do you mind if i knit

Please leave Miss Marple alone.

Hello! Have you heard the latest?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was on the radio this morning, after the topic of the tragic closure of some of our libraries, which is bad enough, the presenters were talking about the probability of a Miss Marple film being made, with Jennifer Garner playing Miss Marple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can see a news report here.

Miss Marple is not, under any circumstances, sexy. Neither is she any other age other than a very wise sixty/seventy year old.

There are no if's or but's about this, it is just a fact.

I surprised myself by feeling more outraged by a sexy Miss Marple, than about the closure of our libraries, which is very perverse, and I should stamp on this abberation immediately. Our libraries are more important than a sexy Miss Marple. And to put all that into perspective, there are terrible natural disasters occuring around the world, destroying people's lives, let me remind myself.

Still (and I am gagging myself here, so my words are sort of muffled), Miss Marple played by an attractive actress? Joan Hickson was the best Miss Marple. She had white hair, wrinkles, a girth, and she was very, very English.

Grrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of my first posts on this blog, back in 2007, was titled "I wish I was Miss Marple".

Another post I did in August 2009, was titled "worthy of Miss Marple".

I occasionally sigh and say to Hugo "I wish I was Miss Marple". Which is very silly of course, but I've built up a romantic and very fixed idea of the famous sleuth in my mind. I love the life she lives as created by Agatha Christie, and how it was portrayed by Joan Hickson. Plus, I love the idea that a little old lady is the heroine of the plots, not some young get-up-and-go thing.

Anyway, let me show you something that I know for a fact Miss Marple would be in to. An Open garden, as seen by Hugo and myself back in June of last year.

I was keeping this for a rainy day!

The day we went on this little outing, it was to a village called Gifford, in Scotland, where about ten of the inhabitants had opened up their gardens for charity. So these photos I'm showing you are a mish-mash from about three of the gardens we visited.

The garden I was most impressed by, was the one with the walled garden. Within that wall was paradise, made by lots of hard work.

You see the planting in the photos above? The Irises in amongst the grasses? I've not seen that combination before, and thought it was very original, and exquisite.

The weather that day went from bright sunshine, to being overcast, to pouring with rain, lastly settling on a grey damp dullness. So the colours in these photos are all over the place. The grey skies made all the colours in the gardens look bright and garish, especially the greens.

At one point, we had to huddle in a greenhouse with lots of other visitors and tomatoes and grapes that were being grown by the owners. In that very British way, no one made jolly conversation. Or maybe we were just looking in awe at the torrential rain and thanking our lucky stars there was a greenhouse to shelter in. It was the sort of downpour not even an umbrella could protect against.

One of the gardens had a summer house at the bottom of the garden, overlooking a stream. The little building was on a circular runner, so the whole thing could be turned to catch the sun as it moved during the day.

Another garden had the most eye-catching little house for a dog, set into the hedge.

We didn't make it round all the gardens in the village unfortunately, what with the weather playing up, and the small, but anxious matter of getting a cream tea.

The teas were served in the village hall, not in any of the open gardens, and one thing Hugo and I remarked upon, was that a cream tea in a village hall is nice, but it is not as charming as sitting in a grand garden, admiring the abundant borders, and luxuriating in it all, with a slice of cake and a cup of tea to hand.

Miss Marple would be very at home amongst all this. She might even have spiced up the day a bit by happening to come across the demise of some ghastly character who no one liked, in the herbaceous border.

I'd have sat and done a bit of knitting with her whilst we sipped our tea, and mulled over 'who did it'.

Well, goodbye for now, and a cheerio! for good measure. Love Vanessa xxx

His 'n hers beards.

Hello! Such a splendid specimen of the gentlemen species in the photo above don't you think?

Douglas, (known frequently as Mr. Boogles, or Baby Boy, or Most Gorgeous Baby Boy, or Mr. Waggy Tail), is so cute I could eat him up.

There you go, you have a very personal insight into my complete adoration of Douglas, (and Ellie, our other Miniature Wire-Haired dachshund, too of course).

You know that wonderful thing of dog owners starting to look like their dogs? I don't think I fall into that category yet, (though I may me blissfully unaware that I do resemble my dogs), but I have a photo where I can demonstrate an example of pet owner and pet having something in common.

Just in case you can't tell the difference between the two in the above photo, here's how it is.

The one on the right is Hugo, my husband.

