do you mind if i knit

The Starboard Skirt!

Oh my! I've found such a GREAT pattern!

I tell you, the skirt I'm wearing in this post, (which I made last Sunday evening), is just about as brilliant as it gets in terms of ease of design and making, with a wonderful result.

I've had this Ikea curtain fabric for many years, I don't remember what I bought a metre of this material for, but it's fate that it came to be perfect for this skirt, it was just waiting to be made into this skirt.

When laid out flat, this fabric had huge red circles on it, goodness only knows what I thought I was going to make with it. I think it's worked out well for this garment.

The tutorial to make The Starboard Skirt is from the blog Simple Simon and Company, and the instructions are in two parts.

If you want to make the skirt for your little girl, or you want to make it for yourself and have a figure of a girl (no hips or waist basically), then you will be fine following the FIRST tutorial here.

If you have curves, you will find that if you follow the first tutorial, your skirt ends up being more of a straight skirt (rather than the more flattering A-line shape), and it might end up being a bit too tight around the waist, hips and posterior. That is what happened with the first skirt I made, and it didn't fit terribly well.

There's the first skirt I made, in the polka dot fabric, above.

I think I might be able to get away with wearing it with a tunic over the top, something that doesn't show the pinched in waist.

The red and taupe abstract shapes skirt I feature in this blog post, was made using instructions from a later blog post here, combined with the instructions from the first tutorial.

Part of the reason I fell in love with The Starboard Skirt, was the gorgeous fabrics used in the first tutorial. I love the simple and bold designs. I love them so much, I actually want to copy those skirts and use the exact same fabrics.

If you are in the United States, it's easy enough, you can order the Yellow Chevron print on-line here. And the red striped print can be bought on-line here. This company don't ship internationally. I e-mailed them asking them if they would make an exception, I was so obsessed by getting hold of some of this fabric (after a futile search trying to find these patterns here in the UK). The fabric shop said no, they don't ship internationally.

So, not one to give up that easily, I wrote them another e-mail asking where the fabrics were from, so I could trace them by finding out their make, which isn't listed on the website of this company. They kindly gave me the name of the place they bought the fabric from! And joy of joys, the fabric is available to buy on-line here, and they ship internationally.

It has occured to me (but I've just ignored the thought completely, as I'm obsessed about owning these two fabrics), that my quest is slightly ridiculous, as I only need a metre of each fabric, and I am also not meant to be spending lots of money on fabric. The material itself is not massively expensive, it's the shipping cost that hurts.

Anyway, this is a great pattern for anyone to make, beginner or experienced sewer. I can see myself making a few, it's difficult to resist a pattern that takes a few hours to work into a finished garment.

And my knitting? I haven't given up on knitting, absolutely not, never.

I'm still working on the Debbie Bliss dress pattern.

I worked on my dress for almost the whole journey on my trip to London last Tuesday, which felt very luxurious. That's the wonderful thing about traveling by train, it makes fabulous uniterrupted knitting time.

Getting up at five am, and  returning home at 10 pm, made it a long day though.

I'm not too far off finishing the dress, as I've reached the left-hand side section, where you start to decrease for the neckline.

I did one more cable pattern repeat than specified in the pattern, before I started to decrease at the neckline, as I had a sneaking suspicion it would be too low otherwise. The models are ususlly tall and slim, and on the model in the picture for the pattern, the neckline is going towards being a bit low. So as I'm 5 foot 2, I wouldn't be surprised if the neckline in the pattern was too low on my stature. I don't feel comfortable showing cleavage.

The weather is meant to be good this weekend, but I've got to do some work, putting things off doesn't get things done, funny that..........

Have a lovely weekend, take care, and cheerio! Vanessa xxx

 

 

The Miz Mozelle Dress!

I love this dress I made! It's sooooo slimming, honestly, with this dress I now have a waist I'm quite pleased with, it's amazing, and part of me has to wonder if I'm seeing things.

Here we have "The Miz Mozelle Dress", a sewing pattern from Jamie Christina.

You can buy the pattern from her site in the States on this page.

Or if you live in the UK, an online website called Backstitch sells the pattern here.

It's a relatively new pattern, I understand, so the flickr page for Jamie Christina patterns only has one person showing her Miz Mozelle Dress, (There are the photos of the model wearing the dress in the group, but I'm not counting those). I'll add my photos to the group too.

