Samsara's Scribblings

Glastonbury Times

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 10 May 2015 21:32:00 +0000

Spring means our annual trip to Glastonbury; it’s the first trip away in the caravan each year so we generally go to the same site (we have a big caravan so Mark likes to go somewhere familiar to get back in the towing routine.

So we got there in pouring rain, set up and sat back to enjoy the view of the Tor. From there the week just got better and better! The sun shone, we got sunburnt, read lots, ate lots of ice-cream and visited all our usual haunts; the Tor, Glastonbury Abbey, Stonehenge and Wells. It was just what we needed!

Some pretties I’ve been making…

Over-the-Rainbow

Carnivale

and one in honour of Leonard Nimoy

Star-Trek-TOS

Namaste

I can sing a rainbow..

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Well, I can paint one anyway! My singing may leave a little bit to be desired. I’m actually not a bad singer though, I was in the school choir (because it got me out of a maths lesson), but I haven’t sang ‘properly’ for ages – does singing in the car count? It makes my vocal muscles ache a bit when I do sing for a prolonged period, which is quite sad really. I must sing more and get my voice back in condition. Anyway, I digress! My latest order made me very happy painting because it became a beautiful rainbow which manifested itself upon my window ledge as it dried, with the sunshine pouring through and casting its beautiful light over the room. Isn’t it pretty?

Did I mention I also created a couple of friends for Toothless? A friend requested Stormfly and Hookfang along with Toothless for her sons and niece. I was quite pleased with how they turned out. You can get them here

I had an interesting challenge from a customer…she wanted a pair of Dr Who glasses with Happy Birthday in Gallifreyan – the glasses I normally do just have the Tardis console symbols (also Gallifreyan naturally). I managed to find the symbols for Happy Birthday and painted them on the glasses in place of the normal symbols. She was so pleased! I wish I’d remembered to photograph them before I packaged them up, but I have the symbols ready for anyone else who might like a set

So what else have I been doing? Well, I gifted some friends and family colouring books for Christmas and when the ones I ordered for my friends arrived, they were so enchanting that I had to order one for myself too! So I whiled away many happy hours over Christmas with this lovely book.

It still continues to amuse me! With so many beautiful pages, and with my trusty set of pencils which M upgraded me too (I was dismayed at the lack of range my 18 pack gave me, so he bought me a 40 pack to surprise me! What a sweetie!) I lovingly colour each page, building up the tones and textures. On each page there is a surprise; a little creature which is hidden away – a butterfly, bee, ladybird or caterpillar, for example. I tease myself by not looking at the following page until I’ve completed the one I’m working on, and that way each page is a delight!

Oh yes, I was totally tempted by the OTT Alice swap over on Craftster. I do love Alice in Wonderland! But what to make? The guidelines were that it couldn’t be more than 4x4 inches. My partner loved the Disney version, and in particular, the Cheshire Cat, so I made her a teeny tiny candle burner.

And then it struck me, if I love Alice, how many other people also love Alice? So that inspired me to create this little beauty for my shop – the Cheshire Cat Glass!

Well, enough for now.

Namaste

Somewhere over a rainbow….

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 16:47:00 +0000

Okay, I love rainbows. I always have done. I’m a rainbow lovin’, hippy tree hugger. And proud of it. How do I show this aspect of my personality? Check these babies out….

Yep, just hit the ‘Buy Now’ button, so these will be winging their way to me in the next few days. I actually saw them in Oasis in Birmingham over half term when I went there for a shopping/eating/socialising day of complete gluttony with some friends. I actually spent quite a bit of money at the Hippy Buddy stall in Oasis (Birmingham) because they had a sale on, so I just couldn’t justify them at that point, but I just couldn’t get them out of my mind, so I succumbed to the temptation tonight. Well, I needed a break from painting. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I have far more harem pants that a girl probably should in her wardrobe, but what the hell! They will look great with my Christmas presents from M (aren’t they awesome?!)

Anyhow, I’ve been busy busy this week; dragons and peacock feathers and Dr Who designs have been keeping me busy. I’m currently painting a set of Dr Who glasses that say Happy Birthday in Gallifreyan! I’m also mulling over a Star Trek themed design in honour of Leonard Nimoy, one of sci-fi history’s greatest hippies. I’ll update you all when I have something worked out. Also toying with a carnival/Easter crazy coloured designs too!

Continuing with the rainbow theme, I’ve just had an order for a rainbow range of my Egyptian Lily glasses for a lady's holistic treatment room… I’m looking forward to doing those in a gorgeous spectrum of colours! She plans to use them as candle burners and I can just imagine them twinkling in a glorious rainbow – they’ll be so pretty in a darkened room! Mmmm, may have to do something similar for myself…I have some glasses that someone gave me that aren’t really suitable for drinking, but they’ll make perfect candle burners….

Tonight I’ve been painting along to one of my favourite Supernatural episodes of this series (Series 9) where Dean mind melds (a Trekkie reference?) with Colonel the Germen Shepherd, that episode just cracks me up! Watching Dean standing at the window with the Colonel shouting ‘Hey, Hey, You, You’ is just what I imagine Jack is saying when he’s barking!

I must admit, I’ve been so busy recently, I haven’t had time to do much else in the crafty sense, but what I need to do at some point soon is make myself some zill mufflers – zills are the little finger cymbals that bellydancers use – our current choreography is a challenging one with half the troop using veils, and half zilling. I’m not a fan of veils, so I’ve opted for the zills, but they are quite noisy and they send Jack into a frenzy of doggy excitement, so I need to muffle them a bit, like so….

So I’ll need to whip the old crochet hook at some point soon!

There’s also a swap on Craftster that I’m very tempted by, an Alice in Wonderland OTT (One Tiny Thing), you basically craft 1 thing which is max size 4x4x4” to send to your partner (based on their likes etc). I think I could manage to squeeze one tiny thing into my hectic schedule and I do so love Alice and especially the Cheshire Cat (I have more nerdy Quertee t-shirts that are Alice themed than is probably healthy for a grown-up!)

You know what? This has given me a great idea for a new design…..

Ta ta for now!

Viewing Figures….

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:50:00 +0000

Well, here we are again! I promised that I would blog more and here I am! I must admit that I felt a little cut off in my prime with the last post, I felt I had more to give, whether you wanted it or not. Okay, so I’m sitting here invigilating mock exams and I’m a little bored. Well, I do have some marking to do, but I’m just not feeling the marking urge. Is there anything more boring than marking? Yes, I guess there probably is, but right here, right now, I would rather do anything else than marking. This means that for this moment in time, you are getting my *almost* undivided attention.

So, what else has been going on in my life? Well, M and I have discovered the delights of Game of Thrones. Actually, I discovered it right back in Season One, but M has only recently decided that he wanted to watch them, so we’ve been watching the box sets and have now caught up to everyone else. Season Four is under our belts and we, along with the rest of the World, are eagerly awaiting Season Five. I am desperate to create some designs based on the House Sigils, but I need to have a think about how they will translate onto glass. The idea is simmering there on the back burner.

It’s funny how my viewing habits stimulate my creative juices – does anyone else find this? I received the box set ‘How to Train your Dragon’’ 1&2 for Christmas. I am so in love with Toothless! I wanna dragon! So, of course I had to create a Toothless design. Who wouldn’t want a Night Fury peering over the top of their glass? When I showed a sneak preview on my Facebook page, I immediately had requests not only for Toothless, but for Stormfly and Hookfang too, so back to the drawing board to work out some little friends for the Toothless glass.