The one on the left is Ellie, our female dog, the one with a bit of sand on her nose.

And just look at those beards!

Later on in the day, yesterday, Hugo got out the dog shears and had a go at his beard.

I really love our dogs.

I really, really, really, really, really love our dogs.

Cheerio!

Love Vanessa xxxx

 

Mr. Woofs.

Hello! Another sunny day is coming to an end! I'm going to start getting blase about this nice weather if I'm not careful. (Note to self, be very grateful for every speck of sunshine, every teeny weeny sunny ray, weak or insipid, and then it might stay for a bit longer).

My pal Bob has just left after joining me for a cup of tea, and little Nancy was here too, (I think she's about nine-and-a-bit-months-old-now), with her ever sunny huge great big enormous grin. Nancy is very petite and beautiful, I love it when she grips my fingers with her tiny hands, to help support herself whilst she stands on her wobbly little legs.

I was giving Nancy lots of compliments, telling her she is just as gorgeous as my doggies, which she took very stoically, and even grinned more broadly. I imagine she's not that used to having the compliment of being compared to two Miniature Wire-haired Dachshunds.

Despite looking after Nancy full time, and running a home, Bob has recently opened an etsy shop, under the name of Nuttersby, selling some amazing cushions. I think they're beautiful, and very different. If you'd like to have a peek at them, click here.

Yes, it's been the most beautiful day here, and I've been glancing out of the window every now and then, longing to go outside and enjoy the garden. The Daffodils and Narcissi are blooming, there are splodges of yellow around the garden. I did contemplate picking a few stems and putting them in a jug to show you, but I have to get on with work. By the time Bob turned up for a cuppa, it was too chilly to sit outside.

I popped Mr. Woofs in my etsy shop today.

This little chap is demonstrating how my work is evolving, I'm starting to use more paint on my sculptures, which gives a different effect.

Mr. Woofs the Dachshund has won the competition for waggiest tail. It's not every dog that has a tail as waggy as Mr. Woofs. He's a very jolly little chap, always happy, especially where treats and mischief are involved.

Many of my pieces are attached to their stands, (for reasons of balance mostly), but Mr. Woofs isn't attached to his stand, and can go walk-about.

And now I'm going to potter off back to work.

Have a good weekend, hope this weather holds. Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

Evangeline gets a new apron made for her.

Hello!!!!!!!!!! Weather report coming up! Has to be done, because we've had a third day of bright sunshine today! Three lovely days in a row is unusual in these parts. I'm making it sound like I live in a miserable unsunny place now aren't I ! You can't have everything I always think, and whilst we have beautiful, wild and under-populated landscape (you can drive on some roads without encountering another car for miles, you can walk all day through the countryside without meeting another human being), we often forfeit bright sunny days, As I say, you can't have everything.

So, yes, what was I meant to be talking about............... aprons, Evangeline's new apron.

Evangeline, of the special Tea Towel Dance, (shown in my previous post) has now got a new, and I think, better apron. Here's a quick reminder as to what her old apron looked like:

Her old apron (above) had been niggling me, it didn't seem quite enough, was lacking in pizzazz. (Evangeline's aprons seem to have a disproportionate importance to me). So I went about making changes to her apron, adding more detail, and generally making it into a much more fun apron. But what I was left with, was an apron that didn't look quite right on this particular Evangeline.

This is when I always thank my lucky stars that I've been blessed with a plodding personality, some might even call me stubborn. Hugo thought the souped-up apron looked good, but for me it wasn't quite right. Evangeline deserved an even better apron.

So I got to work with my little fingers, and made her a new apron.

I'm so glad I made her a new apron. In my eyes it is now an apron fit to grace the hips of a mouse as special as Evangeline. A mouse who is the jolliest, happiest and sunniest mouse I have ever known personally. (As opposed to all those jolly mice out there who I don't know personally).

I took her out of my etsy shop to do her apron change, and now she's gone back in.

The JOY of doing a whole entire blog post about a mouse's apron!

I do get a lot of joy out of silly things. For instance, let me tell you this story.

I was having a drink in a pub with a friend of mine, and his brother came to join us. The brother had been through a job interview that day, and was talking about it. I think my concentration slipped slightly, (or the details have become fuzzy), because I remember re-focusing on the conversation when my pal was saying that it was good to take something personal to an interview of this sort. This pal was always someone who appeared to be an expert on all matters, small or large, and his brother was obviously used to this, and decided to interject into the words of wisdom by saying, "take something personal into an interview? Like a smelly sock?"

