Tif Challenge July: Half Way Mark and other things.

Well, it's the first of August I finished this challenge last night. I didn't blog about it before hand as I wasn't sure until the last minute whether the idea would work.

It was really an experimental piece of sorts because I tried different techniques to those I have tried in the past. All in all as a piece of work I don't particularly like it but it says what I wanted it to say, well I hope it does.

Half Way Mark to me made me think back to the hot summer exam days. Sitting in a hot classroom in silence watching the clock tick by trying desperately to finish my exam paper before the time was up. I would always be thinking whether I had reached the half way mark of the exam. Half way through the time and was I half way through the paper yet.

Well, as it was Summer I wanted to try an image of my sunflower in the garden, this was to represent the time of the exams. The Sunflower seemed the perfect vehicle to represent the feelings that I had at that time, just wanting to escape from the exams into the holidays, so this in a subtle way became my clock.

You can just about see the hands on the sunflower, I didn't want the image to be any stronger than this because the feelings of being trapped inside a classroom at that time of the year were very strong but the summer holidays blotted it all out afterwards and I was able to forget, so that's why the hands of the clock are so subtle. I hope the meaning is understood.

HAY MAKING.

Well, the last few days the farmers have been haymaking, infact as I am writing this I can hear the bailing going on. A little while ago this field looked so different, tall golden grass shimmered in the sun. Now it lays flat in this picture.

Sometimes I feel a little sad at the end of a summer day, I also feel somewhat disappointed that I can't see fully the wonderful sunsets because we have so many trees around here but then I wouldn't be able to take such lovely pictures of the light streaming through the trees at the end of the day. I love these two pictures because of the atmosphere that is created by the broken light.

Both of these views are taken from the back of my garden, I am so lucky to live here.

SCOURING THE FLEECE.

I's funny thinking about the two pictures above. Now that the hay is bailed, the sheep will soon be returning into the field behind our house. Another reason why I am so very lucky is that I have got to know the local farmer and he lets me have a few fleece (from the sheep I see behind my garden) for a very reasonable sum. Now the hard part, I am half way (that's funny those words again) through the scouring. I have five left to do. I was able to have five black and five white. I only have the white left to scour now. Here is the last of the black soaking in my giant washing up bowl which I bought many years ago just for this purpose. It soaks overnight and then I rinse it in the morning, before letting it drip in, guess what?

The old dog cage I have. This works just brilliantly because not only does it support the weight, which you must do when the fleece is wet as it damages the fibres if they are stretched, but it also stops the wind from blowing it about and it contains it, and stops my pets from thinking they have a new bed. As you can see my cat is taking quite an interest. I think that they like the smell. My cats are always trying to get into my workroom which is out of bounds to them because being siamese they can be the naughtiest cats you can imagine, they will shred my fibres all over the place given half the chance.

This fleece doesn't look much at the moment but once it is carded it will be lovely, it's so very soft and I will have great fun blending it on my drum carder. Oh well, must get on with some work. BFN Tricia