Friday, December 17, 2004
I hate ......
being sick! I managed to catch a particularily virulent strain of flu, which flattened me completely. Being the generous soul I am, I gave it to Gary, so both of us were bedridden, coughing and spluttering and wishing the world would just go away. We then both got bronchitis, so it's only this week that I've been up and about again. Gary went back to work in the middle of last week, but he should have stayed off a bit longer as the first couple of days really took it out of him.
Having got most of my Christmas shopping over and done with early (fortunately) it's a week to go and I'm still not finished. I still have to find presents for my 'm-i-l', and eldest and youngest daughters. The problem is, I have absolutely no idea what to get them and none of them have been any help. Not getting any hints, I've asked them all outright what they want and have got "I don't know" from all of them! Not being out and about, I haven't even seen anything that might be suitable.
I bought calendars to send to the family back in South Africa and have no idea where they've disappeared to. I hope they haven't gone the same way as the crackers we bought two years ago. We bought them early, put them somewhere safe and we've never seen them again! Hopefully they're under the bed with all the other presents. I'd wanted to get them off early, but so much for that idea!
My 'angelita' is thrilled with her presents and I received a lovely crochet chatelaine, with a pair of stork scissors and a pack of super rayon threads. I've not seen any like this before, some of them are varigated. I'm a total threadaholic, so all contributions to my collection are gratefully received! I love the sheen of rayons and don't mind working with them.
I haven't done much embroidery for obvious reasons. There's been a lot of talk on various blogs about dyed fabric. I tend to do my own backgrounds, mostly with silk paints, using salt to create various effects. My latest piece with the arch was tea dyed, but the other layers have been done with silk paints.
My s-i-l and I once experimented with vegetable dying and made up lap quilts with the resulting fabric. The results were some lovely soft colours and I'm tempted to try again with threads, which will result in some different colours, as we don't have the same vegetation here! One interesting fact was, beetroot didn't work, which is surprising when you consider the stains that pickled beetroot makes on white tablescloths!
Moo
Having got most of my Christmas shopping over and done with early (fortunately) it's a week to go and I'm still not finished. I still have to find presents for my 'm-i-l', and eldest and youngest daughters. The problem is, I have absolutely no idea what to get them and none of them have been any help. Not getting any hints, I've asked them all outright what they want and have got "I don't know" from all of them! Not being out and about, I haven't even seen anything that might be suitable.
I bought calendars to send to the family back in South Africa and have no idea where they've disappeared to. I hope they haven't gone the same way as the crackers we bought two years ago. We bought them early, put them somewhere safe and we've never seen them again! Hopefully they're under the bed with all the other presents. I'd wanted to get them off early, but so much for that idea!
My 'angelita' is thrilled with her presents and I received a lovely crochet chatelaine, with a pair of stork scissors and a pack of super rayon threads. I've not seen any like this before, some of them are varigated. I'm a total threadaholic, so all contributions to my collection are gratefully received! I love the sheen of rayons and don't mind working with them.
I haven't done much embroidery for obvious reasons. There's been a lot of talk on various blogs about dyed fabric. I tend to do my own backgrounds, mostly with silk paints, using salt to create various effects. My latest piece with the arch was tea dyed, but the other layers have been done with silk paints.
My s-i-l and I once experimented with vegetable dying and made up lap quilts with the resulting fabric. The results were some lovely soft colours and I'm tempted to try again with threads, which will result in some different colours, as we don't have the same vegetation here! One interesting fact was, beetroot didn't work, which is surprising when you consider the stains that pickled beetroot makes on white tablescloths!
Moo
