New year resolution

Although I've had no comments, I know people are reading this - I did get an email from one kind soul.  Hope whoever you are you had a good Christmas.  I'm hoping for a better New Year than this one which hasn't been a lot of fun.

Had hoped to have pictures from a trip away (our first time away from this house in a year) but weather intervined and we didn't go: you'll have to imagine what's over the hill and far away.
Best wishes for the New Year to you all.

Oh, snow !

Love this postbox outside of Worcester cathedral.  Dusted with frost it looks like a very superior mince pie crust.  We'd escaped the worst of the weather, but it's snowing now - it can if it likes as I've got no reason to go out until next Sunday!  Just a pile of sprouts and parsnips to deal with and rather a lot of cooking, but I determined to do some in advance tomorrow so I can relax on Friday morning - and if I've forgotten anything someone else can get it...

Glowing

Actually managed to cover one of the notebooks today.  It's not as neat inside as I would have liked, but I'm reasonably pleased to have done it at all.

And it's an improvement on the rather dull navy blue it once was.  Unfortunately, the dull light means you can't really see the glowing pink of the handmade paper which is brightening up my shelf.

A small rememberance

The little boy on the left of this picture is my father, aged about two, his older brother would have been about four.  It was taken in about 1915 for their father to take into the army as he went off to fight in WW1.  My father looks fairly close to tears - his hesitant expression is the forerunner of a scowl seen in photos of my brother and myself and my daughter at a similar age.  My father and mother both died 21years ago, in their mid-seventies.  Both had been ill for a while but had carried on as best they could, my mother surviving my father by about six months then dying suddenly and unexpectedly just before Christmas.  They both died as they had lived - quietly, without fuss and wthout causing anyone any trouble.

The best advice my mother could give was 'if you don't know what to do, do nothing, keep quiet and wait, and something will come to you'.  I'm taking that advice at the moment while I try to sort out several things at once, I'd like to think she's nodding in approval.

Shop locally

 

Bought these beautiful papers from a local gallery today, to cover some hardback notebooks that have been waiting in a box for about three years.  (My daughter says I'm obsessed with buying notebooks (and towels), but we won't mention her shoe buying.)  Did, however, manage to resist notebooks with lovely leather covers, notebooks covered in sari material in fabulous colours, and these handles which would look lovely on the cupboards in my study if I ever get round to repainting them  -when I win the lottery (which is never as I don't buy a ticket).

 

After the rain

The rain over the last few days has been incredible, but today the view from the top floor of the house  this morning is so clear after days of mist grey gloom - can't believe it's December next week.

This doesn't begin to do justice to the sunlight on the hills at the front of the house.

First attempt

 

My first attempt at needle felting really didn't turn out too bad - even husband, always a stern critic, had to agree that it had character.

 Unfortnately, the combination of black fleece and a gloomy day doesn't do justice to my second effort.  I'm definitely hooked (- sorry about the pun), and will certainly be thinking up my own designs, but I may just make a couple more dogs, and perhaps a cat, and I'm sure I've got a pattern for a penguin, and a giraffe would be good...

There's just the small matter of these

 

waiting to be made into a baby gift.  And these

waiting to be made into various projects from these

And D is for Dog

 

The link on Jane's Yarnstorm  blog to this site  prompted me to take down my own collection of pencils and crayons from the shelf and go back to some pencil and ink drawings I did a few weeks ago. I've particularly enjoyed using these watersoluble wax crayons, all the satisfaction of a primary school crayon but they blend together beautifully when you use a brush, like watercolour pencils.  They come in 84 different shades but I've found the small pack of 10 does plenty.
I've always found it odd that dog breeds go in and out of fashion, and it's sad that one sees so few fox terriers, especially the smooth-coated ones - like the one Helena Bonham-Carter carried around in the startling play about Enid Blyton on BBC4 this week.  They're very much dogs of the 1920s to 1950s as are Scotties, Cocker Spaniels, Cairns and Pugs which one occasionally encounters but when did you last see a Sealyham outside of a show ring, yet so often portrayed by Cecil Aldin and Lucy Dawson.
I would have thought we might see a revival in all these breeds with the current passion for shabby chic and vintage - Cath Kidson leads the trend with Stanley. At present, depending on where you live you're much more likely to see Labradors and Jack Russell's (in the country) or Staffordshire Bull terriers and the various tough crossbreds in the innercities.
We can't have a dog at present, so I'm thinking of making some of my own from this little book! They'll certainly take less walking.

D is for deer, E is for.....

I downloaded patterns for tree ornaments recently from the lovely Alicia and made them for a friend.  Unfortunately, they were claimed more quickly than I expected and I only managed to photograph one - the little deer. But I had now got the bug and raided my stash of felt and twinkly items which have accumulated over a long period since I used to make costumes for school plays. Out came the beads and stars and ribbons and I made a collection of animal - elephants, dogs, horses.

None of them took very long and it cheered me up on a miserable wet day.  I've now got a request for a penguin!

One golden moment

Some days you just get that one golden moment that makes you feel you can cope with anything.