WOYWW 439

I’m sorry to have been AWOL recently, but my ME problems have been ongoing, and I’ve been alternating between busy days when I’ve kept going, and less busy days when I’ve crashed out unable to do much of anything! No change on the desk, just stuff still out for the ongoing project, the Infusions mini-album which I wonder if I’ll even get finished this year!

A week ago we had our regular cancer Cakeathon meeting, and I managed to do some baking for that, so here are some foodie photos to keep you going. I made an apple cinnamon twist loaf from a recipe I found on Pinterest and it was a huuuuge success – definitely one to make again! It went down very well.

Here is the loaf out of the oven with its dusting of icing sugar, ready to be cut, photographed on my grandmother’s lovely old bread board, together with her antique knife with its bone handle carved into a corn cob.

When it’s cut, you can see how the twists give a marbled effect.

The filling consists of a spread of apple butter and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. Deeeelicious!

Here’s a small tub of the remaining apple butter. I’ve never made this before, and it’s really easy to make, and very tasty.

I found several recipes online, most of which are stuffed with sugar and/or maple syrup, but I made mine from a sugar-free recipe – the apples off our tree are so sweet that the healthy option is fine. At final count, we got about 35 lb of apples this year! I’ve got several large bags of sliced apple in the freezer to use throughout the year.

Kittens

Can you believe that our kittens are now five months old? How quickly the time passes! They are getting so big now, and Lily especially is getting quite a grown-up look, although to my eyes, Ruby still has her baby face! Long may that continue… I simply adore that kitty! A few weeks ago, Lily suddenly developed a really soft fluffy coat which is absolutely fabulous. My hubby is thrilled because he really misses Beatrice’s fluffiness which was legendary – she never grew out of kitten fur! Lily has definitely adopted my hubby, and Ruby is my baby.

We have moved the big cat tree back into the flat. They behave so badly in our sitting room that for now they are banned unless under the strictest supervision, and so they were unable to use the cat tree while it was still in there. Now, it is in constant use. They love it because they can be high up (as all cats like to be), and it’s nice and soft, and they can sleep on it. It has lots of interesting platforms and little houses on it, as well as dangly mice to play with, so it’s been a huge success.

Here’s Lily in one of the little houses.

Ruby being queen of the castle, right on top.

The two of them.

This latest one, taken today. Not much room for both of them on one platform – Lily’s leg is hanging down, and just after this, Ruby nearly fell off! (Note the curtains still tied up – a preventative measure against kittens climbing them!!)

They get really warm when they’re snuggled up together like that.

The other day I found them acting like two naughty little bookends on the flat kitchen windowsill. They’ve just got to the stage when they can jump up onto the kitchen worktops so absolutely nothing is safe from them now!

They continue to be very affectionate and relaxed and happy. They have now had their booster inoculations, and sometime during this coming month they will have to be spayed, or as my hubby calls it, “having their squeaks removed” – for little boy kitties it’s “having their pockets picked” lol!

I was hoping to get some art done this week but again I have failed. Apart from not feeling well, I’ve been very busy preparing sessions for my Bible study group which meets weekly – this is something I can do from the comfort of the recliner and in addition to all the research, it does involve a certain amount of creativity in the form of the PowerPoint slides I prepare, which I try to make artistically.

Diet

I have now reached my target weight!!!!! Yaaaayyy!!!!! I shall continue with the 5:2 in order to maintain it from now on, which shouldn’t be hard, as it’s a way of life for me now. Since I started in the summer of 2014 (stopping for most of 2015 while I was being treated for my cancer) I have lost 4 1/2 stone (63 lb) and lost 10 inches around my waist. I hardly recognise myself these days. It’s so lovely being able to wear some of my old clothes again, that I could never bear to part with, and also have an excuse to buy some new ones! If I can do this, especially as I can’t take exercise to burn off excess weight so it’s been by diet alone, then anyone can do it!

Health Update

I’ve been experiencing some pain from my parastomal hernia which the recent CT scan showed had definitely returned, so I phoned the hospital yesterday. My surgeon’s secretary couldn’t tell me exactly when my appointment would be, as appointments are dealt with by a separate department, but she thought it should definitely be in November, and if I hadn’t heard anything in a week to ten days, to phone again. She said she would pass on the fact that I was getting some pain – when I last saw my surgeon, he told me to phone his secretary if this happened, or if I had any other concerns. She told me that of course, if I developed another blockage, I must go straight to A&E – I said I knew to do this, but it was something I wanted to avoid because I wanted my own surgeon to deal with it and not have anyone else messing around with it like at the beginning of the year. I am hoping that when I see him, he will finally agree to fix it properly and insert some mesh to reinforce it. I’m not happy being in this limbo state. I’ve also got an oncology appointment in November, which should mark my 2-year all-clear – all being well, this will mean that for the next 3 years she will only need to see me once a year instead of every six months, and after that I’ll be discharged! Obviously as far as the stoma is concerned, they will continue to keep an eye on things and be available if I have any problems – all last year I was fine, and thought that was it, but then everything went pear-shaped at the beginning of this year which just goes to show you can never anticipate what might happen! Life is never dull, that’s for sure.

