Tuesday, 3rd January: Day 3

Light and Dark

- that seems to be very much the theme for today!

We got power for the first time today since 03.00 at around 14.00, only to loose it again from 17.00 - 20.00 and gone.

We're the lucky ones though - there are still 6000 homes in the ROI tonight & at least we have the fire whereas many of them have converted to electric/gas run off electric heat too.

So today has been gloriously low tech and has allowed for a variety of creative outlets. (Though today's horoscope advised taking a day off - just pottering around at home has to count)

Quick update on the watch situation - again it wasn't stolen in the night, but when I picked it up this morning, the little dowel fell off and completely vanished. I guess the weight of the clasp on it was too much. So as a theoretical exercise, I'm plotting some alternatives in my head today.
Other cranial creativity today has included development work on the first two fundraisers I want to do this year: A 3Ds night, my own invention. - Everybody shows up with 3Ds with them (namely Donation, Drink, Dessert) - we provide nibbly bits - nuts, crisps etc and then the "dinner" portion of the evening comprises everyone gets to taste as many puddings etc as they want. After that, we sell off the remaining desserts in takeaway tins for say 50c a throw, or gift them in exchange for an honesty box donation.
The second thing I want to do (which Christophe's said he will help with) is a murder mystery evening - so watch this space!

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Today's bursts of outdoor creativity started with a 'Mystery Rose'. (left)

We already have our '50c Mystery Rose' the other side of the door - I brought it two winters ago and the woman in the shop only charged me 50c for it because she said it would never grow. It's flowered pretty much non-stop since and seems to be trying to decide whether to be a climber or a standard, or something in-between.

So when the next-door Pitbull pup, Archie, nicked my Rowan Tree Sapling that I was gifted for Yule and chewed it to death while we were away and no-one was looking, we headed out to the post--xmas sale at the garden centre (Ardcarne, in Boyle, Roscommon). Now they're brilliant all year round - one of the best I've ever known, but this time of year is particularly fantastic to be in any garden centre as they often reduce to virtually nothing the touch-and-go plants and as long as you're willing to take your chances you can get some real beauties!

This guy just took my fancy - we wanted something that would prickle young pup if he tries it on again - check! (I'm not into animal cruelty, but a bit of a self-inflicted prickle on the nose might just teach him to leave my plants alone!). He was on his own, alone and unlabelled at the end of the run of scrambler roses (my bet's on creamy with perhaps some pink, I'm not sure) and he reached out and grabbed me by the cardi, so that was that.

Incidentally, because people sometimes ask: I have no particularly special, scientifically proveable method with my touch-and-goes, but I am a huge believer in talking to plants (and trees and animals come to that) and so what I do do is I talk to the plant, ask it if it would llike to come home with me and explain that it will be given a nice patch and then has two choices - to grow or to die. I tend to talk to them on the way home and while planting them, all the while putting out loving thoughts to make them feel 'fussed'. Then I just talk to them and treat them as normal while I go about the place.

Next thing, was the Holly we had over the mantelpiece at Yule.

It was just about beginning to curl up a little at the edges and look a little dry, so the same procedure with that - thanked it for looking so pretty, offered it space in the garden and just pushed the sprigs in to a depth of 5-10cms (about 2-4 inches) depending on the size of the sprig.

Right about then, the power came back on and I got so distracted, I forgot to go back out and get a picture until it was almost dark (silly me!), so I popped out again with Christophe's head torch he uses for his astronomy and got this shot (left) - I'll try and remember to get another one in daylight tomorrow.

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...and now, for the "piece de resistance" (sorry, I can't make the e-grave thing work on here!):

On the knitting front, this is the progress on the famous sofa throw.

With all the excitement with the on-again-off-again power, I forgot to find batteries for my camera, so this is once more taken on Christophe's video camera which doesn't do as much justice in colour unfortunately.

In the afternoon brown-out, I had a flash of inspiration.

Perhaps because I'd been reading about tonight's Quadrantid Meteor Shower (which promises to be AMAZING this evening - http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150099997031478_20101549_10150456976291478) suddenly I had this thought that the next layer would look fabulous as a starburst!

