Local Talent....

I have been spending a bit of time trying to get to know my Etsy account better and all the links and extras on offer on the site.
I recently discovered that from adding my location to my profile and then clicking on the link that it brings up all the shops on Etsy that are in the same location as you....brilliant!

There were 45 shops in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK at the time of searching and below are just a handful for you all to visit...

Still Tree Jewellery

Sitting On The Wall

Paperfaerie

Dolls and Molls

Handy Little Me

This is just a small selection with big variation....please visit their shops !

Illustration

Taken from my portfolio for my university final major project....where Lissi began.

Photo merged with an ink drawing, edited in photoshop.

I haven't drawn in over a year.....

Camera Crisis Over!

Would you believe that I found our prescious camera in a place I looked several times?!?!....the car.
It wasn't there when I looked and out it popped the other day.
So at least we don't have to bother purchasing a new one....well for now anyway!

Colourful Yarn!

Finally i have dug out my camera!!!
It is still quite a good picture taker so I'm happy I had held on to it.
Below is a mass of colourful yarn I was busy dyeing a couple of weeks ago for you all to see....

All together...

Golden Rod - Pale Sage, Limes and Lemons

Madder - Two-Tone, Peachy and Bright Oranges

Eucalyptus - Peachy and Two-Tone with Madder

Logwood - Pale Greens, Burgundy, Navy and Dark Navy

It was really interesting too see how different methods produced such variations.

I have recruited a couple of knitters (my mum and my gran!) to make a couple of knitted items that I hope to add to my collections from Autumn, and I shall be trying to teach myself back into it as I haven't knitted since I was young!

I will be adding the skeins to my shops from September, they are dyed in batches of twos weighing approximately 100gms each. Dye methods are repeated but cannot always guarantee exact matching colours.

Please get in touch if you would like to request a colour from above or would like more information.

Kitten Gone Home

The cute kitten has returned to it's owner!
After being with us for a week and having no response to notices and enquiries we were starting to think we had now adopted her (much to Rosie's dismay!), but it was the other night when some kids passing my garden asked if i'd seen a missing dog so in return I asked about anyone missing a kitten, and they knew someone. It's amazing how many people kids can know! So off they went to fetch the owner and the little yappy cuteness was handed over.
'Tinkerbell' was her name.
Hopefully she'll watch where she wonders from now on.

Still no sign of my camera. Lost forever. I must start looking for another as product listings and experiments look really dull if you can't see them!

Oh, I thought I'd lost my mobile last night too. Well I did for five hours. It was later found in the shed?!

Kitchen has been demolished and is slowly being rebuilt. It was hard living without an oven and a freezer before, but now even harder without a washing machine and sink too!
It will be all in by the weekend hopefully, then there's the finishings to do......

Lost and Found....

Lost...

I have lost my camera :(
It was the O.H's degree show on Friday night and I remember taking pictures of his display then I don't know where I put it! My bag wasn't big enough to house it so it was separate and now we are separated. Sniff.
It was a lovely Olympus one that we got at a really good price.
I have another older one to use but it is tucked away in a box still somewhere so who knows when we'll find that one!

Found...

We have found a kitten!
It was hanging around for a long time on Sunday and later on I saw it being tossed out of someones garden just as a bus went by.
We went out to comfort it and after much debate we have taken her in, fed and watered her and reported her as found to local shelters but no news yet.
She is very cute, very vocal too but too small to be out, she can only be six months at the most.
Rosie of course is not happy and does not want to socialise with anyone except me!

I have been busy dyeing yarn in many colours; oranges, blues, trying for yellow but it seems a bit mellow(!) and greens....hopefully when I find a camera I can post you all some pictures :)

Craft stall in about six weeks and I have so much to do.
The kitchen has arrived and is being fitted next week.
Time is not my friend of late!!!!

Summer Solstice Sunset

Our view over the rooftops from the back bedroom gave host to this fiery night sunset. It was quite spectacular!

Sad to think now though that the nights are gonna be longer and the days will get shorter, and that Christmas is no that far away...maybe I shouldn't have said that out load just yet!

