do you mind if i knit

The Whippet.

Whippet. Just say that word to yourself.

Whippet.

Don't you think it describes the dog so perfectly? It's a name that sounds thin, sinewy and lithe.

  Annie, of beautiful, interesting and very readable blog Knitsofacto, (link to her blog here ), commissioned me to make a brooch of her dog Finn, after seeing the brooch I made of Eddie Spaghetti, (the blog post about him, and more photos, are here).

Annie e-mailed me lots of great photos of Finn, taken from different angles, they were very helpful when I came to make him.

I asked Annie if she would like something balancing on Finn's nose, and she decided that a leaf would be perfect, because Finn likes to chase leaves. I couldn't resist adding a few leaves, so he looks like he's running through a pile of leaves.

Finn is an absolute beauty of a dog, with immaculate pedigree. Though I understand he didn't distinguish himself recently by demolishing Annie's knitting.

Annie has done a blog post about Finn and the brooch here, her photos are superb, the light is beautiful, and you can see the brooch very clearly.

I enjoyed making this brooch of Finn enormously, it was very satisfying to resolve various problems I came across when making him, plus, he has such a beautiful shape. Whippets are superb creatures, especially when they're not destroying your knitting.

I have two Miniature Wire Haired Dachshunds, and I'm very excited to report that I've found a blog entirely devoted to Dachshunds. Heaven! The link to blog The Long And The Short of It is here.

It's a blog for "Dachshundists".

I must be a Dachshundist, because one of the reasons I visit Penny's blog Planet Penny, is to see Higgins, her Miniature Smooth Haired Dachshund. He's a character, and very, very handsome.

One thing I do on the rare occasion I come across other Wire Haired Dachshunds is compare them to our two Dachshunds, especially their personalities. I've found a short video on The Long and The Short of It blog which shows a Dachshund feeling very pleased with himself about carrying his own little suitcase around. It could be my little boy, Douglas, in this video, here. Douglas does the same whole bottom and tail wagging thing, sometimes accompanied by a great big smile, which is always a special touch.

This weekend I'm going on a course to learn how to do screen printing, I'm very excited about it. I'll give you a full report in my next blog post.

Have a lovely weekend.

Vanessa xxx

Another few weeks on Skye would have been lovely!

And these were some of the views on the first evening, of my week away on the Isle of Skye.

Hello ........ a week is never enough for a break away is it? Two weeks is always a better amount of time, not that I wish to sound ungrateful.

As I was putting an empty plastic bottle in the recyling after returning home, a saw there was a little bit of water left at the bottom, and I found myself thinking "this is water from Skye, because this is the bottle I filled from the tap in the cottage I was staying in". I feel like I'm still half in Skye.

It was a working holiday. During the day I would work on paintings, and in the evenings I worked on my sculptures.

This all took place in the cottage you see in the photograph above, which had the perfect spot and gorgeous views. In the end wall of the cottage (on its left), was a huge picture window, and from that window I could see down in to the valley and out to sea, it was idyllic. The website for the cottage has some fantastic photos of the views in its picture gallery, which you can see in the link here.

The cottage itself was lovely, clean, welcoming, no fussy decor, modern and just right, and I felt extremely at home there. In the photos on the website, it looks like it's very isolated, but it's not, there are other houses dotted around so you don't feel vulnerable, but there aren't so many houses that it feels crowded. The link to the website for the cottage is here. Looking at the calendar of availability, it's very booked up, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are return visits.

Skye has dramatic landscape, wild even, especially this time of year. I like the wildness and the drama, it's impressive and awe inspiring. I didn't explore the island much because I was working most of the time, I stayed mostly in the North West area, and stretched my legs each day with a walk along the cliffs in the late afternoon, rain or shine.

One of the things I love about the landscape is the effect of the huge rolling skies, and the dramatic changes always taking place. Clouds appear, sweep over the landscape and then sunshine bursts through, it constantly shifts. It's a challenging landscape which makes you feel small, this is the sort of holiday that is the complete opposite of sunbathing on a beach.

