One for me and one for her

I finally finished my next tapestry. This one is a strange one. It is sold as a Brigantia Needlework Inca Cushion Tapestry Kit. However, it is only 7 count mesh and the wool is quite thick. What you do is make a cross stitch rather than a tapestry stitch. A tapestry stitch is when you go from bottom left to top right across a join in the grid (or the other way round). With this one, you do both so you make a cross over every join. This makes for a very thick result. I made a mistake and didn't cotton onto the fact that you have to go the same way all the time; i.e. you must do the bottomleft to top right first everytime. Otherwise the texture is all jumbed. i did this wrong and had to undo a lot of stitches at the beginning.

the other difference is that the pattern on the backing is spot on accurate - you get a proper colour hit on every cross so you get an accurate pattern.


 However, I found it quite boring to do. With the other tapestries that I have done, the picture on the grid is not accurate so you always have to interpret a bit. With this, the thinking is done for you.


Never mind, it has come out very nice and the colours are very rich.


Valerie has just finished another puzzle with her father. They meet every Tuesday night and do a joint puzzle - I meanwhile drink a bottle of wine - grin. This puzzle is of Valerie's favourite place on earth (no not Hawaii) - Lyme Regis.

Valerie finished "Grandad's Workshop"

She really enjoyed doing this jigsaw

Concertina internals

I bought a new concertina recently. It is a 20key C/G Lachenal Anglo if that means anything to you? What it means is that is plays in the key of C and G but has no accidentals. It plays different notes on the draw from the push. The serial number indicates that it was built around 1882 - 1885! Not bad for £300.

 

When it arrived it had a stuck pad so under instruction from the vendor, I opened it up and fixed it. Today, one of the pads stuck so I took the opportunity to takes some photos of the insides. As you can see, it is nicely put together with leather inserts. It obviously has had new pads, thank goodness.

Weather Station

For those of you who don't know, we run a real-time weather station web page from our home web site.

This is based upon a Davis weather station and WeatherDisplay software.

You will need Flash to  see it so no good for you iPad/iPhone users (did I mention that my iPad came on Wednesday!). However, I am working on getting a non-Flash version working soon.

It is available from our One Rose Cottage web site

This is what it looks like

Touching Base

No pictures but an update on where things are.

Valerie and her Dad have finished another jigsaw - no pictures because, after I had processed the photos ready for her Jigsaw photo frame, I deleted all those on my camera before I had copied them over! My jigsaw is also going quire slowly.

I am currently halfway through the cross stitch Inca tapestry. The Evening Star one is more difficult to do - I am making progress but slowly.

Concertina - been a bit on hold this week. I got very depressed about the quality of my instrument. Went for a couple of Lachenal instruments on Ebay and missed them. The next time I will have £325 spare is sometime in May so I have found it hard to keep going on the one I have. Doesn't make sense as it has got me here but...

Tin Whistle. I have spent the practice time this week on the whistke and it is slowly improving. I must sit down and record some videos so that I can benchmark all of this.

I will do some photos and some videos ASAP.

Tapestry Update - 1

Some time ago, when we were getting used to the idea of not having a television in the house, I mentioned that I was getting a bit bored. Valerie suggested that I finish something that she had spent a good bit of money and but wasn't able to get to grips with. This turned out to be a tapestry for a cushion - with Shaker patterns. As I have taken an interest in Shaker furniture in the past, this seemed like a good project, once I had got my head around 'doing sewing' - is that a man activity? It turns out that it is very popular with men.

I completed the Shaker cushion last December. Here is the finished article and a close up of some of the detail.

As this was a reasonable success, I deceided to have a go at something a little more complex so we bought another kit for a Winter Village Scene. I started this in December and finished it last night. Here is the finished article and a detail shot.

My next project is much more complex and larger. Firstly, it will not fit onto the table top frame I have - it will need a floor standing frame. Secondly, it is a much more complex image and requires that the final shape of the image is correct. I must explain. As no-one knows what the village scene should look like, I had some freedom in the final details. In the one to come, the image is well known and any variance will spoil the finished article.

The project is of the Evening Star Loco  leaving a main line terminus and is 15" x 30" in size.

Now you see why I must get it right. Anything out of shape and it won't even look like a steam engine!

I will post progress photos.

Jigsaw Update - 1

Jigsaws aren't specifically my hobby. Valerie is a much more ardent puzzler than me so this part of the Blog will cover her activities as well.

I can't go back in time as we have done a large number of puzzles over the last two years. This is the stash we currently have - Valerie will not dispose of any puzzle!



So what is the latest one? Valerie finished this one last night - titled 'The Last Post' and is 1,000 pieces.

Valerie always used to stick to 500 piece puzzles when doing them on her own but she has got better and quicker so she has moved up in size. She also spends every Tuesday evening doing a puzzle with her father (who is 90years old!). You will see those as they finish.

I also generally have a puzzle on the go. Some time ago I completed a pair of 1,000 piecers showing a single farmyard in two seasons - called 'Always On The Go'. I have recently started the other pair of puzzles for the series - titled 'Never A Dull Moment'. However, this has probably two or so weeks to go.