Attic24

Summers End

We passed the Autumn Equinox on Sunday, and that's our Summer over for another year. Often in the past, this time of year would absolutely flatten me with an overwhelming sense of melancholy mixed in with something akin to mild panic. I honestly used to dread the end of September which is a bit sad really because it's just a collection of emotions based on nothing tangible. I would mourn the end of Summer with a deep down feeling of real loss. But this year? Well...............I feel great about Autumn slowly arriving, really and truly! I think this is mostly down to the fact that we enjoyed such an amazing summer this year, oh it's been utterly glorious and I have so many warm, sunny memories to tide me over this period of seasonal transition.

It feels like Autumn has crept in early, just as Summer did back at the start of May. I ususally think of September as a "late Summer month", but this year, it has felt very autumnal right from the start.

This is the stretch of the river between Burnsall and Linton, which is a part of the Yorkshire Dales that feels very familiar and comforting to us as we walk here often. On this Sunday morning in early September it was warm and muggy as we ambled along, me, J and Little B. I remember feeling like we needed to make the very most of the last remaining days of holiday before the new school year began, and a slow walk along the riverside felt like just the right kind of thing.

Our destination was the Old School Tearoom in Hebden which I can highly recommend if you are ever in the area visiting. It's an absolute gem of a place in a charming Dales village - we like to go mid morning for coffee and brunch, and if the weather is mild there's a lovely garden you can sit in whilst you enjoy some very good food and drink. 

Being that this was an end of holiday treat, Little B took full advantage and ordered up a waffle, complete with toffee sauce, ice cream and banana. He declared it "soooooooooooooo good.....but not better than the waffle in Bruges", which I think is fair enough. I don't think any waffle will ever be as good as the one in Bruges. 

The following day, Little B and I went off just the two of us for a day in the City. During the summer he had kept asking, and I had kept promising, and quite frankly with only two days of holiday left I was running out of time to make good on my promise. When he tumbled out of bed that morning, I calmly told him we would be getting the train and heading for a day out in the City and he nearly jumped through the ceiling with excitement. It made me think that maybe I need to work harder at fulfilling promises, because he was so shocked that we were actually going to do it!

It was fun being just the two of us, he is terrific company, a real chatter box and still at an age where train journeys and trips out in general hold much excitement. We spent a bit of time shopping (very last minute school uniform, and some Lego as an end of holiday treat), and then it was time for the most exciting part of the whole trip.......a visit to The Alchemist......

.....and yes you would be right in thinking that this is a rather posh cocktail bar and not especially the kind of place for an eight year old to wish for with so much enthusiasm. We were lucky to get a table outside on the terrace (it's high up, with stunning city views), and proceeded to order up some mocktails. Oh boy, the excitement!!! Little B is quite a science geek, so the fact that the cocktail menu is set out like the periodic table really floated his little boat, as did the rather chemical looking drink that arrived for him. Such fun. He absolutely loved it, so much so that he chose to write about it in his "what I did in the holidays" report at school. I hope the teacher doesn't think badly of me for making a cocktail bar the highlight of his holiday.

I spent a bit of time towards the end of the Summer enjoying some non-crochet creative time, which was hugely enjoyable. Crochet will always be my passion and my first love, but every so often it gives me a lot of pleasure to follow other people's patterns and designs and do something just for fun. I knitted a pair of socks (more on those in another post), and I worked some more on my latest cross stitch.

I am totally loving this design (by Tiny Modernist on Etsy), and find that the extreme concentration needed to prevent a stitchy balls-up really frees up my mind and relaxes me. I've had to put it away again for a while as I've been concentrating on doing Yarndale work, but I'm really looking forward to life post-Yarndale when I'll have time to sit quietly and stitch again.

The Little People have been back at school for three weeks now, and all seems to be calm and settled in their respective childhood worlds. I was thinking about that fact this afternoon, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of gratitude for the fact that right now, all three of my offspring are content, happy, doing well for themselves and thriving. I am so so glad. I walk along the canal every morning with Little B, and feel so happy that this is our routine, our life. We are blessed, and I never for one moment take it for granted. 

I treated myself to a new light weight summer cardy before all the winter woollies arrived. I bought it mainly because I loved the colour - it's kind of a cross between mustard and lime green and I've been wearing it with anything and everything, not caring if it matches or not. I thought the colour looked especially good alongside these leaves that I picked up from the bottom of the street. The big sycamore trees are always the first to start changing colour, reminding me that Summer is slowly slipping away.

I'm still so madly in love with my Cottonsoft blanket, and have become very possessive of it. I enjoy having it with me at night - even if it's too warm to have it on top of me, I like sleeping with it folded up at my feet. Don't ask me why, but it gives me such a lot of comfort and I love having those beautiful, soft summer ripples close by. 

My hill view is looking so lovely right now (well not right this very minute as it's pitch black out there now). The countryside is lush after a lot of rain these past few weeks, and there is something about the particular mellowness of the September sun that makes the light and shadows look very beautiful as they pass across the hillside.

We've been walking locally a bit just lately, Little B and I striding out after dinner to make the most of this time of year when the daylight hours allow an evening walk. We have a circuit we like to do which takes us up steep, steep streets of (posh) houses to the very edge of our town, then a wide farm track around the foot of the above hill, through a gate and into the top of the woods. We have to time it right, because walking in the woods as it starts to get dark is a bit tricky to be honest!

But it's lovely to emerge at the outer edge of the woodland and take in the early evening view over the town. I appreciate being able to do this at the end of my often hectic days, a chance to gently unwind as the day comes to a close. 

I hope that whatever transition you are making as we shift from one season to the next, that you find pleasure in your days.

Enjoy every moment!

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Making the Seasons :: May

Hello, and welcome to the May edition of my "Making the Seasons" series of posts - this month is entirely inspired by wild flowers and a bit of botanical going's on, as that seems to be my current fixation. In case you were wondering about my Making The Seasons projects, there is absolutely no forward planning whatsoever for the things that I choose to do for these monthly posts that I'm creating with my friend Gillian. I'm not sure if Gill plans her projects in advance, but I can tell you that I don't seem to be able to. I just trust that  a seed of creative inspiration will germinate and flower at the right time for me to execute it, photograph it and then show it all to you before the month comes to an end. Gillian and I do chat back and forth via email about what's bubbling inside our creative minds and what sort of inspirations we are enjoying for the month we are currently in, but it generally feels rather abstract as I digest my seasonal feelings and try and decide on a creative direction for them. 

During the past few weeks I've felt really uplifted by the abundance of growth happening all around where I live, it's been really inspirational and therapeutic on so many levels. I've loved walking in the woods, strolling beside the river and jaunting through the meadow, observing and photographing all the flowers, grasses and trees that are bursting back into life after our long winter season. Usually I am content to just use my camera to capture what I see on my walks, but last week I felt compelled to gather a few stems to bring home with me.

Meadow flowers and grasses are so dainty and pretty, and it's easy to overlook the perfect details when you are walking past great swathes of them. Much better to have a stem or two to be able to appreciate all that delicate beauty up close. I spent a while just observing the arrangement of these teeny tiny cow parsley flowers, and thinking how fabulous nature is at design work. I know that these sweet little flowers have provided botanical inspiration for many designers - did you know that you can buy Cow Parsley wallpaper? Or how about some Cow Parsley fabric? Maybe you'd rather like a Cow Parsley jug instead? Ahh, I know just the thing - what do you think about a crochet Cow Parsley Garland?!!

It might surprise you to know that I didn't automatically reach for my yarn and crochet hook to capture all this wild flower beauty.

And I didn't gather fabric and threads to stitch with either.

What actually popped into my head were.......................

.......................pebbles!

Bet you didn't see that coming, did ya?!

As you might expect from a self confessed sea addict, I have a fair collection of beach finds here in the Attic which include a smooth pebble or two. Having pebbles sitting in the house comes in rather handy when a sudden urge to try some botanical pebble art springs out of nowhere. I decided that I wanted to try and translate my May walks into a lovely decorative reminder of the season, partly inspired by these...................

photo credit : Natasha Newton

.......oh will you just cast your eyes over the beauty of these painted pebbles! Aren't they gorgeous?

This is the work of artist Natasha Newton and I've had a big huge smoochy crush on Natasha's pebbles for years now. They are absolutely exquisite in their detail and precision and I seriously adore the simplicity of the white designs against the natural pebbly backgrounds. Natasha uses a very fine brush with white acrylic paint to decorate her pebbles (you can get a great feel for her artistic talent on her Instagram account), but to be honest I don't think I have enough painterly skillz to try this technique for myself.