Florence of blog Flossie Teacakes is the only person who has put her Miz Mozelle dress in the flickr pool, when I last looked, and her dress is GORGEOUS, you can see Florence's post about it here.

Florence has also done a very interesting and informative post about the toile, (a practise piece in cheap fabric to check the garment is the right size), she made for her Miz Mozelle dress here. Florence and I are similar heights (small), so I followed her tips for making this dress, (which she talks about in her toile post), namely reducing the size of the keyhole. Infact, I was so confident about Florence's excellent advice, I didn't make a toile, I just dived straight in to making the dress.

I've not made a toile yet of any of my dresses yet, it's a new concept to me.

I'm beginning to suspect that making a toile is the equivalent of doing a guage swatch before knitting or crocheting a garment. An important thing to do if you want your garment to fit as well as it possibly can, plus, very important to make with cheap fabric, if you are planning to use expensive fabric and don't want an expensive pigs ear hanging off your body.

I thought that Florence's demonstration in her toile post spoke volumes. If she hadn't of made the toile, she would have had an expensive and a little unflattering creation. Having made the toile, and spotted the problem areas, she ended up with a beautiful dress that looks fantastic on her.

I showed you the fabric above, when I last mentioned sewing something, but ended up not using that fabric for the Miz Mozelle dress, as you may have noticed already. Even though the fabric was £5 a metre in the Liberty sale, in my mind it's still in the category of it's full price, which is more costly and therefor more luxurious. So to be treated with reverence, and not used to make something I hope will turn out alright.

So that's where the turquoise cotton at £2.50 a metre came in. Cutting that up didn't give me the palpitations using the more expensive fabric would. In a way, you could say I've made a very detailed toile, that I am going to wear.

That's the thing about doing a toile that bothers me, the idea of making a garment twice, even though the toile is meant to be very basic. Still, like making a guage swatch, I do understand it's probably for the best.

Anyway, I love this pattern. It's very clear and easy to follow, it's got the big thumbs up from me.

The only thing I would change about this pattern next time I make it is this.

On the Jamie Christina website, she says that if you're not using the specified stretchy fabric, but something like a cotton instead, that you should go up a size when making the top half of the dress. I did this because I used cotton rather than stretchy fabric, and I feel the top half of my dress is a little too big, I think it would have been perfect if I'd done the same size as the skirt, and not gone up a size for the top half.

Also, there is a little bit of a puffy effect around the waist, I think I'll reduce the amount of fabric on the sides slightly, and make the top half slightly shorter next time I make this dress. Hopefully that should reduce the puffiness a little. I do want some puffiness, because that helps to create the illusion of a waist, I just don't want so much puffiness.

But as I say, I love this pattern, I love it!

 

Hugo climbed a ladder to take these photos, hence the photo of Douglas and his waggy tail from above, in the mosaic. Wasn't that nice of Hugo to balance on a ladder and take these photos for me!

Hugo is very generous with putting himself in an uncomfortable position for the sake of others.

Here he is above, in his Dry Suit, doing his bit at the annual Lifeboat Gala, to raise funds for the RNLI, Hugo is a volunteer. (Hugo is the one in the foreground, not the young man with his head poking through the hole).

He was selected to do the "throw a wet sponge at a volunteer who has his head stuck through a hole" attraction.

He loved it.

You may well ask, did I pay to throw sponges at my husband?

I most certainly did!

£1 got me six throws.

I missed Hugo's head on all throws except the last, it was most embarrassing.

As I was throwing sponges, unfortunately I couldn't take photos, such a shame.

Unlike Douglas in the earlier mosaic, who was waiting anxiously for Hugo to get down from the ladder, (from which Hugo was photographing me wearing my dress), Ellie, (above), was sitting, oblivious to everything other than her own pleasure at catching the last rays of sun of the day.

Well, I'm writing this on Monday, to publish on Tuesday, rather than missing out on Tuesday's blog post.

I'll be on the train to London to see Walker Books on Tuesday, to go over the work I've done on the book I'm doing with them. It's the dreaded five hours there, and five hours back on the train. Unlike my last journey to see Walker Books, I shall make sure I don't forget my knitting pattern.

Hugo's making a Paella! I LOVE Paella. It's almost ready, so I need to dash.

I hope you've been inspired to make a Miz Mozelle dress, and end up joining Florence and I in the flickr group.