I had hoped to finish at least the North, South, East, and West points as I'm normally pretty good at knitting without looking, but oddly enough, knitting in the virtually dark, with limited firelight is somehow harder (I'll have to practice!) so by the time my hands (and eyes) were saying "enough", I'd only done the North point, - still, I think that's rather an achievement - especially as Christophe says he had to wake me up in mid flow at one point as I had dosed off and the needles were still at it. . .

The cardinal points will all be in this same peacock-aqua. - It's not exactly in the colour scheme, but the gold I have for the other four points was looking like it might overpower the centre somewhat, so I decided to use a complimentary shade to balance it out.


Tune in again tomorrow for a likely shortened, but hopefully still jam-packed installment!

PS - I forgot an item off the original list, I'll add it back momentarily.

Sunday, 1st January: Day 1

So, to kick us off, here's a picture taken in the new reading room at Murray's (as is, it will have a new name really soon) - what do you think?

I've got a full panorama of the room going up on Facebook as soon as I finish this post. You'll be able to see it at:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150450958836752.354320.580876751&type=1

I'm including this shot because this is one of those spaces that just oozes creativity! - It's quite difficult to explain, but being in this space gives you tingles - almost crackles of some kind of creative static electricity. It would be hard not to be creative in this space. Which is extremely handy given that the various rooms are open for projects, as well as tea/coffee/cake from the vintage tearoom in front. There's also a flea market on every Saturday where crafters and artists can come to showcase (and hopefully sell) some of their wares.

We were up there this afternoon for a little drink to toast in the new calendar and the start of all the wonderful projects this space is affording for our town. It was a great afternoon with good company and great craic (fun, the Irish way). We even took some of the silver streamers from the party poppers and danced in the fizzy energy of the place. (That was wee Olivia's idea - it made me think at the time, while trying to work out how I would explain the whole feeling of the place to you, how interesting it is that children seem to have an instinctive 'feel' for these things and always seem to know the right way to respond to it.)

One of my aims for this year is to use my Teaching Certificate more. As soon as there are people interested, I'm going to be offering classes and one-on-one workshops in Textiles and related crafts from somewhere in here.

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On the creativity front, I'm really chuffed to have managed to complete TWO small items today.

The first, was this adaption to my watch. (left)

Our littlest cat, Shadow, (below left) has had a thing for my watch for quite some time now and regularly steals it in the night. The upshot of which is, as of this morning, the strap was completely unusable through the sheer amount of being grabbed in kitty teeth and hauled about.

I removed the old yellow (my favourite) faux leather strap and upcycled the watch itself with this keyring fob to give (I hope) a slightly more durable piece that I can interchange between belt loops, or even attach to my bag strap or purse when I'm out and about.

Left is the man himself - our wee stowaway who we discovered had moved in when we got back from our summer trip.








We've established he's about the same age as our other kitten, Mogwai and was roaming ferrol having lost/left his Mum around 6wks. Now that he's been treated for the worst case of worms I've ever seen, he's healthy and happily become a part of the family and is now more at home in a cosy domestic setting than out roaming.

The second thing that I have made today doesn't look like anything very much does it? (above right)

It's actually the start of a much bigger piece I've been putting off for MONTHS now, on the grounds that I "can't justify time working on that because it's for me" (- a habit I plan to loose for good this year!)

We were given a new (to us)

three-piece-suite about four months ago. It's ridiculously comfortable, but as you can see in the background of the photo, it's a very, shall we say, 'particular' sort of colour scheme and pattern, as well as in some hidden away areas, really rather worn. (Not to mention we'd just finished redecorating the living room, with a predominant palette of plum and yellow-gold-ish) So the plan is, that I will gradually recover it.

Having played about with various ideas, we've settled on making large patchwork throws that will either remain loose, or may be fixed in place to cover the suite.
The reason we're opting for patchwork, is that we have large blocks of colour on each wall, so any more big blocky colours would start looking wrong in our small room, so the patchwork will be made of very small pieces, in varying shades of both purple and yellow, to complement the other decor.

This piece then, will become the core piece of the settee cover. I've incorporated some left over streamers from our trip out this afternoon. Not sure why I did that - it was a whim. Perhaps I'm trying to conserve some of that wonderful creative energy we danced in this afternoon.



I'll be putting the rest of the photos up on Facebook in the next few minutes.
Tune in again tomorrow to see how we can build on this flying start!