What I do have to hand though, is a very, very good paint pen which makes light work of adding a decorative touch to pretty much any surface. It's a bit like having a Magic Pen, as almost anything that comes out of it ends up looking rather good. I didn't plan my design in advance, but went straight into it, trying to capture something of the delicate nature of the Cow Parsley....

....and actually, I don't think it came out looking too shabby for a first attempt.

Now before we go any further, I have to tell you a bit more about these Posca Pens. Ohmygoodness, they are pens of wonderment! The one I'm using has an Ultra Fine nib (0.7mm), but you can get fatter ones too. They use water-based pigment ink to produce paint-like colours that can be used on almost any surface. The ink evenly flows out of the nib making them super-easy to use, and although they are water-based, the resulting designs on pebbles are pretty water resistant from what I can tell.

I bought my white pens from Amazon {Posca Ultra Fine white pens on Amazon UK :: Amazon US}

You can also get some beautiful coloured Posca pens too, although so far I've resisted this temptation. There is something very soothing about using just white, and I've enjoyed the simplicity of this approach very much.

I dug out four smooth pebbles from my collection, decorating three of them with botanical designs and the roundest one with a simple mandala design. Painted mandala stones are a BIG thing out in the world wide web, oh there are huge numbers to be found on Pinterest (go on, I know you want to see. Go take a quick peek here, but don't be long - hurry back to the Attic once you've had your fill of the visuals!)

Similar to crochet mandalas, decorated pebbles don't really have a use, but that's quite OK once you accept the fact and give in to the uselessness of them. I've had my pebbles sitting on my outside table with my gathered wild flowers, and they've made me feel content just being there and bringing forth sunny meadow memories. I love the feel of them in my hand, there is simple pleasure to be had in the feel of a smooth, sea-washed pebble passing under your fingers.

We've continued to have the most beautiful warm sunny weather here this past week, and on Sunday we took a short walk at our favourite weekend destination :: Bolton Abbey.

I enjoyed the lush, dappled woodland pathways....

....and the abundance of wild flowers growing along the river bank.

Ah see over there, on the other side of the river? That's one of our favourite river beaches, and once we cross over the bridge a bit further down, we'll be able to hop over to potter about a bit.

It's not the seaside and there aren't any waves, but there are lots of tranquil little river beaches to be enjoyed all along the River Wharfe in this part of the Yorkshire Dales.

The riverside pebbles are just as appealing and pebbly as those found at the coast...

....and instead of seagulls there are fluffy ducklings which kind of makes up for the lack of waves.

We pootled at the beach for quite a while, enjoying the morning sunshine and the peaceful atmosphere. The boys spent their time searching for suitable flat stones for skimming across the water, and I searched out a few suitable smooth stones for decorating purposes.

The following morning, I sat outside with my coffee and a couple of magazines, and was thrilled to see that natural inspiration and botanical themes were heavily featured in the pages. I must be on trend, yay, go me!!

I soon got busy with my Posca pen, taking inspiration from the images in the magazines (Country Homes and Interiors).

I picked out simple floral and leaf motifs found on prints and home textiles and translated them as simply as I could into small designs for my pebble collection.

You have to have a weeny bit of arty confidence with pebble painting - this is not a pen that you can correct, so you have to use confident, sure lines, taking care with shapes and patterns as you draw them directly onto the surface. It's a huge amount of fun I have to say, and very soon I had company outside in the early morning (I just looked at the time stamp on these pictures, and it was just after 8am)....

....enter Little B through the back door, still in his pyjamas, looking for his Mum to see what she was up to. He watched me draw just a single leaf on a pebble, and immediately asked if he could have a try. 

He thought for just a moment about his design, confident in what he wanted to do. A star and some flowers, the earth and sky.

Meanwhile, I was on a roll and more botanical designs rolled out of my head and onto the pebbles. 

I felt like I could have decorated the whole river beach!

Little B begged and begged for one more pebble, telling me he really, really wanted to try drawing a bird. I suggested he have a go at drawing it on paper first - we found a simple motif in one of the magazines and had a practice at copying it. He was nervous to take the design onto the pebble, but once I stopped holding my breath and looking over his shoulder (so so hard to back off!) he set his mind to it, and he did superbly well, adding in detail and making it his own.

My last pebble was inspired by the buttercups sitting pretty on my table, and I think this is my favourite pebble of all. It holds the memories of this time and season, and I dearly love it for that and will treasure it. I must remember to draw the date on the back.

So this is what I ended up with - a modest collection of painted pebbles which capture the essence of May, the joy of nature and wild flowers, riverside pootles, woodland walks and meadow strolls. Sunshine and dappled shade, cool water and a light breeze. Bright early mornings and radiant golden evenings. All the things that I love about this month and this time of year.

At the moment I've got my pebbles nestled into an enamel plate on the dining table and I like having them there. I'm enjoying looking at them and playing with them every day, they are so tactile and soothing. I might keep them, I might gift them, I might return them back to nature at some point. But for now, they are staying right here and bringing me joy. And that's a pretty good thing, don't you think?

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You can read my previous "Making the Seasons" posts {HERE} and have a look at Gillian's seasonal makes {HERE}. We hope you enjoy what we are making and creating each month! xx








 

 

Easter 2018

Hello!! I can't explain how happy I feel to be back here in the Attic, sharing photos of this and that and sitting down to chat with you all. Life has been slightly strange for me of late in that quite a bit of what I'm up to can't be shared just yet, and the knock-on effect is that it's made it harder for me to blog. But I've really missed being here, my weeks just don't feel right without this precious outlet to share and chat about what's going on in my life, so I really want to make time to be here more. 

Behind the scenes I'm working on Yarndale things and some exciting design commissions as well as two new blankets, so I'm busy busy but in a Secret Squirrel kind of a way which doesn't really suit me all that well to be honest. I'm so looking forward to the sharing bit of all this creativity, in fact I absolutely cannot wait to unzip myself and blurt it all out. Hmm...is blurt even a word? I think it absolutely should be, don't you? 

This week the Little People returned back to school and J took himself back to his desk after a whopping 18 days of Easter holidays. It's felt like such a long break from routine but in a deliciously good way. As we did last year, we decided to stay home for this holiday, enjoying some much needed relaxation and family time on the home front. Little Man (who is really not very little any more) will sit his GCSE exams next month so we needed to give him time, space and encouragement to focus on some revision.

For the rest of us, the focus of the past two weeks has been mostly about lazy enjoyment of home comforts, with a little bit of out-and-about thrown into the mix when the weather was right. We also made a start sorting out Little B's bedroom, which included all sorts of juggling of furniture, a mass clear out of old toys, books and clothes and the building of a new High Sleeper bed. It's a work in progress still, but it feels wonderful to have finally made a start on sorting out this rather tired, cluttered, chaotic old house of ours.

As the Little People grow into themselves, it's becoming very much easier to find guilt-free time for myself during our stay-home holidays. The two Teens are both very independent young people with very active social lives, so much of their Easter holiday revolved around going out with friends. Or sitting in their bedrooms talking to their friends. And at eight years old, Little B is more easily able to please himself for longer periods which has opened up some rather delightful little windows of opportunity for Yours Truly. I've mostly filled the resulting me-time with obsessive stitching and hooking, and honestly I have love love loved it.

Continuing my adventures in cross stitch, I sat myself peacefully and stitched little crosses endlessly into black fabric to complete my second Zodiac hoop (Pisces design by Jody Rice of Satsuma Street on Etsy). I need to photograph it properly so that I can overshare the beauty of the design and colours with you all, I'm so so pleased with it and it was an absolute joy to stitch.

On a roll with the stitchin', as soon as I'd finished the Pisces hoop I couldn't help myself and immediately prepped a piece of Fiddler's Aida (yes, it really is called that) in a 7 inch hoop ready to create this super-sweet cross stitch by Zindagi Designs on Etsy. I fell in love with this design during one of my marathon searches to fuel my new found cross stitching obsession. I really like the sentiment as I'm quite the coffee addict, but truthfully it was the flowers that I was really itching to stitch. I made good progress during the two week Easter break - I'll show you very soon how it's turning out. 