Cheerio! Vanessa xxxxxx

 

Apparently sewing clothes is the new knitting.

Gosh I'm cream crackered today, I have no idea what's got into me. It might be my blocked up ear, which has made me deaf in that ear, so I feel like my senses are incomplete, and it's made me all lethargic. You ever have this?

Douglas, (above), has been in a funny mood today too, very clingy. I sat on the sofa, and he was up in a flash, on my lap, and stuck to me like a piece of chewing gum.

"Sewing clothes is the new knitting". I can't remember where I read that, but it made me stop and think. I'm sure I'm seeing more people making their own clothes in blogland.

I can't remember the last time I went shopping for clothes in a full priced clothes shop, one that wasn't a charity clothes shop.

I lost interest in shopping for clothes a few years ago, I found that clothes were either not to my taste, or they were too expensive for me. So for a while now I have been wearing the clothes I already own, with the odd purchase from a charity shop or in the sale of an on-line shop.

Then I started to come across bloggers who were making their own clothes, and it was a bit of a revelation for me, because they were making just the sort of clothes I would like to wear, but you can't find easily in shops.

I started to get interested in what clothes people are making. It's been a slow drip-drip of gathering a little knowledge about dressmaking, and I've only touched the tip of the iceberg, but it's enough to have got me going, starting with the book "Chic and Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes (which gave me the confidence to sew dresses).

And that leads me to the subject of the cost of making your own clothes, versus the cost of buying from full-priced clothes shops. Is it me, or are clothes in a lot of shops really quite expensive these days? Or has my view been distorted by buying from charity shops? I managed to buy the fabric, elastic, thread, button, and bias binding to make a dress last weekend, all for £12. I thought that was pretty reasonable. It didn't include the cost of the pattern, but if I use the pattern a few times (which I plan to), and continue buying my fabric at £2.50 a metre from the Saturday market, (that was 100% cotton), I think that making my clothes will be cheaper than buying clothes new.

There's the time involved, it does take time, that's for sure, but there's a tremendous sense of achievement when things are finished. And of course there will be times when I buy more expensive fabric, that's for sure too.

I really, really, like the idea of making my own clothes.

If I have the time.

Very Purple Person makes her own underwear. See it here.

I'm not sure I'll ever get round to making fancy underwear, but you never know.

Knitting and crochet will always be my first love. They're portable, which is a bonus.

And there's nothing quite like sinking into a bit of comfy knitting/crochet is there?

I don't know if my foray into sewing is a passing fancy. Only time will tell.

In my next blog post, I do have a finished dress to show you, one that I've made myself. I'll keep that for next Tuesday.

Have a good weekend. Cheerio! Vanessa xxx

 

vanessa cabban .com

How could I not start with this photo in all its glorious colour, and also show you the bunch of Sweet Peas given to me as a little gift from Hugo's Mum Susan.

I've never seen a florist selling Sweet Peas, they're the sort of flowers that are plucked from someone's garden, the stems wrapped in tin-foil, and when handed over (to me), elicit a squeal of delight.

These one's are particularly fragrant, a musky sweet smell, quite powerful, delicious.

I was thinking recently, that you might be wondering what's happened on my sculpture front.

I'm still busy there, but working at a slower pace, because I'm also illustrating a book at the moment.

I'm working on a commission for a sculpture for someone too.

I have these two Evangeline figures above, that are almost finished, sitting on my work table.

I love having them there, as the table I work on is covered in half finished sculptures, figures who haven't quite got their full personalities in place, so it's nice to have Evangeline hovering over me as I work.

And I don't know if you remember me selling these cards? They sold so well and quickly, that it made me decide to produce some more cards, but with new designs. I'm in the process of finishing two sculptures that will be on two different card designs, three designs are already done. The idea is to sell packs of cards again.

My website showing my sculptures is also resolved. It has been for a few months, I just haven't mentioned it because I'm rubbish at doing that sort of thing. If you fancy taking a look, the link is here: www.vanessacabban.com

I must put a link to my website in my sidebar, another thing I'm rubbish at doing.

We've been having some glorious weather recently, just to change the subject. The sort of weather where you can sit outside, which is quite remarkable in these parts.

I got to sit outside and knit the other day. Remarkable.

Douglas, or rather, Baby Boy, isn't really a sun worshipper (neither am I come to think of it), he's more of a Mummy and Daddy worshipper.

