Squirrel!

That always makes me laugh in the film Up - mainly because our dog is exactly the same when he sees a squirrel.  (Or a cat, or a rabbit, or a deer.....) He's not alone - I was asked to knit this little guy as a companion piece to go with a knitted Westie set I made last month.

I'm not sure he will be safe in his new home - I'm not sure if he is destined to be a playmate or lunch! I knitted this on thin needles, so he is very very small - about an inch and a half tall.

Finally feel like painting again - I got a fair amount done to this over the weekend.  I think one of my problems was the photos I was working from were not very clear - then I thought to put them on my Kindle and voila! Clear as day and much easier to see the contours of the horses.  I was not sure about buying my Kindle last year but now I would not be without it - never thought I would be using it to paint from though!  Hopefully this painting will be completed over the next couple of days as I am wanting to start something else.

At Least Someone Is Getting Some Painting Done...

....but it certainly is not me!  I'm having the most awful artists' block which has gone on for weeks now.  I'm trying to analyse what the problem is, and I think it comes down to something I have always said over the years - I paint when I am happy.  I am definitely not happy at the moment - my house is in disarray, with the porch still not finished a month after it was started, and the contents spread out in great piles throughout my home.  Our porch is the storage area for tools, paints, coats, boots, dog-walking acoutrements, vegetables, packaging, garden chairs, buckets, umbrellas...the list goes on.  So you can imagine just how much 'stuff' is spread about in every available space - we are having to shuffle round it in the hallways alone.  It has an effect on everything - I can't clean properly, I can't tidy up properly, I can't find anything, my bedroom is housing drills, toolboxes,cardboard boxes, I can't even get the patio looking nice because of the pile out there too.  Add to that the piles of brand new shelving I bought in which to store all this stuff.....I am not happy!  The front garden is a trampled mess from all the builders, the path covered in dirt which gets brought into the house.  I cannot even begin to think about re-doing the front garden until they have gone.

To add insult to injury, the inner porch has been painted.....magnolia. I wonder why council houses have to have that ghastly abomination of a colour everywhere - it doesn't even resemble magnolias, which if I recall are quite a lovely pale cream, not the turgid beige of my porch!

However, my daughter has not been affected by any of this, and is quite happily churning out paintings having discovered my acrylic paints and a book entitled How to Paint a Masterpiece.  This is her 'Cezanne' - rather good I thought.  I sketched out a basic outline for her and she has done all the rest by herself.

This is the current Van Gogh - again, I sketched out a very light outline of the chair, she is mixing the paint and applying it with no help whatsoever. I don't know about you, but I think for a young lady with Down's Syndrome, it's quite impressive!

How To Spend A Bank Holiday II

Knit a welcome mat!  Obviously this is for the animation - I wondered how I was going to achieve this but then had the brainwave of using some gingery eyelash yarn knitted on quite thin needles and then trimmed to look like sisal.  The letters were embroidered on afterwards.  This is 4 x 2 inches.  Next up, a light switch...

Yesterday we visited Basing House in Basingstoke, the site of a ruined house that was beseiged for 3 years during the Civil War.  The walk up from the car park had views like this....

...and this.  I feel some bucolic English countryside paintings coming on! The day was glorious, warm sunshine, the trees all coming to life and the water in the river crystal clear.

Inside the 'Bloody Barn', where there had been quite a fight during the seige as evidenced by cannon ball holes in the brickwork, we saw this incredible roof.  You can't really judge the scale of this without someone standing there to give some perspective - it's BIG!

There was this walled garden with neatly trimmed box hedging.

I have never seen mistletoe growing at close quarters before - usually it is high up in a tree and only discerned by the distinctive shape. However, in the grounds of the ruins we saw several hawthorn trees with large growths of mistletoe at about head height.  Fascinating to see how it makes itself part of the host tree, the branches indistinguishable.

We had a picnic in the sun, wandered slowly and took in the atmosphere while learning a great deal about this interesting place almost on our doorstep.  It was a quiet and relaxing day, just what we needed before getting back to the grind today.

How To Spend A Bank Holiday Weekend...

Go to a car boot sale - first one of the year for us.  Last year we almost vowed never to bother again after coming home empty handed time after time.  Today I found some lovely booty - brand new acrylic paints and ink at a fraction of shop prices, the story of Seabiscuit which I have been after for years, a plastic tablecloth covered in cartoon cows (drying from a good wash right now), and my best treasure, a book of Aubrey Beardsley drawings.  If we hadn't got there really late after delivering some paintings, who knows what elese we might have found!

Go dog walking and see all the flowers and blossom that has come out over the past week since we've actually had some sunshine and warmth.  If all goes well, this could be a bumper month for sloes at least - I call dibs on this tree's harvest!

Knit poo...you don't have to do this, but I did.  And a collecting bag...and a bin.  When I say I get cr*p jobs, I'm not being rude, it's the truth!  The next few items for the animation have nothing to do with animal waste - I have to admit I am quite proud of the bin, but have to keep it under wraps for now.

Still got one more day to go - let's see what tomorrow brings....

We Got There!

I have found a way to circumnavigate the picture problem - seems it is Firefox causing the glitch so I have to go through another browser - a pain in the backside but at least I get to show you some photos.

