Not much to show for a whole two months!

We've been staying with my parents since 1st July as we're moving house but had to wait to exchange and complete. Hence I've had loads of time this summer to do loads of work. I did a lot of knitting at first, but got more and more frustrated as the exchange on our house was taking so long and couldn't concentrate on anything. My poor cardigan has been neglected for some weeks now, with a finished back and fronts and one nearly finished sleeve. Not a good effort at all!

However, I have finished something, though even that's only in the last couple of days as I determined I had to have a complete "thing" to show.


Yes, its my spinning! I love how it looks on the spindle. Its funny because the colour of the yarn goes really well with the colour of the wood.


I wrapped it round the back of a chair after soaking it in tap hot water with shampoo for a while.


As you can see, there is way too much twist in it after drying. I think I've been rather too generous with my spins and need to spin far more gently.


I rewound it once dry to pull it tight again to try and get rid of the kinks but I don't know how this will knit up. I'm planning on leaving it like this for a long while so hopefully it will just stay in this position when I remove it.

My lucky parents have the product of my art foundation and fine art degree courses in their garage, and I've been looking though my old paintings and found one I'd forgotten about.

Its of one of my old housemates and I remembered when I saw it that she had it on her wall in our student house in third year. I don't know why it's come to have spent so long in the garage but I plan to take it to the new house and find a home for it.

We've been spending a bit of time making little design boards for each of the rooms. An old friend has recently renovated a house a similar age to ours and has used Little Greene and Farrow and Ball paints. They're such a beautiful finish; so highly pigmented and nothing like Dulux, which I suppose we'd have used if it hadn't been for seeing our friends house. We're so excited about moving in and making it our own.

3 new species

On Saturday we went to the Forest of Dean again and had the excitement of seeing three new bird species. We went first to Nagshead nature reserve in the hope of spotting some Pied Flycatchers. Apparently quite a few people had been out looking for them and waiting a long time. We were strolling down a path through a bluebell spotted forest to the lower hide and there was one, just sitting on the fence wire!

It then spent a little while flitting about in the trees next to the path so we got a good look at him. He was very sweet, and fluffy like a long tailed tit.

We then went on to Cannop Ponds which are pretty much around the corner from Nagshead. There we saw a new tit, though we couldn't determine whether it was a marsh or willow tit. Apparently those are the two closest looking birds there are. We also had the pleasure of spotting a Redstart, high up in a tree.

Apparently Cannop is a good place to spot them! I stole those photos from Marno, he's the bird photographer, I just look through my binoculars, although this often results in me getting a better look at them in detail as I don't have to mess around with getting the right setting, I just look. Its funny, since becoming interested in birds, the more common species become less exciting. I used to get really excited if I saw a chaffinch, but now I want to see rare birds that are hard to spot. I still love the more common birds though. Tits and Robins are among my favourites.

Just a quick creative update. My cardigan is starting to take a little shape. I've nearly finished the border and the pattern is forming which is really exciting. I'd love to understand stitches to the point of being able to write my own patterns. I'm also making the binding for my quilt, which I'm going to continue with now. I hope you have a pleasant day x

Some Little Guys

Its funny, since we've been interested in birds, we've taken to referring to them as "guys". I think its because when you start to look at them in more detail you realise they all have such personalities. My favourite personalities at the moment are Robins and Long Tailed Tits, which are just too sweet and are little balls of fluff. Anyway, here are my finished Blue Tit and Robin.



They probably don't look that different to the progress shots I've already posted about. This has led me to the (probable) decision that I'm no longer going to post photos of unfinished paintings, and has also reminded me that here is another thing that used to bug me about painting. I would put loads of detail in a certain part, usually the face, but other aspects I would give far less attention to. I am happy with these considering I haven't painted in four and a half years, but I think this needs work. I also remembered I used to really enjoy working in charcoal and pastels, so I think its another trip to the storage container to retrieve some more old art materials...

I've put these on a shelf on a bookcase for now, and couldn't resist taking a photo as there were a few interesting objects on display.

As well as the paintings, there's the first "object" I knitted, a lavender filled heart with a pearlescent button and bobbles around it, a pair of tickets to go and see Lemar, which should be quite random as my husband bought them kind of on a whim. We have liked his singles but those are all we know so we can sing along to four songs at least! And there's the tree spirit from this most excellent film. But ignore the English as all anime has to be watched in Japanese (in my opinion). Its just so much better and more believable. We are anime lovers here, but kind of go in stages of watching it, and I wrote my dissertation on manga and anime, long ago that seems now. Talking of education, it occurred to me that I feel a bit like I'm at school at the moment. I'm taking A Level Art, Textiles and IT, spending all my free periods in the art department and making my friends faint with shock if I actually go into the library. Just like school! I didn't do A Level Textiles or IT but I'm doing lots of sewing at the moment and I am actually doing an IT course, which I guess is what I would use the library for. So as you can see, I'm not giving enough time to it. Its all online though so I am going to do some revision today...

