do you mind if i knit

The Sheffield Children's Book Award.

Hello! We had a wonderful weekend away, celebrating my Mother-in-Law Susan's 70th Birthday. And then today I heard some fantastic news, so I'll wait for another day to tell you about our time away.

That should probably read FANTASTIC news.

'The Pig's Knickers', written by Jonathan Emmett and illustrated by me, won TWO (!) awards at the Sheffield Children's Book Award yesterday.

We won best picture book, and overall winner! You can see the listing here. The shortlist for all the categories is here.

  I did a blog post about this book earlier in the year, you can see it here.

I am in shock, good nice shock, about this wonderful news.

Jonathan Emmett and I won a prize for another book we did together, back in 2004, the first book in the series of mole books, 'Bringing Down The Moon'. It was the Kiekeboekprijs, in Holland, and we were flown over to Amsterdam for three days to go to the awards ceremony, and be interviewed by journalists. The publishers Van Goor accommodated us in a very, very nice hotel in Amsterdam, I had an enormous room, and the visitors book was full of the signatures of famous writers.

I wasn't able to go to the awards ceremony for the Sheffield Children's Book Award, but Jonathan Emmett and my art editor Julie, (who I have worked with on most of my books for Walker Books), did go to the ceremony. Apparently Jonathan wore some great big spotty knickers over his trousers, to receive the award, wonderful!

I hope the knickers Jonathan wore were identical to Pig's knickers.

At the back of the book, is a page showing other books Jonathan has written and I have illustrated.

But this is a little out of date now, as the fifth book in the mole series has just been published!

'A Secret Worth Sharing'.

There's some exciting news for this book too, because it's going to be on CBeebies bedtime hour next week, Friday 9th December.

It is such a sweet, sweet, sweet story, this book, I'd like share it with you, and do a blog post about it next week.

And these books, are they for sale? Yep, they are indeed, perhaps in your local bookshop, or on amazon.

You can buy 'The Pig's Knickers' from amazon here (UK), or here (USA).

And 'A Secret Worth Sharing' is available from amazon here (UK), or here (USA).

The wonderful thing about the Sheffield Children's Book Award, is that the winning books are chosen by children. Many children from lots of different schools.

There were a lot of children at the awards ceremony, and when Jonathan phoned me this morning to tell me about the Pig's Knickers winning two prizes, he related that when our books title was announced, there was the most enormous roar of cheering from the children, it must have been wonderful to have heard it.

It must have been pretty wonderful and funny to see Jonathan accept the award in a big pair of polka dot knickers.

Cheerio! Vanessa xxx

 

 

Just to let you know.......................

Just to let you know I'm away for a few days, can't do todays blog post, in a rush, I'm meant to leave in twenty minutes, you know how it is. I'm back next Tuesday.

Vanessa xxx

Pink is the colour of love.

The dozen pink roses are from Hugo, a gift for our wedding anniversary last week, and they're still going strong.

I love pink roses, I don't like red roses at all, and that's putting it quite mildly, for some reason red roses disgruntle me.

Pink, I learnt about a year ago, is the true colour of love. Red is the colour of passion. What d'you make of that in relation to my red rose reaction hey?!

The pink in these photos are a bit red looking aren't they?! They're actually HOT pink, not red!

Let's have a few calming beach photos shall we.

We have fabulous beaches around us here in the North east of England, and they get relatively little foot fall.

We are very fortunate with our deserted beaches, many people's dream is a beach that you have all to yourself. A long stretch of sand, with only you, the waves and your thoughts. Lovely.

But as with anything in life, nothing is perfect, and we sometimes get long stretches of cold grizzly weather.

So it is with something akin to jealousy that I've been looking at Lori's light. She lives in a place with wonderful light, which helps with wonderful photographs. Of course, her superb artistic eye for composition and narrative are all her own vision, and if you don't have that, no amount of good light is going to result in good photographs. Would you like to know where you can see Lori's beautiful world? It's easily reached by visiting her blog 'lori times five', the link is here.

