Peter Rabbit...

 A couple of weeks ago we had a heatwave - unusual for Britain in June, and felt far hotter than anything I've experienced in this country before.  So it was a matter of getting everything done early in the morning while there was a vestige of cool air, then spending the rest of the day flopping around being sweaty!

I couldn't paint - the paint dried on the brush before hitting paper - so  I decided to knit this Peter Rabbit for my granddaughter.  She had said that she wanted one so that he could play with her other knitted rabbit.

 I used the book 'Knitting Peter Rabbit' by Clare Garland, which contains knitting patterns for most of the Beatrix Potter characters.  This pattern was supposed to use multiple strands of alpaca wool in order to get the texture and colour shades, but as this was the first time I had tried the pattern, I just used plain DK.

 I think because of the different yarn he might have turned out a bit bigger than he was supposed to be - his jacket (made from felt) was a bit snug!  It didn't bother my granddaughter though, she was very happy with him!

I'm working on some little creatures for the animator, and I have a painting still on the go - a watercolour that should have been completed in a few days but due to the heat is dragging on far too long.  After that, I have another painted wooden box to get on with. 

Treasure Chest...

 Despite all the goings on at home, I did find the time to finally paint this little wooden treasure chest.  I've had the idea for the design on it for months but was puzzling as to how to achieve it.  In the end I just went for it, using three snapshots taken on the Explore.org bear cam website.  I don't know which bears they are, I was just aiming for a pleasing picture.

Funnily enough, the whole thing just flowed - I must have planned it out so many times in my head that when it came to the actual painting my brain knew what to do!

The main body of the box was painted using Hookers Green, and the edging was varnished with an oak wood stain.  Mr.B had to carefully remove all paint splodges from it for me -no matter how careful I was I still managed to get a few dabs of the green on to the edging.

Finally, I lined it with green felt in the same shade as the outer box.  This involved a fair bit of measuring and mathematics!  I had decided that lining the box with my usual fishy fabric would make the whole thing far too 'busy' - looks like that was the right decision.

I found a buyer for this before the varnish was even dry - it will be going to another bear cam enthusiast, for which I am very happy.  I would love to paint some more of this type of box, let's hope I can find them in the store where I bought this.  I'm open for orders!
 

Blankies...

I've been crocheting these lap blankets lately to keep my hands busy, using Patatya yarn cakes as they have lovely colourways and require very little thinking!

I like this one best, although the photo does not show the true vibrancy of the colours.

I've also knitted this shawl in a cotton varigated yarn.  

I'm hoping to get some better photos of these items after which they will be in my Etsy shop. 

Melancholy...

Sadly there have been things going on in my life that have been occupying my mind constantly and making it very difficult to even think of being creative, so nothing much to show here.  I did buy myself a little Lego-type kit to keep myself occupied.  I thought it was bears initially, but they turned out to be capybaras but still very cute!  This thing drove me crazy for a week or so - the bricks are so very tiny and my hands are so very arthritic.  I ended up with a bag of spare pieces and so I went through the instructions over and over, checked the photo, and it would appear I have not made any mistakes, they just put a load of extra bricks in the kit.  It was 'fun' to make but I'm not doing one of those again!

At Christmas I was given a couple of amaryllis bulbs, both of which did not grow well and seemed to be a breeding ground for small flies which drove us crazy in the living room.  So I chucked the pots out into the greenhouse as I didn't want to throw them away.  Come the beginning of Spring, they started to sprout again - one of them didn't get far before dying, the other one turned into this magnificent specimen!  It seems to love being out in the garden, all three blooms are now open and the flowers are lasting much longer than they would indoors.  Perhaps next time I get given one of these, I will put it in the greenhouse straight away and see what happens.

I've been stress-crocheting a lot - on to my second blanket now.  It keeps my hands busy and gives me a finished product so that I am not just sitting mindlessly watching tv in the evenings.  I've also returned to a wooden box I started painting some months ago - again, something that doesn't require too much thinking but does mean I am painting once more.
 

Renovated...

 My old potting table had been neglected and unused at the bottom of the garden for far too long.  Mr.B felt sorry for it, especially as I had bought a new potting table/cupboard a couple of weeks ago, so he decided to take it to pieces and mend it.

Obviously, my job was to paint it and I found a pot of wood preserver that I had forgotten about until I put it in the new cupboard (!)

 

I gave it blue drawers - the same blue as the rest of the garden storage and pergola.  Smart isn't it!  I'll try not to let it get into such a bad condition again...

Daffodils...

Here is the painting I mentioned in my previous post.  I was given a sweet bunch of daffodils on Mothers Day a couple of weeks ago, and they were so pretty when they opened up that I had to paint them.  It was tricky finding somewhere to photograph them that didn't have a busy background - I ended up putting them outside with the blue sentry box behind them.

Watercolour on paper - they may well end up in my Etsy shop soon!

Gardening...

 It's been a while since I posted here - not a lot of art going on because I have been out in the garden while the weather has been good.  After an incredibly wet winter, it was great to have some dry days at last.

So I got the citrus trees out of the greenhouse - although there have been numerous frosts since I did this, but the trees seem to be OK - and started on planting seeds.  This year I have an abundance of seeds - my daughter gave me an advent calendar last year with a pack of seeds for every day, plus I had already bought some packs in readiness.  

 Very quickly I ran out of room for all the seed trays due to the extra gardening equipment being stored in there.  So I bought a little wooden flat pack garden cupboard - I love building flat pack furniture - put it together and painted it blue to match the sentry box.  I decanted all the bits and pieces from the greenhouse into the cupboard and finally managed to get all the seed trays in place.  There are also some vegetable seeds sown in the covered planters in the garden. This year I am attempting to grow tomatoes, cucumber, peas, radishes, onions, spring onions, lettuce, carrots, pumpkin, sweetcorn, runner beans, 3 types of courgette, cosmos, nasturtiums, marigolds, and various other flowers from seeds I got free in magazines.  Many are already sprouting, but it's a long time between now and summer, a lot could happen.  Last year my seeds started off well and then we had a month of cold, dismal weather which put them in stasis so they were very far behind once the good weather returned.  Fingers crossed for this year!

 I have been painting, but it needs a little bit of work to finish it off but I have left it while I have been gardening.  Maybe today?