Diomo Glass Panel

Readers from Folksy may already know that Susan from Diomo Glass made a beautiful small glass window panel for a giveaway on her Facebook page.  I loved it so much I said that if I didn't win it I would have to commission one.
I didn't win, so true to my word I asked her to make one for me.  The original had a lovely deep red rose which I loved.  However I am decorating my house (I think I may have mentioned that before once or thrice) and the living room is going to be white with one dark wall painted 'dusted damson'.  I got the inspiration from a lovely purple fleece throw a friend gave me for my birthday.   I've bought a rug that matches and the curtains are white with pink and purple poppies.
So my panel has a purple rose.  Susan did a rose and a poppy for me to choose from and though I liked the poppy I just loved the petal arrangement on the rose so much that I chose that one.  
Here it is hanging in my window.  The light shines through it  perfectly and the colour goes perfectly with the poppies on the curtains. 

Folksy Friday - a few favourites

I had no inspiration for a theme for my Folksy Friday feature this week, so decided to trawl through the 10 pages of favourite shops and pick out a few things.  
Of course I'd like to include something from all the shops on the list but that isn't really practical so here are just a few for now.
I decided I should try not to include too much jewellery in my Folksy Fridays which is difficult for me but I've kept it down to two items, here is one of them, an amazing bracelet made using just machine embroidery and embellished with beads.  I've been planning to try this technique since buying my new sewing machine but I think it will take a whole lot of practice before I can make anything to come near this quality.  It's from Nadine Arbuthnot Adornment and she makes lovely brooches and necklaces too.

My next item is from Sophie Martin Illustration, a lovely card with gossiping ducks.  It was hard to pick an item from this shop, she does a wonderful assortment of farm animals as well as cats dogs and bunnies.

There has been a great fun topic on the Folksy forum this week about knitted items after someone was asked what was the use of a knitted cake.  I've found these felt yummy goodies from Woolly Duck. These cakes look good enough to eat, and she has a bag of licorice allsorts too, which would make a good pincushion - I'm very tempted!

Okay here is my second jewellery piece and I think it's quite amazing. It's from Tanglefrost, and is made from leather, silk and copper.  She makes amazing orchids too.

This next item is such good fun.  I have absolutely no interest in golf but I couldn't resist including this knitted golf kit!  It's from The Hunny Bunny Company.  As you might expect from the shop name you can find bunnies here as well as cats, dogs, dolls and the cutest little mice, one of them knitting a scarf.

Last but definitely not least, here is a beautiful bowl from Julia Smith Ceramics. I have just bought one of her bowls and it's just gorgeous.  I'm seriously tempted by this one too.  Oh dear I'm just treating myself to so many goodies from Folksy lately, and searching through all these lovely shops for my Folksy Friday blog features doesn't help!  

I hope you like these goodies as much as I do and will go and take a look around the shops, maybe be tempted to buy something.  I can't surely be the only person on Folksy who ends up spending more than she takes in sales.......

I Love Bumblebees

I'm finally managing to do a little gardening, my back is much better - as long as I don't do too much.  So I'm alternating doing super short sessions of gardening, painting (still on the bathroom!) and crafting.  
One of my favourite flowers is a pretty anemone pulsatilla, and I am so pleased it survived the hard winter and is flowering again.
while I was out transplanting sweet pea seedlings a large bumblebee buzzed around my head, determined that I was a flower - and eventually found the anemone.
I got a few photos before it buzzed on its way, so here they are.

Folksy Friday - Polymer Clay

I spent about an hour last night finding items for this post, had them all lined up ready to go then absent mindedly clicked in the wrong place and closed the window losing all the tabs!  So I started again this morning and found most of the items I wanted, so here they are!

I've started to experiment with polymer clay so I've chosen it as my theme for today. Now if I've managed to do it correctly this week, you should be able to click on the photo to go to the shop. No, I've followed all the instructions from the lovely Haptree but it still won't work so click on the name!


I'm starting with this lovely heart pendant from Poly Beads,

  My next choice is this gorgeous colourful bracelet from Lou Lou's Luxuries,

I love these faux coral polymer clay beads from Susmi handmade jewellery,

My next item is this beautiful pendant from La Tienda Pequena,

Maxine Veronica has made these lapiz type polymer clay beads, threaded on ribbon with other beads,

And just to prove that polymer clay is endlessly versatile, here is the cutest little mole from Quernus Crafts, 

Success.....

I've spent about half an hour faffing about and finally have my blog feed showing on my Averilpam Facebook fan page.   I went round in circles for ages before finding the menu I needed.  So it's all set up now.  All I have to do is keep it updated..................
time for a well earned cup of tea I think.  No more chocolate hobnobs though!

Facebook etc...

