Getting Back To Normal...

Well, after the hottest summer I've ever experienced in this country, temperatures have finally dropped to normal levels for this time of year and I can get back to doing some arts and crafts without dripping in sweat or the paint drying on my brush.  It has been a struggle keeping the garden alive, carting watering cans up and down due to the hosepipe ban, and I have lost a few plants - no cucumbers this year, although the tomatoes have been OK and the runner beans are just about starting now, with help from copious bowls of washing up water!

I saw a funny crocheted coaster on the net last week and decided to have a go at creating my own version.  It works by using the yarn double and making a dome using the amigurumi method of increases.  The coaster sits with the body concave and when you put your mug on it...

 

...tadah!  The head and legs spring up to clasp the mug!  Well, it made me laugh...

 I've also been painting another wooden box - no photos just yet, I still have to put a lining in it. That was a chore as well - hard to paint when the paint dries on your brush before you even get it on the work!

I am also working on a large watercolour - good to be painting again after a difficult summer where my enthusiasm was at an all time low.

It's No Wonder I'm Tired...

My daughter's room used to look like this - you can't see it but to the right was an old spare bed piled high with her toys and all her clothes.  It was an awful mess.  Behind was another heap of crates full of toys, a built in wardrobe with stuff spilling out and a large wooden box full of her brother's possessions, left behind when he moved out.  The bed was old and creaky, and underneath were yet more boxes of crap stuff.  I'm not proud of it, it's needed renovating for years and to be honest, I just couldn't face it.

So when a new branch of Ikea opened near us, we went along to have a look and I saw an ideal bed for her - low, with storage and the ability to pull out into a double bed if necessary.  I went home and thought about it for a couple of days, then bit the bullet and ordered the bed...and shelves...and a chair.  It arrived a couple of weeks ago (together with two chest of drawers for our room which also needed replacing) and for the past ten days I have been mucking out Stacie's room - an apt phrase indeed.

So now she has a room like this, with lots more room with all the junk gone.  It's not quite finished, the walls need painting and the pictures re-hanging, but that can wait for a couple of weeks while my body recovers. Carrying large chunks of wood up and down the stairs singlehandedly and dragging huge bin sacks full of old and broken toys takes it out of you!

I was very worried that she would create a scene with me 'touching her stuff', let alone throwing a great deal of it away - people with Down's Syndrome dislike change, and she in particular can get very funny about her possessions being moved.  However, the bed has been a roaring success, she loves having the space to sit and play her cd's, and having all her books and bits and pieces in accessible shelves has meant that she has found all sorts of things she had forgotten about, so is very happy.  Thank God for that!

Consequently, time for painting and crafting has been minimum.  I've been working on these little peeps:

Discovered if you crochet a lace snowflake in raffia it makes a great coaster:

And the garden has not been producing much (another disastrous glitch in the weather earlier this summer, combined with slug invasion) but the cucamelons are delicious!