After a whole week of being pretty idle at home, we woke up one morning to blue skies and sunshine and decided it would be a good idea to head out and take in something of a watery view. I really wanted to go to the coast but I was outvoted in favour of a closer trip to inland waters. So I went with the flow and we set forth to wander around the perimeter of Grimwith Reservoir. I was relieved to see it looking pretty full of water after our visit there in August when the levels were worryingly low.

It was an interesting walk this one, mainly as it was just the three of us for a change. Oh I did miss my Little Lady very much (she was staying with friends at the time), and I think Little B did too. He was in a slightly whiny mood, deliberately dragging his feet and complaining that he was bored. Yeah - not a huge amount of fun to be honest, but we made the best of it and did what we could to cheer him along.

I love the above photo! It's hard to make out what's going on with the scale/perspective, but the gorgeous greenery in the foreground is actually the top of a wide mossy wall. I tell you, I find moss completely irresistible. 

It's four and a half miles around this reservoir, and all I can say is I'm so glad I insisted on packing refreshments to bring with us. Thank goodness for flasks of hot beverages! Stopping at the half way point to rest a while and have a hot drink put an instant halt to Little B's whinging - I mean, cups of milky hot chocolate, what's not to like?

I've come to really like this walk - I think this might have been our fourth or fifth walk here in the past year or so and it grows on me a little more each time. 

There is a peacefulness to the open landscape/waterscape and a reassuring sense of calm that comes from walking along a very clearly defined circular route where you can see exactly where you are headed at all times. 

I really love this time of year for the absolutely gorgeous floral joy it delivers. My table hasn't been without flowers upon it since the New Year when cheap and cheerful daffodils and narcissus began appearing in supermarket buckets. Just recently I've opted to pay out a few more pennies so that I can snag the "fancy" varieties of daffies on offer, oh they are so worth it! Sometimes these will be beautiful pale, creamy white flowers, and sometimes (like the above ones) there are bright orange petals tucked up inside each flower. 

I always buy the bunches with the buds tightly closed up so there is an element of surprise when they finally unfurl and show their petals. The sight of a jug of daffodils sitting on the table makes me feel so happy, especially when I first come downstairs in the early morning. 

I've got some pots of bulbs flowering away on my mantel too, and I love to watch their daily progress as they grow, bloom and then gently fade. 

The hyacinths have grown a lot since I took the above photo and right now are in full floral swing, oh they are spectacular! Four flower stems grew and produced the most beautiful bright pink flowers. Our days are really long and light now since the clocks changed at the end of March and put us forward into British Summer Time, but I do still enjoy my fairy lights and candles in the evenings. I've got a green candle burning right now which is "bergamot & green tea" - the scent is gorgeously fresh and uplifting for this time of year.

I did a little bit of baking during the Easter holidays, partly for the pleasure of pottering in a warm kitchen and getting to inhale the aroma of cookie dough and mixed spice, and partly for the pleasure of having a sneaky homemade biscuit with my afternoon cup of tea. I love these biscuit cutters and every time I use them I think to myself that I really should make many, many more biscuits just so that I get to use them more often.

I made Easter biscuits for the first time, and they came out OK although they were a little bit on the dry/soft side. I thought they would come out a little crisper somehow, and with a bit more flavour too. Although it could well be that my jar of mixed spice was a little on the ancient side and perhaps needs to be replaced. I should maybe check the sell by date.......

We had a lot of chocolate in the house over Easter which was to be expected - the Little People certainly weren't complaining but it did make me feel like I needed to put my Mummy hat on and provide some healthy stuff to balance out all the sugar. We always have a big bowl full of fruit in the house which I'm happy for the Little People to dip into whenever they like, but there is something really extra yummy about a plate of  fresh fruit prepared and chopped up into bite sized pieces. I really need to do this more often. I mean, it's not that hard to peel and slice kiwi/mango/pineapple or chop up some strawberries but it's surprising how often I tend to feel like I just can't be bothered. Bad Mummy. 

I also made some batches of baked kale crisps last week, oh my word this stuff is blinking good! J and I devoured it fresh out of the oven - I found myself absolutely shoveling great handfuls of it into my mouth as if I'd been starved for a week, quite ridiculous behaviour really. I can highly recommend making some if you are partial to salty, savoury snacking material, it'such a good way to eat green veg, it really is.

In other green related news, the woodland is looking mighty fine right now with its carpet of wild garlic looking and smelling divine.

We took a short walk through our local woods one Sunday morning, it was quite early and we pretty much had the place to ourselves with only one or two dog walkers out and about. I do really love this time of year - the early greenery is such a welcome sight after what has felt like a very long drawn out winter.

It'll still be a while before the treetops burst into leaf - that'll happen in May and I absolutely cannot wait of for that. 

I've really, really enjoyed my hooky time during the holidays, it's been the perfect cosy thing to occupy my lazy self during the cold days we had at the start of the month. We had the fire lit for a while when it still felt very much like winter and it was all so very hygge with the flames flickering and my toes all warm inside my hand knit socks and the kitty draped across my lap as I hooked up some beautiful ripple rows. I know I haven't told you much about the blanket I'm currently making, but I was trying to wait a bit as there will be a new Summer yarn pack coming but not until late July/early August. I'm wary of peaking too soon with my blanket induced giddiness so was trying to wait until Summer felt a bit closer, but what the heck, a sneak peek just needed to happen at some point so why not now?! The colours I'm using are extremely light and full of summer freshness, I'm so enjoying the playfulness of it all.

I think one of the very, very, very bestest things that happened to me during the Easter holidays is being demonstrated in the above photo. Little B, begging me to teach him to crochet until I made space in my self indulgent day to give him my full attention. He is a very tenacious, determined and focused little boy and not one to give up easily once he sets his mind to doing something. The flip side to all this strength of mind is that he can often get very frustrated and upset if he can't manage to achieve what he has set his sights on. So with the whole crochet thing, I had a feeling it could either go brilliantly or end in an absolute melt down. In the end it was a bit of both. The meltdown happened quite swiftly when he quickly realised that crocheting was actually a lot harder than he had originally thought. However his determination won through and once he'd gathered himself together he came back to the table to try again. The second attempt went much better and it didn't take him long to master chain making. He was so happy!!

I let him choose what colours he wanted to use and he decided to make a rainbow.....

....it just made me so happy to see him sitting and crocheting, I can't tell you the depth of emotion that passed through me that day. 

He was so proud of his rainbow chains - I ended up tying them all together at the top to make a tassel that he could hang on his school bag.

We had a little go at learning double crochet rows, but I think the excitement of actually being able to crochet had worn off a bit by then! Still, I think he did remarkably well for an 8 year old.

The sequel to this story  is even sweeter - the very next morning, Little B woke me up, full of excitement, telling me that he'd taught his Dad to crochet. My poor sleepy brain didn't comprehend what he was telling me at first, but once it clicked into place and I figured out that Dad=J (J???? J is crocheting?????!!!!!) I couldn't get out of bed fast enough. I came downstairs to find that J was indeed sat in the Big Chair casually crocheting a chain, taught by Little B. Well I never. This would be the equivalent of me attempting to write some computer code, so yes, I was very impressed. I do love my sweet, crazy family.

The second bestest thing about the Easter holidays happened at the weekend, when in a fit of a spontaneity I booked us a very short holiday which required passports and sea travel. We set sail on Friday evening, returning on Sunday morning so less than 48 hours away but still, it was absolutely brilliant. BRILL-i-ant.

Holiday Tales coming soon................!

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Mollie Makes Spring Stitch

photo credit : Mollie Makes

Helloooooooooo my lovelies, it's only me, the obsessive stitcher in the Attic. I actually had another post all lined up ready to share with you today, just some snippets from the past week as I've been home with the family enjoying a really relaxing Easter break. However, as there exists a pressing need for me to share all the ins and outs of my Creative World, and as my latest stitching escapade has a time limit placed upon it, this just couldn't wait another day.

I've decided to join in with a bit of an embroidery stitch-a-long hosted by the team at Mollie Makes. The above image popped up in an email a few days ago and although I'm still eyeballs deep in my cross stitch phase, there was something about the glimpse of this sweet Spring hoop that captured my heart. So I've decided to try and give it a go, mainly because I've just packed away my Winter mantel decs and I fancy seeing something pretty and spring-like sitting on my mantel for the next month or so. I figured this would be a beautiful project to celebrate Spring as part of my "Making the Seasons" monthly project. 

photo credit : Mollie Makes

This embroidery was designed by Anne Oliver who I've discovered writes a lovely stitchy blog called Lolli and Grace. 