I've been on Facebook for a while, though I don't do much there, but today on a whim I created a fan page for Averilpam Design.  
So now what?  Good question .......  haven't the foggiest.  I dare say I'll figure it out eventually.  I went to the Networked Blogs app. and registered this blog, and lo and behold a page came up with the feed from this blog.
Wonderful but then as soon as I clicked on 'home' it disappeared back into the ether and I have no idea where it is, how to access it or what to do with it.  
The intention was to have the feed from this blog link with the new page but I've no idea how to do that - so if anyone can enlighten me as to what I should do I will be very grateful! I've installed a badge so you can get there from here, so that bit worked!
I'm delighted that the weather finally feels like spring and I've been looking out happily on my garden which is starting to sprout and show some colour.
I'm frustrated though, because just in time for the nice weather my lower back muscles went into spasm and I can barely move without a lot of pain.  I feel like Mrs Overall (or more accurately the ancient waitress in the Victoria Wood sketch with the 'two soups sir') as every time I stand up I'm bent almost double and have to slowly and painfully stretch my back to get upright!  So I can only garden standing up which is a little limiting to say the least.  I guess I can plant some seeds into seed trays but most of the flower seeds I plan to sow directly into the troughs they will grow in so that will have to wait until I can move around a bit better.
This also means I can't get on with the decorating either - I think that was what set it off.  
So I'm being fairly lazy and self indulgent and have eaten a whole packet of Chocolate Hobnobs since Saturday.  
I have however managed to do a little jewellery making.  I need to have 10 necklaces, with bracelets and/or earrings to match ready for the 4th June for Arteria, the gallery I blogged about a while back.  I've made two bracelets and a neckace and a pair of earrings in the last couple of weeks but I need to get a move on and do the rest of them soon. I'd love to get some stock made for my Folksy shop too but it will have to wait until I finish doing the gallery stock.
Here is a photo of the latest necklace I made

I'm rather pleased with it.  The large beads are called dragonskin agate, and the round ones are snowflake obsidian.  I made the copper swirly pieces, (but not the clasp) with copper wire which I've hammered flat.  I've made earrings to match but I've not used the agate beads as they are so big and I didn't like how they looked.

 

Folksy Friday - Purple

I've just started decorating my house, and I'm using a purply colour as the main accent colour in my living room.  So I've decided to do purple for my Folksy Friday theme this week.  
I also want to thank poppy sparkles for including my heart necklace in her Folksy Friday feature. I've just discovered I'm in Oddsox's Folksy Friday too, how lovely, thanks!

This pretty scarflette is from Hooked Yarn, I love these colours together.

I love this wire ring from Ravenwolf Design and it's adjustable, so it would fit me!

 The only problem with doing these Folksy Friday features is that I want to buy everything, this pendant from Dottery Pottery is just lovely.

I like this purple notebook from Rara Avis, I'm discovering some great shops I've not seen before!

This cushion comes from Handmade by Louisa, and she does some lovely bags too.

And last but definitely not least, this necklace with yummy handmade polymer clay beads from Flower Power.  I've just started making polymer clay beads and Jayne (Jaykay) makes some absolutely gorgeous beads and jewellery.

Spinning

As promised, here is my first spinning session with my new e-spinner.  
Here it is, just got started

and here you can see the alpaca on the bobbin. 

Once you have spun two bobbins of yarn, it is usually plied, which is twisting two lots of 'singles' yarn together. This is done by spinning in the opposite direction.  Usually the singles yarn is spun clockwise, then plied anti-clockwise. 
The two bobbins of singles yarn are put on a lazy kate, and plied together onto a single bobbin on the spinner.

 Once that is done, you wind the yarn off onto a Niddy Noddy. 

You then tie it in several places to hold the skein together, take it off and wash it
Here is the skein straight off the niddy noddy,

and here it is washed, lovely and soft and fluffy.

I don't knit and I'm not very hot on measuring and gauging my wool so I don't know exactly what thickness it is.  I'd guess around double knitting, but it's not very even. I'm really not a perfectionist and I like that homespun can be a bit rough and uneven.  It weaves well and alpaca makes gorgeous warm scarves. 
Here is one of my alpaca scarves, on sale in my Folksy shop. This scarf was made with lovely white and natural brown alpaca, and I used some pink and green wool as a colour accent.

 

Folksy Friday - Gardens

I love these ceramic plant labels from Gimme That Thing, I tried wooden ones but as soon as it rained they went soggy and the writing disappeared!

 

These gorgeous flower earrings come from Pour L'Amour

 

What a good idea, you can list the flowers you are drying in this flower press from A Farmer's Daughter.

 

How gorgeous is this felt flower from Tamsyn Amber, really summery.

Look What Arrived Today!

I got a lovely package today, my new e-spinner!
I've been so fed up the last few months as I can't seem to manage more than a few minutes spinning with my lovely wheel without my back and/or legs aching, so I just haven't been doing any at all.
I eventually decided to buy an e-spinner,  ie an electric spinner, and here it is

At this point I hadn't put it together, but it didn't take long and I plan to get started later.  I'll post more pics when I've done some spinning with it.
The next thing was what to do with all the lovely white paper that came packed around it.  Of course it was all scrunched up so could only be reused as packaging.   
Thrifty hoarder Pam smoothed out every sheet and wanted to keep it all.  However new decluttering Pam knew it was silly - this is the box full of packaging, jiffys, plastic bags, paper carriers etc that sits in the corner of my room

Yes it's full to bursting!  And on the floor beside it is a carrier full of bubble wrap and similar packaging.  There is also a small carrier full of small jiffys, and I think there may be a bag in the bottom of the airing cupboard with more bubble wrap................ oh and another with brown paper......
The nicely flattened white paper has gone into the recycling bin.