Another designs triggered by current viewing trends is the Winchester glass, totally inspired by Supernatural! I can never decide whether I’m Team Dean or Team Sam, but I know that recently I’ve been kinda steering towards Team Charlie! I hope she’s in more episodes coz I love a bit of Geek Girl Chic!

I’m quite sad that the Middle Earth series seems to have come to an end. What am I going to do without my fix of Middle Earth to look forward to each winter? Poor Peter Jackson must be exhausted after, what is it? Ten years? But how wonderful to do that as a job! To spend your working days in Middle Earth! So, to celebrate the end of an era, I just had to create a ‘One Ring’ glass. I’ve been inspired by the LOTR and the Hobbit before, it’s been a lifelong love affair for me.

Wow, I sound like I spend my life watching TV! I must admit, if I’m working or painting, I do tend to have films or box sets on in the background.

Right, off to do some work then….catch up soon!

Namaste

A touch of Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 21:51:00 +0000

Ha, yes, I am terrible! I promise you more bloggy goodness and then I fail miserably! I have been busy, I promise. Mostly stuff for my shop with lots of new glass designs to choose from. I decided last summer to really expand my eBay business with lots of new and exciting designs. There was a slight problem with this plan though. I live in a teeny tiny little house. Really, it’s like a doll’s house in it’s minuteness! In fact, now that I think about it, my childhood doll’s house was like a mansion compared to my house! We have literally five rooms in the whole house. A double bedroom, a single (boxroom) bedroom where I paint and M plays on the PC, a small bathroom, a living room and a tiny kitchen. Cosy, you might say. Bijou? Certainly not. Two adults, a large German Shepherd, and two cats all compete for space in this tiny domicile. Not a problem, you might think. Okay, picture again the amount of ‘stuff’ an arty crafty person ~~hoards~~ stores and then think about the amount of paperwork a teacher is required to store at home. This is a problem. Yes, I know it’s mostly me. And I’m also a booklover! But this means that our little home is groaning at the seams. *Sigh* I read, with ever so slight envy, all about the wonderful Katwise’s gorgeous house Calico and the on-going renovations of TPFFaerywear’s Helen’s house Castle-Del-TPF and I just wish that we could afford something a little….bigger. How nice it would be to have storage space!

So, back to the problem. I just don’t have the space to store a large quantity of stock. But I had a brainwave. Okay, so if a paint an example, I can list the photo, and then I can paint to order! Genius! I must admit, I was a little inspired by TPF Faerywear’s custom options, so I decided that I would offer complete custom options on my designs – display the basic design, and then allow customers to choose their own colours and outliners and decide whether they want an inscription. This has been working really really well. In fact, it worked well enough for me to pay for my windows to be double glazed and a new stair carpet. Yay! Katwise describes her house as the house that sweaters built and though my little Hobbity Hole here in the Shire hasn’t been built on glass, I am proud to think that in the last six months it has certainly made it a lot cosier.

Let’s give you a few pictures to look at

Right, that’s enough for tonight, M is waiting impatiently to shoot some aliens, so I’ll leave you for now!

Namaste!

Rainbows and Caravans…

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 22:04:00 +0000

So the last time I blogged, I was enchanted by the rainbow Whipporwill that Lynda wore on the Great British Sewing Bee. I managed to track down the pattern and the yarn and I awaited eagerly for the yarn to arrive.

I spent a happy evening watching the rainbow form as I would it from the skein into a knittable format and then I was ready to go.

*Sigh* this was such a lovely yarn to knit with…the pattern was mostly ss, so I just sat back and knitted and watched all thos lovely rainbows unfold. In fact, I took it with me on holiday (in our new caravan) and knitted it there in Glastonbury!

Look how gorgeous it looks, even just in the blocking stage!!

A new caravan I hear you ask? Yes! We finally replaced our little cheap n cheerful caravan as we just wore it out. It leaked everywhere! M was obsessed with getting a fixed bedroom as the job he hated most in the world was putting the bed down at night, and then putting it away again in the morning. So that was his stipulation. We are also polar opposites in our sleeping habits. He is a night owl, and I’m a sparrow… I’m awake early and he sleeps in, so our second stipulation was a seating area where one person could be whilst the other was in bed. We sort of wandered around a few places looking at caravans without really intending to buy and then we saw it! The perfect caravan. A veritable palace compared to our old one. And the company was willing to give us £1000 trade-in for our old one! How could we refuse?

So we are now the proud owners of this 24 ft beauty! It has a fixed bedroom, a bathroom with shower, hot n cold running water, central heating, a full sized fridge and cooker/oven and even a wine rack! I’ve lived in houses with less than this!

We’ve been away in it twice now and I love it! It obviously needs to have my own personal hippy stamp on it to make it truly ours, but I just love the space and the comfort, and most of all, I love not being jumped on by Jack in the middle of the night as our bedroom has a door *lol*

So, project I haz done recently……

Socks…..

Shawls for friends for gifts….

And a tribal skirt for troup costume for the Illan showcase. More of that later!

I also did a cross-stitch! I don’t really *do* x-stitches, but this one was a gift from my mum, so it was a labour of love really. There’s all tiny beads and buttons on it too. I’m pleased to have finished it really

Okay, that’s all for now folks!

WhippoorWhy? Whippoorwil!!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:46:00 +0000

Any Great British Sewing Bee fans out there? It's one of my Friday night pleasures! I record it and when M goes round to his mates with Jack for a few beers, I have a whole peaceful hour to curl up and watch it. Last week through saw me sitting forward in my chair as Lynda came on wearing the most stunning rainbow shawl!

Dear Lordy....I just had to have it - armed with my trusty kindle, I searched the web and found that it was made for her by her daughter, who has a great blog called Crafts from the Cwtch, and with a little more research I found the pattern and the yarn which was used Whippoorwill, which is on Ravelry, with the yarn Kauni which I found on eBay! So I am currently waiting for the yarn to arrive, I have the pattern purchased, printed and ready to go, I need to knit a swatch and then I'm off! I can't wait!

Flower Garden Finale

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 12:53:00 +0000

Hurray! I have finally finished my Flower Garden blanket!

Look at that in all it’s glorious colourfulness! I started this waaay ago in a bid to use up all those little balls of wool that are left at the end of other projects. It’s intended use is the garden bench in the summer to make for a nice comfortable splinter free lounging area in the summer.

I’ve also been painting more fairy goblets for my eBay shop

and making nice stripy beanies also for my shop

This one is in lovely tones of blue. I’m thinking about a new line of wine glasses, with a more goth theme. Watch this space – the brain is ticking!

I’ve always loved those beaded medallions you get on a lot of tribal belts, but they never seemed to match, so I figured out how to make my own

These will make part of a purple coloured belt, I just need to find some suitable embroidered trim to use as the base.

Ok, that’s all for today folks, I’m trying to get back in the habit of blogging, I’m a little out of practice.

Happy New Year 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 02 Feb 2014 19:34:00 +0000

Well, here we are. 2014. I didn’t realise it had been so long since I last blogged! So what have I been doing this last year? Well, lots of doggy stuff with Jack who has just celebrated his second birthday, including a weekly dog training class, and geocaching adventures.

I’ve been dancing lots with my Tribal girls Badra Tribal and making costumes.

I’ve been trying to keep up with my yoga class. I’ve volunteered again at the Barefoot Festival.

M and I went to the Forest of Dean at Easter

and Dover in the summer and spent the fortnight looking round castles, battlefields and cliffs.

