Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Simple Cheerful Weaving

 Back in January I blogged about wanting to weave some cloth with a nautical or seaside theme using wide stripes of colour. A basket full of oddments of coloured yarn left over from recent stock making items was catching my eye every time I entered my work room, all the colours just looked so lovely and enticing, muddled up and cheerful!
 So rather sorting them and placing them back up on the shelves where I store my yarn in orderly colour sections I set up my loom and got creating.  
With no particular plan I threaded the Warp, it was a matter of just grabbing a colour from the basket just like a "lucky dip"as I knew all the colours sat well with one another anyway so it was real freedom and pleasure to enjoy the creative process and relax and watch the cloth spring to life. 
 I selected two very pale soft cotton yarn in a cream and green to load on the shuttle for the Weft as I wanted the stripes to become the main pattern of the fabric.
There was just enough cloth woven to be able to make this little scatter cushion. A "stash busting" using oddments cheerful cloth that reminds me of deck chairs on the beach and seaside holidays! 
I thoroughly enjoyed "going with the flow" and just weaving on my loom, pure and simple is often the best. 

Thursday, 12 April 2012

All About Boats






It has been a busy time over the bank holiday weekend, with plenty to do to prepare all the boats for our sailing season.
Peewit our little dinghy looks beautiful again with her varnish job finished, she was loaded on the trailer and taken down to her little plot in the dinghy park.

Our Mirror dinghy caused a bit of extra work! While Skipper was getting her ready for her turn on the trailer he noticed some rotten wood, at least the area of concern was well above the waterline (port transom). So she had to be worked on, patched up and painted before she was ready for sailing and taken down to the river too.

Photos above show our Sunstar 18 having her coat of anti foul paint on her hull and some maintenance work done on her rudder. She will be lifted back onto the river in just over a week's time.

All our little boats are waiting for the tide, sunny days and adventures!