Learning Curves


The long gap between blog posts is due to two events.
The first is a small break away in the Lake district with old friends and one new.
This one in particular won my heart.















The delightful Dylan. I wish he was mine.

However, being The English Lake District......

















.......we had rain.
In fact overnight when we were there the level of Windermere rose by four and a half feet. That's a lot of water..millions ...no billions of gallons apparently..according to the Guard on the Haverthwaite Steam Railway who seemed to be an expert on these matters.
Bear in mind there is a hosepipe ban at the moment.

But we had fun and enjoyed some wonderful cheeses which we bought in Cartmel and ate on the 'beach' at Flookburgh, while avoiding the marsh underfoot.

The other event..quite momentous in my life, was the acquisition of a new laptop. Not just any old laptop...a Macbook.
Yes, we have a bare patch on the sitting room carpet and spending all that money on a little gadget is making me feel guilty but I think I'll put the little silver beauty over the hole when we have visitors and they may not notice..what do you think?

Of course I am not familiar with the Mac system so its taken me a full week to dare to transfer my photos (can you believe I had 13,000?)  and to work out how to resize them and edit them and blah de blah de blah.....my son (who is a mac-o phile, or should that be macanista?) has just given me a quick lesson in iphoto. He came from downstairs where my husband is working on his reports and needs lessons in iphoto too.

My son outlined the differences in our needs..'You see Mum, I tell Dad and he's a complete novice, and listens, and then I come to you and tell you....but you're clicking all over the place like a giddy child '

He shows me something and then I forget and he says'I just showed you that'.So I have to explain the difference in our brains..his is like a sponge and soaks up and retains everything he wants it to, while mine is a pumice stone where a bit of new stuff sinks into the holes on the top, but mostly drips off the sides.

So..here I am on the wonderful in so many ways Macbook.There are two three and four finger scrolls on the track pad...ooooohhh!!!  I love it too much and I worry about that.

Last monday was my 59th Birthday.  I had a nice day...I went to the Grand opening of the 'improvements' in the village.
I have to hold my hand up and admit that I was wrong about the Parish Council and the path through the woods which has upset me so much is nothing to do with them.
 Its complicated. Suffice it to say there are two projects on the go in these parts, one I love and one I hate.

You may, if you read my other blog, have seen the new gateposts.
They have been much altered and are beautifully carved with the stages of metamorphosis of a butterfly so again I jumped to the wrong conclusion and prejudged them. They do still have the 'Jurassic Park look in silhouette, but its generally not that bad. Here is the culpritt  artist doing another one along the route around the 'Lodge' .
















Finally...I didn't want to do a blog post until I had a bit of actual textile content to show. 
Well another first...a frame purse.
What a fiddle.















I don't know if there will be any more of these. I didn't even get the flower in the middle.
My plans are in tatters.
















 Two pieces of my work have been accepted into the West Lancs Open in Ormskirk, which starts next week.
These are the ones:




















'Evolving'

and these:











'Unfurling'

Now I've made my first Macpost.