...before I go to my friends house to quilt my... err... quilt! This is the actual one for Romania, although I've spoken to my friend John who's going and the children are ages five to 15. I've made this one a little bigger than Sue's (whose house I'm going to later). Its seven by 11 6" squares with a 2" border. I'm not going to show you til its finished but here's one of the fabrics I've used.
Somewhat more child friendly wouldn't you agree? In case you're interested, here's the link to the guys website and what they're doing on their trip.

I hope you have a most wonderful day x

Progress and ssergorP

Just a short post today to give an update on my painting progress. I'm curently working on four small bird paintings, two I'm more pleased with than the other two. Its funny because even though I haven't painted in about four years, as I've got back into it the old things I used to like and dislike have come flooding back. For example I always used to paint portraits and make the backgrounds very flat, usually one colour or perhaps a couple of subtle similar shades fading into each other. Even though the current paintings are kind of to get back into it, I didn't think properly about what I wanted to do in the backgrounds as the birds are against various backgrounds in the photos I'm using. I realised I needed to properly think about this as in the two first paintings I actually did some kind of background detail which I wasn't happy with, but with the later two I decided to use flat colour with just a very subtle amount of gradient, mostly around the subject to create a bit of an illusion of three dimension, but as I said, very subtle. I find I am still very much in favour of painting subtle and plain backgrounds to give the subject all the attention and to create some kind of atmosphere through the unrealism of it.
Here are the two I'm more pleased with after their first coat stage.



And as for the backwards progress, I went to our little craft group lastnight where my friend Sally had made the most lovely quilt, her first one (and I forgot to take my camera so will have to try and get a shot of it next time) and I had planned to make some real progress on my MIL's socks... I'd done seven rounds after picking up the stitches down the sides of the heel and then realised I had one two many stitches on one side. I knew they had been right in the rifst place so ended spending the whole evening unknitting my sock. Grrrr I need them finished soon :( I hope to finish at least one WIP by the end of next week.

Goodbye xxx

Last few days

Well I've had a pretty busy weekend, but its not been particularly creative. We had some dear friends for tea on Friday evening and I baked a Clementine Pudding Cake and I used a lovely cut glass cake stand that I haven't used before which was a wedding present (we got married nearly two years ago!)


It seemed to go down well and was good with Creme Fraiche! Ohh I also meant to post a photo of these fantastic books a while ago - I remembered becuase one of the friends who came gave them to me. They are the Vogue Sewing Book from 1964 and Good Housekeeping Sewing Crafts from 1979. Very exciting, especially since not much seems to have changed, apart from sewing machine technology, since they came out. Sewing Crafts is all hand sewing anyway, but the Vogue book will be excellent for when I make a dress for which I've had fabric sitting around for a while now. Hopeing to get that done before a wedding in May but don't know if it'll happen. I was also hoping to knit a cardigan to go with it...


I've done another little drawing of a Female Chaffinch


And turned our dining "area" into a makeshift painting studio


Loads of great natural light from the bay window. So I've done a base coat for these little Robins and was planning to get on with them today but, being a Monday, I've had loads of "stuff" to do and haven't felt in the right mood to carry on with them, though I've been really inspired by reading some blogs, especially Pretty Ditty's. I love her little painted peg dolls, and I also love the way she talked about God in her last post. I'm a very strong believer in God and the Bible but for some reason it can be hard to talk about it openly here in Britain because so many people are opposed to God and religion. I guess America's a much more Christian country, but thanks Pretty Ditty. I should just look at it that this is my blog and should reflect my true personality, of which God is a huge part.
If you want to now more about what I believe, have a look here.
Well there's not that much of the afternoon left so I may crack on with my knitting needle roll or do another birdie drawing.
Have a most wonderful day xxx

...and Mondays

I find Mondays generally quite annoying because I have all my plans for the new week but I have to go to big tesco to get food for the week (which is preferable to walking up the road to local tesco every day), which means I have to plan what to have for tea every night before I go. So by lunchtime I'd planned our food, been to tesco, put the food away, made soup for my lunch for the week, done the washing up... ok it doesn't sound like loads now but it felt like it at the time! The soup was pretty random today. I had a load of new potatos left from last week and some sweet potatos and cabbage so I make potato, sweet potato, cabbage and carrot soup with of course plenty of onion and garlic and a chilli added as I had some spare. Now I have soup for lunch for five days. Oh and of course it has to be eaten with a couple of slices of fresh granary loaf with primula cheese spread. Mmmm...


