Unbearable Hat...

 Due to circumstances beyond my control - Mr.B has had his second knee replaced and needed full time care, plus I was ill for a week with a stinking cold, and Christmas - I have not touched a paintbrush for over a month.  To be honest, it is doing my head in!  However, I have been knitting and made myself this hat.  It is a pattern I found on Ravelry called Unbearable Hat.  Unfortunately, electric light does not pick out the pattern & colours of the top of the hat - they are grey and a nice ice blue.

Christmas was not as planned this year - difficult to organise when you are sole carer for two people instead of just one.  Also my son and his family caught Covid two days before Christmas, so we did not get to see them - very disappointed not to see my granddaughter for the first Christmas where she will be aware of what's going on.  We plan on doing a re-run of Christmas Day once everyone is healthy.  

Hopefully in January life will return to normal - I have three commissions patiently waiting in the wings, and if I don't get to paint soon I am going to throw a major tantrum!

Fat Bear Hat...

I knitted the Katmai hat from the book, Knitting the National Parks.  The bear seemed to turn out looking very well nourished - at least he is ready for hibernation!  This is a Christmas present for someone and had to be posted in a hurry to avoid strikes/Christmas rush, so does not have the faux fur pompom as shown in the pattern book.  The next ones (yes, plural, I've already had requests) will have the pompoms!

Not much else going on as far as arts & crafts - Mr.B has just had his second knee replacement surgery so I am tending to him while he is incapacitated, not much time left for painting unfortunately.

Lucky...

Thankfully this year I do not have a slew of Christmas commissions - Mr.B is going in for his second knee replacement surgery next week and if it is anything like last time, I will not have the time to sit and paint.  I did get this lovely little commission though - it has been a long time since I painted a dog and I thoroughly enjoyed getting back in the swing of things with this little chap.  This has been painted in watercolour on paper and will be winging it's way to Boston very shortly.

My next commission will also be dogs - looking forward to it!  If you would like your pet painted, drop me a line, hopefully I shall be back to working as normal in the New Year.
 

Christmas Knitting...

I was in a quandary, I needed to get a Christmas present for a friend's husband that I have never met - so it seemed a good idea to knit him a hat!  It was also a good opportunity to test out one of the patterns from a new book, Knitting The National Parks.

I love the design of this one, particularly the clever flower shaped pattern onthe crown.  If fact, I like this hat so much I am knitting another one, reversing the colours - not sure who will be the recipient of that one though.
 

Not Otis...

 After painting two trinket boxes with a picture of Otis the bear on the lid, it was a welcome change to be asked to paint this gorgeous mother bear and cub.  This is bear 910 and her adorable little one, as seen at Brooks Falls, Katmai Nation Park, Alaska.

Because the lid painting is so light, I made the decision to paint the rest of the box a light blue to match the water rather than the usual black.  It's going to look good - I just have to add the lining fabric and it is done, well in time for Christmas.

I've also been fulfilling some more stuffed Otis orders and have more stuffed cub toys on the go. On the easel is a pet portrait - it's been a while since I did one of those!

Floof...

I made a small floofy bear cub...he's already spoken for and off to the USA.  There will be more of these.
 

It's Finished!

 This has taken months and months of knitting, swearing and tearing of hair, but so worth it!  Can't wait to wear it, although the weather is not cold enough yet.

The Holiday Let...

As soon as we found this rusty shack while exploring the countryside on the Isle of Wight, I knew I had to paint it.  So that is how I have spent the past couple of weeks, taking a break from bears and thoroughly enjoying the challenge of getting this right.  It is painted in watercolour, which can be a bit unforgiving if you make a mistake.  There was one area where I had been a little heavy handed with the masking fluid (I'm not telling you where!) and when it was removed I thought I had maybe ruined the whole picture.  But with a little work and a few touches of acrylic paint, you wouldn't know.

Apart from the building, I also enjoyed painting the little 'doorway' through the undergrowth into the next field, with the sun shining to illuminate it.  It makes you wonder what you would find if you followed the path...

This will be in my Etsy shop shortly once I have taken some decent photos of it in daylight.

Next up - back to bears...

Watch The Birdie...

 When I saw this pattern (Birdsong by Manja Vogelsang) I had to buy it and have a go.  My first colour choice was a no-go - the yarn arrived and was not as it looked on the website.  Other colour combinations were scotched because they were out of stock, so I ended up with pale grey and a soft crimson.  I like it!

However, as the yarn needed for this pattern is baby yarn, it has taken a very long time indeed.  The bird pattern was a nightmare to do - the whole jumper is knitted in the round in one continuous piece, so the number of stitches had to be exact and the pattern repeated four times - I had to painstakingly count and mark the number of stitches in each row on the pattern in order not to lose my place.

