Wednesday 20 October 2010

Welcome to our home...

The lilies in the entrance hall are really beautiful today.



I love lilies. It is one of the few flowers which still has a smell. When the front door is open the breeze carries the fragrance through the whole house. I sit upstairs at my desk and I smell them...

Blackwork

I am trying my hand at blackwork...



watch this space...

Sunday 17 October 2010

Look what I found on the beach this morning...

Arabian Gulf sea snake (Hydrophis lapemoides)


Still very much alive! This is what the ARKive website has to say: Prey is caught by means of a swift bite, administering a highly toxic, fast-acting venom, which kills the victim and also breaks down its tissues to aid digestion. Despite the venom being highly toxic to humans, sea snakes are usually placid and present little threat.



Fish traps (gargoor) Traditionally made from palmbranches, these 'modern' ones are made from wire.



and of course a walk on the beach wouldn't be complete without a collection of shells...

Sunday 10 October 2010

Old t-shirts become new... what?

The boys are in that pre-teen phase of life where they grow so fast you can almost see them getting taller by the minute. It means their wardrobes needs adjusting on a regular basis.
During the summer I threw out loads of t-shirts which was to small, not worn enough to throw away, but not new enough to pass on either. So I had to find another use for them.

I decided to cut them into strips to make 'yarn'. I found a tutorial on Instructables (I really searched but I can't find the link anymore!) on how to cut a t-shirt into a continious strip.


Soon the pile of t-shirts turned into a pile of yarn-balls.


The balls sat around my work table for a month or so as I did not have a hook big enough for the thickness of the yarn.


But today I finally got around to trying out my new 10mm hook. Now I have a t-shirt-yarn hexagon. It feels thick and strong but also soft and plyable at the same time.


So what will it become? Any suggestions?

Tin Can Stars Update

It's 1 year and 4 months since I made the Tin Can Star hanging. It has been hanging outside our front door ever since. This is what it looked like new:



Now after a harsh desert summer it has faded and looks like this:



It never gets direct sunlight but obviously the glare of the sun off the white walls has done some damage. The aluminium doesn't rust but some of the metal beads and crimps does.

It's interesting to see how some colours are more fade resistant than others. The red has suffered the most. The greens and yellows are still fine...

Monday 4 October 2010

So true...

Running out of thread when there's only four more stitches to go is one of the Absolutes in the Life of a Stitcher.



I can relate...