Our old caravan died and we bought a shiny new one which is like a palace compared to our old one. It has a fixed bedroom, hot and cold running water, and even a shower! I can’t wait to try it out.

I have been quite crafty recently. Up to Christmas I was making my presents, but now I’m getting back into stocking up my shop again.

Fairy Flower Brooches

Anyway, that was a very very quick update. Hopefully I will blog a little more regularly this year.

Happy New Year! 2013 Year of the Snake….

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 17:36:00 +0000

Well Happy New Year peeps! All you Slytherin types will be pleased to know that 2013 is the Year of the Snake, and this year, the colour of the Snake is Black and the type of snake is the water snake. Black is the colour of Space, Arctic night, darkness on the Abyss, this is a colour of deep waters. The Black Snake will bring people unexpected changes, instability, and changeability. That is why it is important in the year of the Snake to plan everything beforehand, and evaluate adequately before taking any actions. You need to be more careful and cautious, especially where finances are concerned. I guess in this continuing recession, these are things for us all to remember.

Anyhow, things have been busy here in Middle England. (Yep, I went to see the Hobbit and have been truly inspired!!) We had a few weeks of snow on and off, so we’ve not been out and about as much as we liked. Jack has been on a few pack walks which he has thoroughly enjoyed, and he started dog classes, passed his basic training and is now onto the bigger boys class. He’s in a very barky phase at the moment – he wants to bark and everything! Can’t wait for that phase to pass!

And then we had Ofsted which is a major panic and sort of dominated life there for a week or so. But there has been crafting going on. When I look at the pictures I realise that it quite dance dominated though!

Ok, so one of the things on my ‘learn to do’ list was a Turkish vest, so I created a vest and pantaloons in this lovely cranberry colour. I need to create a fastening on the vest though – I haven’t quite found the perfect fastening. The vest is all lined, and trimmed with black lace.

I came across this lovely toran (Indian door hanging) and just knew that it would make a perfect tribal belt, so I attached tassels, cowrie shells, beads and Turkman buttons. It’s a little bit wide though and gapes at the top, so I need to figure out a way of tapering it at the top a bit; maybe with a small strip of elastic..?

I’ve also been making my own bindis which tribal dancers wear on their foreheads – sort of a chakra third eye thing…

Anyway, someone has offered to sell my bindis on her souk (tribal stall), so I’m just getting my supplies together to make some up.

This is something I quite proud of…this started out as a pair of curtain tie backs and an Indian patchwork cushion. Jack took rather a liking to the patchwork and spent many illicit hours plucking the patches off – I found them hidden in his bed from time to time. I gathered then all up and sewed them to a backing cloth, then I embroidered the patches and added lots of beads and jewels.

Then I sewed them onto the tie backs, added a couple of rings at the front, and some sari silk cord as decorative tassels at the side.

I also added some gold chain swags to the back part of the belt which drapes nicely.

If you remember, my sister got married in October and after failing to find the perfect hair accessory, I made my own using some organza and a vintage brooch which had belonged to my grandmother.

So this kinda inspired me to explore flower brooches which I’ve been making for gifts. I’m thinking about added them to my eBay shop stock…

I’ve been on quite an accessories kick recently. I’ve made a few necklaces recently which I really like…

A lovely chunky pendant teamed with lapis lazuli chips and carnelian beads…

A vintage pendant found at a car boot sale teamed with hematite and amethyst chips…

Red jasper pendant with red Indian glass beads, vintage silver beads and hematite chips….

And an octopus pendant teamed with a chain and tassel from a watch pendent which Jack broke!

On the yarny front, I’ve been on a sock kick – socks are so portable which makes them easy to take to craft club

And I’ll leave you today with my Valentines card to M…

The text hearts were made from a book that Jack destroyed on one of his naughty rampages…

2012 A Year In Summary

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 12:54:00 +0000

Okay, I admit it, 2012 sucked on the blogging front. It has been one manic year!

Last year, I bought M a driving experience at Silverstone for his birthday, which he did in January.

Work is quite full on, I ran the Art Summer School program this year and I have ended up with the main responsibility for most of the GCSE art cohort.

On the family front, my little Sis got engaged on her birthday and June and married in October! That was a gargantuan project, the planning, dress choosing and fittings, the hen party planning (as Bridesmaid the hen party was my project). She was married at our local church, then the party was at Mum’s house round the corner. All very cosy, but the planning and the act of getting the house emptied, cleaned and decorated was a huge effort.

We also got a puppy this year; Jack joined us at Easter and is the most full-on, playful puppy I have ever met! Named after Captain Jack, he is also a pirate in that he will plunder and steal anything that takes his fancy, and can be quite destructive, so our living room is becoming quite minimalist!

He’s nearly eleven months now so he has the body of an adult dog, but the mentality of a little boy. He loves to race round the garden, and because of the amount of rain we’ve had this year, the garden is currently looking like a cow field. His favourite activities are digging, emptying plant pots and chewing the container, and splashing in what once was the water garden, but since he dragged the water lilies out of it, it has now become Jack’s play pond. Needless to say that there has not been much gardening this year. At some point soon we plan to fence off the main part of the garden to give it a chance to recover, so we’ll fill in the holes, replant the lawn and put in some more plants. Jack has had some health issues this year, and hasn’t had the chance to socialise very much, so we’ve only just been able to start puppy classes with him. I’ve trained him from the first day we had him, so he can sit, lay down, stay, leave, etc, etc, but he has a few *ahem* behavioural issues, especially when it comes to social situations. So we’re mostly taking him to classes to socialise him. We’ve also just found out where there’s a pack walk locally, so we’ll take him on Saturday morning and hopefully that will help him too.

My sis got me a Tiger experience for my Birthday last year, so we booked it for the summer and she came with me…

I also volunteered as normal at the Barefoot Festival…the highlight of my summer, where my friend and I go and help out at a dance festival

I also took an online course with the Open University this summer in Digital Imaging…I really wanted to learn to use Photoshop, so that took up a lot of my time!

We gave Jack his first outing in the caravan over the summer and took him to Glastonbury for a week. He enjoyed bouncing excitedly on us each morning when he woke up; morning puppy breath is not a great this to wake up to; neither is a sharp clawed big ole puppy foot in the stomach, or a tongue in the ear...

We also took him to the seaside for the day….Jack loves water!

Dance-wise, I am still belly dancing. Tribal and Egyptian/Turkish. Tribal is my first love, but I go to the cabaret classes for the social side of it as I have friends there who I wouldn't see otherwise. I’ve done quite a few haflas this year, and done some workshops too.

I redecorated my bedroom over the summer which has made a huge difference; we bought an overbed unit which has given us so much more storage space and I now have enough floor space to be able to do some yoga in my bedroom, which is great since puppy classes are on the same night as the yoga classes I normally go to, so I’ve had to put the yoga classes on hold for the time being. So I’m doing yoga at home now in the lovely yoga space. My cat’s quite often come and ~~get in the way~~ join me.

What crafty time I’ve had this year has been organising a Hippy swap on Craftster in the summer, I also did a Hobbit swap, I’ve made some presents and I’ve made costumes. I’ve also become ever so slightly addicted to sock knitting! I love those small portable projects. I have a couple of art journals on the go at the moment, a pair of red zockni’s on the needles, a couple of tribal costuming projects on the go.

For my birthday this year, not only did M buy me a Kindle Fire HD (which I love!!) but he also took me to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, which is where the films were filmed!