He held up his hand and pretended to take a smelly sock into an interview.

About fifeteen years has passed since this moment, and it still makes me giggle when I think about it.

Throughout doing this post, at the back of my mind is something I've been meaning to say. Thank you so, so much for your feedback on my tentative question about getting  greetings cards made, from photos of my sculptures. It's been enormously helpful, and very encouraging, and has given me the confidence to go ahead with getting a small number done. Thank you and a big virtual hug for your encouragement!

Righty-ho, I'd better get on. Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

P.S. Evangeline with her new apron has now sold, thank you!

Dancing the Cha Cha and the Tea Towel Dance.

Hello! We have what I call Happy Weather here today! Also known as sunny weather.

Sunny, happy, happy, sunny, those two things are one and the same for me. I don't know how to begin untangling them.

So! Have you ever heard of the Tea Towel dance? No?! Actually, I hadn't either, until Evangeline came into my life.

Evangeline is meant to be doing the ironing, but, well............... you know what it's like, one minute you're ironing the tea towels, the next ................ well, for Evangeline it means next she's doing something much more fun. She's doing her special Tea Towel Dance.

The Tea Towel Dance involves lots of swishing and whirling. For some, so much more fun than the ironing.

I thought I'd run something past you. I've been getting some e-mails asking me to sell cards of my sculptures and paintings, in my etsy shop, what do you think? Don't feel obliged to answer this, I thought I'd just put some tentative feelers out there. For instance, the photo above of Evangeline, it would make a great postcard, or card, don't you think? I've looked into doing this through 'Moo cards', and I could offer five greetings cards for £10, plus post and packing. The thing about Moo Cards is that they can do small print runs, which makes it more expensive, but if I am doing this as a trial, I thought it would be better this way. Just thought I'd put some feelers out.

Anyway, lets move on, because I have a second Evangeline to show you!

This is Evangline having a break from the cooking to practise the Cha Cha.

In Evangeline's mind, she thinks she might be rather good at the Cha Cha.

I would personally like to point out to Evangeline that she is in the middle of frying an egg, and instead of wiggling her little hips, she should get back to the business of her egg.

But there's no telling Evangeline, she is prone to drifting off into her own little world.

Sweet Evangeline! Evangeline with her frying pan, doing the Cha Cha has been sold, and will soon be on an adventure all the way to France, in her own private box, very roomy it is too.  The other Evangeline I showed you, Evangeline doing the Tea Towel Dance, has gone into my etsy shop, you can visit it here if you fancy.

Oooh I meant to tell you! I saw a wonderful thing earlier. I was standing at the kitchen sink, and out of the window of the living room I could see something which I thought was rain. Then it stopped for a moment, (and anyway, the water was at a strange angle, so it couldn't have been rain), it looked more like water coming out of a hose pipe. The flow of water started again, and I thought, how interesting, does our neighbour think the garden needs watering from over the wall? So I approached the window to investigate something I thought was quite amusing, the idea of the neighbour standing the other side of the wall with a hose pipe, watering our garden. But then I saw it. I saw a Blackbird in all his glory, splashing about in the bird bath. He was splashing like he really, really, really needed a bath badly. There was lots of wiggling and shaking of his body and tail feathers. He was doing a great job of watering the garden. (Because we do need the garden watered as it hasn't rained for at least .......... twenty-four hours).

I love to watch the Sparrows having their communal baths, communal but with lots of polite exchanges going on, like "oh no, you go first, please. Me first? Oh that's very kind of you, thank you. Oh! How funny, we've both jumped in at the same time, ha-ha, how embarrassing. Well never mind, needs must, please, go ahead, there's room for both of us".

I love to have the birds in the garden. We feed them, and it feels like a real honour when they come to eat the seeds and fat balls we put out.

I'd better get on, I've been chatting for far too long. Before I go, I'd like to say another thank you, for the comments you left on my last post. I hope I don't sound too cheesy when I say that I'm very happy to be in this blogging world, where you find the most wonderful, kind and generous spirited people, I hope I haven't embarrassed you by saying this, but it's very true, and I've probably been a little understated in my thanks and praise. Thank you.

Well, cheerio then, I'm off back to work! Love Vanessa xxx

A couple of rows of knitting a day.

Hello! Hello and thank you for everything and for being there for me and for making me HAPPY!

