friends « Strands of Life

Rocking my world

April 23, 2009 at 10:36 pm (children, family life, friends, holidays)

On Easter Monday we packed ourselves up ( tight turnaround after EasterSchool given how busy Sunday was… all good practice!!) and did that traditional clergy (in training) post-Easter getaway!

We were on a narrowboat for 4 days with friends from church here for her 40th celebrations, with us were other friends of hers, he a vicar, also doing that post Easter escape thing! 6 adults, 11 children, 2 boats!

It was a lot of fun, the weather ( bar Thursday when it poured down) was gorgeous, the children, two groups of whom had never met before, were fantastic ( even Ben, source of much pre holiday angst for Mr FF, understandably, 3 year olds + boats = stress, but no, he was fantastic ) Keeping the close in age siblings on separate boats helped of course! 11, 12 and 13 girls on one, 8, 9 and 10 year olds on another – bliss! Feeding all 11 of them together on one boat was fun, but did enable the 6 adults to have civilised evenings together later.

Many locks ( 17 in one day on the Wednesday) and hot cross buns, cups of tea and glasses of wine later we parted company, the hosts to welcome more friends on board for the weekend, the rest of us back to real life (and in Mr Ff’s case to an early morning flight to Las Vegas). I’ve been home alone with all four for a week now, with a ski tan, post-motion vertigo ( hence the title!) and an essay to finish. I am pleased to report that the tan still exists, the PMV has almost worn off a week later, the essay is in the envelope and Mr Ff is at the airport

Assorted pictures follow – taken with an inadequate camera phone!

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Buttercups & daisies

March 27, 2009 at 11:54 pm (bags, friends, sewing)

I found this bag pattern via Jeanette at Lazy Seamstress. It’s from Made by Rae. I loved what Jeanette had done with it and I dug through my fabric to see what I had to have a play with. I found this lovely spring green daisy print , that if memory serves me right I got from Jeanette in the first place – left overs from a custom bag I made for one of her Zidee customers. I also found the small check gingham and thought they paired up quite well, there’s a vintage feel floating somewhere between the 1930s and the 1950s!!

I made a few minor alterations to the basic instructions – making the pocket in contrast fabric, and using the lining fabric for the inside of the strap. I also sewed the strap into the bag, enclosing the ends in the top seam, rather than sewing them onto the outside, I prefer the more streamlined look and it stood a better chance of looking neater that way! I interfaced the lining with fusible fleece as both fabrics were lighweight and it needed a bit of body – it’s a perfect weight.

Following JEanettes comments about it being tricky to get the tab neat (and one attempt per the instructions that would have passed muster just about but I was feeling picky) I sketched out the curved ended shape onto a slightly larger bit of fabric and sewed right round it – that was easier to manoeuvre than small curves on a small item, then I trimmed it, slashed the lining side and turned and topstitched it. It worked well, as a method. I could have made the straight sides a tad longer, to make it look less like an oval.

I do have a button dilemma though – I love the green flower buttons, they would be ideal in red, I may have to go shopping! The round red ones work well from a colour point of view, but are a little small and somehow with the gingham make it say Country & Western which wasn’t the look I was after!

Both the girls have now put in their orders and have been rootling through my stash – I love that it takes so little fabric, I do plan to make some more of these J Thank you Rae & Jeanette.

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Scrapping with felt & fibres

March 26, 2009 at 12:16 am (dyeing, fibres, friends, gifts)

Last month K a very good friend of mine turned 40 and as part of her present, her sister organised all her friends to make a scrapbook page for her, celebrating her life and the lovely person she is. I’ve never totally got into scrapbooking, being, as the evidence suggests, more of a fibre than a paper girl, so I decided to do a page with some felting and embroidery. Now K is an accomplished embroiderer, C&G and all that gorgeous stuff, so I was a bit mad I’m sure!

It turned out ok for someone with no training I think! The text is printed on cotton voile, it’s sheer but I’d love to find something even sheerer for stuff like this, the felt was hand felted and dyed with KoolAid, the embroidery is hand and free machine.

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new year…new?

January 2, 2009 at 10:54 pm (faith, family life, friends, journal)

January 1st is such an arbitrary date to start again or feel like things must cange from here on in – because our calendar changes then suddenly we’re all propelled into this idea that everything is going to be different, or we can start again. In truth we can do that any day of the year we like – One of the opening prayers in Morning Prayer says;

The night has passed and the day lies open before us; let us pray with one heart and one mind

and we are reminded in Lamentations 3:22-23;

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
      His mercies never cease.
  Great is his faithfulness;
      his mercies begin afresh each morning.

I always feel that September is more of a new year than January, it’s years and years of academic conditioning that’s done that, but also there is something about taking up the threads of life again after the summer months that resonates with people even if they are not tied to school terms either as a pupil, student, teacher or parent.

Often I find the days between Christmas & New Year really hard work, and this extends into New Year’s Eve & Day too, there is a peculiar kind of melancholy that can creep over one, I know it;s not just me because I’ve talked about it with friends too. This year it was wonderfully conspicuous by its absence, the whole holiday has been, though busy, also peaceful and restful. I wonder how much of it has to do with expectations? We had family here for Christmas, and had planned nothing for the days after and for New Year, we both felt that after this year we didn’t need to be planning a big dinner or a party or even leaving the house, it wasn’t going to matter if it was just us & Jools Holland on the 31st!

As it happened John & May called and said they were travelling back north then and could they come & stay over New Year, and it was lovely, the children got on well as ever, we ate well but not stressfully, we talked, we went for a walk yesterday. It was almost unplanned, and maybe all the better for it.

