Handsome Fellow...

I completed this yesterday - a very handsome German Shepherd dog that is sadly no longer with us - which is a private commission.  I have painted this in acrylics on Dalerboard - I have not painted in acrylics for quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed this one.  The subject was great, and the painting seemed to just flow right from the start - I love it when that happens!  In fact, I am quite sorry this one is over!

So now I am free to paint anything I want until the next commission rolls along.

I have also been knitting - this is a lace shawl/scarf knitted in a fine kid mohair mix yarn, pale cream coloured with a hint of sparkle.  It is light as air and very pretty - it will be in my Etsy shop in the next few days.

I am just finishing off another couple of baby hats, and after that I have no more work for the time being.  Perhaps I could get on with some Spring cleaning?

Haven't Done This For A Long Time...

 I find knitting repetative patterns very soothing and a good stress-busting tool.  Lord knows we need anything that can keep us calm at the moment!  I bought some yarn cakes a few weeks ago that were at a ridiculously low price and was pleasantly surprised to receive them and see how very nice the yarn was.  The next problem was to find a project to use them on.  I have a book of patterns of items that can be knitted using one skein so picked this triangular scarf as the first project.  It has turned out very nicely but I am a little disappointed it did not use all the colours in my yarn cake!  The next shade would have been white which really makes the other colours pop.

However, that's just me, the scarf itself is very pretty indeed, soft and warm.  The yarn is an 80/20% acrylic wool mix so should be hard wearing too.  The shade was called Unicorn - not sure why!
This is currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

It's Simply Enormous!

I bought a cake of Rico Creative Wool Degrade at the fabric fair back in September with the idea to make this shawl - I didn't realise quite what an epic undertaking it would turn out to be!  Initially I thought the yarn was laceweight, but upon getting it home I discovered that it was made up of four strands of laceweight yarn and there was no way of separating it, so I had to knit on bigger needles than planned.  So it looked as if it was going to be quite big from the outset...

Then with about eight inches of the point left to knit, I ran out of yarn and had to buy another cake of it - not cheap may I say!  I finally finished it this week as it has been a bit of an off and on project amongst the comissioned work.  It's very nice - soft, with the colour fading from a dark grey at the top to a very pale, almost white, grey at the point.  And big...very, very big!

For sale in my Etsy shop now.

Sunshine & Sparrow...

The sun finally came out of hiding and I managed to photograph this lace shawl in daylight - now you can see the colours to their best advantage.

Despite being a relatively simple repeated pattern, this was a tricky one to knit.  It seemed to go on forever as the yarn is so fine, but the colour changes added a bit of interest as the work progressed.

It is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

I've started this little watercolour of a sparrow - sparrows have to be one of my favourite birds, despite their subdued plumage they have such cheeky characters.  I'm taking my time with this, concentrating on the detail - it's very therapeutic!

Lots of Lace...

I finally finished this lace shawl last week - it has taken a very long time, not only because I kept getting sidetracked with other projects but also because it is rather large!  This photo does not do it justice, but I need a day of sunshine in order to get some decent pictures which show off the vibrant colours to their best advantage - it's Britain in April, that could take a while!

This shawl was knitted in two parts and joined in the middle - not sure why; I initially thought that it was to ensure the ends both had a wavy finish to the edge, but after blocking, this is not the case.  The pattern called for the pieces to be joined using the Kitchener method, but after doing this, it looked really clumsy and ugly against the delicate lace, a thick raised seam.  So it took me 2 hours to unpick that - couldn't afford to lose any yarn as I only had about a meter of it left.  I tried joining it with a double cast off - ran out of yarn and had to unpick that too.  I ended up simply sewing the ends together - it's not great, but less obtrusive at least.  I hate it when a lot of work is spoiled by something like that - if I had known, I would have just knitted one long continuous piece.

On the easel - a small watercolour of a sparrow.  Not feeling very creative at the moment, having a rough time caring for Clovis whose health is up and down like a yoyo.  I think I might be putting our vet's children through university...

Leopard & Lace...

I've not touched a pencil or paintbrush for a couple of weeks due to other commitments and it has driven me crazy!  No that I had anything particular in mind to paint, I just wanted to paint - it's an oasis of calm in a frenetic world.  This week I managed to find some spare time and started this small watercolour of a leopard.  I had in mind to keep it loose and splashy, but that's not happening - just not in my nature.  We'll see where it goes...

This is the first half of the lace shawl I have been working on - I now have to knit an identical piece which will then be grafted on down the centre.  Not sure why, I think it is so that both ends have a pleasing wavy edge.  It's been put on hold for a short while as I have started knitting a coat for Clovis as wearing his raincoat every day is just not working out - one sprint from him and it ends up hanging off, flapping in the breeze.  It's not a quick project, he's a rather large dog.

He's doing well on his various tablets - he has good days and bad days. Last week it was difficult to get him to eat properly, this week he is shovelling his food in.  As long as he can still canter around a field without keeling over, we're doing OK!

