our car in because it was smelling strongly of petrol.  It had been running really well apart from this curious smell that wafted up through the floorboards when we parked it under the house.  It’s an old car form the 80’s that has been in our possession for little over a week.  We have pushed it hard in that week and it has responded gloriously, apart from the smell.  I, not knowing much about cars, thought that since it was going well nothing much was wrong.  When I rang up to ask the garage about it I was told not to drive it as it might CATCH ON FIRE AND EXPLODE! 

So it has been towed to the service station and I have been left at home with the rain pattering steadily down.  A perfect day to experiment with crafty stuff. 

I have been meaning to try jelly crystal dying since reading an article on it in Yarn Magazine about a year ago.  I think I got a little carried away with adding and mixing colours.  I might try to restrain myself next time.  the article talked about the jelly setting and becoming gooey during the process but mine stayed pretty liquid.  Also I noticed that the diet jelly was thinner in consistency thatn the regular jelly and, I think, more intense in colour.  I’ll have to experiment further to confirm that.

 I have also completed the week 19 TAST stitch - Basque stitch today.  I enjoyed it but I think I kept getting the direction of the twisted stitch wrong.  I’ll have to keep practicing.  But I’m wondering if it really matters?  Does this mean that some stitches are Basque stitch and some stitches are a different stitch?  I didn’t set out to make a picture but it just turned into  one.

I am so pleased to have finished this jumper.  It’s a pattern from Interweave Knits called Notre Dame De Grace by Veronik Avery.  It was a lovely easy knit - just right for train journeys.  Becasue it’s summer though, it’s taken me a long while to sew up.  The last few days have turned all nasty, weather-wise, and so were perfect for finishing up.   The Lindcraft cosy wool is a little scratchy but as I’ll probably be wearing long sleeved shirts under it anyway, I don’t think it will matter too much.   I’m always suprised that I don’t look like the model in the picture though…It hugs my curves a bit too much….But there’s more to worry about than that eh?

Well…I’ve just been tagged by Jessica Marie from Folk and Fairy blog and so have just discovered what it means to be tagged.   I love her blog, she puts so much work into finding fairythings that I love to look at.

This is what it means: There are rules to follow and the rules are:

So I’ll try to follow the rules - something I wish I could say I was not very good at but unfortunately I am such a responsible person that I often follow rules.

Random thing no. 1:

I used to sing to the fairies  when Mum locked me outside because I’d been “naughty” - I truly believed they could hear me.

Random thing no 2:

I still have my diaries, into which I poured my soul,   from ages 14 - 22.   Unfortunately they are quite boring to read, though life certainly seemed a lot more interesting at the time.

Random thing no 3:

I have studied at almost every uni in Sydney  ( 5 different uni’s to be exact - this is not a source of pride - I kept on swapping courses and managed to study Psych 101 twice!)

Random thing no 4:

I am terrible at Maths, really terrible…seriously terrible - this will result in my never being a knitting pattern writer and also meant that I couldn’t continue with Psychology as I couldn’t do the Stats, at all.  I failed stats which was a bummer because I got an HD for the Psych bit.

Random thing no 5:

My party trick is to let my jaw go very loose, open my mouth incredibly wide and put my hands aside my head in a “shocked position” - People tell me I look like the painting “The Scream” by Munch.

Random thing no 6:

I can cook a good Moussaka and very good shortbread - the two don’t neccessarily go together.

Random thing no 7:

I am still very close friends with a girl I met in second grade at primary school when we were aged 6. 

 And I am going to tag:

When I was a little girl in the 70’s, I remember one of my cousins completed a string art picture of a boat in shiny metalic cord on a black felt background.  My Aunt hung it proudly in her hallway. 

The TAST week 16 stitch  - Palestrina stitch - seemed to want to be some string art, like it or not.   It was fun to do.  I quite liked the rthymn of the stitch, even though some of my stitches are not too neat.  I worked with some linen thread for the first time.  This really held the knot well.  I liked the difference thicknesses of threads placed side by side in this stitch - It sort of made a bevelled edge “frame”. 

I also found an amazing beetle sitting on our table this week.  I have no idea what it is called.

Your Personality is Very Rare (INFP)

Your personality type is dreamy, romantic, elegant, and expressive.Only about 5% of all people have your personality, including 6% of all women and 4% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

For anyone wondering….yep that’s a pretty accurate desciption of me, I think.  Though I would hate to think this personality type is that rare.  I thought it was cute, though of course I would do, seeing as how I’m perceptive and all.