I was on Skye before the tourist season had started, so many shops and cafes were closed. Before I left, I made an appointment to visit Shilasdair Yarns, where all the wool is hand dyed with natural products. They have a website here.

Anyone who loves yarn will understand what a delicious treat it was going to the Shilasdair Yarn shop. It was the equivalent of going in to an old fashioned sweet shop for a child.

I bought some skeins of 4-ply to knit my little diamonds, for the blanket I'm making. And I have to admit, although I have no need of more yarn to knit another garment, I bought enough DK wool to make a striped dress, which I haven't photographed yet.

The photo above is one I took just before setting off in the car to return home. My Shilasdair yarn is sitting on the window seat of the picture window in the cottage, the window I sat in front of to knit occasionally during my stay. The drive, rather than being seven hours long, was eight and a half hours long going to Skye, and the same coming back, with only two breaks either way. Exhausting when you're doing it entirely on your own. Still, my stay on Skye was worth it, and if I was offered the opportunity to return any day soon, I'd jump at the offer.

Righty-ho, I need to get back to work. Cheerio.

Vanessa xxx

 

 

Sketchbook-ing.

Well, this feels like a luxury, sitting here blogging, actually being able to spend some time saying hello and taking part in the blogging world.

My absence?

(Yet another absence)

Work.

Sheer work load. I haven't been ill or indisposed, I've been in a time warp where days seem to blend into weeks, and sometimes days have gone missing, or that's what it's seems like at times. In a telephone conversation the other day, the person I was speaking to told me it was Wednesday, and I exclaimed "IS IT?????!!!!!!!" For some reason I thought it was Monday, and my day management was under control. My day management (because days seem like a couple of hours at the moment) was not quite under control, and the worrying thing was that I had lost two days in the lead up to a deadline.

I always think that any kind of concentration, whether it be on a painting, or doing the accounts, or cooking a meal, involves stepping into an alternative reality. The process of concentrating on something means your mind is not focused on anything else other than the thing you're concentrating on. This is especially true for me when I'm doing my sculptures, paintings, or illustration work, I'm just existing in one dimension, my mind (!).

I've always been happiest when I'm living like this, removed. It probably makes it difficult for those around me I imagine. I'd quite like to be removed from reality all the time, like many of us I imagine.

Even when I'm having some down time, taking a break from work, my idea of relaxing is to do something where I'm removed from the world around me.

Like my sketchbook, (of which I'm showing you more pages, because I'm not able to show you what I've been working on recently, and I haven't got much knitting to show you).

It's sometimes a real pleasure to have a break from what I'm working on, and sketch. 

These drawings are of my two Miniature Wire Haired Dachshunds Ellie and Douglas, and a visiting Jack Russell called Cuddy.

I love my doggies. I love them a lot. They have their faults (most definitely) but they are mostly loveable. I even managed to talk about them to one of the classes I spoke to, on the school visit I did last week. Yes, I told the children I really love my dogs. When I was asked by the children to do a drawing of them, I drew Ellie, and talked about her waggy tail and love of carrots.

And just to link to my last post, in which I also showed you some pages from my sketchbook, here's what happened after my last blog post. A painting based on my sketches, of the brown mouse, on a loose piece of paper I could frame if I wanted to.

Doing the painting felt like closure on the sketches, it was satisfying, and maybe a proper fitting tribute to the Brown Mouse. A proper painting, not just a page in my sketchbook.

And now I'm going to be absent again, for a week. I'm going on a sort-of working holiday, renting a beautiful isolated cottage. It will take about seven hours to drive there, and I'm filling the car with all the art materials I use to create my sculptures and paintings, and I'm doing the holiday entirely on my own. Stepping out of reality, into what I like to think will be escapism.

This will be one week I do pay attention to the days going by.