He also spoilt me with a new camera for Christmas, so I’m busy trying to figure out where everything is on that!

Will try to be a better blogger next year!!

TTT Hippy Swap!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 11:13:00 +0000

Hey there! It’s been ages since I posted! I’m just organising the TTT Hippy Swap and I thought I’d share! TTT stands for Three Tiny Things by the way and it’s over on Craftster!

So this is what I made for my partner; a set of ribbon wrapped bangles with beads and a tiny tree charm

Three tiny flower pot candles – all made by me, even the flower pots!

And a hair flower!

Hope you like! I’ll post some more stuff soon, I promise! New puppy has been keeping me busy!

Got to Dance!!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:59:00 +0000

Hey, I’ve been spending alot of time dancing recently…I started a new tribal class which is great fun and I still go to my regular bellydance class!

Of course this inevitably means that a lot of my crafting time has involved costume-making, some of it easy, some of it quite challenging!

I thought I’d share some of last years projects with you.

So this was my most challenging project – a 25 yard skirt for twirling about at tribal class. This inevitably turned into a 24 metre skirt since we are metric here in the UK. Now, maths is not my strongest point. Not at all, no siree! I found loads of great tutorials and formulas on t’internet which made absolutely no sense at all to me. In the end I sat and drew pictures. Eventually my doodling provided me with something I could actually work with (although I had to go to the fabric shop twice because I didn’t buy enough fabric the first time hee hee!)

So I had to learn to gather and sew humongous amounts of fabric. Seriously, I literally drowned in fabric at times. The fabric is a lovely cherry red colour and is light enough to swirl when I spin. I think I almost lost the will to live at one point when I was serging the seams, and I have to confess that I couldn’t face the thought of rethreading my serging, so I used the black thread that was already in it. Which was okay because most of the serging was on the inside. But then I had to serge the hem and by this time I was *keen* to ~~see the back of this project~~ finish!

So I just carried on with the black thread and bugger me, it looks fab! That little edge of black along the bottom looks fantastic cascading down the side of the skirt when I tuck a hem into my waistband.

Now I know why you pay so much for 25 yrd skirts; they are a huuuuuge commitment of time, stress and angst! This might be the last skirt I ever make *lol* I’m not completely happy with it; my perfectionist’s eyes are drawn to the many imperfections in the skirt, but I figure that it’s good enough for class practice. I don’t think I would ever wear it for a performance!

Okay, so I really wanted a pair of melodias but they cost, so when I came upon a pair of black velvet stretchy pants tucked away in my wardrobe, I thought they would make a fine pair of tribal trousers, only they just weren’t wide enough!! So I took the side seams apart and slotted in some black satin fabric

Then, to make them look pretty, I added an appliqued design and some beads and sequins.

Of course, any practice needs a twirly shimmy skirt two and I made a couple of those…

This an asymmetrical hem, elasticated waist handkerchief skirt made from a lovely black lace. It helps create a lovely layered look when you add another scarf or belt on top.

And then this one which I adore, is made from glitter dot fabric – silver on black – it’s gorgeous and really sparkles in the light!

I needed a tribal coin bra for my first ever tribal performance, so I found a black bikini bra (fantastic by the way, since the clasps and straps on a bikini top are designed to be worn.

And because I had some time over Christmas, I raided my scrap back and created this long shimmy belt with side ties and a lovely beaded back swag!

I also made this for fun – and mainly because my fringe was doing my head in and getting in my eyes at dance practice!!

Soo, these are some of the pretty things I’ve been crafting over the last six months *lol*

Hippy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:37:00 +0000

Well, I for one am very glad that 2011 is over; it was a truly rubbish year for lots of reasons. Sadly the Uberhound passed away and left a very big gap in our lives….we adopted another puppy to help to fill the void, but sadly the puppy died of parvo virus four days after we brought him home.

Our holiday to the Forest of Dean was a very subdued affair, particularly as we’d chosen it because there were lots of places for doggy adventures.

But life goes on and we went to lots of places (although we didn’t see any wild hogs like we wanted to).

We even went on an old steam train

We also visited Puzzlewood where they film Merlin – what a great place!!

The Barefoot festival that I volunteer at with a friend was as good as usual…in a new bigger location and the usual fab cabaret and fire show.

Halloween was a fun night – we dressed up and scared all the local children

The Autumn term was really manic as usual, we had an OFSTED visit, plus observations, so that pretty much took up the whole term.

The Hafla was great although very exhausting as I’d managed to put myself in a position where I was doing 5 dances, including my very first Tribal performance! This involved four costume changes!! *lol*

Alot of my pre-Christmas time was taken up with crafting a pair of fairy wings for my friend – I was quite pleased with the results!

Christmas was great, as was New Year. I fully intend to spend alot more time crafting this year and have kicked the New Year off to the right start by organising the first Winter Hippy Swap on Craftster, so hopefully there’ll be some more creations to show you soon!

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:45:00 +0000

Yep, I know, it’s been ages since I blogged; as in the Noah and the Whale song…Life Goes On…sorry about that. A gentle nudge from Cazz reminded me that I have been neglecting my dear old blog and all the friends who come and visit me here! I blame work and life and the internet, and all the good and bad things about real life.

So what have I been up to since I last visited my little corner of the blogiverse? Well, lets talk about the fun things since work is too boring to experience it, never mind to relate it to someone else!

Well, I continue with my yoga classes (once a week) and my belly dancing classes (in full practice mode at the moment since we have a month before the next Hafla and I have 3 choreographies to remember!! That is no mean feat, let me tell you, since I am a girl with very little mental RAM – those who know me will understand my poor memory! I’m also doing some Tribal Fusion classes so I’m trying to learn some ATS dance vocabulary – cues and transitions, that sort of stuff!

And because a girl can never have too many dance accessories, I crocheted a pretty hip shawl with a beaded fringe.

And you can’t really see, but there’s a lovely silver thread plied through this variegated grey yarn – the beads are a faceted black which catch the light.

I’ve also made a pair of black satin tribal style pantaloons and a few shimmy skirts. I’ll get some photos of those another time…

This has not been all however! I’ve been on a bit of a painting bug recently…. trees have been in my mind alot…I painted this one in the New Year

You can’t really see it in the photo, but there’s a tiny black cat sitting on the hill – well, Pippin had to get in there somewhere didn’t she! The trees have been blown around like that quite a bit this year; it’s been a windy year so far.

Then I painted this as a leaving present for a friend..

It’s actually a pen and ink drawing, on watercolour board, embellished with glitter, tiny jewels and angelina fibres, and then framed.

I also had this next one in mind since my holiday to Lyme Regis last year…

It’s acrylic on canvas with sparkling inclusions.

M and I went to London for the day and did the London Eye, the London Dungeons, the London Aquarium and Platform 9 3/4!

I’ve been out and about Geocaching with the Uberhound (especially now the weather’s got nicer, and I have a fancy dandy gps to help me now – an after Christmas treat!)

And the weather at Easter was so nice that M and I risked an early holiday and took the caravan to Glastonbury for a week! What gorgeous weather we had!!

We visited the Chalice Well gardens…

We climbed the Tor twice (and met a friend up there- what are the chances of that?!)

We browsed the shops in Glastonbury town (and bumped into my mum and her friends – what were the chances of that??!!), we spent a day in the Abbey grounds

We went to Wells for a day,

we did a bit of geocaching, we went to a Medieval Fayre and we visited Stonehenge!

We really didn’t want to come home!

Oh yes, I’m in the middle of organising the Hippy Swap Round 5 on Craftster too….

