.....new blog!

As it's a new year I've decided to start a new blog combining my three passions of old things, textile art and photography.

So to follow my story from now on please visit:

https://walklookstopseephotograph.wordpress.com/

Here's to a great 2015!

Loll
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.....Happy New Year!

....Fibre East 2014!

As the name of my blog suggests I have a bit of a passion for all things wooly. I normally have to indulge this love by filling my wardrobe with hand knitted and crocheted garments. Occasionally I try and find the time to indulge it through my other passion, crafting. I'm a bit naughty and get caught up with trying to learn too many wool related crafts at the same time. I decided, during a recent clearout of my summer house, that I needed to pick my favourites and try and stick to them. I finally settled on weaving, felting and a little bit of simple crochet. 

In honour of this decision I recently made a trip over to Northampton to have a day of fun at a local fibre festival called Fibre East 2014 with my mum and sister. They both love to knit so when my sister found out about the event we all had to go and see what was on offer. 

It was a thankfully lovely sunny, if a bit too hot, day and the event was being held in a few marquees in a school grounds. 

We had a lovely day and had the additional treat of the school having a little animal farm with the cutest little pigs .....and oddly just one little duckling!

The highlight of the day was a travelling sheep show called The Sheer Sheep Experience. A very apt looking Australian introduced us to 7 different breeds of British sheep and went on to explain more about their individual wool properties and uses. He then showed us the proper way to sheer a sheep without causing the animal too much trauma. 

It was a super hot day so my mum and sister decided to shelter under some second hand knitting books my sister had just bought. Very ingenious but they did look a bit silly! :)

My favourite stall was full of very intricate needle felted animals and miniature clothing made by Jenny Barnett. I'd love to go on one of her workshops but unfortunately she's based in Cheshire so a bit far away. Jenny's work is so cute and detailed and it definitely inspired me to practice more with my felting. 

The event had some great knitted decoration scattered about the venue like this cute spinning wheel covered with knitting to make it look like a horse.

It was such a great event and was a huge inspiration encouraging me to spend more time crafting. I picked up a few goodies but was very restrained for a change!

Bye for now!

.....Bibliography!

Today is my day off work and I'm having a bit of a "me" day at home. The weather's miserable so have decided to spend the day catching up with my blogging, getting a bit creative with my sketchbook and spring cleaning my wardrobe.

First task is underway writing this post on my much neglected blog! 

I will happily admit I am a complete kindle convert since I received a Kindle Paper White for my birthday last year but I have always been a complete Bibliophile and have a particular passion for old and interesting books. I have the best of both worlds and can see the benefits with both options. 

I have a few select old books on display in our living room which are my particular favourites. 

I love anything to do with Fairies so these below had to be part of my collection.

One of my book wardens

  

An obvious favourite of mine are old Ladybird books and here are some of my faves. The 1st edition British Wild Flowers book from 1957 is a recent charity shop find and has pride of place on the shelf. The Little Mermaid was a favourite of mine when I was a child so this is a very treasured item. 

I love the inside cover illustrations in Ladybird books, so much so that I even have a tattoo on my ribs of a pixie line drawing that I found in one!

I have a bit of a secret passion for architectural drawings and in particular engravings and etchings. My recent prize charity shop find had to be these two Modern Masters of Etching books from the 1920s. They have some stunning plates and have given me great inspiration to combine this imagery with my love for machine embroidery. Today I'm going to be having a play in my sketch book with some ideas on how to take this further. 

To create a bit of balance on the bookcase I have a few shelves of more educational books (handy for me in my job as an Antiques Auction Assistant) about all things antique and collectable from vintage clothing & jewellery to furniture & pottery. I struggle to go into a bookshop without coming out with some sort of book on collectables but the shelves are jammed full now so no more for me!

I'm off now to tick off some more to do list tasks so see you again soon!

 

........New Year!

Firstly I need to apologise for my lack of posting recently. It's been a hectic few months. Now we're into 2014 I wanted to share some new things in my life. 

I've always been a keen but amateur photographer and so I wanted to expand my limited skills. Our automatic compact Canon camera didn't give me enough options so I started looking into the next step. I didn't want to go too crazy by going straight for a professional camera with changeable lenses so I settled on the brilliant Sony HX-50 which has all the manual settings plus some clever intelligent automatic settings. After settling on this model my lovely partner Tom decided I could have it as my Christmas present so I've been very spoilt. 

So far I've had great fun playing with all the different settings and effects so here are a few of my experimental shots.  

 

As always one of my New Years Resolutions (or as I like to call them Lifestyle Changes) is to get fitter, and hopefully thinner, so have taken up jogging and am keen to do more walking. Last weekend we took a trip to Gloucester Quays Designer Outlet where there is a great The North Face discount shop. I've been after a warmer walking jacket that wasn't too bulky and was very lucky to find a lovely summit series windtopper soft shell which was less than half price! As a good test we decided to head up The Malverns on Sunday with Toby. It turned out to be a very good test as it turned out to be the weekend we had up to 100mph winds battering the country! The jacket was a huge success thankfully and I'm now much more confident to get out there in any weather and enjoy the outdoors. I obviously took along my new toy and played with some more photo effects.

As everyone is aware Worcester is currently going through an awful time with the River Severn bursting its banks and flooding most of the City Centre. Water levels have exceeded those of the awful flooding of 2007 and it has caused chaos with roads and bridges being closed most of this week.

As nosy residents we couldn't let all this go on without going down to the river to see it for ourselves. Again I took my trusty new camera!

Bye for now!