Once the birds were done, it was plain sailing but has taken weeks and weeks of knitting.  I'm on to the second sleeve but have reached the point where the knitting is so boring that I fall asleep after only a few rows which is not helpful!  I did joke that this would be ready to wear in time for Christmas - not sure that is too far from the truth now!

Catching Forty Winks...

 I completed this fun commission over the weekend.  Earlier this summer Otis the bear was caught napping while leaning on a fallen branch - I guess if you are tired enough, anywhere will do!  This one is watercolour on paper.

It was nice to paint him in a different pose for once - my next commission is back to Otis sitting in his 'office' which I have painted numerous times.  Just as well I don't get bored!

I'm Still Here...

I just noticed how long it has been since I last posted - I've been busy with one thing or another, mainly stuffed bears and knitting that bird jumper which might possibly be finished in time for Christmas.  We've also been away on holiday for a week - the above was our rustic Airbnb accommodation...

...no, this was it, a really nice wooden cabin/house next to Calbourne Water Mill on the Isle of Wight.  After the past few months, we were all in need of a peaceful break away from everything.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate - wall to wall sunshine for the whole summer and it chooses to rain every day for the week we were away!  We managed to dodge the most of  it, and only got soaked a couple of times.

It did put a damper on going to the beach though - we only went twice and the second time it rained.

We found plenty to do, we had free access to the Water Mill and it's attractions - ducks, geese, the museum and an 18 hole crazy golf course.  We also saw family for the first time since 2020 which was great.  

So now it is back to the grindstone and painting those bears...
 

Birds, Babies & Blimey, That's A Big'un!

Throughout the summer I have been sporadically working on this jumper.  I saw this pattern through a post on Twitter I think and looked it up on Ravelry and promptly bought it.  I could not resist those wonderful birds!  

 

However, making it has not been easy.  Firstly, the yarn I ordered arrived and was not the same colour as it appeared on the photograph on the yarn store's website and they did not have another similar so I had to change my colour choice.  Then it took me three attempts to get the increases right before starting on the birds.

The chart for the birds involved being repeated 4 times in the round (did I mention this whole jumper is knitted in the round from the neck down?) and to make it a bit easier, I went through each line counting the number of light stitches and writing them down before knitting the round.  So I was getting through a maximum of three rounds in an evening.  Incredibly, I think I only made a couple of minor errors which hopefully will not notice and I did end up with the right number of stitches needed to carry on once the birds were complete.  Now it is straight knitting, which is a whole lot easier and much quicker, although this is being knitted in baby yarn so not that quick!  I might have this done by Christmas...

I also made some summer dresses for my grandaughter, one with farm animals on, one with dogs on, and the one previously posted with wild animals on.  Apparently they went down a storm and were ideal for the heatwave.
 

The garden has been struggling with the heat and lack of rainfall - it has meant a lot of plants dying off prematurely and my runner beans have been a disaster.  But I have managed to grow several of these enormous things!  It is a Tromboncino squash,and this one is over 2ft long.  You can cook them like a courgette but they are much tastier and not as watery.  I shall definitely be growing these again next year.

I am currently finishing off a couple of painted trinket boxes - painting the bases black and varnishing.  Not hard work but time consuming as it means literally watching paint dry.

And I might have quite an interesting little job coming up involving knitting and bears...

Otis...Again!

Yesterday I finally completed this one - it took much longer than usual, probably because there was a lot of detail to include, plus Otis has an awful lot of fur!

Watercolour on paper, a private commission.

My life seems to revolve around Otis at the moment - three more paintings of him to do, plus a couple of stuffed toys.  It's all good, who doesn't love Otis?
 

Sewing Small Things...

It's been hot...very hot...so I thought I would make my granddaughter some summer tops to keep her cool.  When my daughter was a baby we lived in Greece and summer was hotter than this and I used to make her little cotton summer dresses.  Now I am back in the UK and it is 30 or so years on and the selections of fabric are far better than back then.  This was the first set made with some material I had in my stash, just to see how the pattern worked out.  It worked out just fine!  I have two more little dresses half sewn in cute material with dogs and farm animals on - my granddaughter just loves animals!  I could not finish them yesterday as we had all our windows replaced and the house was in chaos, but hopefully I can get to the sewing machine today.
 

More Otis...

I seem to spend most of my time these days either making or painting bears, mainly Otis.  This is my current commission and although I have painted Otis more times than I can count, I am still enjoying this one immensely.  It's good to be painting after the 2 month enforced break, I don't care what the subject matter is!  Just as well, as I have three more commissions, all Otis...