Anyway, that’s kind of what I’ve been up to…more next time!!

A Happy New Year to you all!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:43:00 +0000

Well, here we are, the start of another year…I hope that your Christmas was a special one, and that your year to come will be happy, and healthy, and as prosperous as it can be in the current economic climate!

I remember that I didn’t show the card that I designed for school; it’s a photograph that I took last year with a bit of Photoshop tinkering. It looks nice all printed up and glossy and it’s nice knowing that all the parents, business associates, etc will have received one this year.

I was very fortunate this year to receive a new computer which hooks up to the TV that I got for my birthday so that my little craft and work station is truly multi-functional; I don’t really watch telly much, but I do watch DVD’s, and stuff on the internet more, especially when I’m working. It’s such a cute little PC and it fit's right onto the shelf where all my stuff is stored. Apologies for the wires n stuff, but it’s stashed in it’s home now and I didn’t get a chance to photograph it before it was hooked up in it’s new home of Christmas day. The keyboard is usually stored on top of the tower since I usually use it on my lap.

I also got a new graphics tablet which hooks up to it and will help my budding Photoshop skills (okay, they’re pre-buds at the moment, but I’m working on it!) The PC came with PS Elements already on it so I can practice with that first. I have the main program on disc somewhere ready to whack on when I get around to it. I’ve also managed to network it with the main PC so that I can access all the files on there, so even when M’s playing a game, I can still get on with work *sigh*

I also received a rainbow maker; a handy little solar powered thingy which you sucker to a window and the mechanism turns the crystal round and reflects rainbows around the room! I already had one, but it’s old and it doesn’t turn anymore, so this one will go in it’s place and give me rainbows again!

I got a cute dragon incense burner which is guarding the telly downstairs at the moment…

What’s that he’s guarding? Why it’s our fossil collection…all the fossils we found on holiday this year!

and a make your own amethyst crystal tree (with free glue gun!)… and some lush bath bombs…

Even my Secret Santa gifts were awesome this year, I had a bundle of beads (which will always go down well with me!) and a cupcake book (which I am putting away somewhere I can’t see it for a while since it is now time to Watch What I Eat (codeword meaning I gotta shift the festive flab – you know what I mean…all those Christmas dinners…all those munchies…all that sitting around gaming!)

I managed to complete SuperMario Galaxy at last and also Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince which I got for my birthday (on the Wii)! I have played Wii Just Dance a few times, but it’s no fun on your own, so I’m gonna see if I can get the girlies together for a girlie night… this will be a mission in itself since both of my best friends work shifts, usually nights and most weekends! This makes it hard to see them at the same time since their shifts rarely coincide, and hard to have a weekend night with them since their days off change from week to week *sigh*

I always try to do a little recap at the end of a year and reflect on what I’ve achieved because it’s really easy to look back and only see the bad things.

So here are some of the projects I’ve done this year!

I’ve learnt Tunisian crochet, I’ve made chutney for the first time, I made elderberry jam from the berries in our garden, I went fossil hunting, I danced in two haflas and I started Geocaching. We bottle-fed some baby lambs, hand fed some deer's, we went to Alton Towers, spent two weeks in Devon and a long weekend in Norfolk, I marshalled at a festival and went to the Rage Against The Machine free gig in Finsbury Park. I’ve organised and participated in some swaps, we eventually had our floor laminated and celebrated lots of birthdays. It’s been a good year!

Here are some of the photos that I’ve taken over the year that I love!

Hope your year has been as good as mine

A Very Merry Yuletide…

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:45:00 +0000

Well, here we are, it’s nearly Christmas and I haven’t blogged for aaaages! Sorry if you’ve been a regular reader awaiting my crafty updates, but this last term has been very very time consuming! But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been creating, ‘coz I have!

Soo, what have I been up to since my last blog, which was my Blogoversary?

Well, I went to the Barefoot Festival with some friends. I volunteer there every year; it’s a festival of dance and other goddess-y things,

There’s always a great show on the Saturday night, followed by an amazing fire show

M and I went to Lyme Regis for a holiday in the caravan. The weather wasn’t great; in fact there were alot of days when I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face! But we did some fossil hunting along the Jurassic Coast, finding lots of great fossils

We went to the Donkey Sanctuary, Monkey World (also a sanctuary) and lots of other great places.

Term time has been really busy; observations and OFSTED visits have been very much the order of the day…very stressy! Still, I have been able to get some therapeutic crafting done

Trousers have been embellished…

And brooches have been made – these are some reclaimed jumpers, felted and then needle felted and embellished.

This brooch I love, it’s made from scraps of netting with a shisha mirror and some beads…it goes really well with my black velvet swing coat!

I’ve really been getting into Geocaching this year as well. It’s a kind of treasure hunting…you follow the clues to find the cache (usually a box with some swappy things inside, and a log book to sign)

I normally go with the Uberhound…it gives our walks a purpose and I’ve been to some lovely places this year that I knew nothing about before! I usually take my camera and I’ve got some great shots!

We also had our annual Christmas Hafla where I ended up dancing three dances!

So, the last couple of months in a couple of photos!!

I promise not to leave it so long before I blog again…

4th Blogoversary!!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:59:00 +0000

So today is my 4th Blogoversary! Yay! I can’t believe it’s been going so long. I know that sometimes I don’t have so much time to blog, but I’m afraid that work has to come first, a teachers time is not always her own, even when she’s finished school and is at home! It’s been a fun journey and it’s not over yet, so here’s to many more years of random scribblings…

Anyway, I’d like to invite you to a virtual party to celebrate! The party will be held here, a beautiful hall lit with fireflies, high in the trees of an enchanted forest.

There will be a sumptuous banquet followed by dancing and everyone will be provided with guest quarters for the night so you don’t have to worry about getting home afterwards! Wear your sparkliest clothes and your best shoes, and you can eat and drink what you want because nothing today has any calories. The only thing you’ll need to bring is a cutting of your favourite flower to plant in the memory garden. Leave me a comment to let me know what you’ll be bringing. I planted mine this morning…sunflowers, my Dad’s favourite flower.

The Happy Happy Hippy Swap…

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:09:00 +0000

Each year I organise the Hippy Swap over on Craftster. It’s become like a tradition; I finish school, I have more time for crafting and sitting for hours staring at a computer screen trawling through crafty sites…you know how it is! The weather has been quite nice here, so I’ve spent alot of time in my garden, digging and planting, and moving stuff around. Look here, this is the first ever water lily to grow in my tiny water garden (big water filled bowl) and it’s soo pretty! It’s a dwarf water lily.

I’ve also done a little bit of crafting for me. This was an old t-shirt that’d been sitting around waiting for me to finish. I’d done a little bit of re-fashioning on it, cutting on the crew neck (which I’m really not find of) and creating a v-neck, trimmed with pink and gold gauzy ribbon. And then I ran out of inspiration….it sat there for quite a while waiting for the right idea. Anyway, after doing a couple of refashioning workshops, I decided that what this t-shirt needed was a bit of appliqué. And so the butterfly t-shirt was born. Or rather, sewn.

I freehand drew a butterfly outline on some paper, transferred it onto Bondaweb, ironed it to some pretty pink fabric and cut out the butterfly shape. Then I ironed it onto some purple fabric and cut round it so that you could see the purple round the pink. I made a body and some spots out of the purple fabric too and ironed them on.

Then I embroidered round them using a blanket stitch and some pink and gold threads. I also added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle. Much better!