The idea is that every day this week (five days in total) there will be installments of this stitch a long released online - you can read more about it all HERE. The only thing is that each installment is available initially for a 24 hour period, hence me writing this in haste to tell you about it in case you fancy joining me. You can download/print the parts when they appear and save them for when you are ready though, and I think there will be a couple other opportunities in future weeks to access the info if you miss any of it this week.

photo credit : Mollie Makes

So day 1 was released today (find details HERE) which lists the thread colours and gives instructions for tracing the pattern and beginning the embroidery. I LOVE the design - I'm a little worried that there are some rather complicated looking stitches included, but Mollie Makes has some basic stitch info (here) and I'm sure there must be a tonne of stitch know-how online. I am excited to give it a go - it's probably not achievable for me to finish it within the next five days (I'm waiting for some white fabric to arrive in the post, so can't actually start until that comes), but so long as I remember to download the info each day then I can go at my own pace during the next few weeks. 

Today was warm and sunny here in Atticland and it felt like Spring for the first time this year. However, I know that Spring doesn't really arrive properly until the very end of the month, but today's glimpse was just glorious.  I am so appreciating our longer, lighter days, and am more than ready to put Winter behind us now. I hope you're enjoying the weather where you are, and that you are feeling happy and creative - I know I am!

I'll be back soon with some home-life snippets xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Seasons :: March

Now that the season is finally showing signs of shifting from Winter to Spring, this past week we've ventured back to our allotment. Our main tasks right now involve clearing up the winter mess (sadly, a storm damaged tree which fell right across our plot), admiring the wildlife (huuuuuuuge frogs and a mass of frogspawn in the pond), and sitting quietly on the bench at the top of the sloping site to take in the view (it's a south-facing sun trap). Behind the bench, our plot becomes a wild kind of shaded bank beneath a very large tree. It's covered in ivy and honeysuckle with bluebells that will flower in early May, but right now it looks extremely pretty with primroses, primulas and narcissus planted by the previous plot holders. There is blossom in abundance too, as the tree I told you about in last month's Making the Seasons post is flowering it's heart out. I popped up there yesterday to pick a few blooms to bring home, and it delighted me so much to do this simple thing. They are slim pickings as I wanted to leave plenty flowering at the plot - I gathered just enough to bring into the house so that I could create a little spring/Easter visual celebration.

A few years ago, I saw a photo in a magazine showing a small spring flower arrangement where the stylist had used painted eggshells as miniature vases. It was so simple, beautiful and inspiring that the image made a lasting impression in my mind, and I knew that at some point I would love to try doing this for myself. It's taken me a while to bring the idea to reality, but I can tell you that it was worth waiting for! 

I usually buy my ordinary brown free range eggs from the local butcher, but this week I happened to have some gorgeous "Bluebell Auraucana" eggs in. I deliberated about painting them (the magazine eggs were painted in soft chalky pastel shades, perfect for an Easter display), but in the end I decided that I really loved the natural blue shade of the egg shells, and actually I was feeling far too impatient to carry out the whole painting/drying waiting game. So I simply chopped off the tops of my egg shells with a small sharp knife and emptied out the eggy innards to save them for some baking.

I went down to the cellar to dig around for a suitable vessel and found a vintage cake stand that I bought a few years ago from the local collectors centre. I wish I'd photographed it to show you before I covered it in moss as it has such a pretty floral design in the middle. Speaking of moss....................

................isn't it an absolute delight??! Also from the allotment, I seriously love this particular green colour - it's so vibrant and fresh looking and it's pleasing me on a very deep level to actually have some real live moss in the house. I L♥ve moss so much! I used some blobs of blutack to secure the eggshells on their ends, but the mossy hillocks also work to keep them nestled in place. Also, note the kitty feet in the background, she is always so curious about the things I do here in the Attic.

I really, really, really, really enjoyed arranging my little spring flowers in their eggy vases, only the process just didn't last long enough! So I took them all out and did it all over again, just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. I think possibly I overdid it in my typical more-is-more way and maybe I should have used less flowers as it all looks a bit jumbled. But honestly? I simply don't care - I love the sweet exuberance of it all.

I plucked a few beautiful deep purple violas from the hanging basket at the front of the house to add to the yellow and white.....

...... and added some little feathers from my extensive feather collection too. 

I thought it would be a nice touch to add some foil-wrapped easter chocolates which I'd bought for the Little People.  I always enjoy Easter for the opportunity it gives us to enjoy sneaky bits of chocolate whenever we feel the need - I don't think this is something I've ever grown out of actually.

Whilst I was photographing and faffing with my flower arrangement, it occurred to me that something felt like it was missing. A little crochet bird perhaps, to nestle amongst the feathers and moss?

You might remember my mini chicklets from three years ago.................

well, I found some duck egg blue yarn and started to crochet a mini chicklet to perch on my table decoration.........

except that instead of adding wings.......................

I added...................................................................

EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, my chicklet decided it wanted to be a Bunny instead, so who was I to argue??!!!!

I scribbled down the pattern as I made the ears, just in case you might feel a pressing need to hook up your own mini-bunny.

I used DK weight yarn (Stylecraft Special DK) and a 4mm hook.

I'm writing in UK crochet terms.

You make the body in exactly the same way as described in the Mini Chicklet pattern. 

MINI BUNNY EARS (make 2)

Using pink yarn, chain 7; work 1 dc in 2nd chain from hook; 1 dc in next stitch; 1 htr in each of the next 4 stitches. Fasten off.

Change to same colour yarn as used for body of bunny. Insert hook in beginning dc and pull through a loop; chain 1 in same stitch; 1 dc in each of the next 4 stitches; 3 dc in next stitch.

Continue working down the opposite side of the ear, putting your hook under the single loops of the foundation chain, as follows: 1 dc in each of the next 6 stitches; slip stitch into beginning chain-1 to close round. fasten off, leaving a tail end for stitching.

Stitch the bunny ears to the top of the head, then use scraps of yarn to embroider eyes and nose, plus a little flower if you fancy it.

I made a little bunny tail by creating a miniature pom pom - I wound a length of white yarn around two of my fingers, then pulled the yarn-wrap carefully off my fingers and secured it around the centre with a tight knot. I trimmed the loops with sharp scissors to form a pom pom shape, then stitched it securely to my bunny's bottom.

I think my bunny secretly wants to be a mouse actually, as her face looks suspiciously mouse-like.....

.....but with bunny ears and a fluffy white tail, I think she passes the bunny-test.

I really love my table flowers and mini bunny. And of course I adore the moss too. I'm wondering how long I could keep a plate of moss going indoors if I watered it, do you think that could be a thing? I could decorate it with daisies and butterflies in summer....little toadstools in Autumn.....

Well anyways......enough gushing over the moss. Would you like to see the rest of my Easter decorations?

I always decorate the dining room fireplace for Christmas and Easter, it's one of those little rituals that makes me insanely happy and properly in the mood for the holidays. I treated myself a few days ago to a couple of lovely little papier maché birds from a local shop, I just couldn't resist them. I'm pretty sure that I won't be packing them away in the Easter Shoebox as I'd like to be able to look at them all year round.

I bought this greetings card earlier in the month as part of my quest to have cards for every season. It's a triple fold-out card called "Nest" by Mark Hearld. I'm a big fan of Mark Hearld's prints (I'm sorry I couldn't seem to find a website to link to, but if you google his name, you'll see lots of his amazing work. )

The rest of my easter decorations are all things that I've collected over the years, things that get stored away in the Attic eaves and which I very much look forward to seeing each year. There are painted eggs, a little decorative nest, some hand stitched felt egg cosies. My jug of twigs stays on the mantel all  year, but the twigs really work especially well at Easter time.

I kept my twigs simple this year, hanging my small collection of little hand painted wooden eggs (you can find similar ones on Amazon), and my crochet blossom from 6 years ago (SIX YEARS????!!!!!!!)

I made these little cotton flowers in 2012 and if you click on the link, you'll find the pattern for them at the end of the Easter Blossom blog post.

