What to make?

I am very rarely stuck for ideas for felting projects but it is nice to get a challenge every once in a while! I was thrown this one last week with a deadline of about a week and we were just off skiing for 4 days. Have wool will travel so last minute packing included needles and foam plus grab handfuls of various colour wools. I put the needles in the case as the thought of having to discuss the pro and cons of felting needles in the aeroplane was pushing my luck when we already had a bag full of diabetes supplies, an insulin pump and a tin hip to contend with!!

Minecraft TNT

Minecraft Creeper( well the head anyway!!)

Well I met my deadline in time for my son to take these as a gift for a friend's 10 year old birthday party last night.























Apparently Minecraft is the best game ever( if you are a 10 year old boy!) and guess what I have to make for all his friends birthdays now!!

Excuses

I have many of them for not blogging - take your pick!
Sheer laziness - pretty self explanatory
Life getting in the way - my favourite!
Angry Birds Star Wars and Skylanders - just one more game......
Felting and actually doing some work - it does get in the way sometimes!
Health issues - actually a pretty feeble excuse this one as we are doing pretty good.
Christmas - family time!
I could go on but they don't get any better!

I have also come to the realisation that not blogging isn't the end of the world as much as I enjoy reading what is happening in everyone's lives.However I will make an effort to put fingers to keyboard on Blogger a little more frequently!

I wonder what the word for Alien is in Flemish?

Creating has taken up a big part of my time in the run up to Christmas - a couple of exciting orders - 20 Aliens went to a new home in Belgium and a friend in America wanted 25 decorations based on the logo of UTSA  so busy busy!

Texas bound!

Off to market!!

Next up Christmas - I was a veritable production line of my little owl pincushions and I still ran out! Christmas decorations and of course Aliens were churned out and as ever sold well.








  and this photo just sums up Christmas really!

Fun stuff - clever clive ,super hero aliens, a batman hat which now has to become a creeper(minecraft)hat and gingerbread men !!!

Ticking along

The way life is at the moment, just ticking along nicely. Kids back at school and settled, a successful weekend craft fair done, a little down time for me from felting while I brainstorm some new ideas for Christmas.
Then something happens that bring things, albeit temporarily, to a grinding halt.
 Meri was one of the first 'D mums' I discovered, via her wonderful blog. She is one of the most witty and eloquent writers I have come across. She has four sons, three who have type 1 Diabetes. She was a huge help when we were making the decision whether to start using the insulin pump with Aleksi and her support was invaluable.
Early this year her husband, Ryan, was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. They both fought hard and long but sadly Ryan passed away the beginning of this month.
It hit me hard, as all I could think about, somewhat selfishly, was that this could be me.
Meri has written some amazing posts over the past few weeks but I have found it so hard to write any meaningful comments. It all feels a bit close to home.

However spurred on by Meri, who is dusting herself off and heading back into the fray, I too am trying to do the same.
I have started some physiotherapy in an attempt to tone up my somewhat flabby if not non-existent bottom muscles. I have been tinkering in my felting room, creating a few projects, including one for Diabetes Art day as well as a felted seat pad which has already been tested on Aleksi's scout trip in the pouring rain!
I have also been cooking up a storm with apples - very therapeutic. You name it I have cooked it with apples! Fortunately we haven't got many left, only another 2 bucket loads to go. Ideas anyone?
So back to ticking along and back to felting in earnest - Christmas is coming......

RIP Ryan

Once in my lifetime

I have always loved sport as long as long as I can remember. School sports days, balancing bean bags on my head and of course the egg and spoon race.
School sports teams, lacrosse, rounders, athletics and later hockey. I loved it all come rain or shine. So no surprise when my chosen career was Physiotherapy and yes I spent many years treating sports injuries.
 Sport after school takes more effort but by joining a hockey club and jumping on  my bike I continued playing and taking part. I have even had a go at some less common sports including archery, triathlon and  I ran a marathon( a rarity for me!)
 Some sports however I do not enjoy, tennis being my number one 'hate'- legacy of tennis lessons at school!
Finally I have to mention orienteering, thanks to a friend who encouraged me to go one weekend. I loved it and found a new sport to pursue. I am where I am now thanks to orienteering having met my husband at the club Christmas party!
So when London was awarded the 2012 Olympics seven years ago I knew I had to be there.
I was.
We were there and loved it.

