do you mind if i knit

My prints...................

Oh fantastic, only an hour and a half to go before it's officially the weekend! For me, the weekend starts at 6 p.m, that's when I start to think about the words 'cosy, cup of tea, fire place, warm toes and knitting'.

Last night, as I was closing the shutters (we don't have curtains), I caught myself thinking about how cosy it felt, retreating into the house, the windows shuttered, the fire blazing, and I came to the conclusion that I'm starting to come to terms with our winter season, and I'm enjoying it, which surprised me, I mean, we're meant to hate these cold dark months aren't we?

Tonight I've been shutting out the world of snow outside, it's been falling in flakes that have gone from big fat movie type snow, to thin drizzle resembling rain, and here and there there's been hail.

I love that cotton wool movie snow, it's so pretty as it falls, don't you think?

Anyway, on to those suspicious looking balls of wool in my first photograph of this post.

If you read my Monday post, you have probably guessed what this means already.

Yep! I have done the deed. I've unravelled my knitting that was the skirt section of the dress I was knitting.

Skirt section as was, in the photo on the left above, and skirt section as it no longer is, in the photo on the right.

The cables didn't look their best on my hips. Not for showing them off as cables, nor for showing my hips off to their best advantage. So out came all that knitting, and I've started re-knitting the dress. I've cast on 384 stitches, (I imagine it will seem less as time goes on!), and am knitting cables all the way round. The idea of the cables going from large to small as they progress up the skirt is still going to apply yo these cable I'm now doing.

Anyway, enough knitting talk, lets move on to my prints.

I am officially open for business in my etsy shop, selling my prints! Feels like a long time ago I first mentioned doing them.

Would you like a quick look at a selection of some of them?

I have prints that reproduce my still life paintings. Some of the prints are laser reproductions, some are reproduced by the more expensive method of giclee printing.

To give you an idea of the cost of a print, as opposed to the cost of the original painting, take for example, the picture of the "Daffs in a Spotty Cup"(above) which is a small painting. To buy the original would cost  £75, to buy a print of this would be £17.55, both prices would be plus postage and packing.

Other original pieces will cost from £75 to £145 to £220, whereas all the prints are under £50. The prints make my work more accessible price wise.

All the prints come with mounts and backing board, ready to go in a frame, and also have certificates of authenticity, they show the number in the edition, and there's some info about my background, and they're in protective self sealing propylene bags.

I've also done some prints linked to my illustration work, there's a separate section (prints, illustration) in my etsy shop for those.

Here's a selection of them:

So there we go! Tra-la! Prints all nicely packaged, ready for giving as a gift perhaps? Or have you done all your christmas shopping...................... If you're interested in buying a print from my etsy shop, the link is here.  Actually, I have to admit, I'm about half way through mine, which feels very organised.

Well, Hugo is cooking beef at the moment, and the smoke alarm keeps on going off, so I need to stand to attention to "waft" the smoke alarm when it trills. Ellie and Douglas hate the smoke alarm going off, they run and hide.

Ellie has just come in from outside, (to escape the noise of the alarm), and is standing shivering, covered in snowflakes, and looking at me very indignantly!

I'll be off now. Ten past six, and time for a glass of wine methinks. Have a good weekend, cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

I've been watching the weather opera from my studio today.

Hello! I know us Brits love to talk about the weather, but when you live in this weather we have, well, it can be quite interesting! Have you ever had sun for a few hours, lulling you into a false sense of dog-walking security, followed by thin slivers of drizzle, then hail pelting down, bouncing off the ground like tiny ping pong balls, rain  following on, then soft cotton wool balls of drifty snow, more hail, more drippy rain, then by two o'clock in the afternoon, suddenly goes dark grey, then just dark?

That's a summary of the grand opera going on outdoors today.

Oh and did I mention that it's so cold outside, any exposed flesh, especially hands, feel numb very, very quickly?

I'm soooooo glad I wasn't out walking the dogs for too long. For Ellie, it was a "right, done my bits-n-pieces, lets go back home NOW, immediately, start marching!"

The dark started descending outside before I'd taken today's photos, I prefer to take my photos in natural light, the camera copes better.