So then I concentrated on my hippy swap package. I can now post photos because my partner’s received the package and I’ve received hers! Because my partner was in the UK, I knitted a nice warm hat for the cold weather which is very practical for this country. This is the Meret by Woolly Wormhead, it’s one of my favourite patterns. I made it a slouchy hat…

with a combination rolled/ribbed edge.

I used a lovely warm brown…

I also needle felted and embellished this felt brooch, made from an old fulled jumper. It has green sequins and beads along the edge. I love needle felting, it’s so therapeutic stabbing away!!

Since my partner is a beginner belly dancer and wanted a coin belt, I decided to make her one. Her favourite colours were very autumnal, greens and browns and golds. It’s wonderfully jingly!

I also used some decorative ribbon and sequin strands for some sparkle.

I made sure that even the ends looked good!

And because you just have to wear flowers in your hair when you’re dancing, I made this lily hair clip. I used a flower from a cheap ‘pound shop’ artificial ‘bouquet’ and coated the edges in glitter glue…

Then I glued a spring clip underneath, making sure to hide alot of the clip in the leaves. I like to tuck flowers in my hair by my ear and I find the flowers on clips stay better than on bands.

My partner likes to write notes and lists in a notebook, so I also made her a felt notebook cover which she can take off when the notebook is full and change to another notebook. I covered it using the ‘paper fabric’ technique I learnt at a workshop a couple of months ago, and then embellished it using embroidery threads, flowers and sequins.

Hopefully using felt will make it quite durable…

I also used Angelina Fibres on it which are such fun to work with!

The notebook is just a cheap and cheerful A5 hardback notebook.

I sent along one of the rainbow light bulbs from my shop, because they are just so damned hippy-ish!

And in the spirit of eco-friendly hippy crafts, I upcycled an old Ferrero Rocher plastic box, and decorated it using glass paints.

It looks lovely in the sunshine.

I’m kind of an overachiever and I do tend to spoil my swap partners, and well, hippy crafting is such good fun, that I had to make some extras for the package, but I’d agreed with my partner that we’d do extras, so that was fine and dandy. I made a green and brown beaded necklace with a Celtic pendant, since my partner loves all things Celtic, and greens and browns….

I had planned to do a bit of hippy-like appliqué, but I just couldn’t find the right image, then I noticed that I had some green fabric left from my belly dance costume that would go really well with this top, and some green organza that complimented it really well, and the top sort of morphed and became a sort of woodland fairy type of top instead.

I made some ruffles by tearing two strips of fabric which were much much longer than the bit that I wanted to embellish. I sewed a running stitch along the middle of each strip and pulled so that it gathered it up. Then I sewed it into place. I did the organza one first, then the satin ruffle, the I sewed a faceted bead every cm or so. The fabrics should fray and look pretty….

I also painted an ash catcher green, then decoupaged it with a sunflower and sparkly Modge Podge. I varnished it to make sure it was durable. This didn’t photograph so well, so you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s a sunflower on it!

To see what I received in return, click here. We were both very happy hippies!

Happy Hafla and Bellydance Superstars!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:23:00 +0000

So I finished my costume just in time! The Hafla was on Thursday night and I finished my outfit at lunchtime on Thursday. My bra was covered and embellished with ribbon, lace, sequins, part of an old earring and some coins. I took the straps off the bra and replaced them with ribbon, covered the back straps with ribbon and replaced the hooks with D rings and voila!

I made a coin belt using the same fabric I used to cover the bra with. I sewed ribbon, bells, sequins and coins on it. I also made an overskirt from embroidered organza, I cut two panels and sewed them onto two pieces of ribbon, which I tied, one back and one front, over a plain black skirt.

Here’s the finished outfit!

The shoulder straps crossed over and the back and fastened through the D rings!

And another shot just for fun!

The Hafla was so much fun! This was Demi’s first ever solo performance…

The Cairo Cats performed this beautiful dance that kept everyone entranced…

Cairo Cats

Louisa did a cheeky little Egyptian dance…

Fulya was fabulous as always!

There were so many fabulous dancers

Truely inspirational

and all shapes and sizes..

A couple of nights later, we went to see Bellydance Superstars at the Raqs Britannia in Sheffield. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take pictures (boo!) but again, it was a great night, although a bit too polished and choreographed. I did feel like it had been choreographed to a format, even the tribal sections. It was all very slick, and dancing to die for, with immaculate performances, but I felt it was just that, a performance. There was no soul in it, no heart…maybe I’m being over critical, but the dancers were all very young, very slim, and very similar. Their personalities didn’t shine through. And to me, that’s what dance is all about!

Funky Clothes and Festival!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:16:00 +0000

Unless you’re a hermit, or you happen to live in the USA, you can’t have failed to notice that the World Cup has started. The Football (soccer) World Cup. If you’re a footie fan, it’s kinda a big deal. Me, I don’t give a damn. I used to be indifferent about it, but since I live with a footie fan, I have grown to hate the ‘beautiful game’. I hate the way it turns sound, sensible men into drunken argumentative idiots. M is a football fan. He loves it. L-O-V-E..LOVES it. *Sigh* He even invested in a 42” tv just so that he could see each special moment. So, I have planned an alternative itinerary for the four long weeks that the Cup is taking place. Friday afternoon there was a Crafternoon workshop in embellishing t-shirts. We had to take a tee to work on; mine was a deep purple skinny-fit job from Primark. Cheap and cheerful and a terrible fit. I hated the way the sleeves bit into my arms.

I drew out a dragonfly design onto paper, traced it onto Bondaweb, then onto fabric, cut it, ironed it onto my tee, then embroidered and embellished it. I used a different fabric for the wing and a sparkly thread to sew it onto the shirt with a blanket stitch.

I cut and frilled the sleeves using a lettuce stitch. Much more comfy.

I love the fabric I chose for the body of the dragonfly, especially the placement of this skull on the head, giving it a deaths head moth appearance. Then I sewed little bead antennae and sequins onto the wings to give it a little sparkle.

It’s already a much loved garment! Now, sometimes I maybe trawling the internet and I’ll spy something which I just have to have, like these yarn and needles charms. How cool are they? Immediately I thought ‘stitch markers’ and lo and behold, they became stitch markers. I also bought some 8mm jump rings because I know from past experience that I don’t have any stitch markers in that size, so now I’ll be prepared :)

I teamed them up with these scrummy pink sparkly beads which have been sitting in my stash for ages!

And remember I told you about my stitching workshop (customising charity shop finds), well I went online and ordered myself one of those freehand embroidery feet for my Brother sewing machine and as you can see, it’s already been put to good use! This is just playing, stitching turquoise organza onto dark blue felt with a swirly freehand stitch in yellow.

Then I had a small piece of calico tie-dyed with yellow, blue and pink which I embroidered onto yellow felt, embellished using embroidery thread in a dark blue spial running stitch, then freehand stitches a sunburst design on using gold thread. More when it’s finished!

I also spent one happy evening during a football game embroidering embellishments onto this plain purple dress and watching Terry Pratchett’s ‘Going Postal.

I’d bought this pink shisha and embroidered ribbon at the Birmingham Rag Market and decided to use it on my dress.

Then pinking out the green and yellow from the ribbon, decided to make them my accent colours. I embroidered a yellow flower onto the centre bodice using a shisha mirror and chain stitch, and used a running stitch to create accents round the edges of the bodice and neckline..

and round the pockets…

and along the double hem…

It’s such a pretty dress, I’m going to be wearing it alot this summer I think!

