Winter garden

Hello there,

I have a sore throat and earache.  Whoa is me.  I've slept most of the day today.  But the weekend - the weekend was a delight.  Much rummaging and pottering and gossiping and drinking and eating and general merriment.  Which probably led to the grots today, but worth it.  We had a sprinkling of snow on Saturday.  Enough to make it look pretty by the sea without too much disruption.

We walked through the churchyard on the way to the sea and came across this.  Just beautiful.

The snowfall overnight meant the garden was entirely transformed on Sunday.  I haven't shown you the garden yet because it's a complete tip.  But there is nothing like snow to pretty things up.  Here, then, is my garden.  Or at least little bits of it, dressed in white.

Off to dose up on hot toddy now.  

C.x

Not a great first date

First, just to let you know that service from the house of NKK will be intermittent at best in the next few weeks.  Posts will be random and commentary on all your lovely blogs will likely be lacking.  For tomorrow, we are off to see our house by the sea.  Hurray!  Then back for three weeks and then sailing out for good.  It'll be a bit of a roller coaster ride.


Okay, so to my date with Prints Charming.   I have such a feast of colour for you today. 

You will be pleased to know that I did not let you down.  I did not swear once (well, not out loud anyway...).  As to the rest...


It was not a very auspicious start.  I arrived 45 minutes late.  I hate being late.  I am rarely so.  My only excuse is that my life is even more chaotic than usual at the moment.  So, I got the dunce's chair rammed into the back corner with the edge of the table and the table leg to contend with.  Not so good.

Luckily the lovely women of Prints Charming allowed me to think it was no big deal and chatted away while I got my act together.   


I am left handed.  When it comes to hand sewing, this usually makes your average right handed seamstress run away screaming.    But they managed to remain quite composed.  I kept forgetting to tie the knot to start a stitch, so it kept slipping through.  No cursing please.  Big sigh and start again.  

What really killed me was the chain stitch.  I understood completely the theory, but I kept forgetting to anchor each stitch so that it all came unravelled in a most annoying way.  (You are allowed to laugh, by the way.  I won't be the least offended.)It wasn't helped by the fact that I kept getting distracted, wanting to take photos of all the lovely treats they'd bought with them and had strewn around the place.

And I was mesmerised by the detail of the sample work everywhere.

Not to mention the teacher's necklace.

But it seems there really is no short cut to the swear a lot/rip it/start again mode of learning that I have developed this year.


Undaunted, I came away armed with two instruction books (hurray - there's a book for it!).

And after much consideration on colour choice, these lovely threads.

They will be used to adorn (sic) this lovely blue bird.

You will understand from the scraggy bits of thread messing up the place that I already have plans in the swearing/rip it out/start again department.

More soon I hope from our house by the sea!


C.x

Giveaway - owl anyone?

I am reading in blogland that Autumn is in the air in Blighty and that children are heading back to school and generally that Summer is nearly over.  I thought it might be a good time for a treat.

It's Labour Day here.  Which means a day off.  We've been out and about a lot this weekend, but today has been spent making this:

Yes indeed.  I made that.  Not just sewed it.  Made it up.  From scratch.  Me.  I have realised how easy envelope cushion covers are to make, and now I want to revamp every cushion in the house.  But I want to start with a thank you giveaway.

I had an idea that it might be good to have my own interpretation of what seems to be the craft mascot of the moment.  

Google is awash with owl images so it was all a bit bewildering at first.  But eventually, I found this one and knew that I could make it work with what was in my head.  

I then spent lots of time faffing around with different scraps of fabric and generally making a mess.  I hadn't used my sewing machine in a couple of months so that was all a bit daunting too.  But in the end, it all came together pretty well.

Okay, so it's all a bit rough around the edges, but I think that makes it more home-made looking.  And I like the perplexed expression.  (If I didn't exist yesterday and now found myself living on a cushion cover, I think I'd be a bit perplexed too...).