The First of Many...

...yarn dyeing experiements!

From the left over stems of eucalyptus I had from testing out the new eco prints as previously posted about I now have my first samples of dyed yarn.

A couple of lovely shades of burnt oranges on DK Merino yarn, created solely from a eucalyptus dye pot.

What do you think? Would you wear these colours?.....

New Prints

Some quick photos of yesterdays experimenting with eco prints.

I was trying to create new designs to use in my greetings cards collection....

Apologies for the creases and various shades of white due to my camera settings!

Delayed...

Yes, sorry about the delay in getting these photos online!

Can someone please throw me some extra time though, as all of mine keeps getting swallowed up too quickly....

Anyhow, here's a few pic's of the festered silk.

As I said in my previous post the marks hadn't given the depth i'd hoped for but still make for some interesting viewing...

The Result

Well I did it, I opened the jar...

And it smelt terrible!

As you can see above, two months of damp rotting in a jar don't make for a pleasant exit.

Here she is airing away in the wind after a good rinse through

A quick close up of marks made from time in the jar.

I must say I had hoped for more, and now think I should have left it alone to fester a while longer!

I'm gonna post some clear photos of the details tomorrow as the rest of the day was spent decorating again...

Almost forgotten about...

...but it was probably for the best as now I am very tempted to open it up and see what (if anything) has been occuring in the jar for nearly two months!
Since we moved it had taken a very sunny position on the patio amongst some pots and has had a variety of weathers to contend with - a very sunny patio has at times been wet and gloomy, and I do believe we had frost at the beginning of May too. I'm hoping these four seasons in two months have produced some interesting marks on the piece of silk inside!

Maybe I will open it before the weekend is out.....

For those of you who have never seen this stuffed jar before you can find previous blogs here and here about the piece of silks journey so far.

Should I open it yet?!?.....

Sunset Boulevard

I found this image whilst rummaging through my backlog of photos....

It was taken from the flat we've just left behind a couple months ago.

The sky is very pretty...can't say that for the caravan!

Update...

I don't know where time has gone over the past few weeks since we moved but we have now been here for nearly a month! Can you believe it.

The house itself is still very much upside down, things are moving a lot slower since I went back to work (boo) but I have a couple of long weekends over the next couple of weeks (yay!) so hopefully be able to give the decorating a good push forward and empty more boxes. We did finally find the camera battery charger - it's just my other half now has it on him when I finally get chance to sit down here at the comp! I have a few pics to share about the joys of decorating and will show you all soon.

Although I am pretty busy I am desperately missing dyeing and experimenting! I have also booked a stall at a local country show in the craft tent in August so really need to start preparing for it now. It will be my first stall and I'm very excited. I would have loved to have committed to a few more over the next few months but I decided I am best not committing to too many at once and especially when I've just moved and got a house to straighten up and furnish! But it will be a good taster at stall life and hopefully be successful with interest too.

I've been editing a few photo's here and there too, below are the latest which will hopefully be listed in a shop over the next couple of days.....

Unfound Items....

Number 1) Camera Battery Charger.

Yes, it seems moving has caught up with us as we are now starting to wonder where certain (quite important) items have been packed and buried!

I have taken some pictures on the digi camera and now when I come to upload them the battery fails and I am stuck wondering which box the darn charger is in!

I suppose it should be the least of my worries at half past ten on a Sunday night while sat here with wet hair, a bed that is to be stripped and remade, and also still need to find some clothes to wear for work tomorrow.

The house has been upside down today. It was sanding day. Very messy. Very dusty. And very very hard to clean up! I was hoping to share some pictures of just how messy it was. and that I only finished cleaning it up at half eight, but they shall have to wait until the charger reappears as for now I really should dry my hair...

Night all, and happy week to you all x

p.s. I did manage to add a couple of new products on line over the weekend though...

Available at Folksy Shop

Available at Etsy Shop

Treasury Feature

Lissi's Naturally Dyed Peach Silk Scarf has been featured in a lovely treasury called 'One Perfect Summer Day'.

Please take a look here before it closes !

