I love our pretty little cat. I do. Honestly. She purrs. She sits on my lap. She is sweet. And then, one morning (this morning, in fact) I come back from visiting a friend to find a veritable cat’s cradle of light green perle #8 wound around the legs of the easy chair and the back of the chair at my desk, with enough knots in between to make any needleworker weep.

Not having a proper craft room, quite a few of my current bits and bobs live on the dining room table, and they are obviously an irresistible temptation to our playful feline. Oh well, I managed to untangle the thread, and although I will probably be picking cat hair off it for some time to come it looks quite usable; my husband suggested keeping any small, tempting items on the dining room table in a plastic takeway container so they are kept safe; and the purry furry one has redeemed herself by means of lovely cat cuddle. Until the next time…

On to what was actually meant to be the topic of this FoF: designing. Sometimes I set out to design something – for a particular occasion, or because I want to use particular materials for example. But quite often an idea just pops into my head and I take it from there. Having done the goldwork class last month and looking forward to the shisha class next week my brain has evidently decided that Hardanger can take a back seat for the moment, and I’ve been sketching shapes and scribbling down stitch and thread suggestions. Great fun, and some of them may even get stitched at some point! The shisha designs are mostly variations on the box top I did some time ago, some smaller, some bigger, and using different stitches. The small one I’m hoping to use for a workshop in aid of our church’s building fund later this year; I’ll post details nearer the time.

By the time the new church building is actually a building, and not just plans on paper and the prospect of a lot of fundraising, I’m hoping to be proficient enough in goldwork to be able to work a small celebratory project; below are my first jottings for a little cross. The star shape was vaguely intended as a practice piece, with lots of different areas using different techniques, but then a week later I had some ideas for more pictorial projects – a daisy and a seahorse – which could serve the same purpose and perhaps be more fun to do. I’m thinking of a dark red background for the daisy, and I have some lovely blue-green dupion which I got with the cross in mind, but which might also work quite well as an underwater background for the seahorse.

The trouble with goldwork is that the materials are unfortunately rather costly, even if you do go for the budget options; and I will have to decide very carefully what I will actually use, and get only that. Of course I know that that motto should equally apply to all my other purchases, but the sheer opulence of these materials makes me go all cautious. My husband would probably say that is no bad thing .

Other ideas have been floating around my mind; ideas for – dare I mention it? – the next SAL… it’s taken some time but I think the designs are beginning to gel!