And now for a report on the striped diamonds I've been making.

I've been doing about four a day, two at lunch time, two if I get a chance in the evening. These four add up to a little pile. I now have a pile of diamond shapes! You won't be able to get the true feeling from looking at, and handling a pile of knitted diamonds, in these photographs, but in real life, it's a delicious thing to experience. Trust me.

I must be getting that feeling Stephanie from Tiny Owl Knits talks about in her video here, where talks about her hexipuffs.

The tutorial for making the diamonds I'm knitting is here.

So I've increased the diamonds I've knitted from my last post about them, here ..........

To this! It soon adds up doesn't it?

Blocking makes a big difference to these little numbers. You see how they're all curled up at the back in the above photo? The ones at the front have been blocked by laying a damp tea towel over each one, and pressing with a warm iron.

Righty-ho, I have to go, I need to eat supper, Hugo has said the food is almost ready.

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

Leopold's Best Day EVER!

You won't have met Leopold.

He's a rooster (or cockerel if you prefer), whom I've just finished for a commission, for the very talented Loani Prior of sculptural tea cosy fame, who's work and blog 'The Queen of the Tea Cosies' you can see here. (You have to have a look at the beautiful fair isle scarf she's showing on her blog at the moment, it's fabulous).

Here's Leopold!

He's one happy, proud chappie, and there's something very retro about his dress sense. We may all well know a human version of Leopold in real life, someone who is very endearing.

I look at Leopold, and I feel very familiar with every teeny weeny part of his body. A humongous number of hours went in to his creation, I don't know if that comes across. I've been working on him over a period of about three-and-a-half months.

It's not just the sheer labour in making him that has been exhausting, but the challenges of having him stand on one leg, holding a balloon that is stable and doesn't move all over the place, and is being held in his claw. He also went from an initial plan of being much simpler, to having wings outspread, and being fully clothed, he was just going to have a neckerchief originally, and his wings were going to be closed in on his body, so much easier to construct.

I admire Leopold's personality. He just doesn't give two hoots what other people think, he's too busy enjoying life to the fullest.

Gusto.

Gusto for life, that's what he has.

I could take a leaf out of his book, but then I'm too busy working, I'm straight in to another commission next, and I'm also working away on illustrating a book.

It's good to be busy, good to take opportunities offered don't you think?

It will be strange to put Leopold in his box and send him off, he's been part of my life for a while now. But he's off to a fabulous new home with Loani, who I know is looking forward to welcoming him.

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

Sweet Evangeline and Louise.

I've got a soft spot for Louise the pig, and I look at her frequently, at her hopeful little face, mixed with excitement, triumph, and expectation.

Recently I decided to give her a smaller stand, and have her positioned so that she looks like she's running, rather than her previous incarnation of standing there looking pleased.

I actually wish Louise was real, and that she was able to take a jump off her stand and onto my lap, or into my arms. She would be a very spoilt little pig, spoilt with love.

I wish all my sculptures could step down from their podiums and talk. I wish it like I was a small child waiting for magic to happen, believing it could happen.

My newest Evangeline sculpture is no different.

Evangeline has the potential, despite being a dreamer, to be a little cheeky. Fun too. She'd make you laugh with her quirky observations about life.

In this piece, my sixth sculpture of Evangeline, she is having a break from the dusting, she's dancing to the old songs.

These mosaics are as close as I can get to making Evangeline and Louise move.

I've just heard a little squeak, and it's not Evangeline, it's my real life doggy, Douglas, asking squeakily if he can possibly be taken for a walk. It's his polite squeak, but it could soon turn into an urgent squeak, so I'd better put a thick coat on and take the doggies out into the dark. It's actually only 5.20 pm, but it may as well be midnight, it's completely dark outside.

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

Grey.

Hello!

Even the special photographic lights I was given as a fourtieth birthday present this year, can't penetrate the dull day we are having today.

