Farewelling the cottage

 Time has once again been a bit fluid this trip. Three months seem to have flown; yet at the same time the chores we did back in August feel like we did them on our last trip maybe?

It is intriguing and I never cease to be amazed at how much one suddenly has to try and fit into the final week!

This is a favourite scene. On the drive to our favourite bakery we cross the blanket bog. It has these wee lochans alongside it; the heather and the bracken have turned russet; and the mountains grace the horizon. This day sun showers were about and just added to the beauty.

I will love this landscape forever.

But we are also farewelling the cottage until we return. It is such a place of solace and contemplation; of slow looking; and friendly companionship. We are fortunate indeed.

Here she is in many moods.

We have both been researching a bit whilst here, and in sorting through some paper work we came across this photograph of the cottage taken back in about 1997, before the previous owners began to renovate.  We understand the cottage had lain fallow as they say, since around 1950 and had been used as a barn for storing hay. We are interested to see that the upper windows were in by 1997; but the door and windows were boarded up, and must have done the job as the cottage is very dry.

And a highlight of the trip (among many) was seeing the Northern Lights dance one evening. So often they are around when we are fully overcast or in the dead of night when I am not getting up and ducking out into the cold just to see if they are there...

Just wonderful.

I love how many stars you can see. I am standing just outside the cottage, looking north and using an iPhone. Magic.

Farewell, until next time...

Preparing to stitch

 I have begun my conversation with the piece of linen I am working on for my friend who died. 

One of our best ever conversations was sitting with our backs against the stone wall of the cottage, in the sunshine, blethering this way and that. So I am trying to reflect that conversation and I am really not sure  I'll ever be able to do it justice.

At the moment I am very much in the testing and trialling stage. It might take a while to figure out how to do this I think.

But I have begun.

The circular nature of women friends feels strong at the moment. Here at the cottage I have this set of embroidery threads tied onto their card with symbols for whichever pattern they were intended for. These are one of my best friends' mother's threads, and she gave them to me after her mum died - about 20 years ago, and I have used the intermittently. I was very happy that I could pick them up and maybe use some of them for this wee project.

I printed off some photos of the wall and checked if there were threads that might match. I found four and thought that was a good start.

I then set about trying to recreate the wall for stitching.  Because the fabric is so narrow I am not sure how well this will work. But off I go!

I transferred fairly accurate shapes of the stones and the pointing on the wall to my book; then onto a strip of tracing paper.

And then checked to see what it might look like on the linen.

Barry walked in and knew exactly what it was as the moment he saw it. I remain a tad hesitant.

I then used a removable marker to draw onto a test bit of fabric. And that's as far as I got.

The proof will be in the pudding once I start stitching I think.

There is no way I can fill all of the stones in with stitches unless I want this to take forever, so I will have to see if I can somehow 'sketch' them in, or slightly fill them, or indicatively fill them. We shall see!

In the meantime, before we had Sunday's beautiful blue sky, we had some seriously wicked weather. Sometimes even that weather is beautiful...

Testing an idea

 Back here, I had soldered a lot of small circles ready to take them home and roll them through the mill to create pebble forms for my stack of three earrings.

A I posted, I had the thought about maybe texturing them? 

This thought niggled away and I went to the workshop (aka garden shed) to see if I could cut 6 small circles, solder 6 small circles, flatten 6 small circles, pickle 6 small circles, texture 6 small circles, and then solder two lots of 3 small circles, and pickle them again.

I am happy to say, mission accomplished over two days.

After soldering, the one on the right was hammered flat by hand. I realised as I did them that I usually manage to squish and distort the forms more by putting them through the mill, but was happy enough to proceed with the notion of more circle-shaped forms.

Looking somewhat earring-like...

And then pickled. With a few random fragments as well.

And so to texturing by hammering with a different hammer.

And soldered prior to pickling.

And pickled.

Still with some filing and polishing to do, they are looking maybe like they will be OK.

And then I thought, maybe I should oxidise them???

Will leave that thought till we return to Maleny!

And today has been 'a day between weathers' as our neighbour says; with what a friend calls a bluebird sky. Simply stunning.

We did some yard work, moving rocks and pruning and a touch of weeding. Then sat in the sun with our backs against the stone wall of the cottage. Basking. Apricating. Enjoying.

Bliss.

Scenes from our trips away

 It has been a busy month here with trips up and down and round about, for friends and with friends.

Here are some images of the beauty we have found along the way...

Two trips to Orkney in a fortnight and some neolithic magic, some beaches and some weather!

The Ring of Brodgar, brooding.

One of the dwellings at Skara Brae.

The Broch of Gurness

Rain shower looking over to Hoy

The beach at Skara Brae, Skaill Bay.

Back on mainland Scotland again, our beach at Armadale

Duncansby Stacks on the north east coast.

Down south - red squirrels at breakfast.

Autumn colours.

And the sheep on the common grazings in Armadale one morning.

Jewellery workshop

 On Sunday Barry held a jewellery-making workshop using recycled silver-plated metal.

We once again got to spend time in our great Village Hall and had a lot of fun with 9 keen participants. I was his able assistant!

It was a nice day weather-wise and this is the view out one of the windows, down to Armadale Bay.

Barry had prepared loads of metal pieces for folk and they had a range of ideas to work with. Everybody started by making a long rectangular pendant; and a large domed circular pendant. Even with the exact same pieces to work with, so many different ideas emerged.

These are Barry's sample pieces.

After lunch folk could go back and forth and collect more pieces to make their own designs or preferred styles with, and everybody got great results. A sample of the day's work is below.

Here, the filigree patterns from the original silver plated placemat shine.

Here on the other hand, the reverse side was use and buffed, to allow some of the brass to show through the silver plate.

The movement and swing in these pieces was fabulous.

These two small pendants were perfect for a fine silver chain.

Perfectly polished and shiny small domes.

A daisy with nail polish applied like enamel or lacquer to make for rich deep colours.

Some of the 'leaf' forms got re-interpreted into fish!

One of the large circular pendants got hammer mark texture on it.

A golden dome and a special stamped piece for memories.

There is always something magical in the making process - watching folk follow instructions and do what they are told, and then gradually they start to think they'd like to try this or that, take a chance, see what that might do and ask themselves the what-if? question and creativity just flows. Such a pure delight to see creativity waken and flourish.

With thanks to everybody who joined us, for working so hard and making so many beautiful pieces.