Wicket the Ewok & Pumpkins

 Number 5 of these little Star Wars characters - they really are fun to do.  Only eight more to go...

Spent the morning hollowing out a couple of pumpkins and carving mine - not doing anything fancy this year, but I do like Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mr.B went for something a tad grosser...

Also made a nice big batch of pumpkin soup, now simmering away on the stove - smells delicious!

Princess Leia

Whizzing through these great little patterns - looking forward to the next one, Wicket the Ewok.

A new Hobbycraft opened in the neighbouring town this morning - we decided to go and have a look.  It was chaotic, the queue at the checkout snaked around the shop.  Did pick up a few things I needed...gold yarn, bag of feathers, two fillable lightbulbs, a ruler, sparkly felt...OK, the only thing I actually needed was the ruler!

C3PO

Working my way through the pattern book...

Snow Day...

I'm supposed to be painting a horse, but after I had drawn it out I took a little break to paint this scene that I saw on the Explore.org webcam on Sunday when it snowed in Katmai.  Wonderful scenery, looked like something out of Narnia...but with bears!  Unfortunately my cameras will not register the true colour of this, it's turned out a little washed out in photographing.
Watercolour on paper & going into my Etsy shop.

Back to paid work...

Peanut...

 This has to be one of the best commissions I have had for a long time!  This is a portrait of a brown bear cub that I watch on the Explore.Org webcams in Katmai National Park, Alaska - she is the runt of the litter, so very tiny last year, so tiny that it was amazing and wonderful to see her return alive and well from hibernation with her siblings this Spring.  She has the nickname Peanut, which seems to suit at the moment - not sure if it will when she is a full grown sow!  Last seen a couple of weeks ago, looking quite big and fat, definitely ready for hibernation this year.

Painted in watercolour on paper.

Apart from various bits and pieces I am knitting for Nudinits, I'm quietly working my way through a book of Star Wars amigurumi  - they are great little patterns, quick and relatively easy and a lot of fun.

Work Very Hard You Will...

 Crochet Yoda...helping someone out who couldn't get their fingers round these patterns...

Current commission - I'm enjoying this so much that it's all I want to be doing.  Unfortunately, life has a habit of getting in the way!  Watercolour on paper.

Ellie & Isaac

Just completed, double dog portrait in Derwent Drawing Pencils/Coloursoft pencils.  A lot of work went into this - lots of hair & dark colours!  Private commission.

Next up...a bear.  Dream commission!

A Day Out At The Country Show...

 Yesterday we went to the Autumn Country Show held at the Wealde & Downland Open Air Museum. We'd had the day planned for weeks but were keeping our fingers crossed the weather would be kind - luckily the sun shone for us.  We saw sheepdogs herding ducks...

 Indian runner ducks - they didn't seem perturbed by being chased round the arena, in fact I think they knew the routine very well!

We saw many heavy horses competing in a ploughing competition.

 They were magnificent!

There was a huge threshing machine worked by a traction engine - it did the whole job, threshing, sorting and baling hay.

Very interesting to watch, although a bit dusty!

As well as the above there were many demonstrations of old country crafts, food stalls, plus hawks and gun dogs.  A good time had by all!

Mr. Tumnus...and some other stuff!

 I've been working on knitting Mr. Tumnus over the whole summer - it hasn't taken that long, I've just had other things with tighter deadlines to do.  It was, however, a very tricky pattern to execute - I really wish when people write their patterns they would not assume that everyone knows what they are talking about!  The knitting instructions were not written in the usual way, but I managed to follow them OK.  The making up instructions were..well, pretty much non-existent!  If I was a complete novice, I would have struggled with this pattern and probably have given up.  When I write a knitting pattern I always try and make it "idiot-proof" - which means that I describe every step of the process clearly and (hopefully) understandably, so that even a complete newbie to knitting should be able to make the item successfully. I wish others would do the same - there's nothing worse than wanting to make something but being thwarted because of unintelligible instructions!

 Busy day yesterday - we went to an open morning at Mr.B's work in aid of Macmillan Nurses.  It was very interesting and lots of fascinating old cars.  Don't ask me to name them, not my thing!

Some of these cars are worth as much as a house...or two.  Crazy!

We also went to Thread, the sewing & fabric show held at The Maltings in Farnham.  We nearly didn't make it - we went just after lunch and could not find a single parking space in the whole of Farnham. Tried again a couple of hours later and managed to squeeze in and spend an hour at the show.  For some reason it was only on for one day this year, and a Saturday, so no wonder it was busy.  Got my fix of fabric though, and came home with a few bits and pieces.  Now to find the time to do something with them...