Fir Cone Garlands

Christmas is coming,

The nut roast's getting fat,

Please put a penny in the old gardeners hat.

If you haven't got a penny

A fir cone will do,

If you haven't got a fir cone,

May god bless you.

Gather your kit. You can use natural fir cones, but I have some that I sprayed last winter. Any easy to use wire will do, as long as you can twist it tight with your fingers. One small orange box, well filled, will make a plumsiously packed garland of about 2.5m and will take about 2.30hrs to complete.

Wrap wire around each fir cone, near the base (usually about a quarter or a third of the way up from the base works the best), hiding it near the core of the cone. If your cones are very dry, they will be open which makes this easy. Twist the wire once or twice to secure and cut, leaving ends of 1 to 4cms long.

Keep half a meter/18" string at start and finish for tying up your garland. Twist the wires tightly onto your string, so that the fir cones don't slip up and down the string at all. Cut off the spare ends of wire and tuck in the tail end bits of wire.

Hang up, or spiral in a tree shaped pile. Run a string of lights through them for sparkle, and/or add other decorations to taste.

Failing all that, I have to admit that they do look good chucked loose into a bowl, after they've had a dash of spray. 

Blooming Marvellous

Come knit with me???

Anyone could join in, here, or at home. Enjoy the images that follow. No words.

I want to play - bring it on!

Rabbit

Here it is, The Rabbit!

You stick your hand in it,

and there you have it; one glove puppet for African children.


What? WHAT??
What did you think it was going to be
??????????
: )

PMC .... Silver Clay Workshop - Saturday 2.6.11

Been on this MAGICAL COURSE at KINGSHILL HOUSE, DURSLEY. Run by CLARE JOHN

Everything was ready when I got there. All I had to do was listen, watch, DO!

SILVER CLAY has to be manipulated into jewellery by using a few simple techniques.

Several steps,

using all kinds of tools,

gives us pieces that we might actually want to wear.

Up until this point the clay can always be reused! Even if it's been dried.

The pieces I made on the PMC (precious metal clay) course. Not perfect, but a start.

Once fired, the clay turns into silver - SILVER!!!!! 

Get on a course NOW! No previous experience needed!

How cool is this, after many years of silver and gold jewellery making, it all gets VERY SIMPLE.

WOW!!

Blanket for Baby

This little blanket is done. Well the truth is, I've finished the stripes. 

I like the look of the repeating stripes and the soft feel of these wools, all of which came from Emmaus, the local charity shop.

This is all the wool I have left over, Talk about cutting it fine. And, NO, there's NO lilac wool left - NONE AT ALL!

The final task is to knit a border on the 3 naked sides. I'll do this by transferring the stitches you can see on those safety pins, to a knitting needle and then knitting into each row as I work my way up each side.

I'm sure it'll be lovely when it's finished!

Lucky there's not a baby waiting for it!

Garden Glass

Garden glass ornaments are fun. I thought I'd like to learn how to make something using COPPER FOIL with CAROLINE LAMBERT at KINGSHILL HOUSE, DURSLEY. The class also worked in LEADING and FUSING. Pretty good for 30 quid plus materials.

First off, learn to cut glass. Then choose a design, then select the glass for the job, and get cutting.

File off the edges of the cut pieces - diamond sander, water cooled; wash the pieces. Then stick on the COPPER FOIL, overlapping the final end about quarter ins. Fold the free edges over and stick onto each face of the glass, fold the corners very neatly and burnish with an 'orange stick'.

Put on flux and then run solder over the copper foil. Do back, front, then the side edges.

If things get too hot, use a peg as a handle!
These pieces can now be attached to each other, or to copper pipe, or made ready to be hung up. Copper pipe needs to be cleaned with wire wool, washed and dried. Where the pieces are to go the pipe's then 'tinned' = covered with Gel flux and coated with solder. The pieces are then abutted and the joint/s are flooded with solder. Hey presto! a solid work of art.

Sadly, this one fell off. MORE HASTE, LESS SPEED.

The final result, even with the orange piece missing is pleasing and only cost about 7 quid for the materials. 
ABSOLUTE BARGAIN!


I really wish I could have spent a full day here, for less than 3 hours, from a standing start, this is AMAZING.

Hat Fit For A Kereen! - Wednesday 9.2.11

Oh how I love SOCK WOOL. You knit away, gormlessley, and lo, you create patterns. It's MAGIC!!

I'm using it to knit a hat for a friend. I have to admit to being a bit nervous as I reckon she wanted a rolled edge, rather than ribbed. Too late now : )

It took about 6 hours to do all the knitting. The sewing up took half an hour - a surprisingly long time, although that included FRENCH KNOTTING the flower onto the welt.

Looking down on the hat, it's quite a good look. Obviously the hat has longer rows than socks, so the patterns are not so even, which means the colours don't always match up too well when seaming. Hey Ho, I still like it.

The finished hat is the EPITOME OF SOPHISTICATION as you can see.