A couple of funnies I found this week on Pinterest:

This one sums up my current brainfogged state:

WOYWW 437

My desk late Tuesday night.

Not a great deal going on – all my distress inks, Infusions etc. are still out for the ongoing Infusions Mini-Album project.

On Monday I did manage to make some cards because my stash had pretty well run out. Not my favourite activity – more of a chore than a pleasure and I wasn’t terribly happy with the result but I ended up with half a dozen passable ones that will be useful for upcoming birthdays.

I’m still very up and down with my ME, alternating between busy days when I manage to keep going and don’t feel too bad at all, and then rest days when I just crash out. It means I get behind with stuff that needs doing and it’s a bit frustrating! We both seem to be quite busy at the moment.

I had a really really lovely day on Saturday when Margaret (glitterandglue) spent the whole day with me! She was coming down to Devon for a Pergamano course and arrived a couple of days before it was due to begin, and she was able to come and visit! I so value these opportunities to meet fellow WOYWW-ers because being down in the SW we are a bit cut off and not being able to travel much, I rarely get the chances others get for crops etc. Here is Margaret with some of her absolutely stunning Pergamano work.

I think she was hoping to get me going on it but seeing how incredibly fine and detailed it is, and how very time-consuming, I didn’t think it was for me, despite the beauty of the results.

The kittens are getting so big now. They are now nearly 5 months old! They weren’t very impressed with me yesterday morning and one day last week because I shut them in the bathroom for several hours while the electrician was here doing some work. They are very lively and also very loving – especially Ruby with me. She comes running to me and when I pick her up, she purrs and purrs.

Here are the latest videos of them – Ruby attacking one of my hubby’s new slippers, and then both of them having fun playing with a leaf. So much for the expensive toys we bought for them, which they never touch!!

 

Our apples from our tree have finally come to an end. We have sliced and frozen 5 big bags of them, each containing over 6 lb of apples, so this year’s yield has been well over 30 lb! I’ve got 3 lb of them in the slow cooker at this moment – I’m in the process of my first attempt at making apple butter from a recipe I found online. I want to cook an apple cinnamon loaf for our monthly Cakeathon meeting for our cancer group this Friday. I’ll try and take some photos of it if it’s successful!

Card Factory 2017

My stash of cards had pretty well run out so I really had to get down to making some more. I’ve decided I don’t really enjoy card making that much, so it’s a bit of a chore but I haven’t quite got to the stage when I’ve given up altogether and resorted to buying them!

Rather than falling into my usual trap of turning each card into a major work of art and taking far too long over it, I kept these ones simple. I shall continue to make special cards when the occasion demands, but the limited time I have available to spend in the studio (dictated by busyness elsewhere, and being too fatigued to do anything) is now dedicated to art projects I actually want to do, such as mixed media, books, experimenting with materials, etc.

Today I made seven cards. Six were more or less identical and were on a production line basis, and the other was a one-off which I made for our neighbour whose birthday is today.

I really struggled with these! Such a simple project, but if anything could go wrong, it did… I was feeling a bit brainfogged which really doesn’t help, and I made quite a few mistakes which were not able to be remedied unless I started again, so I pressed on. As a result, they are not my best effort!

I began by making a circular mask. Rather than setting the cutting machine up (couldn’t be bothered – too tired!!), I cut a 2-inch circle with a punch, which of course had to cut quite near the edge of the paper, so I stuck this with a glue stick to a larger piece, out of which I had cut a rough circle, larger than the punched circle. This is the back of it.

Turning it over, it provided enough margin not to allow anything to stray beyond the edges.

I had a couple of abortive attempts. I sprinkled Infusions (The Sage from set 1) through the mask onto two of the sheets I’d cut for the card toppers. In order to get enough coverage, they came out much too dark to stamp on. The one on the right was slightly lighter, and I thought I’d run over it lightly with a wet brush to make the texture smoother, but this was a disaster. Bin time.

It was hard to know what order to post the photos in, because in order to photograph the process I went through, I had to get ahead of myself a bit – I used the first successful circle as a guide for the rest. Here it is on my light panel, ready to use as a guide.

I lined up the next sheet over it, and you can just see the circle showing through.

I was then able to lay the mask on top. I had to do it this way because the mask was bigger than the small sheet and I had no way of lining it up otherwise.

I’d decided the only way I could get the effect I wanted, with good coverage of colour but with a little of the Infusions texture, was to ink the circle first with distress ink using an Ink Duster (I used Bundled Sage), and then add the absolute minimum of Infusions on top. This worked well.

