Gentle Arts

How many of you out there, like moi, have a trillion cookbooks by all the best known peeps, the Nigella's, the Jamie's and those Hairy Biker lads. But do you ever cook from them? How many of you have a trillion books on crochet, sewing, quilting, patchwork etc?

I imagine that like moi, you snatch them off the postman before he realises what has happened, you tear into the packaging and then devour the book from cover to cover whilst drinking your coffee and scoffing a biscuit or three dozen. You ooh and you ahh and you dream, you probable even blog about it and then....you put it on the bookshelf.....and there it sits and sits and sits. Am I hitting on any nerves here, go on, be honest?
Well there is a new book on the block and I can honestly say that I want to make virtually everything from page one to whatever it says on the last page (actually 152), and I am determinded to have a go. I am of course talking about Jane Brocket's new Gentle Art of Knitting. There are a total of 40 projects inside, all of them completely irresistable, and more importantly for me, actually do-able. Simple straight forward and easy.

I want those socks to wear in front of my fire.......and Mr Fairy can have the other pair.

I want to wear these pretty gloves on a cold winters morning when out walking the dog....

I will of course need these cushions on my sofa and one of these blankets over my knees whilst knitting another project..........

and talking of blankets, this one is a must for my bed where I will tuck myself up and carry on knitting something else from the book.....

I will drink my morning tea from a suitably dresses teapot and choose something to wear from the wardrobe that will be hanging on one of these pretties...

I love, love, love these coathangers and was seen recently outside a well known supermarket rummaging around in their coathanger bin, where I acquired four perfect wooden hangers (I did ask in the store if I could take them before anyone asks).  So easy and so addictive, I made these three over the weekend.

I love reading about her inspiration for each project and the advice she offers on the type of yarns and suitable replacements etc. I can thoroughly recommend this lovely book. Gloves are next on my list methinks. Happy knitting!


Dev x

May Scavengers Hunt

It's time to reveal my pictures for May.  I can't tell you how many times I forgot to take my camera out with me and has resulted in panic stations over the past few days in an effort to collate them all.  So here goes...in no particular order....

A building of local interest..not local to me, but by the seaside at Hastings.  It is made from half a boat.

Something Blue.....my gorgeous Monsoon bag.

A bicycle...

A butterfly...crochet by moi....

A red door, not as easy as it sounds as nowhere within 100 miles seems to have a red front door,  soooo.......

A cartoon character...The gorgeous Scooby Dooby Dooooooooooooooooooooo!

An emergency vehicle...Now I have an ambulance station at the end of the road where I work, so one would assume that it would be easy peasy, lemon squeasy to get a shot of one rushing off...Not so.  Also, I work in a rather sensitive area where a camera can raise a bit of a security problem.  So this was the best that I could do without causing a national alert!

Think Vintage....

I have owned this brooch about 20 years now and the lady who gave it to me was somwhere in her mid 80's.  It was a present for her 18th birthday and so I think this could be classed as a vintage piece.  I love, love it.

A portrait in black and white.....my gorgeous, tousled, Little Fairy.

A street light...A bit Narnian in my opinion, just add snowflakes and Mr Tumnus!

A sign of the zodiac.  This caught me out because I assumed that all papers with horescopes would have pictures...not so as I found out in a panic..so a google image I'm afraid. 

Texture, how about this juicy pineapple all gnarly and nobbly, nice with cream too.

And that's your lot...phew!

Now I need your help ladies because I am having serious problems in leaving comments on some of your blogs. I will try and explain because I am no expert and find anything like this really confusing.  So, when I log in and comment I seem to get 2 main ways of doing.  The easiest one and the most common is to click on the comments at the bottom of the post and type into the box, using a security word if necessary and the comment appears.

The second way and the one that is giving me grief, is when I click comments at the bottom, type in the box and then it asks me what account I want to use.  I click on Google account ( which is what I have always done in the past) and then use a security word and normally that is suffcient.  However, I am having problems when I do this and I have also noticed that it calls me an anonymous person??  Do you all know what I mean?  What is the difference?  Can anyone out there enlighten me.  I am also unable to see my list of followers on the right hand tool bar but according to my dashboard stands at 116.  Any ideas on that one?  I am floundering!  Someone HELP me before I lose the will to live.

Dev x

Sat Sitting

I love sitting in the garden when time and weather permits and we have lots of different areas to choose from depending on the time of day.  Early morning is probably favourite at this time of year and so at the weekend I decamp to my little wooden seat with a mug of coffee and my trusty notebook and make notes to help me write posts such as this one.

So, here I sit in the morning sunshine which is scorching as usual, it makes the light very harsh and makes taking pictures difficult.  This is my chair with a comfy blanket and a couple of plump cushions. 

 I have a bit of company too of course, where there is a sunbeam there is usually a canine snoring gently.

And this is the view as I am sat sitting.  Everything is looking so lush and green despite having had no rain for 6 weeks or so, except for a cupful one night last week!  Pity about the washing line!  It's strange what you don't see through the lense when you take a photgraph isn't it?

