Quirky Village....down your way

I have been busy the last couple of weeks working on this commission for a nice lady over on the shabby chic forum. I was sent a series of photos which were important landmarks to the recipient. The school, where she got married and the family shop and house, and also a little blue van were a must. So I let rip with my imagination and this is the result. Whilst it is in transit I always get nervous in case it doesn't match upto what the person thought, fortunately she loved it!

Some close ups


                                                          Family home/church where married

                                                                  The school and butchers shop

                                                          Family shop and van

                                                More houses and park


So that is the Quirky Village....... 'down her way' It took over a week to make but was a joy to do and I managed to fit all the important subjects in. This picture is 16"x12".
One of these days I will make a picture of my village and cottage for myself!

Sockies and onions!

Introducing Cheeky Charlie who is very friendly and would like to say hi to everyone.

He's already for the coming winter with his hat and scarf and has a little bag ready for sandwiches and cake!
(he is for sale at the moment email me if interested)

On a completely different note, let's talk onions......

Never having grown them before I was delighted that they actually grew! They are quite big (but I don't know what is normal for homegrown) One of them weighs 395g (14oz) so a meal in it's self.....onion soup anyone haha.
They are now in the shed drying out (hopefully I  have done it right and they wont go mouldy). The carrots that were in the same patch are also huge. The lady who used to live here had animals so it must be some manure still in the ground that's helping them along. Not had much success with cabbages/caulis tho. Apart from the caterpillars lunching on them they never did grow very much, although there are a few hanging on so maybe they will overwinter.....or be wild rabbit fodder!

a p.s. to add that when Head Honcho came home he told me I shouldn't have cut the long leafy bits off but to leave them on for them to dry and then plait to hang up. When I was cutting them off I was thinking should I do this but I only had meself to ask at the time, so, I gave them the chop! Oh well, next year I will know better. I have put them in one of those 3 tier wire planters which does the job perfectly, as none of them touch each other.

Li'l Miss Rose

Not been blogging for a while as there hasn't been anything to report!
 But that's not to say I've not been busy tho. I've been making another sock monkey...can see the
bottom of the sock bag now!

Also been making a commissioned 'Quirky Village' which is nearly finished so maybe a reveal will happen in the near future.

Jam

Well after the hiccup of yesterday I consoled myself with making some jam!
There were an abundance of blackcurrants this year so enough to last out till next year. Although blackberries have been few and far between, which is a pity as blackberry and apple pie is rather scrummy.

4 jars of blackcurrant and some jars of raspberry/apple and nectrines. Which have a really good flavour but unfortunately as there is so many pips only I can eat them.....oh what a shame that will be really difficult, haha.

If anyone has a good way of getting rid of the pips from raspberries easily, I'm all ears.

OOOPS!

Got a horrible confession to make I put the wrong photo in my blog the other day about the frost on the car. I came to my senses when somebody said that it looks like an oil painting and I realised that I had put the wrong piccy up as it was a painting by my daughter which she copied from the PHOTO below!! 

It's a shame that I can't get the colours and depth to come up as nice as the real photo as it has loads of gold bits glittering away. This was enlarged by 50% and with no other jiggery pockery! The gold mount sets of the glittery bits really nicely.

Too me it looks like mountains with fuzzy clouds hovering on the top, or waves with foam splashing over.

Hangs head in shame and will now slop off quickly. :0(

Can you figure out what this is?

This is not a painting or a sewing project......bet you can't guess what it is tho!


Head Honcho likes to take photos, so with his phone camera he took a snap of this before it disappeared.  It is the frost that was on the car windscreen last winter. Now I bet you wouldn't have thought that!
There is no trick photographing or embellishing with the computer, although it has been  blown up 50%.  5 mins later it had all disappeared! Pretty neat eh...well I think so. The colours are with the sun shining on the frost. Boy was it cold that day.

Yep more monkeys!

                                             Rosie with her smart bracelet which has a butterfly on it.

                                                           
                                                                    Group Photo.

                                                                  Cheeky Monkey

Well it has been a lovely (if a bit windy) day here today. and, after the rain and chilliness of yesterday was a welcome sight to see the sun. Hope it stays nice for the weekend as would like to go and rummage around in the soil!

A couple of Monkeys

Here are two more monkeys. I am slowly reducing my stash of socks so that's good as the sofa was gradually being pushed further and further out into the room due to the extra bulk! (that's where the socks are stored)

Graham the grey monkey and his little bro. Cutey Pie!

Will be posting more tomorrow.....oh yes I will :0P

Barry the Biker...the return!

My daughter found my lead it was still in my suitcase! I could have sworn that I emptied everything out as well. So back on track with photos.

Have made a few monkeys this week to put into a nearby craft shop. The other ones had nearly sold out so she requested some more.

Here is Barry the Biker

He has a belly button piercing (shudder!) a lot of earhole piercings and jewellery. The back of the waistcoat has a fire painting on the back to match the small one on the front. He's also got a popper in his tail!
Will add a few more monkey photos later in the week.

I am starting to look at fabric for another quilt maybe in a mauve/lilac/green.Not for any particular room but I like the colour combination. This will be a long turn project tho possibly for winter. Got a lovely knitting aran pattern and sourced the wool on line so there is that and also a big (to me) cross stitch project. Have already started do the cross stitch.I have marked it out with water soluble  pen so that might make it a bit quicker than the 3 years it took to do the matching one!!

Lost camera lead

Well, I did have some photos to share but the camera lead can't be found anywhere :0(
I will keep searching but running out of places where it could be so in the meantime I will
show you this picture that was made a little while ago. It's copied from a book and it's meant to
be Greece BUT as I went to Spain thought it looked very much like the houses there. So this is
my Spanish Villa.....with Pedro the cat in the foreground!

