I worked a bit in the garden, I got over 1 cubic meter of wood from the coppice already stacked away in bags. That’s about 10% of my yearly firewood usage so it is a good haul this year – there will be at least as many bags of wood chips from the smaller twigs etc, totalling somewhere around 20%. Given the current prices of firewood, that’s a significant cost saving.
But winter does not want to give up so quickly this year and after my injured hand had healed, a short spell of frosty weather hit us again. I have used that time to be a useless couch lump and also to finish the bobbin lace phoenix.
Here it is finished still on the lace pillow.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
After this, it took me about one hour to take all the pins out and approximately another hour to frame it. Completely finished picture is below the fold.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I do not know if it is because of my overall foul mood – my whole body aches, my nose, and cheekbones feel like stuffed with straw and I haven’t slept properly for days because of it – but I hate it. I think I have done a crap job and this is the worst bobbin lace I have ever done. The only reason why I haven’t tossed it away is that I have spent 40 hours making it and throwing away that much work does not come easy to me.
Charly it is not a crap job, it is beautiul! And couch potatoes do not make beautiful pictures with lace! Nor do they put away supplies of wood when it’s warmer, they stay on the couch.
I hope you feel better soon, sinusitis (which is what it sounds like you have) is horrid and makes you feel like breathing is so much work it would be easier to just stop. It wouldn’t explain the body aching but some of the nose and cheeks symptoms might be from hayfever, it seems to be a bad year for it. I have been having symptoms for the first time in years, the itchy eyes get washed out with the drops I have to take anyway for dry eyes, but the whole blocked up head thing is so tiring. Antihistamines do help me, but it’s been so bad I’ve resorted to using a decongestant nasal spray on the worst days. I ended up with a nosebleed this morning, just from blowing my nose, so I haven’t even been able to do that since for fear I’ll start bleeding again.
Your phoenix is beautiful!
The fiery palette and the way you have managed to use the lace technique as 3D shading make it beautiful.
And yay for the 1 cubic meter of firewood to keep you and your new phoenix/firebird in warm rooms.
Charly, it is wondrous.
Store it carefully in the back of a closet and forget it.
Take it out a year from now and see how you feel.
I hope you are feeling better. I had the same symptoms last week, when the air was filled with snow mold spores and the beginnings of maple pollen. Then it snowed in April, which stopped the headache and running nose, but did nothing for my grumpy, sick of winter mood.
I’m happy to see you have finished the highly complex Phoenix. I’ve got whole drawers of projects that I can’t like, or look at anymore, so I stuff them away in time out. Most of them improve quite a bit after not looking at them for a month or more, but sometimes they are still bad and get pulled apart to reuse the materials.
I’ve never made bobbin lace, but I have worked with that gold thread. It’s such a nightmare, and frequently involved swearing, ripping out and reworking, etc…..
That you managed to carry on and complete the project is a feat in itself.
Yay for firewood and warmth. Gold stars for triumphing over the gold thread!!