I also went to the Leamington Peace Festival with friends.

The weather was scorching hot, so we all burnt to a crisp!

And just to prove the nice weather we’ve been having, just look at Midsummer Day’s Sunset! Happy Solstice to you :)

Parties and workshops!

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:59:00 +0000

Well, the last couple of weeks have gone flying by, yes, literally flying!!! All my students are getting to the end of their courses, which is good, but very very bad for my bank balance! I shudder to think of the upcoming financial drought…my credit is about to be severely crunched! Still I’m hoping that I will be able to get enough summer school work to tide me over; after all, I still have a mortgage to pay, and there are soo many things I want to, no need to do over the summer, especially now I have no lesson prep or marking to be doing!

Myself and some friends took advantage of the £10 train ticket offer to travel for a day out to Hereford, supposedly quite a bohemian place, but the train broke down and we ended up in Birmingham for the day, where we made the most of it and had a nice lunch out and then spent the rest of the day fabric and embellishment shopping in their huge, crazy fabric market.

The social side of summer has started to kick in – we’ve had one birthday barbeque already, in beautiful glorious sunshine which is damn rare for England. We had the usual foodfest, complete with birthday cake, pass the parcel and goodie bags! After all, why should kids have all the fun! If you’re not familiar with ‘pass the parcel’, you start off with a gift, wrapped up, then you wrap another layer of paper round with a tiny gift in the wrapping, then another and another until you have a giant parcel of many layers and tiny gifts. Then you pass it round the circle to music, which is randomly stopped. If you happen to have the parcel in your sticky little mitts when the music stops, then you get to take a layer off! We like to put lovely little chocolates or pretty nail files, nail varnish, make-up, pens, stuff like that between. It’s such good fun and everyone goes home with a gift. I got the centre gift in one of the parcels, a lovely scented candle. I made a really nice glass necklace and pendant for Lorraine, whose birthday it was, but stupidly forgot to take a photo before I gave it to her – doohh!

I also spent nearly two weeks making the goodie bag gifts, little bottle cap pincushions in a rainbow of colour. They have an embroidered and sequined flower on the botton, and chain stitch border round the edge, and a lovely ‘iced’ top so that they looked like little birthday cakes, or cupcakes.

The day after that, myself and a couple of friends went to a Make and Sew workshop ‘Customising Charity Shop Finds’ – you know I’m well into that! We learnt lots of wonderful techniques using Bondaweb and Transfoil. The first thing we did was use strips of bright fabric, stitched together and embellished. These can be used for embellishing all sorts of things.

Then we tried an appliqué and free hand stitching technique using stabiliser,

then a patchwork-y type effect.

We also made little fabric roses! It was such good fun and I came away with loads of ideas and a burning desire to spend lots of money on more fabric, bondaweb, threads, transfoil, etc. I did come home and order a freehand foot for my Brother sewing machine.

The very next day, M and I went to London for the day; we’d got free tickets to see Rage Against the Machine in Finsbury Park! What a great day that was, only it took us four hours to get home! Four hours! We probably could have walked it in that time! There were quite a few bands playing, The Gallows (a punk band), Roots Manuva a London Rap artist, Gogol Bordello (I love their sort of gypsy anarchist sound, and I love their track ‘start wearing purple’) and a DJ to play between bands.

The weather was lovely, despite dour predictions, we had a very light shower about halfway through the day, but we’d brought light jackets with us.

There are days when I feel up to the mosh pit, but today I was happy a bit further back with space to dance! Luckily they had big screens so that you could see exactly what was going on on the stage.

The finale was amazing – I swear that Zack de la Rocha, the lead singer of RATM looks exactly the same as he did years ago when ‘Killing in the Name of’ was Number One the first time round (and yes I saw them live on that tour too!

The day was amazing and all the better because it was free! Proceeds went to Shelter which was excellent. Getting home was a nightmare though, the Tubes on Sunday end a lot earlier than in the rest of the week, and the police were being typically over cautious and closed off all the Underground entrances except one. Then they had mounted police filtering 40,000 tired and drunk party-goers onto one Underground platform! What a recipe for disaster! The Tube station is literally 2 minutes walk from Finsbury Park and yet it took us over an hour to get onto a train! We managed to get the very last Tube of the night and barely made it back to Euston for our last train home! Then that train terminated at Milton Keynes because of ‘engineering work’ at Northampton, and we had to get a coach back. A journey which would take us an hour by car took us over four hours! We got in at two o’clock in the morning and then I had to be up at six thirty, for an eight thirty lesson. I was knackered! God knows what London will do when we get the Olympics!

Holiday in Hunstanton…

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:11:00 +0000

So things are absolutely crazy here at the moment. Have I said this before?? Can’t remember…my brain is trying to do an impression of a black hole here…all intelligent thought has been eradicated by the mindnumbingly boring task of the multiple marathon. Read, tick, read, comment, read, tick, sign, blah, blah, blah! When the words and images start to blur together I take a break, but I’m under time pressure here, we’re already behind schedule because of the volcanic ash disruption… aaarghh! I have to be fair and accurate, this is someone's future I’m deciding here….

Sadly my tribal classes have finished, but I think I may have found another tribal troop so I plan to start those after half term now my lovely students have finished classes and I can get to a six o’clock dance class. I do still have my Turkish/Egyptian belly dance classes though, so I get to sparkle once a week for now. This is the class which will be having the Hafla in approximately three weeks – wow, so quickly! We’re practicing our choreography like mad, but I think we’ll be ready in time. We usually are. Now comes the first dilemma – what to wear!? I have a very colourful banded circle skirt which I’m thinking of wearing, but I need to decide on a top and accessories. I’ll have to have a dress-up session.

I also have a ticket for the Raqs brittania night – Bellydance Superstars are performing in Sheffield, England the same week as our Halfa, so I need to decide what I’m wearing to that too. And save up money for the souk of course! Although I probably won’t be able to afford much! Sooo excited to see them!

Anyway, we’re now in summer half term – hurray for holidays, unpaid though they may be. M and I decided to go to the coast for the Bank Holiday weekend. We stayed at a Deer Park in Snettisham in Norfolk. We went early on Saturday and came back on Monday. We managed to cram quite a lot into our weekend though. On Saturday, since the weather was wet (Bank Holiday weather, suprprise, surprise..) we left Joe in the caravan and went to the Sealife Centre in Hunstanton and admired the fish, otters and seals

Our visit coincided with otter feeding time and you’ve never heard such noisy scolding as a …pack?…what do you call a group of otters?…of hungry otters!

The aquariums were lovely, some of them were really colourful, M was particularly taken with the viewing pool of stingrays…

Since we were sans cannine, we spent an hour in the beachside bar admiring the surfers. It was too cold and wet to walk along the beachfront.

On Sunday we took advantage of our location on the Deer Park to to the activities onsite. The first thing we signed up for was bottle feeding the lambs!!!

Isn’t he adorable!!! And if you thought the otters were noisy, these little guys were even noisier! This particular breed to sheep have only two teats, and commonly have twins, so when a ewe has triplets, the extra lamb is bottle fed to make sure that it develops well. We all had a bottle each and the lambs were let out half a dozen at a time, to charge out looking for a bottle. That was just the funniest sight! And boy can they chug a bottle! We got to feed three or four lambs.

The next thing on the agenda was the deer safari. We all sat in a customised trailer with seats and were towed round the park by a tractor. The deer park is right on the edge of the Sandringham Estate where the Queen lives sometimes. The farmer said that all the land round that you could see belonged to the Queen except for this bit that the deer park was on. We had regular stops allowing us to see the deer. They’re busy shedding their winter coat at the moment.