I've also been sewing some more Otis stuffies - they don't hang around for long and I am only sorry that I cannot be any faster making them.  They are a little labour intensive when it comes to cutting out the fabric and pinning/sewing it all together.  Two more in the pipeline - when I get time to use the sewing machine!
 

Bears, Boxes & Eagles...

I have been painting, honest!  Here are the lids to a couple of trinket boxes that have been commissioned.  The first is, of course, Otis in his favourite fishing spot.

I have painted so many Otis boxes with the same picture on them that it made a refreshing change to be asked to paint a different bear.  This is Popeye, a magnificent boar who also lives at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park.  

Both paintings look a little faded here - photo taken in the earlymorning light and they also need varnishing which brings out the colour.  I have one more to paint - Otis again, but in a slightly different pose.

As it has been really hot here this week, I can't bring myself to knit or crochet the current WIP's I have on the go as it would be the equivalent of sitting under a blanket, so I crocheted a little eagle just for fun.
 

It's Hot Out There...

As Mr.B has almost recovered from his knee replacement surgery, I am starting to get my time back as I no longer have to be on hand as much.  So I have started sewing Otis stuffies again.  These two are already spoken for.

As is this one.  I am also painting a trinket box, part of a commission for three of them, and have a line up of four painting commissions waiting in the wings.  So it is all go once more!

Meanwhile inthe garden, everything is growing well but I am especially happy that I have managed to get a couple of chicory plants to flower.  Last year they were just leaves on plants that I grew from seed and did not flower.  This year they are over 6 ft tall and I just love the delicate pale blue flowers that only last for a day before being replaced with more.

 

The greenhouse appears to have been overly successful - looks like I will need a machete to get near anything!  In there are three large tomato plants, two long cucumber vines, a smaller tomato plant and somewhere at the back, a melon plant.

I have been picking runner beans, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and have a lot of cherry tomatoes just waiting to turn red.  Hopefully everything will survive the next few days of very hot weather.

Getting Back In The Swing Of Things...

This weekend I actually had the urge to sew something again after a month or so of complete ennui (translation: stress + exhaustion!)  I've had the idea of making a soft toy based on the bear 435 Holly who lives in Katmai National Park, Alaska, and who won the fun Fat Bear contest back in 2019.

She was humungous and was photographed sitting like this and looking like she would explode at any minute!

I have a book of animal patterns but lost it for a long time - let's face it, it was not really lost, just buried in the piles of craft materials in the spare room.  When I had to tidy up in order to sleep in there while my partner is recovering from his knee surgery, I unearthed it.

I also had some nice bobbly fleece fabric, so set to.  First we had to make the pattern larger as using the pattern straight from the book was far too small. 

I hand sewed the whole thing, as if there had been any errors, unpicking a seam from a sewing machine in furry fabric would have been a nightmare.  I've used velvet for the nose, fur fabric for the ears, and felt for the paw pads.  I stuffed the head with kapok to make it firm and sewed a piece of calico behind the stuffing inside to stop it from migrating.  The rest of the bear has been stuffed with polystyrene balls so that she flops fatly just like the real bear.

I was planning on putting this on Etsy but posted it on Facebook beforehand to see if anyone would like to grab it first - it went in one minute flat!  That has to be an all time record!

While I have been playing nurse with my two patients over the past month, I have been able to get out in the garden and it is looking rather pretty at the moment.

I re-did the succulent display using an old bonsai dish.

Before Mr.B had his op, we spent the previous weekend building my new greenhouse on the patio.  I say 'we' - Mr.B did 99% of the work, I just stood around getting in the way and handing him tools!  I am so pleased with how the patio re-vamp has turned out - now it is a very inviting place to go and sit...when the noise from certain neighbours and their dogs doesn't intrude!

The birds and insects are loving it all - we have had a family of great tits nesting in a box on the patio and they fledged successfully last week.

Only three chicks, but they all made it, no cats or magpies got them this time round.

I'm going for flowers rather than vegetables this year - last summer was so abysmal I'm taking no chances.  Still got some runner beans in though, and the new greenhouse has plenty of tomatoes, cucumber and even a melon plant.

So now that everyone in the house is recovering/has recovered, I am slowly getting back to work as the orders trickle in. 
 

A Bit Of A Difficult Month...

 I am sorry there have been no arts and crafts posts this month - it's been a bit of a difficult time.  My partner finally had his long-awaited total knee replacement surgery, so I let work wind down in preparation for having to don my nurse's hat for a few weeks.  All went well with the surgery, but as expected, my partner is in a lot of pain and hobbling about on crutches needing a fair bit of help.