Little Lady came in from school yesterday and squealed with delight when she saw the mantel (a happy Mum moment!), but the boys haven't batted an eyelid or made one single comment. That's OK - I feel certain that I would decorate to celebrate the seasons purely for my own delight if I lived alone, so I know deep down that I do this sort of thing for myself rather than expecting the Little Peeps to be grateful for it. But I do hope that in some small way they will absorb their creative home environment and remember it fondly, even if those memories are just hazy, nostalgic snippets of their childhood in years to come. Crazy ol' Mum and her Seasonal Mantels.....remember that?

I'd love to know if you decorate your home for Easter - do you make an Easter tree? Decorate eggs? Make an Easter display on your table?

Whilst I was searching for Eggshell vase ideas, I found a few lovely random images that I thought you might like....

Putting a weeny bit of earth into egg shells and actually growing little plants in them - I seriously love this idea (and there is moss!)

These egg heads with their cress hair made me smile, and I think would be fun to do with Little B. I also love the simple painted faces on these eggs too.

And how about using egg shells to sow seeds in? What a fabulous environmental alternative to plastic pots.

♥

I find so much happiness in seasonal creativity, even just thinking about all the possibilities makes me completely giddy with excitement. I'm all set to do some seasonal baking tomorrow - I've got speckled candy eggs to go on top of some chocolate crispy nests, and I'm going to have a go at making Easter Biscuits  too. We always had Easter biscuits when we visited my Mum at this time of year, they are a true taste of the season for me.

Hoping you have a fabulous weekend doing things that you love - please do pop over to Gillian's blog and catch up with her Making the Seasons post, it's choc full (literally!) of creative inspiration. Enjoy! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps all my Seasonal posts are tagged in the Making the Seasons category so you can find them. Gill and I also created a #makingtheseasons hashtag on Instagram for you to tag in your creative makes for us to find - it's a visual feast!

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Cross Stitch

photo credit : SatsumaStreet

 

I wouldn't say that I'm a particularly impulsive person, and I'm not somebody who feels the need to have lots of different projects all going on at once. So for me to see something and be so smitten that I dive head first into a completely new creative adventure is unusual. But that's exactly what happened when I came across some cross stitch designs on Instagram (on Valentines Day no less), it really was love at first sight. I did question it for an extremely small number of minutes......will this stitching thing make me happy (very likely), can I justify spending money on new materials (absolutely, I'm worth it), have I really got the time to give over to a new hobby (probably not, but I'm way too excited to care).

 

As you can see from the above photo, the thing that caught my undivided attention last month was a cross stitch project created by Californian designer Jody Rice. Jody's company is called Satsuma Street and when I read that her tag line was "Cross Stitch for a Happy World", well I figured that I would probably be really happy taking a stroll down Satsuma Street.

 

You can follow Jody on Instagram (her name there is @craftnik), and you can read more about how she came to be a cross stitchin' lady on her website (https://satsumastreet.com/) 

 

 

Much like yours truly, Jody's signature is her joyful use of bright colour and as you can probably imagine, I instantly fell head over heels in love with her style. I think she has become most well known for her "Pretty Little Cities" designs, but it was her Zodiac designs that captured my heart.

Satsuma Street cross stitch designs are beautifully photographed for Jody's Etsy shop, which is an absolute delight to browse through. With each listing, Jody explains the type of fabric you will need, and the finished size of the piece. Etsy makes this kind of online purchase an absolute doddle - you click on the Buy-it-now button, pay your money, and as if by magic a PDF file appears for you to download to your computer.

The only information I found that was missing was the total number of different colours needed for each project - I kind of wanted to know this in advance so that I could calculate the cost of the project. So I simply messaged Jody via Etsy to ask her and she told me that the number of colours varied with each design but that on average she used 20 - 30 in each one. Now that's quite a lot of thread to purchase if you are starting from scratch, but well......who can resist the lure of a fistful of thready colour???

The downloading of the cross stitch chart is pretty much instantaeous, but there is an inevitable delay when ordering up supplies. Oh, it was AgOnY waiting for them to arrive!!!! I kept looking at my printed out chart and itching to stitch, and I am not known for my pateince when it comes to the Creative Urge.

I bought my basic supplies on Amazon, as follows :: 

Fabric - black 14 count aida

Scissors - duck egg blue polka dot

Needles - size 24 tapestry 

I was a little scared of the black aida when it arrived - the holes looked awfully close together and very hard to see, but actually it wasn't nearly as tricky as I feared.

The threads are DMC brand "stranded embroidery threads", and I went to an independent online retailer for these. I was recommended The Patchwork Rabbit on Instagram so thought I would check it out (always nifty to get good advance info on these things) and I found their threads to be extremely well priced, all in stock, and super-speedy with the delivery too. The website makes it easy to order - you simply type the colour number code into the "find it easily" search box, and the listing pops straight up with no messing. So I guess there are hundreds of places you could find DMC threads online, but I can certainly recommend the Patchwork Rabbit. 

Now I am not new to stitching or embroidery by any means, having been an avid stitcher for most of my life. But following a counted cross stitch chart was something I'd never done before. Jody's charts are in full colour, but also have these little symbols to make it a bit clearer. In a nutshell - one little symbol in a square = one cross stitch. It's all pretty self explanatory really, although when you download one of Jody's charts you also get an additional PDF file which contains some basic cross stitch know-how.  

The first thing I did was to grab some white sewing thread to mark out the central lines (vertical and horizontal) so that I would know where to begin stitching. Jody advises finding the centre point on your fabric (also marked on her charts) and begin stitching from there, working your way out towards the edges. 

The Zodiac design I'd chosen was made to fit inside a 6" hoop, so it all felt very achievable for this newbie x-stitcher. None of the areas were too big or too complex to count, and Jody's designs use frequent colour changes worked over small, detailed areas so I  never felt bored of the stitching, not once.

In fact, I very quickly became mesmerised by the whole process of slow stitching and absolutely loved being able to see the overall design gently emerge as if by magic. I particularly appreciated all the little design details - being able to stitch highly decorative flowers and leaves as well as the larger areas kept me completely addicted for hours and hours on end.

I couldn't decided at first whether to stitch with my fabric stretched in a hoop, or to keep the fabric floppy and free - there seems to be some debate about this when I looked it up online. In the end I kept my fabric stretched in the flexi-hoop which would eventually become the frame and I enjoyed stitching in and out of the taut fabric. Flexi-hoops have a little metal hanger screwed into the top of them, so before I began stitching I unscrewed it and put it somewhere safe. That meant that my hoop was completely smooth all the way around and there was nothing for the threads to get caught up in. I much preferred it to a traditional embroidery hoop which has the tightening screw at the top.

Flexi-hoops come in all different sizes and finishes - the one I'm using is Woodgrain (although it's plastic of course), and 6" which is the finished size of all Jody's zodiac cross stitch pieces.

{6" flexi-hoop on Amazon} - also easy to find in abundance on eBay.

I popped all my cross stitching paraphernalia inside my best-favourite project bag, a treasured gift hand made for me by my lovely friend Sandra-Cherryheart.

I must confess to you that I really did become obsessed with the business of making weeny crosses onto this black fabric. The above photo was taken just 3 days after I began my adventure - I know!!! Yikes!!! I started out on a Saturday morning, and by Tuesday I only had the birds left to stitch. 

I deliberately saved stitching the birds until last, oh I did SO enjoy creating them! It amazed me how much character and charm could be created using a load of simple little crosses - Jody's designs really are an absolute joy.

The other pleasing thing about the finished piece is the overall supreme neatness of it all. There is a precision in counted cross stitch which I thought might possibly get on my nerves, but actually it was the opposite. I found I loved the necessary concentration, the methodical counting and changing colours in exactly the right place. It gave me a sense of calm to follow each tiny little symbol on the chart, producing so many hundreds of regimented rows of crosses. It was just delightful to know that someone else had carried out a huge amount of design work so that I knew for certain that my picture would work out and become a wonderful finished object.

My cross stitch isn't without it's mistakes mind you. There are a few places where I completely miscounted but had gone too far ahead to be able to unpick my stitches. So I had to tell myself it was ok to leave the mistakes and nobody would really know except me.

I finished my first ever cross stitch within a week, and I am completely in love with it. In case you aren't familiar with the zodiac signs, I'm a Libra which is the sign of balance and harmony, represented by weighing scales. When I think about a set of weighing scales, absolutely nothing inspirational springs to mind at all, so full credit to Jody for designing something so pleasing and beautiful. She is a true artist, and if you delve into her Instagram feed you'll catch glimpses of her design process in action. It's genuine (paper and pencil!), and every finished design of hers is stitched and photographed so that you get a real good sense of the completed piece. Almost every other cross stitch design I have come across online is simply a computer generated representation - it's absolutely not the same as seeing a photo of the real thing.