The first baby had been born a weekend or two before, so we timed it well. Apparently the mothers hide the babies in the rushes for ten days to protect them from predators, so we lucky to be able to see a couple. Some of them were still hiding though…we just caught a glimpse of them hiding! We also got to hand feed some of the deer from the trailer!

In the afternoon, we went to visit a friend of mine who has hand built an Eceni Village with her husband! This is the sort of place Boudicca would have grown up on. They’re both living historians who travel to schools to re-enact periods in history.

All that lovely yellow you can see is woad, you get the lovely blue colour from the stalks and roots.

They have quite a few buildings now, the men's hall (or tavern!) where one of the altars was, also the weapons etc.

The houses were quite cosy inside, they'd been well insulated so they all they needed were tiny fires which were enough to keep them warm.

One of the houses (called the moon house) had a lovely bedroom…

There were some sheep, goats, chickens etc which live there too, and the fleece from the sheep and goats are collected to weaving. Jo uses the natural dyes from the plants about to weave the garments and fabrics onsite.

We then headed back to Hunstanton to walk along the front with Joe, enjoying a handmade ice-cream, then onto Norfolk Lavender, which sadly was shut by the time we got there!

Sadly the gas bottle ran out late Sunday night, and faced with heavy rain on Monday morning and the prospect of no morning cuppa or food to keep us warm, we decided to head home after an exhausting, but very enjoyable weekend!

Highlights – bottle feeding the lambs, feed the deer

Lows – the weather…sigh!

The Great Bluebell Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:17:00 +0000

Around this time of year the English countryside plays host to the wonderful Hyacinthoides non-scripta, which to you and I is known as the English Bluebell, a glorious deep violet blue scented flower which dominates the woodland round here. In fact we have many of England's most beautiful bluebells woods right here in my native county. It’s illegal to pick any wild flowers here in Britain, or to dig up any to move them to your garden for example, but each year many people go in search of the glorious swathe of blue and that wonderful scent.

Sadly the English Bluebell is under threat from the prolific Spanish Bluebell which looks similar, but does not have such a gracefully curved stem (the Spanish is completely straight) and has no scent. Saldy, even when the two are cross pollinated, the strains of the Spanish take over. I went with my sister and Mum to a local English Heritage site where we could stroll through the bluebells woods, and the gardens of the manor house.

There were many different varieties of chickens strolling about..this cheeky chappy caught my eye…

And these darling hairy piggies which I’ve been trying to find the breed name…they are sooo cute! If you know what they are, let me know!

These are definitely not native to Britain, but they were certainly pretty to look at!

The garden were full of stunning flowers

And lovely little surprises at every step…

The weather was beautiful. Sadly it’s been chilly aswell. I’ve found some cultivated English Bluebells at a local garden centre, so I’ve planted some which will hopefully give me my own little bluebell wood next year!

I have also been having fibre adventures as well as floral adventures. I finally finished my Mosey Legwarmers! Yay!

I love the cabled back ‘seam’

I ran out of the lavender yarn before I got round to the pompoms, so I chose this lovely lilac colour to make them

and then so it didn’t seem odd, I crocheted a ruffle at the bottom in the lilac. I really like how it turned out….

I also crocheted a tribal fringe belt which I found on Ravelry here

I’ve been doing a Tribal Dance class for the last month, so tribal accessories have been in my mind a lot recently. I don’t have any dancewear in green, so I used some stash yarn to create this. I actually really love this belt now it’s finished and I think I’m going to use some of the left over yarn to create some matching falls, or to plait into my hair in long pigtails.

The yarn is a mixture of acrylic, fancy novelty stuff, cotton and chenille. I fancied a mixture of textures and colours.

Love it!!

And then ‘cos I was on a roll, I took apart several silk flowers, and mixed them together for a hair slide.

And then because I obviously have startitus at the moment, I started this Tribal Tassel Belt which was on Craftster ages ago. I’ve had it bookmarked for ages and finally got round to starting it. I’ve had to learn Tunisian Crochet in order to do it, and not just any old Tunisian Crochet, but double sided Tunisian crochet no less! You use a long crochet hook with two hooks, one at each end!

But look at the gorgeousness that it creates!

I love that you get a different effect on each side.

Yes, I know, I succumbed to my favourite colours…

Ash, Rings and Wings

noreply@blogger.com (Samsara) — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:12:00 +0000

Well, it’s been an unusual couple of weeks. Unless you live in Europe, you probably won’t have taken much notice of an Icelandic volcano eruption, but over here, particularly in the UK, it’s caused chaos! Why is that you may ask? Well, it seems that volcanic ash is not very good for aeroplane engines. And as that cloud of volcanic ash was headed our way, planes were grounded and airports closed. Even the RAF weren’t taking chances, and in my mind, that’s be good enough for me! For almost two weeks, our skies were quiet and unmarred by the sight of plane trails. It also coincided with the most beautiful warm weather…coincidence?? I wonder!

Of course this has meant that thousands of Britons have been stranded overseas, unable to get home. As it was the Easter holidays/Spring break, many of our students had gone home and were unable to get back. We also had teachers who had gone abroad for a holiday and not been able to get back. Some of our students have only just been able to get flights now, and some are still waiting. I’ve had classes of perhaps only one or two students. Our GCSE students were supposed to take the first part of their exams on the 24th, and we had to get special dispensation to postpone it. I’m sure it will all be okay in the end though.

The warm weather has meant that everything has leapt into blossom, my cherry tree is starting to look glorious! We planted grass seed and bulbs out over the holiday, but I’ve had to water regularly, and the ground is dry and cracked, so yesterdays rain shower was welcomed by the garden.

I drove home from yoga the other night to see the most stunning full moon; huge with a glowing ring of light around it. I grabbed my camera when I got home and experimenting with different settings got these shots.

This one was taken with a different setting about half an hour later, partially obscured by a tree.

And then this one was taken much later, high in the sky…

I’ve spent spare moments over the last week reconning an old fleece top that I had acquired, I loved the colour, but it was a plain boring v-necked fleece top, so I had some ideas in the back of my mind and attacked it with a pair of scissors to create a shrug style fairy top.

It was really easy to do, I cut down the V at the front and then scooped under the bust, and round the sides to a point in the back. I was watching Ugly Betty at the time, so maybe I got a little Mode style inspiration…

I also cut the sleeves to a point.

I serged around the raw edges, then added the finishing touches, beads, and then appliquéd wings on the back! I totally love it now!

I’ve also been knitting away creating my Mosey legwarmers..

On The May Day Bank Holiday, M and I decided to take a day trip. It would have been nice to get away for the weekend, but we haven’t got around to getting a tow bar fitted on the car yet. Anyway, we decided to go to St. Albans for the day, which was one of the oldest Roman settlements in Briton (after Londinium). The weather was nice and we spent a lovely day strolling around the market, where I bought a lovely flower pendant, and the Cathedral…

and then we went to the Verulamium Museum, which showed how the Romans lived along with some of the stunning mosaics that their homes were decorated in…

I could totally live with one of these on my floor!

There were lots of displays with artefacts discovered by archaeologists (my friend was on a dig here when she was an archaeologist). I was fascinated by these key rings..keys that were worn on the fingers and is probably were the expression ‘key ring’ comes from!!

And a mosaic floor, still in situ with the hypocaust (under floor heating) exposed at the corner.

It was a lovely day out…