Spot the difference ....

In this latest round of Secret Pal, Shelby has asked us to show our stashes to the world.

Now this takes me back to October 2005, when stashes were being shown before, and here comes the contest.

Spot the difference!

This is what I first see when I sit up in the morning.

Above you see the view I had in October 2005, below is what I saw this morning.

Neither of the images is greatly in focus, but they give the gist.

Now don't get the idea that this is all of my yarn, this is just the acceptable face of it.

I already had a tendency to hoard all sorts of odd balls of yarn, but felt quite justified when Kaffe Fassett gave a talk in Cambridge sometime back in the '80s (I think), and suggested that we should have a palette of colour to work with.

These two images are much the same. Occasionally, I go looking for something, and it all gets changed around.

Sometimes I use some, and then fill up the gaps.

Either way, it is a treat to see this from bed.

The shelving came from a shop in Cambridge, Anne Rowena, some years ago.

Cheekily, I had once told the the staff there that if they ever got rid of their pigeonholes I'd be interested in having them.

Naturally, our loft is also well insulated with yarn!

Departing ... and ... returning

Departing ...

The Brooklands School, has been sold and is being demolished.

As far as I have heard no planning application has yet been lodged with the council, so soon there will be an empty site. It will make my journey into the town centre much less interesting.

Ever since I was at art college in 1995 and started sketching I have meant to spend a little time standing in the street to sketch the rooftop decorations on Brooklands School.

Well, I haven't done so, and may not be able to do so, as this photo was taken at 09.45 today.

They may not still be there tomorrow.

Fortunately, I was able to stop on the way to my lip-reading class, park my bicycle and whip out a camera. It was too damp for sketching. See what happens when you put things off!

The skies were grey and threatening rain, but made a good backdrop.

The roofline was quite dramatic, with two different decorations.

This slender decoration ran across the Tamworth Road end, while this one was set back, part way through the building.

Until Friday there was also a small metal turret vent placed on the three raised parts to the left of the above picture.

Returning ...We had a little rain today. Barely enough to wet the ground, but the first for weeks.

With it came the return of the snails and slugs.

These two pretty little things were up near the house, well away from our baby vegetables.

But I did have to remove a couple from the inside of the greenhouse.
Time to get vigilant!

A great start to SP10 ...

I may have fallen foul of the rules here, as I forgot to photograph and blog about this.

This is the inspiring start to SP10 (received last week):

Chocolate that has such a high cocoa content that no-one else I know will want to compete in eating it.

I can't eat much at a time, so will get a lot of pleasure from it.

Also a lovely tower containing beads, with some great colours, in a size that could be used for so many different things.

I am enjoying this exchange so far!

Accepted ... once more

It nearly didn't happen!

I only saw that there was a Cedric Ford exhibition again this year on the first day for submission of items.

With a bit of effort, I got an entry together, and delivered the next day.

Late last week I heard that it has been accepted.

This time I have much a larger porcelain element with a hand-felted (wet felted) centre, suspended on a stainless steel pin.

This is the best image I have of it, during its construction.

This is the first piece where I marry wet-felting and porcelain in jewellery.

The fibres used are predominantly two shades of scarlet cut with a razor to show off a vivid velvety surface deep inside the "bone".

Rushing around

Last week, as you know was a bit hectic.
On Tuesday I went over to Newark to Crafty Notions for some wool fibres for spinning, for the Art Room.
Talking to Sarah shortly after I arrived, we found out various people we both know.

As a result, on Thursday when I went to the stitching show at the NEC, I took a small parcel to Yvonne.
She was surprised to receive some boucle yarn that was barely dry from the dyepot.

In turn Sue brought me a lovely surprise, a paper bag containing some "Smile" seed potatoes.
It was good to see the other Sue too.

I finally bought one of Ziggy's lucets. I see him regularly at the shows.
This time he was within sight of our stand.
Haven't had time to try it out yet though.

Leaving later than usual worked out well.
The show closed to the public at 17.30, and we stood around relaxing for a bit before dispersing.
My train connections were easy.
But best of all, on the train from Birmingham to Derby the men next to me opened a bottle of red wine, and offered me some!
I've never had that happen before.

Thursday was over in a rush, and I was back to the Art Room on Friday and Saturday to prepare for our first anniversary opening on Sunday.

Sunday was a very busy day. It went by in blur