It's one of those days that makes you think of the word leaden, which is quite a beatiful word, especially when contrasted with the word pink. Or orange, or lipstick red. Leaden can be a word and a colour that makes other things sing when contrasted. Like a comedy double act, where the straight man or woman makes the funny partner shine and sparkle, setting off and showcasing their comedy.

I was given a deep bright pink Amaryllis flower yesterday, (by the florist because the flower was about to wilt and die, and I was admiring its beauty). And she wrapped it in a leaden grey coloured paper, and the flower's colour sang even more.

But my camera is not photographing well in the dim light today, so I can't show you the splendid Amaryllis unfortunately.

I did photograph a new Evangeline I have made, earlier, but the photographs are not good, hopefully we'll have sunlight tomorrow. Or even light.

So here I am, without photographs, except one I took last week of a rooster Hugo fashioned from pastry and placed on top of the steak and ale pie he made for supper. I'm working on a sculpture of a splendid cockerel at the moment, so that's why Hugo made the pastry rooster, it was rather wonderful, made me laugh.

The striped diamonds are progressing nicely. They are addictive to make, and I love seeing how the different colours knit up in to stripes.

Before I go, here's something you might like to listen to that may well make you smile, even laugh. 'In and out of the kitchen', comedy with Miles Jupp (from the superb, wonderful, fabulous series 'Rev'). If you do have thirty minutes where you can sit down and listen to the radio, perhaps curled up with your knitting or crochet and a nice beverage, please can I entice you to listen to 'in and out of the kitchen', link here. (unfortunately it's only available to listen to on i-player till 18th November). I'm sure you'll come away glad you listened, with a smile on your face.

A good way to start the weekend, with a smile, don't you think?

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

Striped Diamonds.

Isn't it getting dark early?

Thank goodness we have a wood burning stove to cosy up to in the evenings, it makes the dark nights an occasion. That's the positive way of looking at it.

My lace dress is coming on at a couple of rows a day at the moment, so a bit slow, but I like to think that these little bits of knitting all add up quite nicely over time.

So whilst the lace knitting is progressing at a snails pace, I decided I needed some knitting that was quick and easy, for those times I don't want to concentrate too hard, and I found JUST the thing!

It all started with seeing a blog post on Dutch Sisters blog here.

Corry was making a wonderful star ornament, (which she shows finished in this blog post here), and I thought it was just the job for a little inbetween knitting.

Then I went off my plan to make an ornament, because I latched on to the idea of making many little diamond shapes, and joining them up to make a scarf.

The tutorial for the knitted star, and the individual diamond shapes, can be found here.

They are easy peasy lemon squeezy, so have fun making them.

They are wonderful stash busters too. I'm using up all the 4-ply yarn I can find in my stash. It's especially good for using up bits of variegated yarn. I have some Koigu left over from something else I was doing, and it looks delicious knitted up in tiny amounts and scattered throughout the array of diamonds.

I wouldn't have thought to use the variegated yarn if it hadn't been for seeing an AMAZING design for The Beekeeper's Quilt, by Tiny Owl Knits here. Stephanie brings a fresh approach to the use of variegated yarn, a look I love, so I thought I'd mix some variegated diamonds in amongst the solid and striped coloured ones.

Isn't the web a wonderful place for inspiration.

If you do go to the link for the Beekeeper's Quilt, try and have a look at the short film Stephanie has made,(you just scroll down to the bottom of the page, or you can go to it by clicking here). She's very, very entertaining, and funny and enchanting. I especially love her asides about the noises she can hear her neighbour making through the walls of her flat. I've just watched her latest video about her Mr.Fox Stole (my heart), very entertaining too.

You know winter is closing in when the geese honk off. Don't they do just that, honk?

We stood watching them in amazement, as they flew in their undulating and purposeful v-shape. I almost waved them goodbye, it felt like I should shout "till next year, all the best, and you'll be missed. Take good care of yourselves".

I stood and admired a group of birds sweeping through the sky in a graceful clump the other day. It was the view from the spare room window.

So lovely, they were.

Well, I must get back to work, so I shall say cheerio, and see you on Friday!

Vanessa xxx