Back on the World Wide Web

Hello!

We have finally regained internet access after our move last weekend...I feel out of touch with things at the min and have been sat here for the past hour updating addresses and accounts which is now making me rather sleepy as I think this is the longest I have sat still since last Friday! So yes, fairly tired.

The move itself was tedious - just when i though i'd sorted everything i'd remember something else, then there was the cleaning, the handing over of the keys to the new tenant who was a pain in the backside, and now there's the decorating! We have made a start on our bedroom but I am having a day off from it today and decided to cut the grass and cut weeds that are poking through our back fence instead.

Tomorrow I have appointments at B&Q and Wickes to design some kitchen ideas - an expense we could do without but we desperately need the lopsided cupboards replacing and a working oven sooner than we thought - it's very hard doing a food shop when you can't use an oven! Thank the lord for finance options.

On Sunday I am heading home to Whitby to visit family for a couple of days - this had been booked well before we knew our moving date as it is my Mum's birthday at the beginning of May and although she is telling me not to bother I am as it has been nearly two months since we last met up already!

Then on Wednesday I shall return to work....we won't say too much about that.

As with regards to Lissi, I have now offically re-opened all online shops for people to peruse once again. I have started to add some products to my 'Buy Online' section on this blog so that people can be directed straight to a shop if they see something they like. I have also started added some dye samples imagery to the 'Gallery' section for a bit of interest too. I have photos of new products taken a couple of weeks ago to edit then I can add these products online to share with you all. Hopefully they should start to emerge within the next week or so when things (might) start to settle down.

It's good to be back!

Plaque By Aiden Crafts

Moving Day

So today is the day; boxes packed, still bits and bobs unpacked....where has it all come from?!?!

But the day has arrived and we'll be off to pick up the keys shortly....this will be my last post for a week or so as we are to be disconnected and await reconnection in our new house, which I have been told can take 1-2weeks - I don't know how I will cope without the world wide web for so long but maybe it will make me concentrate on the wallpaper striping, skirting board sandpapering etc a little better without it!

So i'll be back soon, hopefully with good tales to tell :) x

Happenings...

I have a couple of things to share...

Firstly, we are moving into our very own home on Friday! I have been keeping (fairly) quiet about buying our first house as I have quite honestly been nervous throughout the whole process! We made the offer at the end of January and thought we would have been moved a lot sooner as there are no chains etc but it's taken over three months and we're finally going.

We've started to pack up our belongings this past week and discovered that there is a lot to shift and that the five boxes I had already managed to collect barely stored anything once we got started!

Here's a picture of Rosie exhausted from it all....

Yes, she had managed to get cosy in a couple of stacked boxes and fall into a nice deep sleep...as you do. She has no idea what is happening and hopefully she will adjust well in her new home.

Secondly, on the crafting front, I have invested in a wee box of DK Merino yarn...only 4.5kgs!

I have been wanting to dye yarn for some time but due to lack of outside space I had resisted, but now we are moving and will have a front and back garden to play in I decided I would stock up ready to take the plunge! I am hoping to dye yarn to sell in skeins as well as making limited pieces for my Autumn and Winter collections.

I will keep you updated when I come to doing some colour tests!

Gold !

Using the same techniques and testings as in the Previous post ( A New Glow ) I experimented with a piece of silk that had been dyed using onion skins.

The silk had been boiled in the dye pot for 30mins to achieve a lovely warm peachy glow, as shown on the left hand side of the note pad below. Having used this shade in previous work I thought it would be good to carry on experimenting to see what other colours can be obtained, and mixed up some colour modifer solutions.

The results are as follows....

(left to right, top row - Soda Water; Iron Water; Copper & Vinegar Water; bottom row - Vinegar Water; Copper Water.)

The variety is really clear and I was quite surprised at all the lovely shades that came from the same dyed cloth! I fell for the gold shade which came from the Copper & Vinegar Water solution.

The rest of the silk was then modified and below are a couple of products awaiting photo styling before being added to my shops...

Golden Neck-Tie Silk Scarf

Golden Triangle Silk Scarf

Let me know what you think!