I'm always telling myself I need better lighting in my studio, one daylight bulb isn't enough over my desk. The central light and two lamps don't really contribute much, so I'm finding that I have to stop painting between 2:30 and 3 in the afternoon, because the light changes dramatically, causing the colours of the flowers and the shadows to alter too much. It's then I get on with my papier mache figures (hope to show you something soon). I am loving doing the papier mache figures, love, love, loving it!

I've started a smaller painting too, with berries and a feather.

And my Orla Kiely mug, don't you think this pattern of Orla Kiely's is one of her best?

And I've been meaning to show you my latest knitting................... I think my reluctance to show it to you springs from my doubts about it.

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, I planned to knit this jumper, above. It's a Rowan pattern, from this book:

So off I went, knitting away cheerfully in the beautiful Rowan 'Renew' yarn, colour 'Garage', untill I reached the patterned section. I like a challenging pattern, and this was quite a complicated pattern repeat. I knitted a goodly section, only to find that the pattern wasn't showing up very well in the dark colour I had chosen. When you spend time and energy on a complicated pattern, you don't want the design melting away in the dark colour do you?

Well, rather than persevering with the Rowan pattern, (it dawned on me why all the garments in the book were knitted in light colours, the patterns in the designs show up better in paler colours), I had a re-think.

Maybe this was the opportunity to try a design I had in my mind after seeing the cable pattern in Debbie Bliss' book 'Design it, Knit it ' (above). I love the way the cable goes from large to small.

You can just make out in my scribble above, the design for a dress where three central cables go from large at the bottom, gradually decreasing to small at the waist, then they fan out from the waist up to the neck-line. It's exactly the same on the back.

Here's my effort so far.

There's just one problem. I have a sneaky feeling (and I think all knitters are familiar with this), that I'm not quite happy with it, and I need to unravel it all.

You see I've tried it on, and it's much more fitted than I intended. And it's not fanning out at that bottom, like I envisaged. I think the size of the cable at the bottom is too small. When I tried it on, I found that the cable was actually quite bulky, because of the flatter stocking stitch either side of the cables, which had the effect of accentuating my stomach, which noone wants do they?

I'm wondering if I actually need to have cables all the way round the skirt section of the dress, and abandon the three cables in the middle? The yarn is bulky, I think that's the problem, if this was being knitted in a finer yarn, it wouldn't be such a problem. What do you think? It might look quite nice with cables all the way round. Then the top section could just have very thin cables, fanning out or whatever, so they weren't too bulky, Or maybe I just need  the cables wider at the bottom................ I'll have a think about it, and listen to your words of wisdom.

Well, I need to have a bite to eat before I head off to my knitting group, so cheerio for now! Love Vanessa xxx

Tra-la-dee-dah-le-dah-tra-la.

Hello. Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. I really do. (We won't mention the weather shall we?).

I went blank when it came to finding a title for today's blog post, hence the strange gobbledy-goop of today's heading, I thought a nonsesical title was just the ticket today.

My weekend started off with not doing my Friday post, because I was so engrossed in my papier mache activities. Which I had hoped to show you today, but was too busy working on a still life painting to take photos in the short hours of day light we have at the moment. It's always a race against time with flowers, before they die. I've been painting some roses from the garden, the last of the roses I imagine. Incredible that they're still flowering, isn't it?

I've had the picture above in storage on my computer, waiting for the right time to use it, and today was the day. It's not one of my paintings, it's from the side of a fairground ride. I think it's beautiful.

Just look at the decoration on this ride! It might be garish, but it's glorious at the same time. Love it.

These photos were taken in Edinburgh last Christmas, see Jenners store in the background?

Hugo persuaded me to go on this ride. I'm feeling slightly queasy just looking at this photo above. I've got a delicate constitution, whereas Hugo loves roller coasters and anything designed to give mere mortals stomach upsets. I went on a ride at a place in Spain, whilst we were visiting my mum and dad, a few years back. I thought the ride didn't look too bad as seen from ground level so I thought I'd give it a try, but when it got going, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Groans were the only sound that came out of my mouth the whole time we were swinging all over the place. And I'm not joking when I say it took me a couple of hours to recover. Hugo had a whale of a time on all the other rides, which I won't mention, thinking about them makes me feel odd and queasy.

