First Look...

I received my copy of the new Nudinits book in the post last week - looks great!  That's my tea cosy on the front cover - many other designs inside.  That took a lot of work last year, some of the designs were incredibly hard to put down on paper - to be honest, I'd rather be knitting them than writing about them!

The book will be on sale next month - keep your eye out!
 

I'm Still Here...

 Apologies for not posting for over a month - I really have nothing to show, despite working away at various projects over the past weeks.  I've just completed a painting that I am very proud of...but can't show it as it is a surprise birthday present for someone.  The birthday is in December, so I am going to have to sit on it for months...

I've been knitting  and crocheting things for Nudinits - again, can't show them for a while.

Hopefully my next painting can be posted on here!

 Other than the above, I've been  struggling to keep the garden going throughout this heat - it's definitely not doing as well as previous years.  No courgettes this year, the plants withered and died before reaching any size.  Runner beans - lots of leaves, very few flowers.  Tomatoes- slow to get going, we should have some soon.  Greengages - absolute glut of them, I was giving them away in the end.  We've had jam, crumbles, chutney, frozen some - best year ever for those.  Blueberries - small and shrivelled due to lack of rain.  Gooseberries - eaten by the birds.  Raspberries - pretty good, but over now. Cucumbers - getting a few of the mini ones, which are tasty.  Pumpkins - first time growing them, three plants in the front garden which have gone a bit mad - thankfully they are the mini versions and we should have at least five or six come the autumn...if they don't get stolen!

 

Bedroom...

I've not been posting on here over the past few weeks as we have been busy with a rather large project. Our bedroom has not been decorated since we moved in to this house, which is a very, very long time!  After I redecorated the bathroom and the downstairs loo, I thought it would be a good idea to make a start on the bedroom.  I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted it to look, which involved a shelf the whole length of the wall behind the bed.  Mr.B took it upon himself to make the shelf using the sides of an old bookcase, 4 old table legs, and a lot of sanding, varnishing and drilling.  It took far longer than anticipated for many reasons, then it had to be supported by metal rods going through the table legs, through the ceiling and into the rafters.

Once the shelf was ready to go up, I then had to paint the wall - I  had chosen a dark green and wondered if it was actually going to look good or perhaps make the room look claustrophobic.  Thankfully once I had painted it it did look good!  The other three walls are a very pale green/cream and took several coats in order to cover the extensive stencilling that was there.

 We then realised that the deep pink curtains we had were totally out of place - which involved a trip to Ikea where we found the perfect curtains in green check which of course needed taking up as Ikea curtains are always about 7 ft long!  I also found a couple of matching throws and a shoe tidy...

Books needed sorting out, some  had to go to the charity shop, the rest fitted nicely on the new shelf/  I had to go through a lot of my bits and pieces and either tidy them away or throw them away.

 All that is needed now is a new headboard - Mr.B has that lined up as a future project. But for now, I am very happy with our new smart bedroom.  

Foxy...

 Despite being up to my eyes in gardening, decorating and various other distractions, I managed to squeeze in a little watercolour last week.  This is a study of one of the arctic foxes we saw at Wildwood a couple of weeks ago.  Very hard to get the fluffiness in paint!

I'm currently free for commission - please ask me to paint something on paper and save me from having to paint walls! 

Bears...

 Yesterday we went to feed a couple of rescue bears - what a great day!  More when I have sorted out the many, many photos we took.

Poppy...

This is what I have been working on for the past few weeks.  Poppy, painted in acrylics on Dalerboard.  This is to be a wedding present next month for the couple that own the dog - glad I got it completed in time!

It's always difficult to paint a black dog, but even harder to get a decent photograph of the finished painting if it has been done in acrylics.  Mr. B and I have taken several photographs of this one, and it always came out peculiar with the camera picking up the white elements of the painting far more than it should.  We tried our phone cameras and a digital camera, and this is the best we could come up with and even this one has been tinkered with on Photoshop in order to calm it down a bit.  Very frustrating!

No commissions for the time being - I am spending this week doing a bit of much needed Spring cleaning, trying to get the garden sorted out before it becomes a jungle, and hopefully painting a bear on the garden fence...

Small Things...

Well, life has been busy here over the past month and I don't have much to show for it!  I've been working on some crochet designs for Nudinits and having a bit of bother getting the sizing right - the house is full of small pink unfinished bodies...

Inbetween doing that, I have been knitting a couple of Izzy dolls - they are quick, easy and give a good result for very little effort. I'm also working on a very detailed dog portrait whcih will be a wedding present for the daughter of a friend of mine.  It's going well, but taking a long time - hopefully will be finished by the end of the week.

As well as all that, we have had my son's wedding to attend - it all went very well and was a happy day for everyone.  I've also been putting a lot of work into the garden.  Now the weather has warmed up, everything is growing at a rate of knots and needs to be sorted out.  The greenhouse is full of seedlings, the fruit trees and bushes are full of blossom and burgeoning berries, the grass is growing, it's all kicking off!  

We've also acquired 8 quite large goldfish for our tiny pond. One of our long-time neighbours died just over a month ago and his daughter asked if we would take them on as they had nowhere else to go. I spent the morningof Mothers Day with Mr.B pootling about in a murky pond trying to catch the fish with shrimp nets and a bucket.  We couldn't see what was going on as the water had become so thick with silt and had to go back a couple of times to check we hadn't left any fish behind.   They seem to have settled in very nicely and wait for me to feed them every morning.

So, lots going on but nothing much to show!