A Day at the Natural History Museum

Due to some health issues I haven't been out of the house much in the last couple of weeks. However I'd had a day out in London planned for a while so rather than waste the money that I had already spent I made myself go.

Spent the majority of the day at the Natural History Museum. I had my new camera with me but it's a tricky place to get pictures as lots of different lighting and reflections from the glass display cases. This is a picture of the main entrance hall, just as the museum was about to close, I love how the night sky and street lights light up the windows.

There is so much to see at the museum. There are lots of stuffed animals and birds in the historical collections, I find it pretty disturbing looking at them. This poor little chap in particular stole my heart, he looks so sad. All in all I had a fabulous day, and spent a long time giggling at various incarnations of myself in the fun mirrors.

Look forward to going back again soon.

Starting to make amends

After the sad frog disaster the other week, I have set about starting to make my garden a bit more wildlife friendly. I don't have a huge garden but there is stuff you can do even in the smallest space. I've started with something quick and easy. Some bird feeders scattered around the garden.

Having cats, you might think it's folly trying to attract birds to the garden, but my cats are mainly indoor types and don't tend to venture out too often, I've certainly never known them to catch anything. I also found something a bit more fitting to mark the froggies last resting place.

Feeling Blue

My attempts to get a bit more organised have failed at the first hurdle. After deciding on a to do list for the month, what is the first thing I go ahead and do? Well start a brand new, doesn't feature on the list, project of course.

Not entirely sure where this one will head, just needed something portable to take about with me when I'm on the move. Inspired by this over flowing tub of scraps that was just sitting on my desk....

I now have a whole pile of these...where will these go next I wonder?

Hearts and Flowers

February is the month of love, and there is plenty about my life to love at the moment. I love the fact that I finally dusted off my sewing machine again, and I love the fact that I have completed one thing from my February to do list already.

My hearts and flowers postcards are done. If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I've made hundreds of postcards in the past, but none for a while.

I started out with a scrap of felt and cut out some simple hearts.

The hearts then got needle felted, by hand, sadly I still haven't been able to afford to treat myself to an embellisher machine - it's still on my wish list though :)

The pink scraps from my 'new projects' post the other day then got put to use, and so did my sewing machine. After scraping off the thick layer of dust, I just about remembered how to thread it up! :) The finished cards look something like this.

It was great making a few of these mini creations again, like visiting an old friend :)

Listmania

Sadly my bout of insomnia is continuing, but all the extra hours in the day has meant that I have had plenty of time to wander the web, including some time spent looking at my own blog posts from the past. This has been a fun way of remembering things I've made over the years, some of which I'd totally forgotten about.

As the urge to stitch is emerging again, it's time to try and organise these random thoughts and ideas that keep popping in to my head, to try and make some order out of chaos. I used to do a weekly to do list, I don't think I'm committed enough again yet to trying to work on several projects a week, but thought I'd resurrect this idea in a monthly to do list. So here is my February list.

• Make Hearts and Flowers Postcards - after over a year without making a postcard I've signed up for a swap again.


• Work on blackbird piece - this is one of the things I started and showed in my new projects post the other day, not sure where this one is going yet, but we'll see.


• Make at least one crochet square - after declaring that I am going to try and teach myself crochet this year, a month has gone by and I haven't done a thing. As my first subscription package arrived the other day it's time to stop procrastinating!


• Siberian Gold - it's time to bring out the Tigers again. I need to get cracking on Mum's UFOs again.


• Dyeing - I'm going to dye up all those fabrics bought on my impromptu shopping trip last week.

I think that little lot should keep my busy. I guess this time next month we'll see how I got on :)

New Toy

A week or so ago I was really naughty and decided to treat myself to a new toy. I haven't really had much time to get to grips with it yet, there are so many modes and functions to try out, definitely more complicated than my old camera.

My old camera did me proud though, its been with me for several years and has captured some of the best times of my life but it was time for a change.

This is one of the first pictures I took with it. I used the 'Aquarium setting which is meant to help you shoot aquatic life with natural tones.I just loved the silly reflection in this one. I'm looking forward to getting out and about and putting my new toy through its paces. The thing I most love about it so far is that it lets you choose where in the frame you want to focus which is a definite plus point for a compact. I think I'm going to have lots of fun playing!

New Projects

With the bathroom cross stitch finished it's time to spread my wings and start something new. Trouble is once I got to playing I had so many ideas bubbling I couldn't just start one thing.so I now have 2 very different projects on the go.....
... and a work space which is now a mess of fabric and thread. Time to tidy up and get a bit more methodical.

I'm looking forward to seeing where these pieces take me.

Bathroom

Why did I need my eyelet hammer the other day? To put together my second finished project of 2010. Yes you read that right another project finished ... I'm actually on a stitching roll this year, lol.This one was a pretty quick make. I've always been attracted to the graphic design of different fonts used in alphabets and when I saw this project in a magazine last year, it got added to the 'I will do that one day' pile.

So after finishing Kai's mobile I wanted a little something that could be picked up and put down again whenever I had a few free minutes, this seemed to fit the bill.

