Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Burghley, batik, combines and climbing kitten!

The highlight of Katie's year - visit to Burghley Horse Trials, Stamford. We are very lucky, for the past few years P has been a steward (usually on Saturday) and so we've had the privilege of free entry to any of the four days (Thurs - Sun). When we lived much closer we'd usually take great advantage of this, much to Ben's annoyance - he certainly used to get his fill of horses! Our usual luck with lovely weather was not so this year. At least it wasn't as wet as forecast, but the mud was unbelievable, especially around the trade tents, it came way past your ankles in places! Kids and P loved it, as did most of the other children there, and most adults didn't seem to mind (I guess perhaps they are used to it, being, maybe from farming/horse backgrounds?!). Katie wore my wellies (hers had a large gash on the foot), and I wore my trusty walking boots which were caked, as were my jeans (as I fell over, to Katie and Ben's delight) in the squelchy stuff. They've polished up well, as they always do; I love those boots. So, very slippy, wet, muddy cross-country course, which naturally got worse as the day went on, so quite a few tumbles from horse and rider (no major ones, thankfully), and we did get to see Zara Phillips, William Fox-Pitt, plus other names that I'm sure Katie could real off.
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Trust me, they were muddy!

Have been experimenting with batik, but not with batik wax - that's next on the list! Got a book out from the library (see side panel) and read up all about it. Actually batik doesn't have to be with wax, there are many ways to make the resist - rice starch, clay, flour paste etc. and different countries seem to favour different ways. We used drips of wax from a candle on white cotton (from an old blind) and then dyed it all in a diluted natural dye of turmeric.
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We also made a simple flour and water paste to paint a small picture/pattern onto thin card and then, when it was dry, paint over the card. When the paint was completely dry we used a scraper (from a Copperfoil art pack) to scratch off the resist to reveal the picture/pattern. Looked lovely, and the scratching was quite therapeutic. We finished off with some crayon patterns/paint; although probably not really batik, they did look nice.

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Oops, just noticed that Ben's fish (at the bottom) are upside down.

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Have been watching the big machines collecting the wheat in the field next to the house. The dust!
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Pepper is doing fine. Very bold all of a sudden ... in fact my Mum warned me about this ...
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he was trying to catch a moth inside the rice paper lantern, and yes, he slid down and tore it.
puss Pictures, Images and Photos

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3 Comments:

At 9:54 pm, Blogger Frogmum said...

love the swirly blue batik! and oops about the lantern!

 
At 9:05 pm, Blogger Minnie said...

I've got/had a lantern not too dissimilar to yours.

9 kittens in our house at the mo. Don't need much imagination to figure out what ours looks like now!! Thankfully, they haven't been frazzled...yet!! Eeeek!

They did get it before and it wasn't too bad. I sellotaped it together, but you could pva glue it and use some light tack tape to hold it together until it dries. We made a wicker butterfly with tissue paper using pva and it works a treat!

 
At 7:14 pm, Blogger Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

Wow, 9 kittens Minnie, that's fabulous. Thanks for your help re the lantern. We've turned it round for now, but I expect Pepper will have another go at moth catching in the not too distant future! Elle

 

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