Hello February!

I've never been so glad to see the back of a month as I am to wave goodbye to January 2016!  What a ghastly few weeks it has been - I am hoping that February will see an upturn in our luck as we could sure use it.

This little pencil drawing has gone some way to keeping me sane - I've put a considerable amount of hours into it, but it is very slow progress.  Nearing the finish line now, just the left-hand greenery to do.  I'm using Derwent Coloursoft pencils - lovely selection of colours, but do need a lot of repeated going over to get the depth of colour I am after.  Not a problem, in fact quite soothing!  I did discover that I can scrape back the applied colour with a sharp blade to reveal the first colour used - terrific for detail on the shiny feathers.

I've had this sumptious ball of laceweight yarn for months now, since my last trip to London.  Finally started a wide lace scarf with it and am loving the way the colours blend into each other.  The flash on the camera has made the purples a lot brighter than they actually are, but it is still a stunning colourway.

I've been having a small spring clean of various drawers in the house lately, the spice drawer being one of them.  I discovered I had caraway seeds (who knew??) and with the left over beetroot in the fridge, it all came together to make this interesting cake, recipe in this month's Simple Things magazine.  I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks...

Taking A Breather...

 It has been manic the past couple of weeks, lots to be done and deadlines to be met before Christmas.  I just about finished my to-do list by Friday and decided to take a couple of days to catch my breath - just as well, as there is another to-do list to be started on Monday!  In the meantime, I have been fiddling about with Quink ink again - still not happy with the results but I think that is down to my composition rather than the materials.  I will find a way of using this and getting something I'm 100% pleased with.

I started this shawl a few days ago, using Scheepjeswol Sunkissed - a fabulous thin cotton yarn, very soft and very pretty.  This is knitting up quite quickly as it is on larger needles - needs a lot of concentration to follow the chart though.

Next on the easel: a cat portrait
Next on the needles: same cat!
There is also a large bag of holly and ivy that needs making into a wreath...

Lovely Linen Lace

 I've been knitting this for a while now, squeezing it in among everything else.  It;s been made using some very fine linen yarn I bought a few weeks ago at a fabric show.

 I did start a different pattern with it but found the yarn did not suit, so tried this slightly simpler design which shows off the yarn to perfection.

 The linen is slightly crisp since being washed, but I think will soften with wear.  Now for sale in my Etsy shop.

Funny Old Month...

November is proving to be a bit unusual in some respects.  This is the busiest I've been in the run up to Christmas for a while, so personal projects have had to be put on the back burner for a while.  I'm managing to put a little time each day into this though - a lace scarf knitted in a fine linen yarn.  It looks a bit like a dishrag at the moment, but I think once blocked it will be beautiful - the yarn is a soft grey with a bit of a sheen to it, and about as thick as crochet cotton.  It's quite tricky to knit with, but I am sure will be worth the effort.

I usually make our Christmas cake at the end of October in order to have plenty of time to 'water' it with brandy before Christmas.  A couple of weeks late this year as I've been so busy, but it's finally done and maturing in a tin tucked away.  I use a recipe in a Stork cookbook given to me by my parents when I left home...so that's quite an old book!  It's proved invaluable over the years and I still refer to it for good basic home cooking recipes.

Bizarrely, while the cake was baking away in the oven, I was outside in my shirtsleeves mowing the grass and tidying up the garden, with all windows & doors open.  I still can't do all the clearing up that is needed to put the garden to bed for winter - cosmos are flowering more prolifically than they did in the summer.

The black-eyed susan has gone berserk covering half the pergola and shows no sign of stopping flowering.

And against the house the pepino (tree melon) has finally got a fruit and is also flowering more than it did in the summer.

I have a feeling this will end in tears once the frosts begin - it would be nice to harvest one fruit at least though!

On the easel:  still the greyhounds
On the needles: Christmas stuff!

Time To Get Back To Work...

It's been lovely taking things a little slower over the summer, but with autumn here it is time to get back into some sort of routine & get on with some work!  The dog portrait is progressing nicely, although I had forgotten just how much effort goes into an acrylic painting of this type.  It feels very slow after the speed I can work with for a drawing, but it is worth it in the end.  Lots more to do here, the only thing just about finished is his head.

This lace scarf is finally finished, knitted in a fine, slightly stiff, linen yarn. If I hadn't made a false start and knitted half of it before realising my mistake, it would have been done a lot faster.  Currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Pretty!

We've been making the most of the autumn fruits - fillng the freezer with bags of blackberries to keep us going with crumbles throughout the winter, and picking lots of apples from our tree - which survived it's collapse.  Also still harvesting tomatoes from the garden, but everything else is tailing off.

The aloe vera is putting out a flower.  Obviously my workroom is an ideal growing place - I picked four big tomatoes from the plant that sprang up on the windowsill in there!