I thought you might appreciate getting a look at the dirty back side of my cross stitch - ha!!! I didn't use any knots when I started a new colour - I either stitched over the end or carried it under existing stitches....I'm rather proud of it!

I can't remember where I read about finishing off a piece of stitching in a hoop, but I found some general instructions online somewhere. I made sure the design was exactly in the centre, pulled the fabric nice and taut, then trimmed it around with about a cm overhanging. I then used a strong black thread and made a running stitch all around the circle, pulling it tight as I went so that the fabric was gathered in neatly. I finished it off by painting over the raw fabric edge with a little white craft glue to stop it fraying. 

I absolutely love what I made, I love every single little thing about it. I even love the black background, and the way it makes the colours sing. I love knowing that the hours I spent quietly stitching during a cold, snowy week in February turned into something so lovely.

I always intended for my Libra hoop to hang on the wall in my bedroom - it somehow seemed the perfect place for it, and I look at it every single day when I first get up in the morning, and just before I snuggle into bed at night.

The wall looks a bit bare at the moment but I'm hoping to build up a little collection of pictures and pretty things to add over time. Little B made me the hama bead heart, and the pictures are just greetings cards stuck on the wall with washi tape.

So what's the next chapter going to be in my cross stitch adventure??

Well...................................................................................................

photo credit : SatsumaStreet

 ............I'm already started on a second zodiac design, this time it's Pisces which is J's sign. Aren't the fishes amazing?

I found that I only needed to buy 6 additional colours to add to the ones I already had for the Libra design and I was good to go full steam ahead with the fish. I'm still loving the whole cross-stitch process, although I sometimes find the lack of good direct light a bit of a problem. I've found that if I keep the white paper chart on my lap whilst I'm stitching, I can more easily see the holes in the black aida fabric, but good lighting is essential for this kind of close work.

I would love to hear if any of you are on your own cross stitch adventure, and if you have any good recommendations for modern designers. I haven't dared look too far into the world-wide-web just yet, but boy, I'm tempted. There are probably some amazing stitchy bloggers out there, just waiting for the likes of me to tumble fully down their stitchy rabbit holes. But first - the fishes are calling..................................

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Making the Seasons :: January

There's no getting away from it - these early months of the year can be pretty hard going and honestly, I do find them a struggle. We've had soooooooooooooo many endless grey wet days in January, but nevertheless I am rejoicing every time I notice the lengthening days (coming out of Little B's swimming lessons and there is Still Daylight at 4.45!!). I've been in and out of my Making Winter book many times already this month, there is something so uplifting about Emma's photos that I always find inspiration in those beautiful pages.

During the past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about my mood and general lack of zest as I come to terms with my anemia (again), trying every day to find joy in the little things and feel positive about this period of enforced slowness. Oh, I am so slooooooww at the moment!! I am simply not able to take myself out of Plod Mode as my body doesn't have enough oxygen for me to accelerate at all. And of course I live in a town with hilly streets, with the Attic being at the top end of a very long climb upwards, so the slow plodding is particularly noticeable as I walk homewards at the end of each day.

However..........I am very conscious of keeping a sunny outlook and I'm trying to adjust my thoughts and expectations to keep pace with my body so that I don't end up frustrated and low. I think I'm doing OK. I've spent the past few weeks tucked up at home for the most part, keeping myself warm and cosy and not trying to do too much. As you know, I love walking and enjoy being in the countryside very much, so it's felt odd to me that I've simply not wanted to venture out at all. 

But on Monday afternoon the sun unexpectedly made an appearance after yet another morning of rain and for the first time in ages I suddenly felt inspired to go out and walk in the woods. Yay for sunshine on a grey Winter's day!! J is home with me on a Monday so after lunch we jumped in the car and went for a short walk at Bolton Abbey.

There isn't a lot of colour in the woodland at the moment (which makes me LOVE my Woodland blanket more than ever with  it's colourful Autumn memories!), but I was overjoyed to see some greenery poking up through the earth. These are very early bluebell shoots, and the sight of them made me shriek with excitement ever so slightly (sorry J). 

I wanted to stand and soak in all that pale winter sunlight, absorb it into my very soul. We've seen the sun so rarely this month, so when it has made an appearance it's been beautiful.

I know you must be wondering what on earth this has all got to do with being creative and celebrating the seasons......well it's this :: I find that when I'm out walking amongst nature, my mind often spins into creative overdrive. I had some of the most FABuLous ideas for future projects on Monday whilst I was strolling slowly along those grey stone pathways through the bare trees. It was really energising, and made me so happy! I came home and scribbled my ideas down, drew little sketches of how I imagined things might look, and generally felt full of creative buzz. Sometimes I think it's enough just to feel alive with creative energy and make a few plans, even if you don't have the time or desire to actually physically make anything right this minute. Yes, I think that creative thoughts are a very good thing to have in January.

In Emma's Making Winter book, one of the things she suggests is keeping a nature diary - little sketches and notes to record things seen on a walk. I love this idea, although in reality I would tend to use my camera to capture and record things here on my blog rather than attempt it with a pen. Mind you, I do often feel like scooping up handfuls of moss to bring home and study, oh the moss is looking fabulous at the moment, so full of itself in all this wet weather! I love moss so much, but I imagine it'd be a devil to sketch.

I did see a whole tree full of catkins in the woods on Monday, but was too busy trying to breathe and move my wooden legs to stop and capture it with my camera. They were spectacular though. Catkins and pussy willow are those bits of nature which happen in winter but bring the promise of Spring, and I love them for that. My mum loved them too and I remember that we often had little jars of them in the house at this time of year when I was growing up.

I've popped a little jar of pussy willow on my mantel, foraged from the supermarket rather than the woodland, but I'm OK with that. If I venture out to the woods again soon, I might try and find some catkins to bring home, or maybe a sprig of berries would be nice too. 

Do you remember my first "Making the Seasons" post back in November, when we had a chat about Craftpod? I really love these little seasonal boxes, and was delighted with my Winter Craftpod which arrived last month. There are two craft projects in the Winter box (you can see the contents here), but I was most drawn to the embroidery. The simplicity of Jo's Winterberry design is absolutely spot on for this time of year, and I've been looking forward to the challenge of it. I found a little nook of quiet time at the weekend to sit in the light of the bay window and make a start. 

Oh this photo did make me laugh, I love how it looks as if she's reading the instructions! Typical of Tilly to be so front and centre of everything too. 

This is delicate, precision stitching using just one or two strands of embroidery thread and a fine needle, so you really do need good light to work by. 

I found the low, late afternoon light wasn't quite enough at the weekend so I wasn't able to finish my berries, but I'm really pleased with what I've done so far. The berries are pretty small and use weeeny stitches so you do need to focus and pay attention to the precise ins and outs of the needle. I just love this sort of quiet, rhythmic creativity - the sound of the needle and thread pulling in and out of the taught fabric is incredibly soothing.

My berries look a little messy, but I love the way the raised satin stitch makes them so tactile and bobbly. I'll show you when I've completed it - I can't wait to see it on my (currently rather bare) Winter mantel next to my jar of pussy willow and possible future foraged catkins.

And in other Creative news, I couldn't help myself a few weeks ago and indulged in a real jolt of Spring colour to chase away the Winter blahs, oh it was fun! A quick little bit of decorative hooky to lift the spirits and and deliver a dose of colour therapy.......I'll show you what I made with these colours very soon, it needs it's very own blog post!

✿ All my Making the Seasons posts have their own category so you can find them easily - {Making the Seasons}

✿ I'm loving that Gillian is also joining me with a spot of seasonal creativity each month- you can find her January post {here}

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Making the Seasons :: November

I've been so excited to write this blog post and share with you my latest find which came to me (as most great discoveries do) via a round about blog trail I found myself on a few weeks ago. You know how it is - you start investigating a new blog or two, then before you know it you are off on your very own little blog-hop, zipping about following links and making all sorts of wonderful discoveries along the way.