Or is that look saying it's the other way round.

Do you think our dogs have us wrapped round their little paws perhaps?

And the fabric? Well, it may, or may not, be made into a dress. Maybe, or maybe not, this weekend.

The red gingham dress is resting whilst I get my sewing mojo back, I need a project I love the thought of working on, to get my "sewing glow" back. My sewing glow vanished with the red gingham dress.

Does that make sense when I say "sewing glow"? With the first two dresses I made, I was very excited to have made them, and found myself totally involved with the sewing, and most importantly, confident that I would carry on sewing. But for some reason, the red gingham dress dented my confidence. I'm sure this is quite a common thing with a beginner at anything isn't it?

Well, my medecine to help with this sewing hiccup is to let the red gingham dress lie low for a bit, untill I'm ready to pick it up and finish it off. Good medecine recipe?

Have a lovely weekend then.................. Vanessa xxx

Savouring my Roses.

A few minutes gathering some roses from my garden leads to days of happiness.

I get very little time to spend in my garden these days, so I really savour my time out there, walking around very slowly, and just looking, observing, staring, enjoying.

I always, always say to myself that I must find more time to spend out gardening, I forget just how much I love my garden.

And I love to bring flowers in from the garden, to enjoy in the house.

There's never lots to pick, but it just takes one flower, and I'm happy as can be. Today I was quite extravagant, and took most of the roses blooming in the garden. I just fancied having a nice sized bunch in the house, where I can be closer to them, rather than gazing at them from inside the house.

I placed them amongst some of my 'things', in my studio. They smell like the most expensive rose perfume. I've never smelt an expensive rose perfume, but I imagine it smells just like the real scent of a rose.

I'm so out of touch with the plants in my garden, I'm starting to forget some of their names. That is a sign that I'm very, very out of touch with my garden, I usually know all the names and varieties. "Mrs. N. Thompson". Phew, that's the name of one of the Clematis I have in the garden, I haven't forgotten everything.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the "doing", we forget about the things we've "done", don't you think?

For example, my blog. I started it on 13 October 2007, so I've been composing blog posts regularly for four years this October.

All those photographs, all those thoughts and words, thousands of hours, and I never really look back and mull over what I've been doing, it's always about moving on, the next thing, onwards and upwards, push, push, push.

I think it would be impossible to select a few photographs from the thousands I've taken, so I just did a few mosaics of randomly selected photos, not necessarily the best, not thought about much, just, "I like that, I'll pop that one in".

I haven't begun to touch the tip of the iceberg here, but it's been fun to stop and think for a moment about what I've observed and photographed.

A snippet of what's been on my blog over the years.

Years! Amazing, it doesn't feel like years I've been doing this blog. How has four years (almost) passed without me realising?

It's good to stop and take stock occasionally don't you think? Stop and smell the roses, sort of thing.

Vanessa xxx

Exciting news! Roll up, roll up! Chick alert!

Hooray! Chick births over on blog Purple Podded Peas! If you like small fluffy chicks and big fat beautiful black Hens that's the place to be visiting.

I last reported in this blog post back on June 1st, that there were eggs being incubated in the world of Purple Podded Peas. Well, it's been a bit touch and go apparently, I think Celia was worried that they weren't going to hatch at one point. But they've finally hatched, and you can see a lovely little film clip in this blog post, showing mother and nine children tweet tweeting away over their breakfast. One little chick tries the tea towel out for gourmet possibilities.

It's been a strange old week here in my corner of the UK. Thunderclaps and torrential rain one minute, the next moment, bright clear skies and sun. We've been timing our moments. The moments we step out of doors. Apart from a little dog walking, I've been cooped up indoors most of the week, and found myself getting a bit of cabin fever. Staring hard at the garden whilst the rain pours and pours, and then pours some more.

The light goes too. You know how heavy the down pour is going to be by how many lights you have to turn on indoors.

It was duting one of these dark moments of being incarcerated in the house, watching the weather resignedly, that I found myself traipsing around some of the house photographing things.

Knitting bags in the living room. Hmmm, not terribly exciting, but it does lead me neatly to the progress of my knitted dress.

You know, I don't think mannequins are terribly representative of the human form, not mine anyway, I'm much less smooth than my mannequin. But pinning the back of my Debbie Bliss dress to the mannequin does give you an idea of what it could look like on a nice smooth figure.

