First attempts at screen printing

I am having so much fun learning new things at the moment! I'm taking a 'screen printed textiles' course this term - screen printing was also on my wish list of things to learn this year. In fact it is something I have wanted to try for a long time, but have never had the chance really until now. What I would love to do eventually is design and screen print my own fabric so I can use it to make things.

I'm now a few weeks into the course and it is getting more exciting as I have just made my first screen. Before that we were spending quite a lot of the time on design, and I was a bit overwhelmed as I had so many ideas of things that I wanted to do that I had problems narrowing down my ideas.

But, as you can see, my image is an elephant, which will be overlaid with a paisley pattern in a second (and maybe third) colour. I will need to print the shapes out first, and then clean the screen and make a second screen with the overlay patterns on it. I'm probably being far too ambitious for a first effort - so we shall see how it all turns out.

I'm working with a lovely group of people. There are just six people on the course, so the group is small and we get lots of attention from our tutor. We are all from very different art/craft/design backgrounds and working on quite different ideas for our finished product, so we are all learning from each other as well.

I will hopefully be printing this coming week - I'm so excited!

Crochet Workshop

I had been so looking forward to this workshop, and I was not disappointed. M and C gave me the workshop as a birthday present as they knew it was on my wish list of things I wanted to learn to do this year.

I had been inspired to try crochet by looking at all the marvellous blog posts that I read, especially Lucy at Attic 24 and Jules at Little Woollie.  I keep looking at all the granny squares, and ripple (chevron) blankets and crochet flowers in all the gorgeous colours and really wanted to try.

The last time I picked up a crochet hook I must have been in my teens, my dad taught me some stitches, and I can remember making a very long scarf. So, although I knew a little I was really a beginner. I had recently tried to follow a tutorial for a granny square, but got hopelessly muddled so thought it best to go on a course or workshop to get me going again and give me some confidence.

Looking for courses I came across Crochet Designs, owned by Pauline Turner and based in Lancashire at Morecambe. I had seen Pauline at Woolfest a couple of years ago and had picked up one of her leaflets, and had met her in the past in a more professional capacity.  As well as teaching beginners such as myself, Pauline is the founder of the International Diploma in Crochet which can be taken via distance learning, and she has people from all over the world on the Diploma course.

At the workshop I was the only beginner, but there were others who were at various stages of the diploma course. It was great, Pauline soon got me started and gave me loads of attention, but also left me to try and work things out for myself. Once I relaxed a little, and started to get into a hooky rhythm things started to come back to me from the past. I still dropped stitches or added in stitches but as the day went on I did manage to try out lots of different stitches by following a worksheet, which produced a sampler like a mini blanket. Pauline demonstrated the stitches for me and was there to 'hold my hand' until I got the hang of it - which I really needed, especially at the beginning.

It was so cool, I tried stitches that I had seen others doing (on their blogs) like 'popcorns' and 'spikes' and 'crab' stitch. I learned how to add a new colour and how to change colour, to increase and decrease. It was also really interesting listening to the others who were on the Diploma course as it widened my appreciation of what can be achieved with crochet.

Pauline has written many books and articles on crochet, and I bought her 'Beginners Guide to Crochet' to remind me of all that I had done that day. It has excellent photographs to lead you through the stitches and lots of tips and small projects to try. I'm sure this will be very useful for me, now that I don't have that hand guiding me.

Since I have been home I have made my first granny square, just to reinforce what I had learned at the workshop. I tried the Summer Garden Granny Square by Attic 24 which can be found here.  With my new found knowledge Lucy's pattern is easy to follow and I was so pleased with my square!

I enjoyed the workshop and got a lot from it - I only have the two colours of yarn at the moment, so a trip to the shop may be necessary soon! Watch this space - there may be a few hooky projects here in the future.

Bramble Jam

I really thought I had missed jam making this year as the wild fruit has been so poor and I only managed to collect enough berries to make a  crumble.

However, out with the dog, I've been gathering a few berries here and there on each walk. Then, when back at home I've been putting them in the freezer and have collected enough to make some Jam! Not a lot, as I only had 3lb's of fruit, but enough to be able to have that lovely tangy blackberry flavour on my tongue when I have toast... mmmmm

Today has been lovely, the sun has been shining and Beanie and I have been out foraging again and managed to collect a few more berries, although I think it will be the last for this year. There is definitely an autumn feel in the air now, and we have had a couple of light frosts in the mornings.

I was so surprised to see a late lamb today!

Back to the blackberries ... there are always some that you can see that are just too far out of reach. There was a lot of fruit on this patch but I think they will be left for the birds!

Have a good weekend.

Brambly Hedge revisited

Following on from my last post, the play mat that I have been making for my niece's first baby is now finished! So, we are ready with our gift to welcome the little one when s/he arrives.

When my niece was a little girl she really loved the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem, the illustrations are gorgeous and so detailed and tell a story of the hedgerow mice and their adventures throughout the year. I could only lay my hand on the Spring Story book, but I'm sure we still have Summer, Autumn and Winter around as my girls loved the stories too. The Autumn Story would have been more fitting for the time of year here in the UK, and also the fabric that I chose for the play mat.

I was looking for fabric that would remind her of her childhood and would be fun for her new baby. I came across 'Scamper', designed by Rebekah Ginda for Birch Fabrics. The little woodland animals, mushrooms, fruits and burrows just seemed so appropriate. The colours are also quite autumnal, with orange, mushroom, and the various greens.

The design on the fabric is much simpler than the illustrations in the book, but both are so charming. I love the patchwork quilt on the fourposter bed in the book!

I also love the little mice curled up asleep on their triple bunk bed on the fabric!

The mat is just 36" x 36", with simple patchwork squares and a boarder. I used a fabric called 'scribble' from Cloud 9 as the backing, with a binding again from Birch Fabrics called 'abacus'

As we have just had a ray of sunshine between the rain clouds, I grabbed my camera and asked J if he would hold the mat outside so I could take a photo - but i'm afraid the sun had gone in by the time we got organised.

We are now looking forward to meeting the newest member of the family - when s/he arrives.