I wasn't quite sure what to do about the feet (talons? claws?).  But then a particular piece of fabric emerged at the top of the heap and I knew this would be just the thing.

Anyway, all this is a prelude to saying thank you.  Eight months ago I had no idea how to sew or to crochet, and I didn't read blogs. Neither did I know that there was such a fab support network of lovely people out there just bursting with goodwill and enthusiasm waiting to cheer me on.  So I thought I'd say thank you with my owl mascot.  

I'm also very preoccupied with my move coming up.  So, I thought that should come into it somehow too.  

Here's all you have to do: 

1. If you'd like the chance to win the owl cushion cover ( padding not included but it's about 17 inches square), then please leave me a comment telling me where you'd like to live in the world.  

2. You don't have to worry about what you'd live off, or whether you could take your pet giraffe, or where your kids would go to school, or whether there will be sweetpeas there.  All that is included in your fantasy place. 

3. Maybe you're already living in your dream location (lucky duck).  If so, I'd love to hear about it. 

3. And if you blog about my giveaway on your blog, come back and leave me another comment and you'll be entered twice.

That's it really.  Hope you like it.

C.x

Oh yes, forgot to say the posts will be open until 19 September.

Hello Geronimo

 Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all your good wishes after the wobble the other day.  It's bucketing down today and we're threatened with a tropical storm over the weekend.  All we need now is a plague to round things off...

And welcome to new followers.  Lovely to have you here.  I'm having a lovely time catching up on old blogs and finding new ones at the moment.   So much creativity out there.

Have you seen these button pictures?  Aren't they just the business?

Don't they make you want to reach for your button stash?

(I love that daisy button.  And the chandelier!)

And isn't this just lovely?

(Isn't that a fawn button for the eye?)

But my favourite one is this:

Just lovely.

These all come from Hello Geronimo (all images from their website).  My sister, niece (hello Isobel!) and I went to the South Bank while I was at home and they had this map in the window.  (I want I want I want.)

So which is your favourite?  And what picture would you make with your buttons?



C.x

Quilting for a cause

Hello everybody.

A lovely long and lazy weekend here - 4th July which means a day off.  Hurray!  We were also given early release from work on Friday.  (Lots of prison-like associations with that phrasing, I know.)  Anyway, I walked home, which gave me a chance to take in the windows of Saks and Anthropologie at a dawdling pace instead of whizzing past them on the bus.  In the bizarre world of fashion, it is winter, which means that the mannequins in Saks are all bundled up in woollen coats and cashmere jumpers.  Lovely, but a bit mad in 80 degree heat.  Apparently, there are women in the world who shop like this.  Personally, I need to feel the early morning chill of Autumn before i can think of the need for fingerless long wool gloves.  (The Saks mannequins tell me they will be big next season - you heard it here first.)

Saks had also devoted a whole line of windows to The Names Project.

I had a vague impression of this that I'd picked up from somewhere, but it's a powerful thing to see these displayed in a line together.  There's so much love and emotion packed into each one.

And they so vividly bring to life the people they commemorate.

So much life and loss and heartache behind each panel.

(I have sat for awhile wondering whether it's too insensitive a transition to go on from here to chatter on about Anthropologie.  But the truth is that it made me so happy to study their window too.  So much creativity and humour was just the kind of life affirming injection I needed.  Apologies to anyone who finds the remainder of the post in bad taste...)

So, to Anthropologie.  I find their window displays endlessly fascinating.

Who would think to clutter up a window with bubbles?  And yet it works.  And I just love the use of these old slides as the backdrop to a single outfit in the corner of this window.   How fab is that?!

Each slide offering its own tiny slice of life....

There's so much care and attention to detail that goes into these window displays.  But it's not often that I get to see it happen as I did on Friday.

Simple yet effective.

More creative food inside.  There isn't a single plate here that I'm not coveting...

And owls are definitely the bird of the moment.  They were everywhere.

I managed not to buy anything.  But lots of food for mind and soul.  All on the way home from work.

C.x