There's something very nostalgic about the decoration at some funfairs.

I like nostalgic things, like these Dahlias. Things born of hard work and traditional skills. That must be why knitting and crochet appeals, I just love that many generations before me were involved with these traditional skills, like growing Dahlias. I'd love to grow Dahlias, and have them in vases in the house, but there is literally no room in the garden, things are squished together as it is.

I've been keeping myself very busy of late. There's the papier mache figures, and I've started doing still life paintings again. I'm inbetween projects at the moment, so I'm making the most of this time I have to do my own thing. And my knitting has been lurking in the background, occasionally finding it's way into my busy little hands.

I've been looking at some the little flower panitings I did, (most have long since gone to new homes), to remind myself of what I did, and reflect on it.

Want to come along and have a look?

A couple of these pictures I kept back, and have made prints of them, soon to be in my etsy shop.

It's nice to remind myself of things I've done in the past. Infact, I must get back to my painting, after I've made a cup of tea. I wonder if there are any biscuits, I'll have a forage.

I'll say cheerio and toodle-loo then. Love Vanessa xxx

Barbara Hepworth, sculptor extraordinaire.

Hello, I thought I'd have a bit of escapism today, (escape into someone else's world) seeing as the wind is whipping round the house making whoo-hoo-hoooooing sounds, and the windows are dark, and it would be nice to step out of the histrionic weather into a peaceful place. I think I just heard a scratching at the back door..................... Never mind, I've lit the wood burning stove, turned on all the lamps, made a cup of tea, and it's as cosy as a rabbit's burrow in here (I imagine bunny burrows to be very, very cosy). Lovely.

Thank you for all your lovely comments on the photos from my last post, so glad you enjoyed them. I mentioned in that post that we'd been to the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St.Ives when we were in Cornwall, and we loved it.

I hope the poor people in Cornwall who are suffering from the terrible floods are o.k. St.Austell is one of the places affected, and we were staying in the village next to it, Charlestown, whilst on holiday last week, they haven't been affected there. I'm thinking of those people in distress, their lives suddenly ruined by flooding.

And on a happier note, I feel I should mention the happy news of Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton (or Catherine as she is to be known from now on), because I just want to mark it on my blog. I think it's fantastic, they're so sensible and cheery, and come across so well don't you think? Hugo is already bored to tears by the media coverage of it, but I'm afraid I'm quite fascinated by the whole thing! They just seem to be a safe bet somehow, you can believe their marrige will last, which is a cheering thought.

Anyway! Barbara Hepworth, that's what I was meaning to talk about! I wasn't very familiar with her work before we went to the museum. I'm sooooo glad we did go, it was fascinating. On arriving at the museum we walked through her indoor studio, housing a few 'placed' sculptures. Such beautiful work, and powerful, it's very difficult to really explain their aura unless you're standing next to them.

Then we went out into the garden, which was the exciting bit. Huge sculptures positioned between the trees and shrubs, and it wasn't a big garden.

For me the most intriguing bit was her studio in the garden, which was left just as though she had popped out for lunch.

I don't know about you, but I find artist's studios fascinating. Seeing where they create can give you clues about why their work is as it is.
To see the work coats of Barbara Hepworth, and maybe her assistants, left hanging on their nails, spattered with materials they worked with, is very real.

I spent a while gazing at it all, ready for the ghost of Barbara Hepworth herself to walk in and resume chiselling at one of her pieces.

And this must be where the great artist took her tea breaks on a fine day, whilst she chatted to a visitor or cast an eye over her sculptures she'd placed in the garden.

The visit has really stayed with me.

We were fortunate that there weren't many other visitors, I imagine in peak season it gets very crowded and difficult to see things properly. I think it's the sort of place that benefits from only a few wandering about.

I left with a strong impression of a powerful personality behind the work. The sculptures are very powerful themselves, and beautifully made, which I always appreciate in art. If we return to St. Ives, I'd like to go back to the museum again.

Just before I go off to my Wednesday night knitting group, I must show you this crochet blanket I saw in a shop window in Falmouth, Cornwall.

It's gorgeous don't you think?

I took a close up, to try and understand the stitch pattern used, which I think works beautifully.

I haven't worked it out yet, but I think I have an idea of how it goes. When I work it out, I'll let you see the pattern.

