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| Potted snowdrops and snowdrop pouches |
Well, here we are into
March and I haven't written a blog since the start of 2017! It's a
good job that I didn't make it a New Year's Resolution to write more
frequently.
To be honest, the New
Year did not start well as two of my Mum's friends died within a
month of each other and, as I knew them both quite well, I went to
Cheltenham for the funerals. They both went off as well as these
things can do and in both instances we were given flower seeds to
plant in memory of them, as both had been keen gardeners in their
time. I think that that is a lovely idea and I shall look forward to
planting my flowers once Spring finally arrives!
At the end of January I
ran my short Introduction to Spinning course for six lovely ladies
from the Somerset Smallholders Association. It was a great afternoon,
with lots of questions and exchanges of information and I hope
everyone got something out of it – I certainly did, and hope to
branch out into running a few courses later in the year. I also
launched a Facebook page for my nascent business – A Little Bit
Sheepish – and have had some good feedback on the photos that I've
posted.
At the beginning of
February Mary announced that my workroom was ready so in I moved. It
is a wonderful space to work in, with much better natural light than
in my annexe, and the work table is about six feet long so that I can
spread my projects out and leave them there. I have also brought my
drum carder in from the (very cold) workshop where it had been
languishing, and fixed it to the end of the table so that I can card
wool whenever the mood takes me and I don't have to don thermals in
order to do it! I have been in the workroom nearly every day since
and have created quite a few new items, with lots more still in my
head just bursting to get out.
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| Vinyl wallpaper stripping! |
On the 9th
February I was off to Cheltenham for funeral number 2, but also to do
some decorating for Mum for a week. She wanted the small single
bedroom decorating and I estimated that I could strip the wallpaper,
make good any problems with the plaster and emulsion it round easily
within the week. Unfortunately, I had failed to notice that the
wallpaper was, in fact, vinyl and it had been on the walls since Jeni
was a toddler (about 30 years!). The bedroom doesn't get direct sun
but it does get daylight and this had been enough to degrade the
vinyl so that, instead of coming off in large sheets (as I was led to
believe on the internet) it came off in approximately 1cm wide pieces
and 15cm long! Of course, being impermeable, I was unable to soak it
off or use a steamer so each piece had to be laboriously scraped and
peeled off and then this, in turn, created a static charge so that
the strips stuck to everything – me, the step ladder, the wall –
it looked like an explosion in a paper streamer factory! Suffice to
say that I did not finish the decorating in one week and will have to
go back as soon as I can to complete the project as Mum now has two
bedrooms unusable, as all of the furniture from one room has had to
go into the other.
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| Needle-felted snowdrops |
I had to go home after
a week because I had other commitments: a special Friday Market to
celebrate the start of the inaugural Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival
and a wedding on the Saturday, that the choir had been engaged to
sing at. Trying to come up with a snowdrop theme for my stall I
decided to create some needle-felted snowdrops in pots and these
proved quite popular and has led me to try making primroses and
violets for the markets in the run up to Mothering Sunday. I am
trying to concentrate more on the felting side of my craft work as,
in the last couple of weeks, another stall has come to the market
selling knitted goods and she is a much better knitter than I am and
has far more stock. I spent the first week feeling quite upset about
the competition but then decided to change focus slightly. I'm also
hoping that the weather improves soon and then I can take my spinning
wheel back to the market.
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| Needle-felted primroses |
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| Needle-felted violets |
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