This afternoon I went on a bit of a mission to Inkspot, a great art and crafts centre on Newport Road in Cardiff. Well that was after going through my old collection of oil paints...

I actually have quite a lots more than this but they're in huge tubes in boxes. I also checked out my collection of paintbrushes and decided I should probably get at least a new detail brush and maybe one other. Anyway, I ended up buying a pack of five paintbrushes! Absolutely ridiculous but at the same time quite necessary really. I also bought some acrylic primer. Priming was always a favourite part of producing paintings. The pristeneness of the canvas once prepared for painting is awesome. It holds so much potential - the thought of producing a masterpiece, the thought of it all going wrong, the excitement of placing beautiful colours together and the feeling of blending and working the paint. I'm making it come alive for myself just writing this. I always hated gesso primer though. Because I like to blend blend blend my paint to produce a smooth finish, I hate the chalkiness of gesso which makes it much harder to achieve the effect I want. Acrylic primer is just nice and smooth.
On the way to my next stop at a sewing shop I stopped at the library and, wanting to refresh my memory a little on paint additives and oils etc, picked up "The Artist's Handbook" by Pip Seymour. I was thinking about his name because I was sure it sounded familiar, and realised he used to come to my uni to sell oil paints and I still have loads I bought from him. I think the company is called Ashby. Thought that was quite cool, and it looks like an excellent book. I also got "The Quilters Block Bible" and "The Compendium of Quilting Techniques" as I still need to plan my next quilting project (as well as finish two others!).
The other week I gave a lovely lady at my patchwork and quilting class one of those mini stitch sewing machines. My MIL had given it to me several years ago but since she has upgraded it with a proper sewing machine (!) I had no use for it. I knew this lady did a lot of sewing with her granddaughter so thought it would be ideal for her so gave it to Jenny (the lady) and said she absolutely mustn't give me anything for it, as it really wasn't worth it and I never did and never would use it. So she bought me a gift voucher for a sewing shop, Crafty Sew and Sew, so I went there next and bought some embroidery canvas and thread which I've been wanting to get for ages. The threads were only 50p each so probably not the best quality, but if you've never done embroidery before I can't imagine it'll matter.

That little card is the gift voucher which is a sweet little pattern for a cross stitch which is on the reverse.
Anyway, when I finally got home, after spontaneously meeting a friend for a frap and having a tour of the newly refurbished library and fitness centre complex at the end of our road, I came home and primed a piece of rather textured cartridge paper and I'm hoping to be doing some more priming tonight as Marno is bringing me some mdf home from work and a lovely piece of white acrylic to use as a pallette. How exciting! I really need to finish knitting my MIL's socks...

Really old, old, less old and new...

Since I'm not going to have much finished new work to show for a bit, I thought I'd post some old work to inspire myself. This drawing of a buzzard I did when I was 14 and I guess is a link to what I want to do now, though a very old link!


We're going to Cosmeston Lakes tomorrow and I'm planning on taking my sketchbook to draw some birdies. My husband has got really into birds which is great for me because I love walking but he's not so keen, but now he wants to watch birds he wants to go on walks all the time, which is great! So I've started to become really interested too and have always been more interested in figurative work than abstract, so birdies seem to be an ideal starting point for some new work.

The following two paintings I did in my second year of uni. I always painted people, I am so fascinated by people. I love just looking at them and studying their features. People are so interesting. This is a painting of my old housemate Ellie which is on our living room wall.

I reckon she'd be quite surprised to know that I've still got it up. I think its my favourite painting.
This one I did for a competition for marine painting. The first landscape I'd ever painted so again I was quite pleased with it.


And this one I actually did after uni, I think in December 2004. Its of my friend Ruth, painted from a photo I adapted in photoshop, hence the strange blue aura. I won't point out all the bad bits though!


And my latest finished bit of creativity. My cardigan which is Kim Hargreaves Cate cardigan. I haven't worked out how to link to web pages yet so sorry, no link to that, but heres a photo of my finished project and more photos on Ravelry.


I think if you're creative you can adapt to lots of different creative things and knitting has really fulfilled my need to be creative, has led me to the blogs of some amazingly talented people and has brought me back round to the idea of painting and drawing again which is so exciting.