I had a go at making a goldfinch feeder from some teasels I gathered while dog walking (ouch!)  They are attached to a large bamboo and I have sprinkled nyjer seeds in the heads - now have to wait and see what happens.

On the needles: a gorilla (still); a crochet blanket; and we don't talk about the summer top languishing half finished in a corner...
I also have to make yet another moorhen, child friendly this time - however, these people have paid up front!

Strawberries & Lace...

Another quick little watercolour done while teaching one of my students.  I'm getting quite a collection of them now and am very happy that the boy is enjoying painting mini still life.  Not only is it great to see his progress, but it is very good for me too, working fast & as accurately as I can.  Next week we decided it will be vegetables so I have to keep an eye open for something that is interesting but can be achieved in one hour.

I've had this delicate linen yarn for quite a while now and never had the time to use it.  I began a lace scarf with it and then discovered once I had finished one ball of yarn that there was no way that the second and only other ball of it would stretch to making a full length scarf.  After searching the site where I bought it and finding it no longer in stock, and after a bit of soul searching, I started the scarf again but with half the width and it should make a decent length scarf.  I've reached the point of knitting from the original piece into the new one and trying not to think of the time wasted!

The next few weeks should be very busy - after a quiet couple of months, I now have three dog portraits lined up.  It's good that the work is coming in now that summer is drawing to a close.  One of them might be a little tricky - the photos are from about 25 years ago and very grainy and small - it could be a real challenge to get anything out of them!

Fluffy!

In amongst everything else I've beenmaking, I have been knitting this rather lovely shawl.  It's a pattern I have used on many occasion with various different yarns and it has come up a treat each and every time.

This has been knitted in a mohair blend with a thin strip of irridescent sparkle running through it.  Very pretty indeed.

It is also a dream to knit this pattern as it is so easy to memorise with no fear of forgetting where you are if you put it down overnight.  Currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Also for sale in my Etsy shop is this handsome fellow.  I'm still working through my portfolio and listing all these hidden paintings for sale - I can't keep hoarding them!

Playing With Sticks & String...

 It's been a busy week, but most of my projects have been quite large and I've not had anything to show unless you are interested in half-knitted wadges of yarn.  I've been knitting some small Easter themed objects, which I am sure you will be seeing soon on Twitter and Facebook.  The daffs are the only ones I can really show for now.

I have finally completed this rather splendid men's cardigan, which is a commissioned piece using a very old pattern - I can't find a date on it but looking at the style of aeroplanes, I'm putting it in the 1940's.  The yarn is chunky so it was a relatively quick knit, but the patterns involved a fair bit of concentration.  It also has integral pockets, a fitted zipper and a sizeable roll collar.

I don't normally knit clothing for other people (rarely for myself any more) but I could not resist this lovely design. 

In any spare minutes, I've been knitting this lace shawl - I'm hoping this photograph shows the little sparkles in the yarn.  It's a nice simple repeating pattern that I have knitted several times before in various different yarns and it is always effective.  The good part is that although you start with over 300 stitches, it decreases as you go, so psychologically seems to get quicker along the way....that's my story anyway!

This came in the post today - first copies of the latest Adventure Time comic with a cover painted by....my son!

Nice big credit on the inside cover.  I'm a proud mum again - especially as he has done the cover for next month's issue as well!

And finally, now that the builders are just a (bad) memory, it's time to get the garden sorted with no fear of anything getting wrecked.  We have gained a long length of space between us and the new houses since they put a gate on the front end.  I noticed last week that it gets quite a bit of sunshine along our wall in the middle of the day, so I am going to try and grow some potatoes and beans in there - it's worth a try!

Somewhere In The Middle...

Firstly, I hope you all enjoyed your Mothers Day yesterday - mine was pretty good, although probably not everyone's cup of tea.  My lovely daughter made this suncatcher card for me - I think it took a very long time!

I seem to have a stack of projects on the go but nothing finished as yet.  I'm knitting some very small daffodils...

...this thing that looks like a skinny octopus will eventually be a tree - honest, it will!

I'm on the home straight with the aeroplane cardigan, just finishing off the sleeves, but whenever it gets too much (it's very heavy!) I knit another few rows of this lace shawl.  A simple repeating pattern, easy to learn off by heart and I am using a laceweight mohair yarn in a soft off-white with sparkles threaded through it.  I think it will be very pretty.

And after a whole year, it would appear that we are finally free of builders.  Over the weekend we quickly walloped up an extra bit of trellis to fill in the gap the fencers left and covered the first panel with some bamboo screening.  Now I feel we are protected as much as possible from prying eyes.  I planted some clematis plants which will hopefully climb up the rest of the fence and trellis and provide a living screen.  We may get perfectly nice new neighbours, but it doesn't hurt to take precautions!

I also painted my sentry box blue last week - it's such a pretty colour that I was tempted to paint everything else blue as well, but then commonsense prevailed!