Spring has sprung!

Spring certainly is in the air! The daffodils are cheerfully blooming, birds are tunefully singing,  the sky is a bright blue, pink and white blossom is brightening the branches and the blustery wind is much warmer! OOh and there's sunshine in abundance!

There are lots of spring birthdays in our family, so we have been a busy making, choosing, writing, wrapping  and celebrating!

I picked these flowers made last year on my flower loom

and added a needlefelted middle to each.

Whenever a garland has been made to give away it hangs in our lounge until its ready to go - to keep it from getting squashed and to encourage it to hang straight!

However when it goes it takes its rainbow of colour with it!

Not being very good at making things for myself and after a very clever suggestion from Mr Random Wooliness a plan was hatched!

The flowers and birds were strung together with a note:

wishing Mr RW a Happy Birthday!

So now there is a very cheerful rainbow as a more permanent fixture brightening our room!

The birds are a bit bigger than most of the spring chickens and are all stash busters.
One camera shy bird flew the nest before pictures were taken.

Total big bird weight 32g.

The crocheted chain is also all stash wool 3g!

So 35g in all.

Lots of my creations involve hooking more than one strand of wool or yarn at a time. At the moment most of them include some of this beautiful rainbow from Sara's Texture Crafts.

Its so soft and makes eveything come up rainbows!

Scraps

I have always collected scraps...of paper, ribbon, card, string...or yarn and fluff (though I do draw the line at the sock variety!). 

Short ends of yarn have been really useful for mouths

swirly needlefelted middles

pumpkin stems

 

 

wrapping..

 

 

 and many more exciting adventures!

When Linda introduced me to TUSAL I had an idea for using some really special ends of Rowan Colourscape Chunky from my flower loomed blooms

I love the way the yarn changes colour and has speckles of rainbows all the way through. Last week I  had the chance to make three pieces of felt and a couple of them re-used those special short ends..

This is for a special present project... is double sided

and quite thick..

 

I love the fluffy first stage!

There's some longer pieces on this one!

 ..again it has an interesting back...

So.... some of my Totally Useless Stitch A Long items become Totally Useful SALs!

Astonishing Splashes of Colour!

...named after an amazing book by the fabulous Clare Morrall

I've been mesmerised by colours recently...choosing and ordering shades for a new project..watching the tones change in my current makes...viewing the vibrant sunsets and sunrises...and wearing my new trainers!!
Well, they are not strictly new..I've had them for a while, I bought them off the internet, the colour choice was made by the RW men, and they have been glowing like a Dr Who creation in the corner by the door ever since.
I decided I should embrace their vibrancy and headed off to the supermarket in my neon pink  footwear!

Its obviously very difficult to show the actual colour on screen or we wouldn't have had such a shock when we initially opened the box!
However I do love them..I kept glancing down at my feet whilst shopping, and have since cleaned the specks of mud and dirt off them - that won't last long!

My usual in front of the tv occupation (except during Danish subtitled dramas) has been flower looming. I have been using the wool I blogged about here..

  Knitcol by Adriafil 100% merino shade 60 Rousseau phantasy

I just keep winding the next flower from where  the last one left off but having used the whole ball a pattern seems to have developed...

maybe not as random as I first thought!

 The other very soft and fascinating yarn is
Rowan Colourscape chunky by Kaffe Fasset....100% lambswool 

in candy pink....shade 434 

Every flower is  different in shade to the next..some are very subtle and others less so...you can see the stages of transformation if you follow the photo below from left to right, right to left and left to right.... from purpley green through to purpley blue via orange and pink! All from a continuous flow of yarn.

Each contains flecks either large or small from the previous shade...some of the shades reminded me of  food...strawberry sherbets, raspberry sorbet, barley sugars...too many beautiful colours to put a name to..
the colours are so sumptuous up close...it really has been a pleasure to work with and I'm missing it now I have wound up almost all the hank.

I now have a deep boxful bursting with  blooms..next stage to needlefelt the middles and fulfil a suggestion from a while back..

Our carpets have been transforming into rainbows too...with odd threads of sari silk, fibre tufts, stray sock fluff (from new Christmas socks!!), yarn remnants etc...I suppose its a hazard of a colourful fibre fan!!