This is how I happened to find out about craftpod {www.craftpod.co.uk}, have you heard of it? For those of you who haven't come across Craftpod, it's a quarterly, creative subscription box inspired by nature and the seasons. The lady behind these crafty boxes is called Jo and as soon as I browsed through the beautiful images of her past boxes I was completely smitten. Being hugely inspired and influenced by nature and the seasons myself, I recognised a kindred spirit in Jo, and I immediately decided to treat myself to her Autumn Box. You know, to further feed my current Autumn Obsession.

Craftpod boxes are such neat little things. As you can see in the above picture, everything is packed into a slimline cardboard box (about half the size of an A4 sheet of paper) designed especially to fit right through your letterbox. 

If you pre-order a box at the very start of the season, the contents will be a surprise. However, as I was quite late to the Craftpod subscription party I came in at the end of the Autumn season when boxes had already started to be delivered. That meant that I was able to see pictures of exactly what would be in my box, and let me tell you I swoooooooned. So much creative Autumnal goodness! Either way, if you have a good look at all the past boxes (Craftpod began in Winter 2015, so there is quite a lot to look at) you will have a good idea of the style and the type of craft involved. There is nearly always something to stitch, but there are other creative projects too - baking or printing for example. Each box contains two projects, along with some extra seasonal goodies.

The quality of everything inside a Craftpod box is top notch, and Jo goes to a lot of trouble to source all the bits and bobs. She uses UK designers and makers where possible (the wooden embroidery hoops are handmade in the UK) and the materials are all natural and eco friendly too (100% pure wool felt and stuffing, 100% cotton threads, printing on recycled paper etc). I was truly delighted by what I found inside my Autumn box and couldn't wait to get started. 

I saved my box for a few days so that I could open it on Saturday morning. I was still wearing my pyjamas, had a steaming mug of fresh coffee to hand and wasted no time getting started on the first stitching project. 

This is a gorgeous printed fabric by Maggie Magoo Designs, oh those toadstools pulled at my heart strings like you wouldn't believe, just the perfect little dash of Autumn colour and whimsy.  

Jo's stitching instructions were brilliant, and the embroidery was kept simple but very effective. 

I was about five stitches into my first toadstool when I was joined in the Big Chair by Little B, also still in his pyjamas. He started dropping subtle little hints at first, indicating that I could perhaps let him have a teensy weensy go with the stitching. This was very quickly chased up by outright begging, so what was I to do? Of course, any Little Person who shows an interest in something creative should be wholeheartedly encouraged, so I gave up my precious hoop and let him stitch it for a bit. He did so well! I was very proud of his precision needle work, and happy that he loved doing it, but at the same time my own fingers were positively itching to take over. I had a major itch to stitch!

Eventually I got my hoop back and I went to town with all those stitches, remembering just how much I love to work with needle and thread. French Knots have to be the most satisfying stitches in the entire universe, I absolutely loved making those red spots. There is something so calming and soothing about the rhythmic nature of stitching, and then there is the sound of it too. You know, that exact moment when the needle kind of pulls through the surface of the taut fabric, making an insanely satisfying little popping sound (like popping bubble wrap, I know you know what I mean?!)

I hadn't meant to stitch so obsessively - I thought this hoop might be something that I picked up and put down a few times during the course of the weekend, but in reality I found it impossible to leave alone. I stitched until it was all finished....and then I felt really sad that it was all over. Boohoo!! I want to hatch more stitchy toadstools!!

But just look at it, isn't it the loveliest thing? 

And the colours are very much in keeping with the general seasonal over-the-top-ness that is happening all over my fireplace right now. I love it. Love love love love love it.

The following day, Sunday, I decided to investigate the second stitchy project which was these adorable little felt owls. As I mentioned before, Jo's felt is 100% pure wool, as is the stuffing which looks and feels beautiful.

The printed instruction sheet was easy to follow, and there were paper pattern pieces which were hand drawn to scale. I found that with very careful placement, I was able to squeeze three little owls out of the felt included in the box, so an extra one to make into a brooch (there is a brooch pin included in the kit).

I didn't find these quite as enjoyable to make as the toadstool hoop - the thread was very very fine and the needle was teeeny-weeny, so I found it a little bit fiddly. But I ate chocolate and drank the very lovely Red Berry and Hibiscus Canton Tea, and kept my mind focused on the finished product.....

....which was worth all those minuscule stitches.

Once I'd finished stitching my owls, I decided that I liked Jo's idea of giving them their own twig to roost on. I had a very clear picture of what I wanted to do, so I trundled over to Amazon and ordered up a few essential crafting supplies. 

Yesterday I took delivery of the following :

A bag of wool felt offcuts

A Mini Hot Melt Glue Gun

Some sharp little scissors as mine all seem to be missing at the moment. 

I had this twig you see, the perfect little perch for my owls. I picked up a few of these twigs on my Riverside Wanderings walk as I thought they were just lovely with their attached cones. 

I had an idea that my fir cone twig might need a few felt leaves, just to add an extra little bit of craftiness....

.....and you know, it was the most fun thing making this happen. Who knew the fun of hot glue? It's so fast! One little blobett of clear hot sticky glue and you can stick anything to anything in an instant! A mini hot glue gun is the most amazing bit of kit and I now want to stick all the things. Allll the things. 

So sweet - I love how this project turned out. It actually came out better than how I saw it in my Creative Mind, which made me bounce up and down with happiness.  I may have freaked out the kitty a little bit, she doesn't cope well with me bouncing. 

I intend to make more of these - the bag of felt offcuts I bought had some lovely colours and many of the pieces will be just big enough to cut out a few owls. I mean, I've got these extra fir cone twigs to use, and yeah, my hot glue gun needs me. I wonder if it would be OK to gift these to friends? Is it acceptable to gift a twig with some stitched felt hot-glued to it?

I perched my owls on my mantel, but truthfully there is an awful lot going on across there now and the poor things looked a bit swamped by the pumpkins and everything else. So I think I'm going to take them down to my studio - I have a hankering to see them perched against my gorgeous blue wall.

Since I discovered Craftpod I've been emailing back and forth with Jo who is based down in Bristol. She is the nicest person (that's a picture of her gorgeous crafting room up above), and her passion for seasonal crafting struck up an idea in my mind. I thought - wouldn't it be marvelous if I could persuade one or two like-minded people to craft along with me, kind of like a virtual Seasonal Craft-A-Long. I immediately thought of my lovely friend Gillian who writes a beautiful blog called Tales from a Happy House.

I know Gillian likes stitching and crafting for the home, and I know she likes celebrating the seasons too. So I had a feeling she would fall in love with the idea of a joint Craft-A-Long, and luckily my feeling was right. She jumped on board with me, full of enthusiasm, and over the weekend it was the most wonderful thing to know that we were both crafting away on identical projects even though we live at opposite ends of the country. I loved the whole shared experience very much. 

So we've hatched a plan, don't you know. You'll notice the title of this post is "Making the Seasons :: November" - Gillian and I have pledged to each work on a small creative project every month, directly inspired by the seasons. Sometimes it'll be a Craftpod thing, sometimes it'll be our own ideas. There are no restrictions on what medium it should be (baking counts!) and I am so so excited by this idea! We even have our own hashtag over on Instagram, it's #makingtheseasons and we would both love it if you'd think about joining in with us. Please do? Share on your blog if you have one, or on Instagram with the #makingtheseasons hashtag so we can build a beautiful gallery of seasonal creativity. Even if you don't do any sharing on social media, I would love it if you'd still join in with us. I think it's a lovely thing to do - it can be as simple as making a few pompoms to hang up at Christmas, or as elaborate as embroidering a picture.

A few additional things to tell you about Craftpod - this is not a sponsored post, just to be clear about that. I purchased my box as a normal customer without really knowing anything about this little company or the lovely lady who makes it happen. I don't think Jo really knew what had hit her when I started bombarding her with over excited emails telling her how much she had inspired me.

Craftpod boxes happen four times a year :: September (Autumn), November (Winter), March (Spring) and June (Summer).

The boxes open for pre-orders during the first week of those months, and start to post out at the end of those months.

The Autumn Craftpod which I've shared with you today has now sold out, but the Winter Craftpod is open for pre-orders. 

You won't know what's going to be in your box until Jo has posted out all the pre-orders, so if you want to wait until the following month to see the contents before you decide if it's for you then you can do so.

You can follow Jo over on Instagram { @craftpod_ } where she posts some seriously beautiful and inspirational seasonal stuff. 

