All but the parsnips

All our Christmas meal veggies are from the allotment.  Except for the parsnips, which we couldn't be bothered to phaff with.  Happy Christmas!

Recycling a few ideas for a sustainable Christmas desk

That's it! I'm finished.

What I folded last Christmas

 Last Christmas I finally decided that this was the year I was going to implement an idea I had had for a few years.  A year or two previously I had tried it in another cubicle but I was sitting with bah humbugs. This particular year I was with more amenable people.  This was the year of the origami decorations:

Magazine Christmas Trees

I went for coffee one day and when I came back two more had sprang up!

Honestly, of all the things I did this was the most infectious.

Five pointed star - but first you need to fold yourself a regular pentagon.

This is not strictly origami, possibly more kirigami. 3D Snowflake.

Further origami Christmas ornaments: A simple ornament, via the origami resource center.

(oh yeah - we won some very tasty "fruit juice" which was appreciated in the last scrum of the year)

Iconic Celebration

Heat treated organza on fabric fragments with machine and hand embroidery

This my entry for the "Art in the Park" competition at IBM Hursley as part of the IBM Centennial Celebrations. This was open to past and present employees and families. I won first prize! I present it here to show those who don't have access to the first floor of the house where it is currently displayed (or for those who, like me really don't have the time to trek that far).

I took the idea of fireworks as a form of celebration and brought it together with a selection of the icons of progress which IBM has been using to celebrate some of the many things the company has achieved over the last 100 years.

Just in case....

...the post comes after you leave for your exams......

and to all those other people mired in the exam season.

Paper dresses

I was reminded of these:

when I saw this post by Diana Trout on these awesome Italian paper dresses.

I don't think I have shared this before but in my sketchbook I produced this, following an exercise suggested by Sandra Meech:

An authentic blog post

Somebody decided to post to my blog and email my entire contact list this evening. Now in the process of clearing things up. In doing so just blogging the following to showing you this is the real me, last weekends mini-project for P & R's wedding:

This is another Kanzashi flower - this time with pointy petals - for which I got the instructions from  Diane Gilleland's Kanzashi in Bloom: 20 Simple Fold-And-Sew Projects to Wear and Give. This time I kept it simpler with a single flower and simple grey button to match the dress I was wearing, the fabric was extracted from my Mother's fabric stash (previously my Grandmother's). Apart from some feathers and a cheapie plastic Alice band from the supermarket this was an almost no cost project.