Thank you so much for all your support on my last post, it's been overwhelming. I wanted to get back to normal as soon as possible, and back in the blogging world I know and love. You've all helped me to do this.

I said in my last post that I would delete it once I returned, so as to get back to my usual jolly subject matter without a blip. But when I delete a post, as I did with Monday's post, I was dismayed to find typepad deletes all your comments on that post. Fortunately, I have all the nice comments from that post in my e-mail box, so it will be the same with the second post I will have deleted, the comments will be lost from my blog, but not from my e-mail. I read every single comment, and there were an astounding number of them, over 85, so please don't feel your message will have gone un-read, not at all. And I've saved them to a file on my computer, so I can have them as a reminder of your support. I'm very sorry if I've not responded to your comment, it's not that I don't want to, it's just that I struggle with not enough hours in the day, I'm very sorry, it doesn't mean your comment wasn't valued, not at all, every comment was appreciated enormously, and felt like a hug, and well.................. just amazing! Thank you so much.

So shall I get on with getting back to normal?!!!! May I say, it is really nice to get back to normal. I love normal!

This is how every day starts for me, with a cup of tea (brought to me by Hugo, isn't that luxurious, and very nice of Hugo), the dogs come up too, and they are allowed in the bed for a cuddle. We know this is considered unhygenic, but we don't really care, cuddles in bed with the doggies are just too wonderful to think about hygiene.

And then I do a few rows of knitting before the day starts properly. To me, this feels luxurious. To be brought a cuppa and the doggies, and sit in bed knitting away! I often think about all the people who have to get up in the morning, only to be launched straight into a day of stress, and I think I'm very fortunate to have such a gentle start to each day. I listen to the radio whilst I'm knitting, and hear the news, the disasters around the world reported on, Japan, New Zealand, the way their lives will never be the same again, and how tragic their situations are. The polar opposite of my situation, tucked up in bed with my dogs and my knitting, my cup of tea sitting beside me. Alice of blog Crochet with Raymond, (Raymond is rather well known in blogland for being a character and a very handsome chap, even Hugo knows him and asks after him, or rather, I give reports on Raymond's progress through life occassionally), lives in New Zealand, and has talked of these subjects in a touching way. I have to say, Alice is also a very jolly person, and a great person to make you feel cheerful.

You might have noticed some knitting in the photo of me in bed, Douglas next to me, on Hugo's side. This is my "got-fed-up-with-what-I-was-knitting-need-something-else-to-work-on-but-will-ahem-return-to-laid-aside-piece-in-the-future-at-no-specified-point-aren't-I-a-naughty-knitter" knitting.

And more stripes are being knitted. I've gone from a Fair Isle phase to a stripes phase. This time, purple and green stripes. Not to everyone's taste of course, so I was delighted to see that Lisa from blog Bobo Bun is knitting a gorgeous jumper for one of her girls in exactly the same colours, you can see the post it's in here. I love the thin rows of colour on the top half, and the thicker bands of colour on the bottom.

Here's the pattern in close up, I hope you can see it on your screen. The piece in the photo is knitted in a dark yarn, so it's a bit hard to see the look of it.

The pattern is from King Cole, and it's a tunic top. Except that I'm elongating it into a dress. Yes, funny that, a dress! I can't remember when I wasn't knitting dresses.

What I've done so far is do a provisional cast-on, and knitted the top cabled part of the pattern, then taken off the provisional cast-on, put the live stitches of the back and front sections on the circular needle, and now I'm knitting downwards, towards my knees sort-of-thing. Because I'm knitting in the round on the circular needles, I only have to do a knit stitch, no purling, which is very pleasant. You always get a slight step effect when knitting stripes in the round, at the point where one row ends and the other begins, but it's only slight, and will appear down one side of the dress, and not be too noticeable I think. Or rather, I'm not too bothered about it.

When I was taking the photos of the dress I'm currently knitting, I thought, I know, I'll get the piece that is in semi-retirement (the Bibette dress) out to photograph with it, and that will make for loads of stripes in some of the photos. Stripe-fest in fact. It was at the bottom of my knitting bag, and I lifted it out, and then saw something else at the bottom. I found two sleeves! I'm almost finished on the Bibette dress, and I've abandoned it! Rationality isn't always my strong point. Aaaaahhh that's it, I know what it was, I was having to think too much, because it's my own pattern, and I just wanted to work on something straight forward, be told what to do by a pattern. The reason for that is that I'm work work working all day till 11 p.m each night, even most weekends, on my sculptures, and I just want my knitting to be something where I'm told what to do, rather than thinking for myself.