Here is the distress ink going on, through the mask.

I picked up the whole thing and without disturbing it, carried it back to my main work area and sprinkled on the Infusions through the mask.

I spritzed it lightly with water without moving the mask.

I left it to stand for a minute or two and then blotted it off.

Finally, I removed the mask and dried it with my heat gun.

Here are the finished circles.

The problem was, I should have cut these pieces from card, and not from paper. The paper didn’t stand up too well to getting wet, and it buckled a bit.

I got out a selection of stamps, to choose which designs I wanted to use.

Using my wonderful new stamp platform, I stamped a single image onto each circle, using black archival ink.

This flower head one didn’t have a stem – you could use one of the stem stamps from the set but it meant setting it up on the stamp platform, and I thought it would be simpler just to draw one in with a black marker pen afterwards.

I have always been hopeless at stamping. The stamp platform is a marvellous tool for someone like me, but would you believe it… Only Shoshi could mess up a stamped image using a stamp platform!!! On the one in the next photo, the impression wasn’t quite good enough so I did it again, not realising that because I’d used paper instead of card, on the first impression the stamp stuck slightly and the paper moved fractionally when I lifted the lid of the platform. When I did the second impression, I got a doubled, blurred image! Grrrrrr. The tree branches weren’t too bad and I could get away with that, but the base part looked a mess. I blended it out with my alcohol pen and managed to salvage it!

Here are the other completed stamped images.

Finally, I matted and layered the toppers onto A4 white card folded to A5. Again, I experienced problems because the paper I’d used for the toppers was too thin, and I got a bit of buckling and creasing when I layered them, so the finish isn’t that great…

The final step was to stamp the sentiment on the bottom. I used my green archival ink for that, and again used the stamp platform.

One single finished card, which shows what this stamped image should look like when you don’t go and blur it!

I actually made our neighbour’s card before I did the set, and I should have inked first with distress ink and then added less Infusions, which would have given a better result, but you live and learn!

I began by taking a mask from my stash. Some time ago I made a card with lots of butterflies and frames on it, and had a frame-shaped piece of card with six butterflies cut out of it on the cutting machine. I laid this down on top of the card base and sprinkled Infusions over it (Violet Storms from set 1).

This is the finished card. I didn’t really like it much as the outlines were a bit blurred. I went around the outside of the frame and butterflies with my white marker pen, and then defined the wings of the butterflies with a silver glitter pen and the addition of some stickles.

The final step was to add a silver peel off for the sentiment, and this doesn’t show up very well! Not a great effort.

Why do I find cards so unsatisfying to make?? Perhaps if I enjoyed doing them more, I’d do them better!

 

PS Today is the second anniversary of the day I finished my chemo! Where on earth has the time gone?

A WOYWW Visitor and More on Infusions Mini-Album

Today Margaret (Glitterandglue) spent the day with me – she is down in Devon, about to attend a course on Pergamano being held locally. She really didn’t want to come all this way down and not meet up, and we had a really lovely day. I’d set up the table in my studio so that we could both work in there, but we didn’t actually do anything except natter and have a Really Good Time!!

My hubby was out, so she and I shared a home made soup and bread lunch. I’d made broccoli and Stilton soup, and a plaited challah loaf, followed by stewed apple and  custard and we tucked in!

She had brought some absolutely fabulous Pergamano pieces that she’d made. Here she is with some of them displayed on the table.

A detailed shot of the pieces.

The little pyramids are a selection from a total of 24 which she made as an Advent Calendar. Each one is numbered, and they are all different. They have a painted design on one face, with the number on the opposite face, and on the other two faces, panels of Pergamano work in different patterns. These parchment covers slide up the ribbon loop at the top, exposing a box underneath, with the ribbons attached to the top. The sides of the boxes can be opened in order to insert a chocolate or other small gift in each one. They were utterly and completely exquisite – I couldn’t believe the fineness and detail of the work. The flat triangular piece in the centre of the table is a card – the three triangles open to reveal a small card inside.

Margaret had, of course, brought her Pergamano kit with her, ready to use on the course, and she got it out to show me – there are lots of different tools for embossing and for piercing, and two different mats for these processes. She was going to get me going on this but when I saw just how tiny and detailed the work was, and how incredibly time-consuming, I knew it wasn’t for me – it reminded me of my abortive attempt to learn Honiton lace making before I was married – incredibly intricate work that you have to do for weeks before you get anything worthwhile to show! I may be a patient person when it comes to my creativity, but there are limits!!!

I admire Pergamano greatly. It looks like a combination of lace and embroidery, and the designs can be very pretty indeed. Having seen it being done for the first time, I admire even more the people who do it. As Margaret says, when you see images of it online, they are always close-up photos, and you don’t really get a correct impression of just how tiny the patterns are.