Now its proudly hanging on the bathroom door, not that I have many visitors! I started it when I was at my sisters the other weekend, her one comment was 'well what's the point of that'. I guess my answer is really there isn't one, but wouldn't it be a sad place to live if everything had to have a purpose and meaning. Why can't we/things just 'be' from time to time. We could drive ourselves mad looking for reason and purpose in places where there is none, ask me how I know, lol.

Why is it...?

..that things that you have seen lying around at home for ages seem to disappear the minute you actually need them?

Yesterday I wanted my eyelet setting hammer, I was convinced that it should be in this pen tidy thing thats always on the desk. I was much perplexed when it wasn't there.

Could it have gone wandering of its own accord and be hiding amongst the stitching embellishments?

No, no sign of it there. Ah-ha what is that I see hiding behind the bead boxes...?

See I'm not completely mad, it was in the pen tidy as I thought, just not the one on the desk, lol.

Old Habits

Had to pop out and run a couple of errands in town yesterday. Although yesterday I told you all that my goal in the coming weeks is to declutter I couldn't resist a little bit of shopping. I guess old habits die hard!

I used to buy lots of magazine but have gotten out of the habit this last year or so while the creative urge just wasn't with me. While that is probably a good thing as money is in short supply at the moment, I just couldn't resist this one as I fell in love with the image on the free stamp. You can't see it too clearly but its a cute bird in a heart. I also popped in to the local fabric shop. It opened up sometime last year I think but I haven't been in in ages and it was nice to see how much the range of fabrics available has expanded. I bought some hessian, cotton, raw silk and muslin. I'm feeling to urge to do some dyeing so apart from the hessian these are destined to get a splash of colour at some point in the not too distant future.

Insomnia

Have been having some trouble sleeping the last few days and last night was the worst. I finally caught a few hours sleep at 6am!

Ever wondered what insomnia looks like? Well I guess everyone has their own particular brand but mine goes something like this....
Eggs and orange juice to stave off the munchies that kicked in at 4am. Lots of clock watching wondering when my brain would switch off and let me sleep.
Figured if I was going to be walking around like a zombie all day I may as well learn to act like one so not 1 but 3 zombie movies kept vigil with me :) My brand of insomnia of course involves some stitching......
....not as much as I would have liked though as the eyes start to play tricks on you and vision becomes blurred :) There is something to be said for all the extra hours of awake time. I'm trying to declutter and am being ruthless this time as I might need to move to a smaller place this year. This is 1 of 2 huge piles of stuff that I will be trying to find new homes for via eBay over the next few weeks.

Are there any other insomniacs out there? I'd love to see what your brand looks like :)
I'm happy to report that not everyone in the family has trouble sleeping and Pip took the opportunity of my absence from the bed to tuck himself in. :)

Beauty and Sadness

This is a slightly unusual and macabre blog post, definitely not my usual offering. But I'm feeling incredibly saddened by something that happened today and didn't want to let it pass by unmarked.

As it has been a dry if somewhat overcast day today I decided to venture out and do a bit of tidying up in the garden which has been sadly neglected over the last few months. I can't describe my sadness when I found not 1 but 4 beautiful but very dead frogs in the pond.

Even in death they look beautiful. I know frogs and toads aren't everyone's idea of pretty but I love all of the wonderful wildlife that is native to this island that is my home.

I am ashamed to say that although I find delight in spotting creatures of all shapes and sizes when out and about, I am very much ignorant when it comes to much of their habits and life cycles. I can only imagine that these poor fellows got trapped when the pond iced over. I feel an incredible sense of guilt about this. Having acknowledged in one of my very own blog posts not so long ago that the pond had iced over, why didn't I have the sense to go and break the ice? Would it have saved these poor creatures? I don't know.

All I know is that this poor face will haunt me for a while. Call me strange but I found it very traumatic fishing these guys out and was in tears by the end of it. I decided to bury them together in the garden, and for now have marked the site with one of my fairy toadstools.Tomorrow I will go out and look for something more fitting for a grave marker. I am resolved now to do more to encourage wildlife to my garden and to also look in to providing a safe environment for them to live in.

Farmyard Mobile

I'm pleased to say that I managed to get my stitching finished for baby Kai before my trip to see him last weekend.He's just over a month old now and I can't believe how much he's grown in the couple of weeks since I saw him last! The picture isn't great as it was a really grey day and as I finished it on the day I was leaving I didn't have time to wait for better light :) Stitching all the cute animals made me smile, I think the cows turned out to be my favourites.

White World

We've been snow free for a few days now but before the memories of world covered in white fade away there is just time to share a couple more snaps from another wonderful winter walk I took last week.

Some Stitching

I figured that after the last couple of snowy posts it was time for something creative again. Unfortunately I have been so busy playing in the snow I haven't had much time for stitching :)

I have been plugging away at my present for Kai though and am making steady progress.I'm visiting this weekend and there is still a lot to do so I'm not sure it will be done as I had hoped but I'm not giving up yet so watch this space.....