Can you believe how nearly finished the Bibette dress is! There might be some length to add to the bottom, I'm not sure, but if there is, well that's not difficult. I was getting in a pickle over the proportions so the set-in sleeve would fit nicely. I tried applying Elizabeth Zimmerman's instructions for proportions, but it didn't work. Or maybe it's just that my maths is appalling, and I need to try harder.

So the long and the short of it is that I have very little time for knitting these days, I'm limited to a few rows in bed in the morning. That's one of the reasons all I seem to blog about these days is my sculptures, I've not much else to talk about but work.

Talking of work, I should be scuttling back to it now. Well, have a lovely weekend, it's a beautiful day here, I hope you have this lovely weather too, and that it lasts over the weekend. Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

Florence The Little Gardener.

Hello! Do you remember Florence from this post? She went into the SSA exhibition in Edinburgh, along with another piece.......

"Mr. Brown's Beloved Book of Insects". I sold this piece at the exhibition. When I got the e-mail informing me of the sale, I couldn't help being on a bit of a high, actually, a HUGE high!

Florence wasn't sold, so I thought I'd sell her through my etsy shop (when I get the chance to put her in my shop). The SSA took a commission of 35%, so I'll be able to sell her myself, without having to charge that commission. There was an enormous amount of work involved in the making of Florence, so I have to charge £300  for her, and post and packing on top of that.

I'll show her to you in a bit more detail, just so you can see how much patience and care went into the making of her.

Florence the little gardener has won Best Daffodil.

A lot of love and care did go into growing her Daffodil. A lot.

And there has to be some mention of her skirt, made from bits of fabric she's saved up over the years.

(Or between you and me, fabric I have saved up over the years).

Little squares of gingham fabric, all sewn together by hand, into one long length of fabric, which was gathered up to make a pleated skirt. It even has a lining.

Using my raw materials of fabrics, threads, and paper, I like to make each element of my pieces. for example, rather than using a real button, I would prefer to make it myself, that's the sort of detail I like to get involved with. And so Florence's tights are crocheted to fit her legs exactly, and her shoes are a perfect fit too.

"Florence The Little gardener" isn't a small piece. From the tip of her daffodil, to the bottom of her stand she measures 62 cm/24.5 inches high. In width, she measures 17cm/6.75 inches. And the depth is 16 cm/6.25 inches.

It's Wednesday today, and normally I would be going to my knitting group on a Wednesday evening, but lately I have been missing it, prefering to get on with work. I'm going to be kept company by an audio book, as Hugo is out to Lifeboat practise. I'm listening to "The Prime Minister" written by Anthony Trollope. It's superb, so beautifully written, and it's so much easier to listen to a book like this being read out with the dulcet tones of Timothy West, who's acting I like very much. (I have a feeling I'm starting to write with the same polite words that I've been listening to in the audio book). Indeed.................. pray, I beg you Madam, I have no wish to offend, but I am a little pressed for time, and must take my leave. If you should so permit it, my learned and dearly respected friend. And further to this act, kind Madam, or Sir, I fear I am rather enjoying this most formal form of the spoken word. Whilst I mean no harm in it, I do fear it could grow a trifle tiresom to the ear of of my greatly esteemed listeners, so I will beg your leave to depart, and hope to be pardoned from preying upon your personage for a moment longer. Indeed.

That was, most enjoyable.

Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

 

 

Walkies and pancakes.

Hello! It's Shrove Tuesday today, and I've just come across a few blogs displaying beautiful pancakes.

As I write this, Hugo is battling with a non-stick frying pan that has lost its non-stick. That'll be the frying pan he won't replace for reasons best known to himself. It's the frying pan I owned as a student about twenty years ago, and it no longer has a handle. He's managed to get two thinner than paper crumbly pancakes for me out of it, which I wolfed down. And now he's working on some for himself................. oh here's another for me, from a tiny frying pan he's found. Last year we didn't have pancakes, because he didn't manage to perfect the cooking on the said non-stick frying pan without handle, so after much swearing and abandoning of pancake batter in the bin, I quietly suggested he buy a new frying pan. This year I've been much more forceful and have "insisted" he buy a new frying pan.