And lastly.....please don't feel I am trying to sell these to you! I'd LOVE it if you were to feel inspired to join in with our Making The Seasons craft-along, but it can be any project you like, as small as you like. Just feel free to join in the creative fun. 

You can read Gillian's November Making the Seasons post here - more from us both in December.

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Halloween Pumpkin

I'm sure there's a witty something or other that I could say about the sheer volume of this year's Halloween pumpkin of ours, it was absolutely mahooosive. Such girth! Such ripe, splendid, orange abundance! A right whopper! It was a gift to me from J, a surprise purchase from our lovely local farm shop - funny how he went to buy sausages and staggered back with this beauty, it did make me smile.

It's become something of a tradition for me to work my artistic skillz on the annual Halloween pumpkin (you might remember last year's offering?). I'm afraid I am completely selfish when it comes to this event and the poor Little People don't get much of a look in. As I do feel mildly guilty about my selfishness,  this year I made the effort to encourage Little B to join in and help me. He enjoyed hovering about watching the process, but was surprisingly disgusted with the whole carving process.

He really couldn't get to grips with the pumpkin innards, he just screwed up his face and refused to engage. So I rolled up my sleeves and got down to the business of scraping out all by myself.

Oooo isn't this such a glorious colour? I love orange, so cheerful and optimistic.

Last week I spent rather a lot of time surfing the net searching for a great pumpkin carving design - there is a lot of inspiration out there if you are into this sort of thing. I looked at ghosts and ghouls, witches and bats, haunted houses and all manner of scary faces. In the end I settled for a cat's face, The Cheshire Cat to be more precise (lots of images here, if you feel a burning need to check it out).

I made a freehand drawing of the cat's face on a large piece of paper first, making sure it was the right size to fill my ginormous pumpkin. My method is then to place the paper on the surface of the pumpkin and draw over the lines very firmly with a ball point pen. This makes a faint but visible score-line on the surface of the pumpkin which you can then go over with the pen afterwards before beginning to cut.

I do my carving with a small, pointed, serrated kitchen knife and lots of patience. It's a slow process, but I really love doing stuff like this, kind of a childish pleasure in seeing a series of shapes and holes suddenly come together to form the design. A little bit of creative magic.

There is a wonderful kind of fidgety anticipation once the carving has been done, waiting for the daylight to fade and Lighting-Up-Time to arrive. I filled these hours helping the Little People with costumes and make-up ready for the evening's sweet-gathering mission.

I put six tea lights into my pumpkin lantern, and at 5 o'clock it was finally dark enough to light up............

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoooooooooooooooooooky!!!!!!!!!!!

The lit up design is so much better than the unlit version, I was rather stupidly proud of my efforts. I may have squealed a teensy bit. My Little People were suitably impressed, as were the many, many neighbourhood Little People who called by to Trick-or-Treat at our house. It should really be called Treat-or-Treat, we gave away a whole huge 750g tub of Cadburys Celebration chocolates to the steady stream of witches, zombies, warewolves, bats, cats, vampires and ghosts.

It was a fun evening, there was a great spirit on our streets with so many families making the effort to dress up their houses and their children. We partied with our neighbours (five family's with nine children in total), eating, drinking and making merry whilst trying to ration the sugar intake for our offspring after their treat-or-treating jaunt round the neighbouring streets.

Fun times xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

Slow Days

We are having such crazy-weird stuff happening with our weather this week, with rather an unwelcome amount of rain each day but then also some glorious snatches of incredible sunlight as well. It's been strange, sometimes weirdly warm, damp and humid, other times unseasonally cold. This amazing rainbow arced over the rooftops for about ten glorious minutes before it faded, it was so huge that I couldn't capture the whole of it on my camera.

The light that followed the rainbow made the landscape look so strange, like an illustration in an old, faded book. So where has our Summer gone then, what on earth has happened to the weather? Is it the same where you are? 

We have been indoors a lot this past week as a result of the non-summer happening outside. It's been kind of nice but kind of disappointing at the same time. I keep feeling overwhelmed by the feeling that we are wasting away the time, that these precious days are slip-sliding away in a boring blur of nothing-in-particular. It makes me feel restless and lethargic all at the same time. I keep dreaming up ideas for possible interesting outings to entertain the Little People, but my ideas flit away before I can make anything of them and so we stay home and do very little. Oh yes, we did make a trip to our local cinema to watch "Inside Out" on Tuesday afternoon when it rained for most of the day, the Little Peeps did enjoy that.

Thank goodness for my camera habit. My little old Canon Ixus is always to hand and throughout the day I point it around the place and press the button almost without thinking. The images tell a story of gentle activity and play that are making up these slow days.  There has been a steady stream of rather old fashioned play going on, which has delighted and surprised me. Blanket dens and cushion thrones have been designed and constructed, wrecked and rebuilt. The old Brio train track came down and did a sterling job of entertaining for a few hours.

This nostalgic wooden mosaic puzzle was a gift from me to Little B at Christmas, and I confess I brought it as much for my own pleasure as his. I had one exactly the same as this when I was little and absolutely loved it, and despite a few frustrated hissy fits, he has loved playing with it too.

There has been an origami revival, with many mornings spent at the dining table working on a stash of paper weaponry. These are called "Ninja Stars" or "Shurikens" and there are loads of easy to follow tutorials on YouTube if you have offspring fascinated with weapons. And paper. You just have to be prepared to step in when the wild throwing starts, I can tell you that it's actually quite painful when the pointy end stabs into a fleshy part of your body. These ninja stars have been confiscated more than once, even slung into the recycling bag after one particularly hurtful assault. Take heed.

We have baked quite a bit this week too, the Little People seem to be constantly hungry and it's a job and a half trying to keep it all healthy and nutritious. There is only so much fruit and salad you can feed them after all. We've been baking these Oaty Cookies for years now, they are very easy to make with Little Ones and taste really yummy. I did try out a healthy non-sugar version from the Deliciously Ella website, but sorry to say they just weren't all that nice. Too bananary.

I've tried to make sure that every day, no matter what the weather, that the Little People get out for some fresh air. Some days this has simply meant turfing them outside and instructing them to Go Play with neighbouring children on the street (scooters, bubbles, bikes, chalk etc) while I (guiltily) get some work done. Other days we have gone into town to run errands and visit the shops, as much for the getting-out bit as for the necessary re-stocking of dwindling food supplies and purchasing of new school stationary supplies.

Yesterday we had a lovely little jaunt into town, doing a few jobs first then stopping at the bakery to pick up some warm pasties for lunch, then calling at the market for a paper bag of beautifully juicy cherries. We took our fodder to a bench beside the beck and ate a spontaneous picnic, then carried on walking up to the woods and back down the leafy lane to visit the pigs and chickens (sadly, the pigs have gone :( to who-knows-where...). I know these outings aren't much, but it seems to be all I can manage at the moment.

Similar to last year, this week I have responded to requests to "make something out of felt". In a fit of extravagance, I decided to completely ignore my box of cheap acrylic felt and invest in some nice felt with wool in it. Oh the joy!!! Completely worth the splurge, we are now the proud owners of this yummy stack of good quality 40% wool content felt for all of our crafting and stitching needs. I bought it from the lovely Sarah who runs her felty empire entitled "Paper-and-String". Find her online shop here, also via Etsy. Her considerable wares are delicious and very tempting. Don't dare look at the buttons....you've been warned.....

So Little Lady unearthed this super-cute book from the Shelves of Doom last week, hence the plea for felt crafting materials and assistance. And anything that Little Lady is doing, Little B also wants in, so they have each chosen an animal and we are working a little each day on it. I'll share the results with you when we have results to share! {this book can be found on Amazon UK and Amazon US }

I'm sorry there hasn't been much hooky to show you of late, I've been working behind the scenes on a number of projects which aren't yet ready to share. I made a brightly coloured flower garland last week, the pattern is for the Yarndale brochure. I'm also in the middle of another decorative project which is for the Yarndale calendar, so I am busy and working and doing stuff, but nothing much that is ready to show just yet.

My Harmony blanket is almost ready for it's grand Ta-dah moment though, and I am very excited about it! I need to take a few more photos when the light is good enough and finish up writing the pattern, but all should be good to go next week. Thanks to those of you waiting patiently for this, I am so sorry for the delay.

Right - sounds like I am needed to go referee a squabble breaking out, then looking at the time I need to hot-foot it to the kitchen and rustle up a speedy pasta dinner. These slow days aren't always so slow..............

xxx