I think I shall stick to mixed media and playing with stuff that makes lots of texture and colour, and above all, mess!!

After she had gone, I spent a couple of hours in the studio, working on the Infusions Mini-Album again, and tonight I finished making the tags for Volume One of the album. Here are the latest photos.

I had originally decided that I wouldn’t put any text on the front of the “Stamping” title page tag, but decided to go ahead and do that after all.

The reverse of this page is as I left it when I completed it back in September. This page shows my wild grasses stamps on an Infusions background.

Moving on to the next page in the album, we come to the water droplets page. This is a stamp from Designs by Ryn, and one of my favourite – it is incredibly realistic.

Turning that page over, we have the painted flowers page.

Finally, the Versamark stamping page.

I added more Infusions to the back of this tag. You can see that the reverse of the page has not been decorated. This will be covered with endpaper of the album.

The final photo shows the set of blotting up sheets that I created. After sprizting each tag, rather than wasting the wet Infusions on the craft sheet, I blotted it up with some small square cards I'd cut for this purpose.

Not sure what I’m going to do with them all yet, but in the meantime I shall add a distressed edge using Black Soot distress ink. I’m getting quite a collection of these now.

WOYWW 436 A Tidy Studio and Some Zentangles

At last I have tidied my studio! As always happens when I haven’t been using it, it had turned into a dumping ground and was an absolute mess.

This is the further side of the room.

On the left, by the lamp, is my little gallery area. In the corner is my sewing zone with my sewing machine, and the storage boxes on the shelves contain mostly textile stuff. On the right is my drawing zone.

This is the side of the room looking back towards the window.

On the left is my iMac. My cutting machine is across the corner. Misc. supplies in the storage boxes on the shelves. I’ve got all my distress inks and Infusions and Dylusions sprays and paints out (in the plastic boxes on top) so it’s not over-tidy at present! To the right is my main work area – my desk, for the purposes of WOYWW! The white unit in the foreground is one of several pull-out units. When stowed away, this one would go under the main desk but it never goes in there because that’s where I mostly sit. When pulled out, it provides an extra surface and still gives me access to the shelves – this one holds card and paper.

Here’s the desk itself.

Apart from being a bit tidier than before, not much change – you can still see the current work in progress – my Infusions mini-album.

I continue to alternate between being busy with various commitments, domestic tasks and looking after the kittens, and crashing out on the recliner suffering from extreme exhaustion! I am taking a bit of a dip with my ME at the moment which is a tremendous bore because it’s preventing me from getting much creative stuff done – this is always what gets pushed to the bottom of the heap when energy is in short supply! I am trying not to overdo things on better days – I run on adrenaline on busy days and then pay for it later. My internal clock has gone all haywire again so I’m not getting to bed till well into the small hours, and then struggle to get up in the mornings – normal ME fare!

Zentangle

I was getting so fed up with not being creative that I charged up my Apple Pencil and started drawing Zentangles on the iPad again. I can do this from the comfort of the recliner or in bed, and I can also flip back and forth to look at the step-outs for the various patterns, either in my own folder on the iPad, or online. I can also listen to audio books while I’m doing it! Multi-tasking…

Here’s my experiment with Diva Dance flowing through Paradox – I’ve always found the latter pattern problematic but think I’ve mastered it at last! Full details here.

Yesterday I completed another one, which had taken me several days to do. Full details here.

Kittens

Lily and Ruby are now 4 1/2 months old – I can’t believe how quickly the time is going, or how big they are getting! As my hubby says, they may be growing, but they are not growing up! Here they are in the kitty bed, suckling on the fluffy toy.

They won’t use the lovely new kitten bed I bought for them, and they are now getting too big for it! I got the old bigger bed out for them and they wouldn’t use that either, until my hubby put the fluffy thing in there, and now they go in to suckle, but sleep either on top of the wooden cat tree my hubby made, or in the kitty castle.

Lily pending…

(In my hubby’s pending tray in his office!)

Together on the scratching post, looking like two little meerkats on a train.

They are getting on quite well with the clicker training but both tend to have off days when they won’t concentrate! Also, when I try and put what they have learnt into practice in a situation where there are distractions that they find far more interesting, they behave as if they’ve never heard of clicker training! We persevere, though.

A couple of weeks ago they discovered what fun you can have for a minute or two with a new roll of loo paper.

The latest video of them, wrestling on the scratching post.

Health update

I got the result of my recent CT scan this week and the hernia has definitely returned. The emergency repair done in February when I was admitted for emergency surgery because of a blockage, has not even lasted a year. I knew it would fail eventually. I am seeing my surgeon again soon, according to his letter, and we will discuss options then. I really hope he agrees to admit me for elective surgery for a proper repair, and doesn’t wait for another blockage…