This is a little, or rather not so little, dog knitted with some fab yarn I picked up in Boston last year.  It knits up like a thick pile carpet, which means the dog is twice the size of my usual ones, but very very cuddly!  Unfortunately, one ball was not enough, so I had to order more from the USA (cheaper than revisiting the shop at least but not as much fun).  Once he has a collar and some accessories, he will be in my Etsy shop.

I also bought extra yarn, enough for two more doggies, one in this camel brown, another in paler beige.

Having a Spot of Bother...

For some reason, Blogger is not letting me upload photos.  This time it's not just me - I tried all the trouble-shooting suggestions, deleted a load of old pictures from ancient posts in order to clear some space, with no joy.  When I went on the help forum, I discovered there are an awful lot of other people with the same problem.

So you will have to bear with me for a while until this is resolved. I will put any photos of recent work on Twitter for the time being - there is a curly haired dog on there at the moment.

In the meantime, if anyone has any bright ideas, feel free to pass them on!

A Complete Disaster, Dahling!

I've been quite excited about having a stall at the Tweseldown Artisan Market - over the last few years, my attendance at craft fairs has dwindled as I got a bit fed up with the wear and tear on my stock from being carted to and fro and fingered by sticky-faced children and careless adults.  Plus there is the soul-destroying aspect of hearing your work being discussed as though you are invisible; together with the remarks of 'it's a bit expensive' when you have probably paid yourself less than a sweat-shop worker if an hourly rate was to be worked out.

But yesterday morning I got up at the crack of dawn with enthusiasm, and was even ready, car packed, dog walked, house tidied, daughter fed and dressed, fifteen minutes before we were due to set off.  It was, however, bitterly cold - gone were the spring temperatures of 24 hours previous.

We got to the venue, unloaded the car and took everything to our pitch, which was in the centre of a courtyard, next to a lady selling rather nice sewn bags.  We'd opted for an outside spot as we figured there would be more room to spread - it wasn't just me this time, I had joined up with Jane from Pandoren who sells beautiful hand sewn/knitted childrens' clothing.  Fingers were numb, the wind was whistling through the buildings (one of my paintings blew over and the glass smashed), but we figured once we'd got the gazebo up, we'd be fine.  That was the first of our problems.  My other friend had brought her gazebo for us to borrow but it appeared to be missing a few poles.  We struggled for half an hour (being watched by other stall holders who found this very entertaining but didn't see why they should offer any help other than smart-alec remarks...) but it wasn't going to happen.  Jane had still not arrived at this point, she'd got a bit lost.....

We decided to abandon that gazebo and wait for Jane with hers.  When she eventually turned up, we set to trying to erect the second, much larger, gazebo.  More entertainment for the bystanders but they were starting to get restive as it appeared our gazebo might encroach on their areas by a few inches...plus someone thought it helpful to add that they'd seen one of these event gazebos collapse only last week.  How we kept smiling I do not know.  After a short while, someone else suggested we move around the corner from the buildings where there was a huge free area - which we promptly did and were met by stall holders selling garden plants and accessories who were a whole different kettle of fish. They offered to help, were friendly and no smart-mouths! In no time we had set up and were just about ready for when the gates were open to the public.

It was a very cold and breezy morning, but we were cheerful enough.  However, although there were a lot of visitors, people seemed to keep their wallets firmly in their pockets.  By lunchtime, my daughter had turned an interesting shade of blue, despite wearing a coat, two extra cardigans and being draped in two blankets, so my friend who was going back to walk my dog for me took Stacie with her for an hour's tv in the warm.
While they were gone, disaster struck.  There had been showers on and off throughout the morning and odd gusts of wind, but nothing prepared us for what happened next.

Suddenly the wind picked up and all our stock started flying.  At the same time, the heavens opened - not just rain, but horizontal hail.  Within seconds everything was soaking wet and in disarray. Some kind people hung on to the gazebo for us while  Jane and I ran to put sides onto it as fast as we could but by the time we did so, the damage was done. All the knitted and fabric items were saturated, my boxes containing jewellery were little pools of rain water, and worst of all, my paintings had water within the frames, soaking the mountboard.

This whole squall took less than ten minutes but it was enough to completely scupper any chances we had of making further sales.  After a brief discussion, we decided to pack it all up and get everything home and spread out to dry as quickly as we could and assess any damage.  So we only did half a day, barely sold anything and both felt like having a damn good cry.  I can't even show you my photos of the stall before it got wrecked as they won't load - even the pictures are jinxed!*

Miraculously, on closer inspection this morning, my paintings have dried out with no water stains and I do believe all the knitted shawls and everything else has also dried out with no further casualties. I know that Jane's stock dried out successfully too as we all met up later yesterday evening and had a Chinese takeaway together with copious amounts of red wine - talk about drowning your sorrows!

So some serious thought is required as to whether or not it is worth ever attempting a craft fair again.  I certainly would not have an outside stall again when you have to deal with the capricious British weather.  It was such a shame as this particular artisan market is a lovely event, focussing on local artists and crafts people, with a varied selection of stalls and good attendance by the public.  If only they could control the weather!

*not jinxed, problem with Blogger which I have had to circumnavigate!