Reef sculptures

  • reef series: Great white 1 detail
    discarded material sculptures

watch me on youtube

Coral Collective

  • A table with large drawer for storing extra packs.
    my crochet therapy project

Stockists & Exhibition links

STITCHIES

  • Mr Scratchy Stitchie
    Bad attitudes.
Blog powered by TypePad

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Dyeing, Carding and Spinning Frenzy


A few weekends ago, whilst left to my own devices, I went hell for leather on my dye box, drum carder and spinning wheel. It was almost obscene. In one weekend...
Picture 11
I chased away the grey clouds with some aquamarine...


Picture 13
fed my need for acid limes and vibrant purples.....


Picture 14
dyed up reds, pinks and oranges for my friends and people I wanted to thank.......

Picture 15
crashed ocean colours into seaside sedums....


Picture 16
captured the beach's tumbling pebbles' soft hues in my roving......


Picture 17
contrasted them with our Northern sky....


Picture 18 and woodland stumps...


Picture 19
analysed the strange lichens that grow under a bridge's rusty handrail.....


Picture 20
went hippy dippy and tried out all my new Landscape dyes.......


Picture 21
made my mouth water with boiled-sweet acids....


Picture 23 celebrated my love of spring bluebells....


Picture 24
spun emeralds...


Picture 27
and some of those soft rovings.....


Picture 29
be still my heart....
 
 

Thursday, March 12, 2009

St Patrick's Day Prize

Picture 31
There are  a few days left to enter the St Patrick's Day Celebration competition over on Ravelry.
Knit or crochet something 'Irish' themed (you may have something you've already made that's appropriate), upload your pic and you could win a massive hall.
I've donated just one of the prizes, but there's an embarrassing amount to win.
Picture 30
This is the 'Northern Irish Landscape' yarn that I donated.
It’s a blend of all the colours that I saw on my beach walk the other day; blues of the sky, browns of the earth, rust of metal, mossy grass, greys of petrified wood and slate, you get the idea.
It’s merino, blue-faced leicester, texel, banana, silk, silk waste and a few other bits for good measure. The skein is about 180g in weight.

Go on, you still have time to enter...

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Thursday's favourite things

Lady beachcomber that I am, I love picking up Mother Nature's little gifts of texture and colour.
So many of her combinations inspire my yarns and fibre mixtures.

Picture 33
The warm honeyed tones of a dried piece of kelp root beside a bleached sea potato and a sage-green urchin, ummmmmmm yum.
Picture 34
The slatey greys of a stone overwhelmed with soft, whipped-cream casts.
Picture 35

Picture 36 The soft, silky greens blending into pinky yellows on a piece of driftwood with a deep, rotted brown.

Picture 37

The bronzey, metallic charring of firewood against sugar-coated pebbles

Picture 39 The sprinklings of natural white deposits bursting on synthetic colours.

Picture 40 Warm hues of orangey, pinky, browny, reds melding into creamy, greys and green.

Picture 42 Zingy lime against white and brick.

And I love these things more because they almost turn my rather frightening cataract into a gently helpful  blending tool. My right-eye sight may be getting fuzzier by the week, but look what it does to the beautiful colour combos in my pocket.....

Picture 44

 

Friday, August 10, 2007

Rossnowlagh beach (say Ross-ny-luh)

Whilst the rest of the UK and Ireland was basking in the 30 degree heatwave last weekend, Norn Iron and the North of Ireland were being lashed by a violent downpour carying severe weather warnings. It was so bad that small creatures could be seen lining up, two by two, looking for beardy blokes with arks.

So what do normal people do in this weather? Well, chose to take a weekend beach holiday with friends, that's what! Fur-lined hoods in August? Grand!


Rossnowlagh_buoys_png

Togged up in my duvet-warm jacket and walking boots, we hit the beach, battling through loads of keen surfers. They obviously have goose grease coursing through their veins here, as they eagerly dived into the sea, trying to tame the icy-looking Atlantic waves, whilst we shivered on the shore.

The beachcombing for rubbish was great due to the weather churning everything up. (Bitter sweetness, as I would much prefer never to find any rubbish washed up.) I brought home loads of frayed rope and fishing debris that's now hanging in my garden being washed by further copious bouts of rain.

And beautiful jellyfish, too. I always want to scoop them up and put them back in the water. Sadly, most of them have normally been diced by passing ships etc. But this one was intact.

Rossnowlagh_jellyfish

If you want to find out more about Rossnowlagh and its kooky surfing history, then visit the gallery at
www.irelandsurfari.com/galleryevent.html I've never seen such long beards on a board.

Even the seaweed pays its homage to the grandaddys of Irish surfing.
Andys_seabeard

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Can you tell what it is yet?

Ahh, Sunday, nearly mid-day, middle of summer, on the beach. Just makes you want to strip down to your swimmers and leap in doesn't it?!

Img_2785

Even the sea anemones were closed up tight, clinging to their rocks and refusing to come out in the cold water.

But I got some great inspiration for felted seaweed and an even better hairdo, due to the heavy sea mist.

Norn Iron, we love you!

© COPYRIGHT

  • ALL CREATIONS AND CONTENT ON THIS SITE ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED. DO NOT COPY, LIFT PHOTOS OR USE IDEAS WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION FROM ME. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING MY WORK.
My Photo

My ETSY shop

MY CLEVER BUDDIES