 It is beautiful this morning, the rooks are making their usual early morning racket and the doves have had their breakfast and are cooing and preening their feathers and getting ready for the business of the day. 

A plane passes overhead on it's way to some exotic destination, it glints silver in a wedgewood blue sky, a frothy trail tailing behind.  With the bees buzzing and gossamer spiders thread invisible until caught in the sunlight and the sweet scent of roses, it all takes some beating here in blighty on a day like today.

Did you spot the Baby Bunting?  Super cute and made from the leftovers of Big Bunting which isn't quite finished yet as I have decided that I would like to embellish it with some glass beads (which I haven't bought yet).  Here's a taster for you to swoon over...go on you know you want to, it is such an easy pattern to follow, (it has to be for me to be able to make it)!

This is Baby Bunting...............

This is Big Bunting, minus beads....................

My bargain of the week was this fab bag which is perfect for all my hooky projects.  You can never have too many project bags in my opinion.  It matches my Mme Gregoire rose perfectly!

I am off to make some cherry brooches now, pictures to follow another time.

Do any of you have a special seating area if so share the pictures with us.  In the meantime, have a lovely, lovely week.  Mr Fairy has built a greenhouse and there are henny things afoot.  I will tell you more next time.

p.s.  I have lost all my followers, at least I hope they are lost and not crossed me off their favourites.  Any ideas how that has happened and if anything can be done to sort it out?

Glare!

What a day it has been today, a day of such intensity of light and sound. The sun has followed it's path across the bluest of skies in all it's glory. A hot, fierce sun harsh and glaring. Uncomfortable on the eyes, burning the skin.

It brought beauty to the leaves, changing their colours and a vibrancy to the flowers. Gnats dancing in golden light, ephemeral, translucent.

It created strong shadows and, occasionally, as an odd cloud passed in front of the sun, a split seconds relief from the furnace.

All this to the backdrop of the most incredibly wind, the constant noise of swishing and flapping, moaning and creaking. A constant movement with the tiniest lulls now and again, bringing back the glare and the heat on bare skin. A constant bombardment of the senses.

The shade from the apple tree was a most welcome relief, a chance to relax and rest tired eyes from squinting and sooth baked skin and of course partake of some hooky goodness. As I write this, the very clever lady who designed the tutorial for this gorgeous bunting has completely gone out of my head...must be a touch of sunstroke....Anyhow, will credit her when I complete the project hopefully.

I am so enjoying this project and have taken the opportunity to unpick a blanket that was shoved to the back of a cupboard to salvage some the beautiful rowan wool.

I hope that you have all had a relaxing holiday and enjoyed some sunshine and crafting.

Dev x

p.s. As you can see I am having a few problems with the settings for the new blog editor. I can get some of the pictures to enlarge but am having problems dragging them to different areas of my blog? There are other problems, but I am too tired to fiddle with them now!

April Pictures

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all enjoying the holiday weekend as much as we are. The sun has continued to shine day after day here in our little corner of the world. Everything is looking lush and green now and as much as the sunshine is welcome, we really sould do with a little drop or two of rain, preferably at night so that all the plants and trees can have a bit of a drink.

Anyhow, I stumbled upon this lovely blog recently, having seen it mentioned on various others. Kathy has had the brilliant idea of a monthly picture scavenger hunt. Join in if you can, it makes you look at things in a completely new light and I have kicked myself several times this month for not having my camera to hand! In particular, as mentioned above, one of the headings was April showers. We had one day of rain at the beginning of the month which had stopped by the time I got home from work. Needless to say, we haven't had a wet day since! So that's a fail. However, I did manage most of the others....so here goes.....

Breakfast, not very exciting I'm afraid!

My Camera a Sony Cyber-shot 7.2 mega pixels........


A set of keys.... again not very exciting in my case!


A cross...I happened to be driving past a small chemist shop and saw this on the wall outside.

A church.... St Mary's at Chilham a truly beautiful, peaceful place.


Eggs, laid by my girls, Hanniah and Mabel! Sorry about the picture quality.

Something yellow.....Littlest Fairy's deck chair which has seen a lot of sunshine this past few weeks.

A sculpture....I think this is fabulous, entitled "Embracing the Sea". It is situated outside Deal Pier and is a bronze about 10 foot high, by Frank Seymour Kennett and made in 1998. I made an error here, the statue was paid for by a bequest of Mr Kennett. The actual sculpture was made by John Buck. Sorry for any confusion.

.

Something to mark St Geroge's Day...Hope this is okay, it was certainly very tasty and welcome on a scorching hot bank holiday!

Something to do with Shakespeare..I'm afraid this one completely stumped me. I don't even have a book by him. I could have googled an image, but thought that would be cheating. April showers, as above, we haven't had one. One other was "an interesting shop name". Now, we have a shop in a town nearby called "Obidosh". Unfortunately, due to the cost of fuel, I couldn't really justify a trip there to take a picture, so you will just have to take my word for it!

So now to start on May's selection. Pop over to Kathy's if you fancy some fun.

Bye for now. Dev x

Futile!

Resistance was futile...........

Dev x