See you in about a week and a half I imagine.

Cheerio.

Vanessa xxx

The Brown Mouse.

Hello.................... I found a brown mouse the other day. She was lying on the road, between two cobbles. I picked her up gently, and tried to warm her in my hands, thinking I might be able to revive her. On closer inspection, I found a tiny puncture wound on her neck, and came to the conclusion that the cat who lives on our street had caught and killed her.

The cat must have killed the mouse, just before I found her, because she was absolutely perfect, no decay had set in at all.

I've never been squeamish about things like this, only ever fascinated. I also count it as a wonderful opportunity to hold a tiny wild mouse, and be able to stroke its softer than soft fur, look at its delicate ears and examine its tiny fragile paws.

The last time I had this sort of opportunity, was about twenty years ago, when I was staying with my Mum and Dad in Spain. I went for a walk in the valley, and was stopped in my tracks by a tiny Shrew lying on the ground in perfect condition. It was hard to believe it was dead.

I took it home, and as with the brown mouse, I did some drawings in my sketchbook of the shrew.

I did my first ever school visit last week, and as part of my time there, along with the books I've illustrated and preparatory drawings and original art work, I showed them my sketchbook, which the children were fascinated by, some of them wanted to go about making their own sketchbooks, wonderful isn't it? I enjoyed the visit to the school so much (it's a fantastic school) I'd like to put my name down on the contact an author website for school visits. The positive feedback I got gave me a lot more confidence to do that, which is a relief as before I started my visit, I felt sick with anxiety about it.

Last week was a funny old week, what with the food poisoning I got from the smoked salmon I treated myself to, followed the next evening by burning my face while trying to liquidise hot carrot soup. It's a good thing I had my glasses on or I would have got some nasty burns on my eyes. I eventually took myself to A and E, and a sympathetic nurse dressed my burn, which is on my temple down the side of my face, close to the hair line fortunately, so not too noticeable.

One thing I did learn is that you should never put ice on a burn, only ever put a cool wet cloth on it, (after running the affected area under cool water for ten to fifteen minutes to reduce the heat of the burn), ice makes the burn react and go deeper, causing more damage. The nurse told me you should never let a burn dry out, she told me to apply vaseline on it a few times a day, until the burn fades (I think this is for minor burns, if it's a second degree or third degree burn you have to be careful about infection). The nurse who dressed my burn said it's a common misconception that you put ice on a burn. I had put ice on my burn, and that's why the pain was getting worse and worse, and I decided to go to our local Accident and Emmergency unit.

So this explains my absence last week, illness, accident, school visit, huge pressure from my art editor to finish another set of revised roughs, so the book can go to Bologna Book Fair and .........................

............ and picking up the plinths for my sculptures (above), all three pieces I had in the exhibition sold (hurrah!). The exhibition I'm talking about is the one I mention in this blog post.

I've also got another gallery wanting me to give them six paintings and three sculptures to sell a.s.a.p, that's apart from the solo show of my work at the end of this year, and the commissions I'm working on. I'm not panicking. No. I'm just seeing it as tremendous opportunities I've been given after a lot of hard work. I'm absolutely determined to take every opportunity that comes my way, and make the most of what I'm offered, this is what I've been dreaming of and never thought possible. So far this year, I've been extremely fortunate workwise.

And now I have to decide what to do with the little brown mouse. She can't carry on being kept in a sealed container in the fridge like she has been all week. Every time I open the fridge, there she is, peaceful in her little plastic see-through box, it's a bit disconcerting when all I want is the milk for my cup of tea.

Perhaps I should give her a full burial like my Niece Millie and family gave Bob the Hamster last weekend. Millie insisted on a minutes silence in his honour, she then said a few prepared words through some tears, before he was placed in the hole that had been dug for the Plum tree that was being planted. My sister said that the fruit produced from that tree will forever be known as Bob's Plums.

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx