Inspired by Moby and Alice

Once a fortnight I attend a craft club at my local library and every so often we tackle a book related craft project.  Our first project was based on Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" and our second and most recent has been Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland".  Its entirely up to us as to how we interpret the theme, we just use the story or characters as our inspiration.  The club has only been running for a few months so far, but its lovely to get together with other crafters, enjoy the company of like-minded people, learn from each other and it's great to see how everyone else interprets the themes.

I meant to blog about my Moby Dick themed project a few months ago, but looking back through the posts I've published, I've realised Moby got away from me somehow, so here he is now...

I still need to get some dowels so the wall hanging can actually be hung up, but I was quite pleased with the finished piece even though I've never tried anything like this before - at least not in felt!  It made me realise my abilities to work a sewing machine need a lot more work, but it was fun to do.  Some of my inspiration for this piece came not just from the book, but from a piece of stained glass that hangs in my bedroom window.  Years ago before problems with my hands made it impossible to continue with the hobby, I used to love making things with stained glass and while most of the pieces I made were given away as presents, one of the pieces I will never part with is the glass panel in my bedroom.  Although I can't see the sea from my window, it faces the sea which is about half a mile away and is roughly east facing so it catches the sunrise.  Its not very often these days that I'm awake as the sun rises but I do love to watch dawn breaking when I'm able.  I used black thread for all the stitching apart from attaching the beads and anchor at the bottom, it was a deliberate choice because I wanted to make the borders between the felt pieces stand out like the seams on a piece of stained glass - I just wish I'd managed to get them a bit neater!

Apologies for the bad photo, but this was just a quick snap of the glass panel taken on a very dull day!  You've probably already noticed a few of them, but there are four fishes swimming around in the sea.  Most of the panel is made from transparent water glass which is made with gentle ripples which gives a sense of movement; the seagull is made from opaque glass to make it stand out from its background.

My first thought for our current theme was to make a white rabbit, but I haven't yet got around to sitting down with pencil and paper to make a pattern for my bunny, I'm not giving up on the idea but I wanted to be able to produce something for our last meeting so I made a bracelet.  I've had the card charms for some years and the bunny charms for a couple of months, though I did have to buy the rose charms and the dark grey/black glass pearls in order to put together the bracelet I had in mind.  Several times I wasn't sure it would work out but after a couple of false starts I finally figured it out.

I have very chunky wrists so sadly the bracelet doesn't fit me, but one of my daintier friends has tried it on and I was pleased with how it looked on her.  I could have made it bigger but it would have ruined the pattern, it was made for the exhibition we will eventually have at some point, so it doesn't really matter that it doesn't quite fit my wrist, it wasn't really intended for me anyway!  One of these days I'll have to make a start on that bunny and maybe then I'll be able get the song "We're Painting The Roses Red" from the Disney film, that was the main inspiration for the bracelet, out of my head!  :)

The White Cliffs of Dover

The title I've used for this post always makes me think of that Vera Lynn song that was so popular during WWII - not that I was around back then, but I'm lucky enough to live very close to the cliffs and as a child, I lived even closer.

I grew up in a little village, off the beaten track between Dover and Deal.  We moved there when I was 8 years old and I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in such a beautiful place - in fact I've always wanted to be able to move back there one day, but I can't complain about the town where I currently live and I'm only 5 miles away from my childhood home and about half a mile from my local beach.

I haven't been feeling too well over the past few months, not helped by going down with one virus after another since December, but having not been out for nearly a week, a little bit of sunshine and feeling as though the walls were closing in, I rang one of my friends the other week and after having my friend help me select a button for my new bag which I'll show you in a future post, we took a little drive down to the beach of my childhood and spent a very pleasant couple of hours enjoying the peace and tranquility of the place from the comfort of my car - it was a bitterly cold day!  We did venture out of the car briefly to take a look at the latest cliff fall and take a few photos of it and here is one of mine...

This was just a quick snap with my little compact camera as I wasn't up to hauling my 'proper' camera gear about but I'm happy with the result (apart from the wonky horizon) as it shows some very white Dover cliffs.  I've often heard people say that the cliffs weren't as white as they'd expected, but after a cliff fall like this, the cliffs are amazingly white, and the water had a milky quality from the chalk that had fallen into the sea.

I've often wondered what I would be like to live in one of these houses (there are three) tucked under the cliffs... on one hand I think it would make me nervous, although that part of the cliffs is probably more stable as its not subjected to the waves, but living here must also be a wonderful experience - what a fantastic view!

These houses have had some very famous occupants over the years; Noel Coward lived here for some time, although it is said that he moved away because he found the view too distracting and struggled to get work done here.  Ian Flemming on the other hand seems to have been inspired by the view as he wrote and based the novel "Moonraker" here.  Its also said that the London to Dover coach - which still bears the service number 007 also provided inspiration for a certain character but there is much argument on that subject and sadly we'll never know the truth.  But having travelled on that service a number of times myself when I was younger, I like the idea.