In the Olympic park, with the stadium behind.

Waiting for the off!

We saw the man of the moment run!

 
We saw javelin throwing, triple jumping, hurdles. with lots of crashes and falls and the highlight was Usain Bolt who strolled round his 200m heat. The noise was unbelievable! Everyone was in a great mood and hats of to all the volunteers who were just brilliant.
Once in my life time!

 

 

Home of Football!

Hungry? Which type of hungry?

I'm hungry! A phrase I here regularly in our household. What 8 going on 9 year old boy is not perpetually hungry.
 But then we have a twist. Type 1 Diabetes.
 Lex doesn't often feel when he is low, but after 4+ years of watching him grow up with this disease, I have got pretty good at spotting when his blood sugar is lower than we would like!
Usually one's blood sugar hovers gently in the range of 4-6 mmol/l -in people who do not have Diabetes. Lex has been running around playing football with a blood sugar of 2.2 and quote ' feels fine!!'  Getting him to recognise this is slow progress. When asked how he feels when low he will say he is hungry - not much help really. So now we have developed a system of him categorising his hunger in an attempt to teach him to recognise low blood sugars.
So we have 'hungry hungry' - usually around meal times - what I would call your normal hunger.
Next - 'bored hungry' usually announced whilst sitting in the car on a long journey, waiting for the bus and the like - in other words I have nothing to do so eating seems like a good idea.
Finally we have ' low hungry' - that hunger feeling he gets when his blood sugar is on its way down or is already in his boots - time for food NOW .
Not the most scientific system but it slowly seems to be working.
Having worked on lows, we have of course been battling the highs from hell for the last 3 days - no rhyme or reason of course, maybe growing, a bug, the weather or just because Diabetes does just that. Thank god for the pump, correction bolusing with little fuss, insulin on board and my new best friend temp basals!
But summer is here and that means swimming in the lake, ice cream, bikes rides, playing out late with your mates( remember here it is only vaguely dark at the moment between 2am and 4am so day light abounds!) watching football and athletics and planning a trip to the Olympics.
 Life is good!!

Presents all round

That time of year has come for presents - no, not Christmas come early but end of the school year! Needle felting skills to the fore to save me the stress of what to buy for gifts for teachers, helpers, scout leaders and so on! Throw in a birthday or too and the production line was in full swing. here are a couple of projects I remembered to photograph before they went to their new homes.

Elli is a member of the Scouts and her scout troop is the 'Karhunpennut' or Bear cubs.  So I grabbed my Birgit Krag Hansen book, Animal felt, and some raw brown locks and away I went. Getting the head shape right and in proportion  was really hard. I could see it wasn't quite right but correcting it was hard. More practise I think! Fun to do with the uncarded locks and I plan a polar bear when I get a moment in the holidays.

This next project, like many of mine, had been brewing in my head for ages and just before the children finished school I managed to get him done. I have a couple of similar projects as works in progress so promise to post more photos as they progress.

I always envisaged mounting the perch on a 'plaque' and so , to give away a secret, I only felted the detail on one side! I sewed a couple of wool loops on the back and hung it from a couple of small nails in the wood. This was a present for my Husband's uncle's 75th birthday - he is a keen fisherman and we catch Perch regularly in the lake at our summer cottage, nice eating too!
So now the needles are resting but I hope to manage the odd session or two when the kids are out playing(she says hopefully!!) - aliens await!

Time flies when you're having fun!

 Summer has finally arrived, school's out and the fun continues.
Orienteering is now in full swing but last month we went orienteering in the park, not any old park but       Särkänniemi Adventure Park in Tampere!

 

Elli at the start by the log flume ride

Aleksi ready to go next to the Dodgems!

Under the rollercoaster to the finish!

Why is the finish always at the top of a hill?

Time for some rides!

Welcome to Angry Birds land!

I just had to put some rubbish in here!!