And I'm very aware that I've been very neglectful in not doing the pattern for the Sarah London Scarf for you, below. I'm ever so sorry about this. I know some folks want to crochet it as gifts for their loved one's for Christmas, so I must make doing the pattern my next priority.

Well, I must be off, off to knitting. Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

We've been in Cornwall, and it was FANTASTIC!

Hello! LOVELY, LOVELY, LOVELY to see you! Really and truly! We got back from Cornwall at the weekend, the lovely Cornwall, the beautiful out-of-season non-crowded Cornwall, where we spent a week resting (a bit, actually we seemed to cram in a lot), and recuperating. I still haven't caught up with my bloggy friends, all your lovely messages, the post, etc etc, you know how it is when you return from a holiday, everything hits you at a hundred miles a minute, mainly real life. Phew.

We really needed that week away, a week of escapism, and it didn't disappoint. We had lovely days out, exploring, eating good food, marvelling, but the icing on the cake was the GORGEOUS cottage we rented. See the true-to-life photos here. It made such a difference to return to the cottage each night, knowing that we were going to be cosy in front of the wood burning stove, living in beautiful surroundings. Antonia and David have other places to rent out, which I would love to stay in too. Their website is exquisite, just like their properties, which you can see here. Their website will make you drool and dream.

This is the only photo I took inside the cottage, because each morning we were dashing out, and photos were forgotten about, but the link above gives you an excellent idea of what the cottage was like. I had to show you this lamp shade, which I was fascinated by. A sea anemone lamp shade, which sort of sums up Antonia's imaginative and considered approach to the decorating. We could feel the thought that went in to everything, from the toaster, to the mirror in the bathroom, the original works of art on the walls, to the welcome pack sitting on a beautiful wooden board on our arrival. Very special. And whilst I love my own home, I wouldn't mind being back there right now!

It's quite difficult to know where to start picture wise, in this blog post................... well, let me see, what was I taking photos of mostly?

The boats and their colourful buoys were a joy to behold. Infact, I could do with returning to Cornwall and it's coastal towns and villages just to draw and paint the boats and buoys.

How absolutely joyful a colour to have your boat painted, bright turquoise!

And you know something? Things were positioned so very nicely! The triangle shape created by these three boats is a gift, pictorially speaking.

 

Yes, those boats and their buoys were a joy, I wish I'd taken more photos now. Well, as I say, I need to return to Cornwall.

I thought the buoys above looked like an art installation.

We didn't just prowl round harbours, me snapping away with my camera at boats and the buoys tied to them.

We did a bit of visiting of various must-sees. We had high expectations for the Eden Project, but were astonished to find ourselves disappointed by the in-your-face preachiness of the information everywhere and the ice rink, which we were baffled as to how it fits into the eco-friendly theme. I won't go on about the other things.

We loved the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, what a splendid place that turned out to be. There was a special exhibition about lighthouses and the lives of the keepers. I find the human side of history especially interesting. It was fascinating to learn about the lighthouse keeper's lives before everything became automated, and the keepers became redundant. There was a cabinet displaying some of the crafts, such as knitting, drawing and making ships in bottles. I love all that sort of stuff.

We had tea and cake in the cafe overlooking the harbour, where there were some multi-million pound luxury yachts berthed. Those boats are astonishing and fascinating, even if you try to imagine the wealth behind them, I suspect that probably isn't even half the reality of the riches, influence and power of these boat owners. One was called "Steel", and we mused that it might be owned by a steel magnate.

One of the things we participated in, was the 'sail a remote controlled boat'. That was FUN, and it didn't matter if you lost control and bashed into another boat. Ahem.

The man over-seeing the proceedings had to turf me off my remote control, in the nicest way possible, but firmly.

I'd love to be able to say we had sunshine all week, but we didn't, that's something we're resigned to expecting when we holiday in the United Kingdom. We were given some half days of sun. Usually rain in the morning, sun in the few hours left of the day after lunch, but largely there were full sunny days to be enjoyed. Weather reports are important when it comes to holidays, aren't they?!

I like to think of this sort of weather as 'atmospheric'.

Atmospheric when you're warm and dry in your car.