Then five days ago, after spending the past 2 years being meticulously careful with my daughter (who has Downs Syndrome), shielding, keeping her away from crowds and places that might be risky as far as Covid is concerned...she caught Covid.  I don't know where, but I have a sneaking suspicion - one of her daycare placements insists everybody takes an LFT before they go in...the other one doesn't, despite having very vulnerable people attend.  Last week the only places my daughter went to were her daycare placements and one trip to the garden centre where we were masked and avoided contact with anybody.

Thankfully, she seems to only have a mild case (vaccines must be effective) and after three days of high stress and hours on hold on various phone lines, I was able to get hold of the anti-viral tablets that she is entitled to as a person who is classified as clinically extremely vulnerable.  Whilst I am eternally grateful that she is able to access this treatment, I will say that they don't make it easy...

So hopefully they are both on the mend - I have so far (surprisingly!) remained Covid free.  Just as well, as if I get sick the other two might well starve to death...

Peggy...

Just completed this, a private commission.  Black dogs are always tricky - black dogs with fine strands of white hair are even trickier!  I was not sure what medium I was going to do this in, but in the end plumped for watercolour as the main painting with coloured pencil at the end to add the darker spots and put in the wayward hairs.  I think it turned out OK - I don't believe I would have been able to get the detail of the hair using just one of those mediums.

Now we wait and see if the recipient is pleased!

If your would like a portrait of your  pet (or even of your human), do get in touch.
 

Four Labradors...

Thisis a commission I have been procrastinating over for a very long time, replicas of two real dogs as puppies and adults.  It's been a while since I knitted anyone's pet and I felt I  might have lost the touch.

I think these have come out all right though - I had some dog patterns to use as a basis, tweaked them along the way.

Now to run them by the client, see if they pass muster!
 

Roses...

Taking a very short break before starting back on commissions next week.  I painted these roses from a vase full that we had in the living room.  It took me 3 days because of having to do other things.  It was very nice to paint something different after what feels like a year of bears!

Watercolour on paper - it sold within a few hours!
 

First Of Four...

 I'm back to knitting replicas of peoples' pets - first labrador of a set of 4.

Too Many Prickles...

This week I saw a picture in  magazine of a vase with some stems of gorse in it - it looked really pretty and I thought 'I could do that' as we have some gorse bushes along a path at the back of our house.  So I took the dog for a walk, found a gorse bush and proceeded to pick 3 branches.  Turns out that while gorse branches snap off very easily, they are covered in very sharp prickles - you'd have thought I would have taken that into account.  Anyway, I did happen to have a wadge of kitchen roll in my pocket which I wrapped around the gorse and gingerly carried it home.

Upon getting it home and trying to put it in a vase, I discovered that due to the excess of prickles, gorse literally 'walks' straight out of any container you try to put it in.  So I ended up snipping off the bottom few inches of sharp bits in order to make the stuff stay put.  At this point, seriously wondering if it had been worth the effort...but it does look nice and smells divine.

Next day, I thought I'd like to try painting the gorse...yeah, after wrestling it back into the vase after it decided to 'walk' when I was carrying it over to my desk, I discovered that the numerous prickles aren't much fun to paint either.  It was a good experiment, but not one I shall be repeating any time soon.
 

Otis...

I completed this yesterday - it has taken weeks!  This is Otis, of course, in acrylics this time, on board.  It is a private commission and will be heading off to Canada shortly.  It was a lot of fun to do a larger acrylic painting after what feels like a very long time.

However, I am going to give myself a rest from bears for a few days and play with some new watercolours that I bought a while back, painting something, anything, that isn't brown!
 

Looking Sheepish...

 Last week I knitted this dress for my granddaughter, and finished off the appliqued sheep last night.

This is a combination of two patterns - the one I found with the sheep design had a fancy smock style bodice with a Peter Pan collar, which I didn't like at all, too fussy.  The other pattern had a lacy skirt, but a nice plain bodice.  So I knitted the second pattern, omitting the lace.  Initially I tried knitting the sheep into the skirt as per the first pattern, but my work was tight and lumpy and did not look good.  So instead I knitted the dress plain, and then made little sheep bodies to be sewn on with their legs, tails & heads embroidered over the top.  I think it came out pretty well!

Now we just have to see if it fits the young lady in question!

Currently On The Easel...

It's been a long time since I painted a larger detailed acrylic, so even though the subject is one I have painted more times than I can remember, I am still enjoying the process.  I would say that Otis is three-quarters done, then only the water left to complete.  Hoping with today's sunshine giving me a decent light to work by, I'll get a sizeable chunk painted.