Anyway, I would like to show you this stone above, in the shape of an arrow, from our walk last Sunday.

That hill it's pointing up looks a little daunting doesn't it, but strangely, when walking up it, it felt flat, until the end.

It's a walk we've done before, and are fond of. We like the mid-point where we sit on top of a hill and eat our picnic surrounded by sweeping views of hills and mountains, it's very dramatic.

The landscape, with its heather covered hills, is always on the brown side, which isn't everyone's cup-of-tea, but we like its unpopulated wildness. I always think it's the sort of landscape that has to battle against severe weather conditions, so it demands a lot of respect. And awe.

There must have been a lot of rain recently, because the sheep looked like they'd been to a beauty parlour, they were so clean and fluffy.

This one above resembles a powder puff, don't you think?

I do take my knitting with me on these walks, I like the idea of knitting on a hill surrounded by sweeping landscape. But on Sunday, while there was hard bright white sunshine, the air was brisk, and my hands were too cold to knit. But having taken my knitting with me, I felt I had to take photos of it, just to prove I had really and truly taken it.

And inevitably, there had to be some doggy photos didn't there. Can you see Douglas hiding behind Hugo's legs? Ellie stars in the other photos of the mosaic.

Since doing the piece of work I showed in my previous post (Millie with her Beautiful Betty), I found myself thinking of all the sheep as "Beautiful Bettys".

I think all sheep will be Beautiful Betty's from now on.

Hugo's given up on the pancakes. Shall we place bets as to whether he'll get a new frying pan?

Cheerio, and I hope your pancake stories are beautiful ones. Love Vanessa xxx

 

Millie with her Beautiful Betty.

Hello! I started this post two days ago, and then sort of drifted off back to work, because I just couldn't leave the britches alone, that I was making for a Hare.

This sort of thing has been my world for a long time now, because if it's not britches or a shirt I'm sewing by hand for a Hare, I'm drawing animals on their hind legs walking around and acting like humans, for the childrens books I do. And the thing is, I can see exactly how unusual all this might look to many people, it's not as if I think it's normal.................. Hugo returns from working in an office, dealing with people's problems all day, to Hares, Mice, Pigs, and Dogs being fitted for aprons or slippers or whatever. It must seem like I'm living in a strange world. But when I open the invisible door into that world, stepping from reality into fantasy, it all seems completely normal, absorbing and real to me.

My friend Bob has just left with baby Nancy, (Nancy of the strawberry outfit featured in this post), they came over for a cup of tea. Nancy's nine months old now, and crawling. She has the biggest grin, which she flashes charmingly. She's ever so petite. A little bundle of smiles and joy. Very cuddleable. Babies are so sweet, but because they can't talk, a bit of a mystery, I always want to know what they're thinking. I really like it when they start to talk, and voice their opinions.

Which brings me to the very grown-up Millie, (who isn't quite into double figures age-wise yet), but is very much a tremendous character. This isn't Millie my Niece, but Millie who belongs to Lisa of beautiful blog Bobo Bun. Lisa commissioned me to create a piece of work, capturing Millie before she walks into her teens. Millie loves sheep, and all sheep are Beautiful Betty's to her.

By very kind permission of Lisa, I'm showing you the piece I made for her.

When I started this piece, I asked what Millie is like, does she have any favourite clothes, is there anything significant and meaningful Lisa would want me to incude in the piece. The striped t-shirt with the picture of the sheep on the front is one of Millie's favourite tops, and she adores the colour purple. Lisa sent me photos of Millie, and was keen I capture a certain smiley expression of Millie's.

Lisa has given me permission to feature a couple of photos of Millie, so that you can contrast and compare the real Millie with the sculpture of her.

So here are the photographs I  used as reference, above, and below we have Millie's face, showing my endeavor to recreate something of her lovely expression.
And then we have Betty the Sheep. Beautiful Betty.

Betty has a bit of a blue rinse.

Millie has a jar beside her bed, it's for the fund she's building up, so she can buy a sheep, or rather, a Beautiful Betty.

I loved making this piece. Whilst I had a brief, I still put something of myself into it.

And whilst the figure of Millie is not an exact replica of the real Millie, I hope I've captured a little of her magical spirit.

Thankfully Lisa is thrilled with the piece, absolutely delighted. Always a relief!

Well, Hugo and I have been invited out for supper tonight, so I'd better get going. Have a good weekend! Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx