do you mind if i knit

Choices choices, decisions decisions.

Hello! I've just been sitting with a cup of tea, staring at my wool colours.

There are definitely worse ways to spend time than umming and aahhing about colours aren't there? I usually love the whole process of choosing colours for my knitting, but I'm at that indecisive stage, and for this project's colours I seem to be stuck at that uncertain, can't decide, driving Hugo potty with my "what do you think of this combination?" stage.

I've been lining all the wool up, to get a feel of stripes, to try and help with the decision making.

This is the top I'm knitting, which is going to be extended into a dress. The cable area is going to be one colour, the duck egg blue. The stocking stitch area on the sleeves and below the cabling is going to be a myriad of striped colour.

That's the idea, anyway!

I could just end up looking like a clown, but in my mind's eye, I'm planning on it being a 'fun' colourful dress, and this way, I don't have to knit using only one colour, which fills me with horror (you know how I like my million colour combos).

Yesterday I showed you this photo, above, which demonstrates the cabling area plan.

Now as I just mentioned, I'm wanting to 'Decide' on colours for the stripes.

So I've been lining up all the wool, taking colours out, putting colours back in, changing the order of the colours, AGONISING, like this:

Here are all the colours I could use.

Here's all the colours, minus the grey.

Lets have another look at all the colours together again.

Lets try the colours in a different order, without the grey again.

But I quite like the grey.

Maybe there should be no grey, and no plum?

Hugo thinks I should take the plum out, but to me, there's something about it, contrast, and I love that plum colour. Tricky.

No grey, no pale pink. I think I might be going crazy with the indecision of this.

When I take the plum out, I think it all becomes tonally the same, and I'm not sure about that. I think that the trick with the plum colour is which colours I place it next to as I go along. There are loads of colours that set it off nicely, and equally, the plum makes certain colours sing.

I think that what I really want to do, is use all the colours, and just not make any editing decisions, plus, the more colours the merrier, don't you think?!

But then again, if you have an opinion............?!!!!!!!!

I have time to think about it some more, as I'm almost finished on the cabling for the back, but I haven't done the cabling for the front, so that has to be finished first. Then I'll join them together, and attempt to work the stripes on a circular needle, in the round.

Well, I must be off now, got cabling to do. Have a good weekend dear readers. Hope you've enjoyed the colour debate. Love Vanessa xxx

Turkish egg cartons are beautiful.

Hello and big thank you for your welcome home, it's so nice to have your welcome homes!

Hugo won't be home in time to cook supper this evening, before I go off to my Wednesday night knitting group, so I'm on my own culinaryily speaking. Hugo will ask me what I ate for my supper when I see him later on, and he'll expect the answer to be "cereal". Well I'm going to surprise him by saying I actually cooked something for myself tonight. I'll tell you at the end of this post what I made all by myself.

Hope you can wait till the end to find out what I cooked for myself.

Anyway! The content of this post today is going to be egg cartons and only egg cartons. Turkish egg cartons, the like of which I have never seen before.

I took these photos in the market I told you about in my last post. The gentlemen egg sellers looked on in amusement as I photographed their stacks of eggs, but seemed to understand more when I showed them the photos on my camera screen.

I've never got as excited about egg cartons before.

Egg carton excitement for me, has only ever reached the dizzying heights of delicate blue duck eggs nestled in a washed-out green egg box.

These egg cartons got me so excited with their colours, I got that tense stomach thing going on. If Hugo had tried to drag me away, (which he knew better than to try), I would probably have been a little snappy with him.

Who would have thought these haphazardly stacked cartons could have been a feast of colour for the eyes?

Who would have thought they would turn in to 'art'?

Even the elastic bands holding the boxes together produced a beautiful contrast.

And I ask you this, do you think they would looked half as effective without the bright white and toffee brown coloured eggs, punctuating the mellow yellows and hot pinks, the mild turquoise and dusky greys and pinks?

The eggs do add a nice contrasting dimension.

Love the colours above.

  Hugo just came home early, ready to cook something for me. I said I'd just eaten. "You can't just eat cereal" was his reply. "I cooked for myself" I said jauntily. "Oh really?!!!! What did you make?" "Porridge!" I said, followed by a loud triumphant cackle. "Atrocious" was Hugo's reaction.

Well, I hope you were suitably dazzled by the egg carton colour display, and are now thinking about egg cartons in a completely new light!

I'm off to knitting now. I'm working on the sleeves of the dress I'm knitting, very exciting. See you Friday dear readers. Love Vanessa xxx

Turkish Delight!

HELLO   HELLO  HELLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO, LOVELY  LOVELY   LOV--ER---LEE TO SEE YOU! Ever so lovely to be back amongst you all, I feel quite excited now I've got the bit between my teeth, now I've crawled out from holiday world, back into bloggy land. Many, many apologies for not returning to you sooner, there is quite a good excuse, which I'll mention later, but in the mean time, HELLO dear readers, lovely lovely lovely to see you, and fantastic for me to be back in the land of the living.

Just before I left you to go on holiday, I think I was a bit mono-syllabic. Very short sentences was all I could manage, I was so cream crackered, and full of a nasty cold, which I took on holiday with me. I'd been working very hard, and apparently I was a bit prone to being on the verge of tears all the time, according to one pal.

But we shall leave that behind, and just fast forward to our WONDERFUL holiday in Turkey, the two blissful weeks we had (despite nights spent coughing over the first week. Me coughing, Hugo having to listen to coughing, poor thing).

Our two weeks in Turkey was enabled by Neilson, who runs activity holidays. We were based in a resort called Teos. And it was really very nice. So nice, I wouldn't mind being back there, sitting on that sun lounger, knitting, which is the activity I did most of on our activity holiday.

I did do some windsurfing, which we have proof of in the above photo. And some waterskiing, and kayaking. All the activities were included, which felt very good indeed, especially when it came to the waterskiing, which is usually an unaffordable activity.

Would you like to see a very exclusive photo of me waterskiing?!!!! Yes? NO?!!!

Well how about this, I'll show you Hugo sailing, in the following splendid photograph first: You can just see Hugo at the back of the boat, he's "helming", looking like a very cool cucumber in his cap and sunglasses.

I may not look cool in the next photo, but I am waterskiing, in a manner.

Here you go..........

The smile was very fixed, yes.

I'm making it look as though our holiday was full of activity, aren't I? Well, Hugo's was, he barely stood still, what with all the dinghy sailing, kayaking and more dinghy sailing. I was left on my sun lounger with my knitting, feeling very peaceful, and getting more and more addicted to the sun lounging, whilst watching all the activity playing out before me on the water.

This photos with the bright tablecloth was taken on one of the days we tore ourselves away from the resort and ventured into the villages and towns in the area.

My knitting accompanied me on all these outings, much to the enjoyment of the local women and men. It was almost a way of bonding with them, because there were huge, warm and encouraging smiles when they saw my knitting.

The market above was very much a local working market, not there to attract tourists. That's the sort of market I love.

Everything plastic your heart could desire above.

Despite the look on the face of the man above, the stall holders actively encouraged photos to be taken, and I obliged them, even though I was much more interested in taking photos of the lentils and tomatoes.

Would you like to see some more photos of lentils, and some lovely tomato photos?!

 

 

 

We rounded off our exploration of the market by finding a place to rest our feet at this cafe, under a tree, filled with local people.

Our Turkish language skills consist mostly of that universal language, sign and mime language, and after pointing at dishes and drinks people were consuming on other tables, we tucked in to this:

Mmmm,    mmmm,     mmmm,   it was delicious. A sort of filo pastry wrap, containing feta cheese and cooked spinach. It was very moreish.

I think I'm going to have to finish for today, it's getting late, and I haven't washed up the supper stuff yet.

All the other adventures will have to wait.............. probably for a rainy day, when I want to look back on our sun filled holiday and do a bit of dreaming. Plus, I do know that lengthy reams about my holiday could get pretty tiresome.
I'm sure you'd like to know what goodies I bought though, wouldn't you? Well, another day for that too.

It is good to be back with you. The week after getting back from holiday was all about trying to adjust to real life again, plus I was plunged straight back into lots of work. My illustration work is in an exhibition starting this coming weekend, and there's been quite a bit of preparation to do. It's all go, go, go. Right, must be going. Lovely to see you again. See you Wednesday. Love Vanessa xxx

I'd really like to have a snooze on a bed of moss.

Thank you so much, thank you for your wonderful comments on the opening of my website, really and honestly, not only were they very beautifully and generously encouraging, there were some very constructive things said, which helped us to tweak the site for the better, I think (!).

Hugo came home the other day with a 'sheet' of moss. He'd found it in the street, so it must have fallen off a roof of a house.

He knows me well doesn't he! He brings me a gift of moss, knowing I'll be absolutely de-ligh-ted! And I was, because I've been thinking about creating a moss garden for a while now.

I just love moss. Its colour, it's soft touchy quality.

It's a quiet sort of plant.

A bed made of moss would be lovely. But difficult I have to admit. I'd have to water my bed every day.

Lichen is another thing I think is very pretty. The twigs above, dropped off the trees on our street, after gusty weather, and I couldn't resist gathering some up. They sit in my studio, wherever there's space for them, and I like seeing them every now-and-then, and enjoy the lime green yellow of the lichen against the greyness of the twig.

So would you like to know how to make your own moss garden? To make mine, I followed the instructions in this link, and my moss is still going strong a few weeks later.

I am thinking about putting my moss outside though. Whilst it seems happy enough in my studio, maybe it would be even happier outside.

What I'd really like to do is make a moss-covered arm chair for the garden. There are instructions here for making a chair seat covered in moss. Sounds very nice to me, I'm sure it could be extended to an arm chair. I'll put it to Hugo.......................

I'm off now, to relax and do some knitting on my dress. The back is finished, just no photos yet, but I'll take some for Wednesday's post. So cheerio and toodle-pip.

Love Vanessa xxx

My darling buttons.

Hello................ it's Wednesday evening, and it's that time of day I've been longing for, the time I start to think about gathering my knitting together, and heading off to my Wednesday night knitting group.

Today I feel the need to escape to knitting more than normal, it's the escapism bit I want.

The other day, I decided to use these two empty jars I had been hoarding.

(Don't you think that these jars should be manufactured in different sizes, with their wonderful gingham tops, and sold empty, rather than with jam in them? There could be the empty range, and the jam filled range, or does this concept exist already?)

I have a button stash, (as you do), and it has always been tucked away in a cupboard, in a series of sandwich bags, in the past. My button collection consists of hand-picked buttons, chosen for their bright colours, button by button, from those bowls of buttons some shops have.

Apart from that nice thing of running your hands through a big bowl of buttons (like in the film Amelie, when she runs her hands through a sack of lentils, with a big smile on her face), the thing I love about selecting buttons from a big container is the sense of hunting for treasure. In my head there's always a lot of "ooh! that one's gorgeous! Ooh another one! Ooh, aren't those colours lovely together!" And "now THAT'S a special button!"

Today I don't have time before I have to pootle off to my knitting group, to show you more of my button collection, a collection I have to add, that many button collectors would sniff at as being paltry. I would accept that point. Still, when you're buying buttons, it has a knack off adding up when you reach the till, doesn't it? Button collecting is a serious financial business, and could lead to lamentable financial circumstances if allowed to get out of control, I imagine.

My collection is well under control, but as with everything I hoard, could get out of control. Especially if we had a button shop in our town. We don't have a button shop, fortunately.

Just before I head off, I thought I'd leave you this link, to Charles (!), the baby red squirrel................. he's adorable, and you can see him here.

Toodle-loo, I'm off to knit, knit, knit............. cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

Egging myself on.

Hello! D'you have a good Easter? I hope the bunny made a deposite of choccy goodness, and that you haven't gobbled it all up already!

Like I have.

Mostly.

Chocolate doesn't seem to last long around me these days.

It's those little praline eggs that are my downfall. Wrapped in that pretty foil, which needs to be peeled off very delicately, because I like to keep it and hoard it, quite why, I don't know.

Hugo made sure that I got a bright and colourful bunch of flowers to accompany my praline eggs, and they are sitting on my desk looking very jolly.

I've been spending most of my time at my desk, for what seems like forever.

Hugo has been helping me enormously, because he's been working on framing my pictures for me, the one's I'm doing for the gallery and florist. I don't know what I'd do without his angel help.

It's been work, work, work, work, work, for a long time, and you know that saying "too much work and no play, makes for a dull boy/girl" (or something like that)?

I think that saying could probably be directed at me at the moment, but you know what? Needs must.

I have been able to fit some knitting in, and for me, that's playing. I'm on to the striped top section of my dress, see the pattern here:

There's a couple of people on ravelry knitting this dress too, one of the ladies wasn't happy with how the finished piece looked on her, which makes you think, doesn't it? All that knitting, and then not happy with it. Of course, this hasn't put me off, because in my optimistic manner, I'm hoping that I'll be able to wear my dress when I've finished it. I've already started making some tweaks to mine, because I think this pattern is for a tall person, and I'm a small person.

My tweaking involves less knitting.

I'll take some photos of my progress for my Friday post.

So, there's been lots of work going on here, and a fair bit of chocolate guzzling, which I don't feel at all remorseful about.

And now I have to go, because my Mother-in-Law, Susan, has just arrived, and we're off to our Wednesday night knitting group. See you Friday! Love Vanessa xxx

We've been living in a howling gale.

Hello! I've just been talking to my sister and nephew on Skype, it's wonderful to be able to see them, whilst chatting. Millie, my niece, wasn't available for interview.

So the long and the short of it is that I've left myself very little time to say hello to you today, before I go to my Wednesday night knitting group.

D'you see the rain sodden pane of glass in the photo above? We've suddenly done an about turn, and been plunged straight back into winter, here in the North of England, and a wet winter at that, which is the worst.

I think we've done well to keep the roof on our house.

So I've been painting away all this week, getting very absorbed by it all.

Over the weekend, I started the paintings above, and I've continued working on them, as well as trying to do some abstracts.

I quite like they way they influence each other, a discovery in one, leads to something happening in another. It's exciting.

I'm hoping, hoping, hoping, I'll have time to paint the glorious frilly tulips in the vase above, and the Ranunculus too. The colours in the flowers have been influencing some of my colour choices with my abstracts.

I've been changing their water, and snipping off a little at the bottom of each flower stem, every other day, in the never ending battle to keep my fresh flowers FRESH!

Tomorrow I present the paintings I have done for the two commissions. I hope, very, very, very much, they like them. I'll take some photos of the paintings tomorrow, before my meeting at one. I get commissioned to do art work by publishers, and that doesn't phase me too much now, after twelve years of it (though it used to), but this is a new experience, presenting two people with the art work they have commissioned from me. The question "what if they don't like them" is needling me slightly. I've even done extra paintings, so that they have a choice. Keen aren't I?!

Well, I'm off to my knitting group now. I'm not too far off finishing that fourth panel for the knitted dress, I talked about a couple of posts back, then it's on to the stripes! Yipee!

See you on Friday, and I'll tell you all about the reception the paintings I did got, even if it turns out to be a disappointing reception. One has to prepare oneself mentally for these things, good thing I'm quite well practised at it now.

Toodle-loo, love Vanessa xxx

Flower tonic.

Hello, hello, new, fresh bright start to a new fresh as a daisy week!

You o.k? Your day grey? Or BRIGHT?

My day grey outside, BRIGHT inside, in my nice pink walled studio.

(My Niece's bedroom is painted pink, it's the colour of love, did you know that? So when Millie (my Niece) wakes each morning, she's surrounded by love and reassurance. My sister used to work for Dulux, so she's an arbiter of colour therapy. And actually, I'm with her on that one, COLOUR, with CAPITALS, definitely brightens up my life).

And that's why I love my studio, my lovely pink studio.

Even if it does look like a burglar has been rummaging through all the drawers and cupboards.

It actually looks like my Father-in-Law's office (he's a very busy Vicar).

I enjoy hearing his story, told to all newcomers to the house, of the time someone looking after the house whilst they were away, reported with great anxiety that a burglar had been in his office, and tipped the contents of his filing cabinet, drawers and shelves onto the floor, and whisked it all up like a food mixer.

Alan (my Father-in-Law) had to reassure him that this was how his office always looks.

I recently found a library book under a pile of papers in my studio, that was overdue, to my dismay. One of the piles of piles in my studio.

Another thing my sister is an arbiter of, is making lists.

I don't make lists, I just have a pile of priorities.

Tidying my studio, ironing, tidying the house, making the bed, washing up, these are all things that are "on the list", in my head.

The list in my head.

Last week, the mystery pattern for Coats Crafts was ticked off my list. Today, the two commissions for eight abstract paintings, worked on over the last month, were finally done to my satisfaction, and ticked off my list.

Tomorrow I pick up receipts blowing around my studio floor, and get up to date on my accounts.

Once that horrible task is completed, I can then tidy the studio, and start work on the abstracts that are to go into a gallery and a posh florist.

You probably have an image of me living in some sort of nice ordered house, don't ya?!!! I imagine my photos make it look that way. I'm actually a very tidy person, with a tendency to be obsessively tidy, that's my true nature. My mum tells me I would have a little tantrum if my room wasn't tidy, and I actually believe her, (though I'm not sure I believe all her stories about my childhood!). But when you become an adult, you have to face the reality of life don't you? And being tidy is not neccessarily the most important thing in an adult life, is it?

Because I'm naturally a tidy person, life always feels much better when my house is in order.

And when it's not in order, I feel like I'm winging it, teetering on the edge, and if I don't keep my balance, chaos will ensue. That's definitely proof I'm a tidy person at heart, because messiness does not come naturally to me. Messiness is a by-product of too much to do, and not enough time to do it in.

And I just know I'm speaking to a few of you out there.

I'm messy, not out of choice, but out of neccessity! I just don't have the time to tidy up. So there we go.

It will all be done in good time.

Still, I do have the time, and I certainly like to make the time, to say hello to you my dear readers, because you are important.

And I do have the time to stop and smell the flowers.

And give you a big smile.

And say, "Isn't life GREAT! I'm busy and tired and happy".

And I can smell supper. Hugo is about to say "right, dinner is served!" (I call it supper, Hugo calls it dinner). I can feel it bubbling up, judging by the smells.

So I'll say, after one more flower pic:

And just one more for the road:

CHEERIO! Love Vanessa xxx

Their little paws must have been very busy, (mine have too).

Hello! It's me! Wednesday has spun round again, a bit like a spinning bottle.

Wednesday evening, means knitting night at my local yarn shop, where we all sit and chat, knit, sip tea, snaffle choccy biscuits, and I feel very happy at being surrounded by piles of yarn.

Today I have been busy photographing and writing up a tutorial, for the mystery project I'm working on for Coats Crafts, I last talked about it in this post. I'll have to work on it tomorrow as well, it's all taking a lot longer than I anticipated, and I decided to take time off work to get it done.

Apart from photographing and writing up tutorials, today there was lots of having to work things again to get them right. There was also quite a bit of cutting, glueing, sewing, crocheting, knitting, and a bit of measuring.

You curious to see what I've been up to?!

Hopefully it won't be too long before it all goes live on the Coats Crafts website. I'm starting to get quite excited that my idea is turning into reality, it's been a lot of work for something so simple looking. Hopefully it will be a nice and unusual surprise for you when it goes on the Coats Crafts website, something a little bit different, that you will want to make yourselves!

I promised I'd show you my Mother's Day gifts from the doggies didn't I?

This was a first, a Mother's day gift, never happened before, so it came as the most WONDERFUL surprise. I never expect anything on Mother's day, as I don't have any human kiddy-winks.

I'm guessing Ellie and Douglas had a word with Hugo.

Do you not think I should be proud of the doggie's  paw writing? So neat. And I can tell hugo has been giving them lessons, because their writing looks a bit like his.

The morning of Mother's Day, Hugo told me Ellie wanted a word with me. So I went to see what was up with her, as you do when you're summoned by your dog.

There she was on the sofa, and on the floor next to the sofa was an envelope. The envelope had 'mummy' written on it. "That must be me", I thought.

I picked the envelope up and started to open it, and I'm not kidding when I tell you that both Ellie and Douglas both came over to me, wagging their tails, and looking very pleased with themselves. They both sat and watched me, whilst I read the card and gave out a hoot of delight.

Just like human children, don't you think? All excited at mummy opening their card!

(It was actually quite weird, a little uncanny, and well, they must have thought there was a treat in the envelope, for them).

And the bunch of bright orange Tulips, just gorgeous! Just yummy, yummy, yummy!

Well, I've got to be off to my knitting group, so I'll see you on Friday. Cheerio.

Love Vanessa xxx

They've gone and changed colour!!!!!!

What can you do hey?! My Primulas have changed colour! When I bought them, they were flowering lovely hot pinks and and shades of reds, and now they're coming up all pale and interesting. Hmph.

They used to look like this:

See what I mean about the change in colour?!!!!!

Is it something I've done to them?

Is it psychological warfare on me by the Primys, for not having potted them up sooner?

I'm really sorry sweet little flowers, I know I neglected you terribly, but please change back to your previous colours, because to be honest, I don't find your new colours do it for me.

I'll give them some plant food, that might do the trick.

Hello!

What a start to this post hey?!

I must admit, I do wonder what on earth I've been doing all day, so I'm not only exasperated with my Primulas, I'm exasperated with myself. I don't like days that disappear like smoke, leaving a dismal trace of nothingness.

You see the photos above, the one's with the paper and my abstract paintings? I've been trying out new watercolour papers for my abstracts. I get my paper in large mill packs from a company called John Purcell Paper, and it's much cheaper than buying from art shops, even on-line art shops. They sent me lots of samples of thicker paper, made by different companies, and I've been using them to do some paintings on, to see the results. It's amazing how different the results are, though you can't see it in my photos. Out of all these different samples, there is only one contender, and even that one's not perfect, so the paper company are sending me another sample, something between the ultra smooth and too textured samples they have already given me.

And you see the bright pink primula in the mosaic above? Well, that is my little miracle primula, the one that I bought cheap because it was half dead. Patience has to be classed as a virtue, because after about a month and a half of doing nothing but looking very sorry for itself, it's suddenly started to flower BEAUTIFULLY!

Hugo and I are out tonight, to see a comedy show. Hugo bought the tickets, so I'm not sure who the comedian is. The doggies will be left by themselves, and they are not going to be happy about it. For such small dogs, they can howl.

I'm afraid I've got to go now, as we have to eat before rushing out, which is most unsatisfactory that I have to rush off. See you on Monday my dear readers. Love Vanessa xxx