I'm worried about the band that joins the skirt to the top half, I don't think it's long enough. I pinned the bit of the front half I'm working on, to the mannequin, and I really had to stretch the band to meet with the back half. I shall ponder that little problem when I finally come to join the back to the front.

I did take a photo of the front half pinned on, but it looks too rude to show you. You work from the band downwards first, then you pick up your stitches for the top half and knit upwards. I'm only at the stage where I'm knitting the skirt section, so there's no top half. The picture of it on the mannequin looks like the mannequin is topless, it's a bit alarming.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the medium size I'm knitting is too small. Usually Debbie Bliss patterns turn out larger than expected, so I'm surprised this seems to be the opposite case with my knitted dress.

And my other dress? The sewn one? I don't know, do I admit this?.......................... I think I don't really like the pattern. It came free with a magazine, and I thought it would be nice in the red gingham.

No. what it is, is I really like the top half, but I really don't like the skirt on the dress. And I don't like the waistband.

I'm meant to be making pattern B.

I can't get it out of my head that the dress is a bit too 'neat' for me. It's perhaps a 'smart event' dress. For someone else.

My confidence as a new sewer is in the balance a bit here, which might seem a bit over-the-top but that's just the way it is. The dress has a half finished waistband, and is currently lying in a dejected little heap on the table. I did experiment with a bit of shirring. The idea was to have a shirred waistband to soften the midrif a bit, but I chickened out after shirring a few rows on a long length of fabric. There's a wonderful friendly tutorial by Flossie Teacakes here. Don't you think the name Flossie teacakes is wonderful for a blog?

The only thing I can think of is to try and re-design the bottom half of the dress, which does seem ludicrously ambitious for someone with my limited skills. What do you think about creating an a-line skirt that starts from where I left off in the picture above? Will it look totally crap? Can I be bothered in my current 'about to give up' mood? Advice welcomed gratefully.

So aren't I the jolly one today!

I'm just going to give you one more link before I tootle off.

If you are a watcher of programmes like Grand Designs, you may well find the house building going on over at rose hip, in this blog post here, fascinating. I love Grand Designs, and any programme that involves making a nest, house building, housey stuff. Just one little warning, you may well get a little sidetracked by the beautiful pillowcases with their gorgeous crochet edgings that rose hip makes.

Have a good weekend! Vanessa xxx

Hugo says "how will you know when it's arrived if it's invisible?"

 Hello! Did you have a good weekend? I hope so! Ours was a weekend full of unusual sociability for us, Hugo and I usually spend our weekends doing our own thing, just the two of us, but this weekend just gone, was busy.

Saturday we had friends round for lunch, and we were able to sit outside in the garden to eat. The first time this year!

Sunday we had Auntie Anne, (who looks after the dogs a lot), round to watch the Men's Final at Wimbledon. We drank Pimms and ate chocolate brownies made by Hugo, and got very vocal about the match. We were rooting for Nadal. Poor Nadal. I hate to see such a superb player beaten, but he was outplayed by the better man on the day.

We went to the beach to walk the dogs, and it was warm enough to go bare-foot on the sand, which felt very luxurious.

Tabiboo has a top tip for getting sand off little feet and back into shoes, in her blog post here.

We luxuriated in the sun with a cup of coffee and the weekend papers, and watched the world go by. And there was lots of great dog spotting!

I didn't make the dress in the picture above.

I found it in a charity shop. Never worn. It cost £6.

I was so pleased with the dress I got Hugo to take photos of me wearing it on the beach, to show it to you.

When you find something you love, a certain triumphal feeling follows, don't you find? You want to show your find, and be told "ooohhhh yes, what a bargain, lucky you!"

I showed it to someone, and she said, "it's very you Vanessa".

I'll admit, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it makes me happy! It's always the little things.

I am making another dress.

I've had this red gingham fabric hanging around for years, and I could just picture it made up into the pattern I'm using.

I got the pattern free with this month's 'Sew' magazine.

I'm making the dress with the long arms, (dress B), but I'm not sewing on any applique like that featured in the pattern's waist area, on my dress, I'm keeping it simple.

The title of this post relates to this dress. I've had to order an 'invisible zip' on-line, and Hugo said to me, "how will you know when it's arrived?"

"What do you mean?"

