While I’ve been away I’ve been trying my hand at ring making. These are the bigger ones (check out the starring role from Ophelia the cat in the top right of the photo):

And the smaller ones:

Today dawned bright and sunny but I was squirreled away working on creative projects. First these- cherry and choc chip hot cross buns (which involved the fun challenge of oiling cling film and learning what to do with yeast).

After that I spent a good couple of hours transforming a fabric remnant into a cushion cover. I didn’t excel in my textiles GCSE, but I was rather proud of my sewing efforts today! I love creative days!

One of the beautiful things about having a new church building is that there are lots of walls to fill. Blank, magnolia walls just crying out to be adorned. Metres of void space needing a little something to make the whole place a bit more communicative.

So what else to do but fill them!

I put together this collage recently, using some wonderful photos from www.zoriah.net:

I’m not sure it shows up on the photo, but we came back from an away day last week to find that someone had scribbled on the edge of one of the photos ‘thanks for what you do, it doesn’t go unnoticed. This place is a lifesaver.’

I don’t think it’s the place that’s saving lives.

I don’t think it’s us.

But I know that God is here, and I’m excited that others can feel that too.

We are in the middle of our Boiler Room Open Week at the moment. Lots to say about that, but for now a picture of this pretty scuplture will do

 This is Sad Sack, from the 90’s kids TV show ‘The Raggy Dolls. Now, it isn’t that I have been hiding a major knitting talent under a rather effective bushel, the truth is that a very clever friend of mine knitted him for me. Isn’t he marvellous!!

This, however, is my knitting! And I am very proud of it. Once I learn how to fix dropped stitches all will be well!

I so so enjoyed making Christmas presents this year, that I have to admit to feeling slightly bereft now that the creative urgency has diminished somewhat.

So I’ve been musing over the last couple of days about what my next challenges should be. I’ve come up with two so far; two projects that make me curl my toes with excitement and want to stay up all night perfecting them. They are as follows:

Knitting

My Nanna was an amazing ‘knitter’, we had some groovy cardigans when we were younger, and I often find myself missing their cabled comfort. Then, this Christmas, I was knitted a lovely red and white toadstool hat by a dear friend, which I have fairly lived in during the frozen days since then. To top it all off, I spent a portion of Boxing Day marvelling at some socks knitted by a creative and inspiring friend. And so the markers have been set. This year I will learn to knit. And I will knit on buses and trains. I will knit at conferences and if I can’t sleep. I will knit in cars and in my kitchen and at church. I am very excited to have my first lesson in knitting this evening!

Bunting

I blame ‘Ideal Home’ magazine for this one. I was excitedly perusing it during my train journey yesterday, and they have this wondrous section which showcases peoples’ houses and the decorating schemes they have adopted. There was a young boy’s bedroom, and there was bunting hanging across the top of his ceiling. You could order it for a slightly inflated amount of money… but I wasn’t going to do that. The bunting in the feature was a safe red blue and white, but I suddenly had the inspiration to make my own, and to decorate the top of the walls and ceiling in my bedroom with it. I have some teal ribbon to hang the triangles from, and I’m going to make each triangle represent something about my life. Something like a postcard or a picture or a gift tag, or even just some brightly coloured paper or something I have written or a photo.

And I thought that instead of birthday cards etc,  I could ask people to make a triangle, that I could add to the bunting. And just build on it through the year(s!). So I have already collected a couple of things to cut down and build into triangles, and I can’t wait to get started!

I will endeavour to post photos as I go!