Seeing the light

White details around Mr P's house, clearly I am having a bigger influence than I realised, but he seems to be enjoying the way it bounces light into the darker parts of the house.

Golden tones

Morning: Detail of a drawer Liz decorated for me a few years ago.


Afternoon: Textile sculpture by a fellow graduate, 1994.
It always looks best when I open it in sunlight.


Evening: Sunset through the birch trees last week (click to enlarge).

Nasty Virus

Top: Honesty on a morning sky
Bottom: Lichen & frost on the water butt

The sun is shining!
The wind still blows but it is a nice fresh wind, one direction, no big gusts. I think it must still be gusty higher in the sky because all the tracks from the aeroplanes are wiggly, no straight lines, suggesting the wind keeps blowing them off course a little.

Today feels like a fresh start after a very disturbed week. Mr P caught the vomiting virus that has been going round the UK this winter. No-one likes being unwell, but he particularly hates it, more than anyone I know. Being laid so low it fell to me to do the looking after, which presented many logistical difficulties given my own ill health. I had my first trip to a supermarket in 3 months. He had to drive me (with a bucket at his feet!) and then had to wait an interminably long time while I did the tiny shopping that should have only taken 10mins. I think I took 1hr, clinging to the trolley like my life depended on it.

Thankfully he was off food so I was only buying herbal teas, some basics for myself and tins of chicken soup for when he felt able. I never knew there were so many kinds of tinned chicken soup! Ironically he'd decided to give up his favourite Covent Garden Chicken Soup (which was all gone, hence trip to the tins aisle), after watching the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Run series. Visit the Chicken Out website for more details. I liked that Mr P was planning to be more organic about his occasional chicken consumption (I'm vegetarian), but I couldn't find any organic chicken soup that day and neither of us were in any fit state to go searching the city. Sorry chickens.

The worst of the virus has passed and by some miracle (and obscene consumption of echinacea and vits) I managed to not catch it! It was touch and go, Mr P and I have always had very sympathetic guts. Every time his guts churned I would burp and my tummy would turn over. So much so that I couldn't sleep last night and feared the virus was upon me. But no. I find that whole thing so strange. He used to get problems with his belly when I had my really severe cramps.

In the garden

Hydrangea

We're having a lot of blustery weather here, severe winds knocked both fences down the other day so the garden suddenly feels really exposed. In the brief calm, dry moments I'm making more effort to use my camera again.

Nic Bladen - jewellery

Nic Bladen: Necklace with single Heuningblom or honey flower

Delicate cast flower neck pieces from Nic Bladen's Botanical Jewellery collection thanks to a link from Four Walls Design.

No scary news

Close up of some tubs that hold sewing things

I've been so sore and so distracted that I missed my own 2yr blog anniversary yesterday. I got a bit overwhelmed there and forgot about blogging, I was amazed to see so many comments when I returned tonight, thank you all!

Thanks especially to Liz who's text today that made me realise I'd not been back on the computer so people were wondering what news I had from the Doctor. After all that worry he told me nothing new, which was a big relief. In fact, he didn't even know why I was there! I had to tell him they'd called me to see him. He repeated what I'd been told on the day, looks like polyps, so on with the biopsy and possibly other unpleasantness. I don't like the sound of 'scraping the womb' eeugh, that makes my legs go wobbly.

One good thing about all this. As many of you know, Doctors like things they can see. Mine seemed so happy about having something visible to focus on that he reacted very well to my telling him I'd not been taking his pills. He accepted they'd done more harm than good and agreed to give up drug treatments. This is a HUGE relief!!! It was stressing me enormously.

Grow your own Goji berries

Images from my sewing room

When my reproductive organs dominate my thoughts I get all feminine and start liking pink. After all my worrying last night I found myself very aware of some pink things in my sewing room which looked nice sitting on my turquoise suitcase (my fancy dress accessories case (false eyelashes, hair extensions, tiaras, elf ears etc). To see why the sewing room is unusable see the chaos here. That was the table, the floor is equally piled with bags of fabric and decades of textile work, lighting sculptures and general vintage haberdashery. It is high on my list of things I'll sort when I'm well again. I love sorting my sewing room, especially sorting my fabrics by colour and tone/type.


One of my thread drawers


I love my clear button boxes

I store some of my buttons in old ferrero rocher boxes, the kind that hold four chocolates. Can't seem to find anyone who eats them regularly so I've run out and have jars and drawers for the most of the collection.

I'm feeling calmer today, the sun is gloriously bright and is making the frost sparkle, it's nicely distracting. I've got an appointment to get my results tomorrow. Fingers crossed a biopsy won't be urgent. I want time to keep getting better so I can enjoy the trip with my brother in March. I'm already feeling more positive from taking all the herbs and supplements instead of the Doc's nasty pills.

I'm also trying some new things that I didn't know about around when I last beat M.E. like Coconut Oil, it is so tasty and is energy boosting. Goji berries too. I'd never even heard of them till last year but was scared off by the price but they are so packed with goodness I'm taking them to get well enough for the March trip. I was trying to find organic ones with no success, then I found Detox Your World which said the 2007 harvest was contaminated with pesticides.

Their Goji Berry page was full of interesting information, like the fact that they grow in UK hedgerows! Not that I've noticed any in Scotland, but they have been naturalised in the UK for 300 years. I'll be planting some of my berries this year, I'll let you know if I have success. Apparently you mustn't pick them by hand, if you touch them they oxidise and go black, so you harvest them by shaking them off and drying them in the shade. One bush can yield 2kg of berries each year.

Colder than usual

Old lace in my sewing room

Got freaked out today, the Doctor's Surgery rang and told me to make an appointment to discuss my ultrasound results (they then refused to actually give me an appointment on account of their new system, have to ring at 8.30am and hope my call beats all the others that ring at the exact same time. But what freaked me was them calling. They never call, no matter how many tests I've had done they always give me the results when I am in for my normal appointment, which was happening next week anyway. Why have they called? Does this mean it's bad? During the scan the woman said it looked like polyps, and some can be cancerous, so naturally my mind has had a mini freakout about that. Hopefully that's not it, but I know a biopsy is likely and that alone is a stress I could do without thanks very much.


paint pot on my desk (rest of the desk is a mess!)

The other ongoing drama is that Mr P and I have become time travellers. With night-time temperatures dropping every night since Friday very worrying when his boiler broke last week. At first we were a bit freaked that now there wasn't even one of us with a warm house, but then we kind of got into the groove of it feeling like the 1970's when houses were cold and people stayed warm by wearing seasonally appropriate clothing. If nothing else it's eco friendly and at least the days have mostly been sunny. Rain is due Thursday onwards but presumably will bring with it milder night time temperatures.


Old fabric from my collection

Not that either of us bask in hot temps at home when we both have working heating. 16ºc is our average with 18º as a treat and 20º for Christmas and guests. Mr P has a wee oil filled radiator so we've been running that at 12º to stop the pipes bursting near the kitchen at night, but in the daytime it's off. It feels like camping, sleeping in thermals and wearing a woolly hat in bed. The cat, not having lived in the 70's, or even the 80's, is less impressed by the sudden chill and despite never having been keen on sleeping on people is now permanently attached to my hip of belly when I sleep and my lap if I'm sitting in the day.

White wallpieces with shadows

Still have lots of white work that never got shown in January, but just not got the focus for blogging much just now. Lisa, these ones are here with you in mind (Lisa and I love to work with shadows in our artwork).

*Update* Lisa is in a book! Read more here. Congratulations Lisa.
Also read an interview with her at Crafty Synergy.


Sarah Rebekah Byrd Mizer: thesis show, detail, glass and pins
Sarah created a wall covered in glass writing for her thesis exhibition. Absolutely amazing.


Guy Michael Davis: Branches detail


Gina Tibbott: Untitled, porcelain, 2007 via Project 4 Gallery

Tina Rose, the Acting Project Manager for Craftscotland at Collect has sent me these images and text on the work of Dierdre Nelson (thanks Tina). Dierdre is one of 13 Scottish artists who exhibited at Collect in January. I fist became aware of her work on her 2006 residency blog, and her later 2007 blog ( I collect thimbles so there was lots to like there).

During a residency in Australia textile artist Deirdre Nelson used the idea of a convict's love tokens, pierced coins left behind with loved ones, and pierced other objects, such as spoons, one of the few belongings convicts were allowed.


Deirdre Nelson: Liberty Spoons, plastic

'It is said that Blackwork embroidery was employed in order to disguise dirty fabrics and the bad hygiene of the Elizabethans.'

Inspired by this quote textile artist Dierdre Nelson created a hygiene kit for an Elizabethan for her exhibition ' The Dangers of Sewing and Knitting'.

Deirdre Nelson: Elizabethan hygiene kit and Elizabethan Nit Comb
found objects, linen stitched with silk and dental floss