The sunny days were glorious. Isn't the British countryside spectacular in the sunshine?

We had a rollicking old time driving around the country lanes with their high hedges either side of the road.

What else did we do?

We went to St.Ives and had a lovely time wondering around the lanes, going into galleries and shops (yarn shops!). 

We visited the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St.Ives, which was quite simply wonderful. It was so fantastic, I plan to give it a post all of it's own some time.

Then there was the Tate in St.Ives, another place worth visiting. The cafe was at the top of the building, and of course a coffee and cake stop was made. I loved the menu cover, with the silhouette of a cup and saucer formed from a detail of an Alfred Wallis painting. Love his work.

We treated ourselves to lunch (the very much cheaper alternative to the evening meal), at Rick Stein's seafood restaurant, which was nice, but totally out-shone by lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifeteen restaurant.

Fifeteen is perched on a cliff, with spectacular views, and we were given a window seat!

I took some photos of the view for you.

Well dear readers I'm going to scoot off before this becomes a list of holiday activities. I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into our holiday. It's lovely to be back with you, so cheerio till Wednesday. Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

 

Back in a week-and-a-half!

In a bit of a rush.................. back in a week and a bit! Will tell you all about it then. Love Vanessa xxx

Ingredients for my medicine bottle.

Hello! And how are you today? If your sky outside is dark, like my sky outside, you might enjoy a bit of colour from my medicine bottle labelled "colour for grey or dark days. One teaspoon to be taken daily. Dosage may be increased if your weather is particularly bad".

I was feeling ever so, ever so tired last Friday evening, that's why there was no blog post, I'm sorry about that, I do try to be reliable with my Monday, Wednesday, Friday blogging, but sometimes I just can't find the energy, not often, just sometimes. Our clocks went back yesterday, so the evenings are longer, and it's started getting dark too early. This must be the hardest thing about the winter months, the long nights, they drag a bit.

So what's the solution?! For me, it's COLOUR! Colour, colour, colour, extra colour, more colour, tons and bags of colour, and vitamin D tablets, (they're meant to help with lack of sunlight).

So rather than my planned post for today, I've trawled through my photos, picked out a few colourful ones, and put together some mosaics. The post I had planned for today was heavy on sand content, and I wondered why I was feeling "muted" after going through the pictures. Infact, I was wondering why I wanted to have a good scream after looking at about thirty photos all containing the same sand colour..............

Some photos I have used in the past, like my jar of buttons, are one's I love to return to. They just cheer me up. So they go in the "medicine bottle".

Lots of jars of buttons for the medicine bottle, with a bit of Cath K thrown in, and flowers to add a sweet perfume.

I personally can't have enough flowers in my medicine mixture, if anything cheers me up, it's a bunch of flowers.
And I most definitely can't have enough sugar mice to sweeten the mix, or colourful fabrics.

The sugar might give me a bit of a kick up the old you-know-what, get me motivated, you know how difficult it is to get motivated when you just want to curl up and hibernate?

I alway find that bargain vintage finds, mixed in with Provence Rose Cath Kidston patterning is excellent for the medicine mix.

But maybe, just maybe, the last ingredient that is an absolute MUST for the medicine concoction is this:

A waxy, general purpose potato, resembling a desirable potato, with my name on it. (You can read more about the down-to-earth properties of this Vanessa potato here, apparently Vanessa isn't half bad as potatoes go).

That is the perfect final ingredient for my personalised medicine mixture. (Your medicine mixture might need a fruit or vegetable with your name, for the mix to work for you, I can't guarantee a Vanessa potato will do the job as well as it could).

I feel particularly blessed to have a potato which, either, I am named after, or, is named after me. Actually, there is a butterfly, the "Painted Lady", Latin name Vanessa Cardui, but to have my name on a potato feels quite special. The potato photo was taken at a farmer's show of different varieties of potatoes, how marvellous is that?! A potato fair! Well, marvellous if you find a potoato with your name on it, otherwise.........................

Do you have anything identified with your name which is particularly pleasing to you?

And on that delicious, and very satisfying note, I am going to sing tra-la as I gravitate towards my knitting, (which for some reason I'm being reticent about showing you. I'll try and do something about that for Wednesday's post). Cheerio then. Love Vanessa xxx