"The zip, it's invisible, so how will you know when it's arrived in the post?"

I've got a few links for you since doing the post about my 'Lisette Portfolio dress', above. If you want to make one, and you feel like having some guidance with the pattern, there's a sew a-long composed by Gwenny Penny over five tutorials you can follow:

Day 1 here.

Day 2 here.

Day 3 here.

Day 4 here.

Day 5 here.

There's a sew lisette website that you might find useful here.

And there's a great SewLisette group on flickr which you can find here. The flickr group is a great place to look at other people's versions of all the Lisette patterns from Simplicity, and get inspiration.

Isn't that great that the Lisette patterns have such a wide range of support and coverage? There's something really nice about making the same dress along with lots of other people all over the world, each with their own version.

And lastly, just before I go, here's a little note to myself of another pattern I quite like, this dress from Burdastyle here. You can see other people's versions of it on the BurdaStyle website here.

I don't think I've forgotten anything....................... oh yes! My knitted dress! I've finished the back, and am now on the front skirt section, but I forgot to take photos of it today, I'll try and remember for my Friday post.

Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

P.s. If there's one link you go to today it has to be this link to Jane Brocket's post here, honestly, it's a thing of beauty and amazement!

Fowberry Mains Open Garden

Hello! Aren't the Delphiniums above GLORIOUS! They are in one of my favourite Open gardens, and last Sunday was the second time I've visited this garden.

The photos I took last year are quite different to the photos I took on our most recent visit, they show the spectacular views from the garden, you can see last years photographs here.

Last year I went on my own, Hugo was busy, but this year we went together, en famille, with the doggies. I was so looking forward to this return visit, and sharing it with Hugo. Not all gardens welcome visitors taking their dogs, but surprisingly, quite a few do. We're always very careful to check on the Open Garden website, to see if dogs are allowed. If they aren't, it isn't a big deal, we just leave them at home, or with their Auntie Anne. This garden had nothing about dogs not being allowed, and Hugo double checked. So it was with some dismay that on walking up the drive to this house, the man who owned the house marched up to us, and I really mean MARCHED, and informed us in quite an aggressive tone that dogs are not allowed in his garden. Well, we did say that we'd checked the website, and there was nothing to say dogs are not allowed, whereupon he insisted that there was. We remonstrated that honestly, if there had been, we would have left the dogs at home. So he strode, or marched, over to his desk, leafed through the Open gardens booklet, and then let out an "OH!" And admitted that nothing was there to say dogs aren't allowed. At this point, his Mother-in-Law stepped in and tried to smooth things over. She would take the dogs no trouble at all, they couldn't be left in our car because it was a hot day, and she asked Mr. Officious if she could walk them across the yard, to which he did not look pleased, infact seemed very unwilling. We ended up tying them to the desk, paying our entrance fee, and heading straight for a cup of tea, and cake.

Whilst we were sitting eating the delicious cake (and this was the best we've ever had at an open garden, the food was better than delicious!), the wife of Mr. Officious came over to us and apologised profusely, said we could have the dogs in the garden, and generally made us feel much better. Infact she was really very lovely, and was worried that they had neglected to state there was no disabled access, as well as no dogs, in the info on their garden.

But you know what? It was difficult to enjoy the garden after that initial little encounter. We felt very ill at ease. These Open gardens are meant to be relaxing and enjoyable and happy occasions. We left the dogs tied up at the desk, and could hear Douglas crying to be with us, which was a bit embarrassing. Hugo ended up carrying him around in his bag, whilst leaving Ellie tied up. It was all a bit ridiculous really. I did manage to have a quick wander round the garden, feeling uncomfortable, but enjoying the beauty of the garden, and it really is fabulous, I love it.

What I'll do is let you wander through my photos, enjoying the abundance of flowers, the touch of wildness, the exuberance and joy that's gone in to making this garden.

Hugo lurks with Douglas, above.

I was rather taken with this Rose in the picture above, and apparently it was getting a lot of attention from visitors to the garden.

Let's have a closer look shall we..............

Although this Rose is more puple in colour it's called "Rhapsody in Blue", from David Austin, you can find it here. I've had a Rose die on me in one of my pots, so this could be a contender as its replacement.

So there we go, a beautiful garden don't you think? I hope you enjoyed your little saunter through the garden....................... Have a lovely weekend! Love Vanessa xxx