This doesn’t still explain the relaxed & peaceful approach to NY this year – I think that has more to do with being at peace with where I am and what I’m doing in life – sure it’s stressy ( essay deadlines….!) but it’s right where I’m supposed to be.

2008 has been a rough year in many ways, and also an amazingly brilliant one. It’s tempting to say; I hope 2009 is “more ordinary” or “better” or ” happier” but just because the numbers have clicked round once isn’t going to change anything, I can’t label a year. I just have to live each day whether it’s 31st December or January 1st, by His grace, and for His glory. That’s my challenge:-)

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wool felt & silk piece for M’s ordination

June 30, 2008 at 10:40 am (Church, dyeing, faith, fibres, friends, sewing)

This was made with a wool felt base dyed with various acid dyes , I added silk dyed with same shades, stitched into with various threads & metalics, I printed text from the ordination liturgy onto fabric and incorporated with sheers. Ideally I’d have printed onto a sheer but I didn;t have any ( on shopping list now!) Dove is made from undyed silk ( and has been flattened by scanner!)
it was really hard to photograph or scan!! I mounted it onto foam board that was covered with black fabric. You can see a high resolution version by clicking through to flickr and then choosing ” all sizes”.

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Send down the Holy Spirit….

June 29, 2008 at 10:02 pm (Church, faith, friends)

I love those words from the ordination service;

” Send down the Holy Spirit on your servant N
for the office and work of a priest in your Church.“

Not least because it was those words at the very first priesting of women in 1994 that God used to speak to me ( via the good old BBC) about what he wanted *me* to do too, and so here I am, preparing to start training to do just that.

Today was the priesting of a very special woman, M, who has been a real support to me over the last year, and in fact longer. she was the first person here that I spoke to about the possibility that I kind of might have been thinking that God was maybe possibly calling me to this too…! that was four years ago at the party after her ordination as deacon. Since I got serious about it last summer, she has been unfailingly supportive & encouraging. The service this morning in the Cathedral was fantastic , so full of joy and humour and God:-) I said to M afterwards that it was possibly the first ordination service that I have been to in ooh 20 years that I haven’t sat through arguing with God and myself! It was so lovely to be there knowing that I was in the right place on my journey, and to feel that peace – and also the excitement! The Cathedral was of course packed, even though there were only 8 to be ordained priest today. The sermon was excellent – 2 Corinthians 4 about being jars of clay. It was a great service, and it was also lovely to see some of the people who I’ve met with in the last year and to talk with them, that was very encouraging! One of them, who I had only had one meeting with back in January was so pleased I’d been recommended, and said how he’d felt at our meeting that it was the right thing for me! My vocations chaplain was also there and she was just fantastically encouraging too!

This evening M presided at communion for the first time, at our church, a full house, another very special service and a small party afterwards! Today was the first day that my recommendation had been officially announced too – I got a large space on the back of the pew leaflet !! so I had a lot of people wanting to talk to me about it! – it’s been a great day,

It’s hard being 10

June 28, 2008 at 9:06 am (children, friends)

and 8 too for that matter – I’ve been torn up this week because both my girls have been dealing with hard stuff, stuff I can listen to, stuff I can remember 30 odd years back too, but stuff I can’t take away from them & make it all better, stuff to do with learning how to get on with people, what to do when two of your friends can’t stand each other, stuff to do with feeling that actually all of them can’t stand you, and are just “being nice” to save your feelings. Most of all stuff about how they feel about themselves. Being a preteen is tough, not any tougher than it used to be perhaps I remember the last two years of primary school being pretty crummy to be honest. They’ll come through it, but there just are days you wish you could take it all away for them.

Lilies

June 24, 2008 at 8:41 pm (friends, gifts)

My friend E ( not the wedding E, another one!) brought these round on Friday to say well done! They were tightly closed then – but look at them now! They smell gorgeous too

lilies

Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

Luke 12:27

Bag for E

June 21, 2008 at 5:01 pm (friends, sewing)

Yesterday my friend E got married – It was a fab day which I’ll probably post about separately when I get my hands on some pictures of us all, but late yesterday I also got my hands on some of the offcuts from E’s dress and those of her bridesmaids (daughters and nieces) from our friend K who made them all.
This morning I created a late wedding present for E, which is now delivered.
I used the Ottobre pattern again. I used the organza overlay on the top panel, which echoed E’s dress which had the organza on the bodice. The lining is the pink of the bridesmaids’ dresses. The main fabric is a gorgeous latte colour and hopefully the bag will enable her to remember her gorgeous dress ( K is a real whizz..) even though she’s not wearing it!

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velvet bag

June 19, 2008 at 4:20 pm (friends, sewing)

I made this this mornig – bit of displacement activity, but it was on the urgent ” to do” list as we’re going to a wedding tomorrow evening! My dress is black with green spots.
I bought the devore from Ebay, it was ivory and I planned to dye it – the silk base took acid dye really well, but the pile was obviously not silk, so I double dyed it with a reactive dye to darken the pattern too. I was assuming it was a viscose, and it probably is!
( needless to say that wasn’t also this morning!)
The pattern is from Ottobre, and is really simple – but it was nice to know it would work first time.
I ummed & ahhed about the trim. The pattern calls for sewing it on in the flat, but I destroyed some of it trying to do that with the machine – too fragile so I left it to hand sew at the end if I thought it improved things. It was a close thing as the simple effect without it was lovely too, but I leant towards the trim, and a quick online straw poll confirmed it!

The lining is lilac dupion silk.

I wanted something fairly light coloured to avoid losing things in it, and though it isn’t visible in use I do love purple & green in combo!
I also made a quick box pouch to go with it,

for small essentials.

Now bring on the party – and Huge congratulations to E & J