It is painted, hand and machine embroidered.
It was difficult taking a picture of it cos of the reflection of the glass. It is brighter than shown and reminds me
of our holidays when I look at it.
(back to looking for lead)

Cock-a-doodle-doo

I can't remember if I have posted this painting before (sorry if I have) I had a piece of old scrap hardboard which was about picture size and straightened the edges,  using the smooth size to paint this rooster which I copied from a book. Was stuck with the brown feathers until I accidently just pressed the brush down to hard and lo and behold a feather!! So that bit was done in double quick time. The outer edges I put some burnt umber on and then wiped it quickly off so it just gives a stain. It has a coat of satin varnish over it as it's not behind glass and with a piece of stiff cardboard on the back with a bit of string. It has been hanging in the kitchen for a good few years now I would like to do a hen to go with it but one of these days......!

Back again

Here I am back....but nothing to show you just yet! I have started on the big cross stitch flower picture. I have started with the background first this time around, which, although boring, at least I can keep an eye on the TV at the same time!

Some photos

As I'm going to be away from my computer for a while here is some of my favourite photos that you might like to see while I'm gone.

My made over bookcase which used to be a mahogony brown and now houses my craft items and books. It's amazing how much you can squash into it. Best thing of all it was free as it was being thrown out!

crochet necklace

watercolours copied from photos

trompe l'oeil which is above a doorway  

cross stitch sampler for grandson

  cross stitch sampler for granddaughter

  

my first 'Quirky Village' Regatta picture

Applique tea cosy

Large 'Quirky Village' picture

Sailing boats cards

First ever 'proper' quilt

Not forgetting the Monkeys of course!

                                                                         

Brenda the Biker

Red Roger

Well that's all folks for a wee while see ya later.

If in doubt don't mess about!

wow that turned out super big....it wont go any smaller as I had to import it from photobucket and this is the only way I could do it.:0(

anyway I watercoloured some pansies but was unhappy with the format and so started to mess about...big mistake!!

Firstly I cut around the picture and then machined it to some wallpaper and a piece of fabric to get a 3d effect. In real life I have to say it looks pretty rough and I wished I'd left well alone. Sometimes it's best to leave something your not happy with and go back months/years after and often it is better for leaving and it's seen with new eyes.  (the photo does it more justice than it deserves)!

Or maybe I will put this away for sometime and maybe see it with new eyes....now there's a thought :0D

Another cushion....maybe!

This was started last winter. I had a clear idea in my head how it should be, but of course it didn't turn out that way! Not sure where I'm going to go with it either. Some of it has already been stitched down and the rest I'm still playing with. Maybe when all the flowers are done, to machine stitch the white bits that are on show so it has a quilty look. But this time to put a bit of layering inbetween the fabric so that it's more puffy.

 I keep going back to it and tweeking but at the mo the garden is still pulling me outside.

finished cushion

Finished the cushion for my bed. Think it looks a bit lonely! I have 3/4 more to go.

Not too sure whether there is too much gingham going on, maybe it would look better with some sashing to break it up a bit.

Start of cushion

Thought I would have a break from the garden for a couple of hours to start on this cushion which has been sitting on the sewing machine for a while. It's to match the quilt that I made recently, so I hope that it comes together OK.

 The little houses are hand sewn, something that I enjoy doing as you can watch TV at same time!

Hmmm not quite right.

Well my little  crafting buddies here is something that didn't go to plan!

This was going to be a cushion cover to put on my bed. The red is handstitched on doubled over material.

What looks like lots of creases is my attempt at free stitching on the sewing machine!

I think where I went wrong is that it should have some wadding inbetween the material so that it's more puffy (IYSWIM) and maybe the stitching would have stood out better. The thing is I really enjoyed doing the free stitching so was really disappointed that it is a flop! It's going to be put away for the winter where I will have more time to hum and ha over it and see if it can be salvaged.

I recently won these mags on a giveaway. How nice was that. They are from The Balancing Kiwi who's blog I frequent.  It was nice to sit down with a cuppa and have a browse and see what others are upto in the sewing world and how cute is that puffin. So thanks again for them.

Garden pictures

I can't believe how quickly this month has shot by and I havn't blogged for a while but while I have been in the garden I lost my crafty mojo. But gardening is kind of crafting don't you think?

 If your not a fan of dirt and green stuff look away now!

This is one of the vegetable gardens with carrots, onions. There is a few parsnips, lettuce and cauliflower residing in there as well, but I wanted to see where they grow the best so have a few dotted around the place (even in the flower garden).

This is going to be the fruit garden. The bushes at the back is just part of the blackcurrants that we have in abundance. They have fruited exactly 1 month earlier than usual which is strange and there is absolutely loads of them.

 This is the next bit of the veggie patch. There will be 4 parts all together in a row.

Work gets in the way of finishing the poly tunnel so all the toms/peppers etc are all squashed up in the porch but they seem to be thriving.  It's the first time that we have had some strawberries which havn't been munched by birds/slugs and that's because we bought a cold frame from Llidls and they fit snuggly in there for the moment. We are really impressed with it, went back for another one and they'd sold out.

 

 

 This photo was taken from the bottom of the field, looking up towards all the activity.  Head Honcho (Hubs) didnt get around to mowing it before it grew really long so we got hay. The neighbour was delighted to get it for his horse. I told hubs not to let it get like that again cos it was such hard work raking it up!  All we needed was some cider and ploughman's lunch and it would look like a picture from the early farming days!! Head Honcho has planted quite a few trees in the field which are coming along nicely.

 The bubbling brook at the bottom of the field. Don't be deceived by the small stream it turns into a raging torrent in the right conditions.

Part of our little flower garden around the front which is a lovely sun trap and a nice spot to sit with an ice cream.
Well I hope you enjoyed the mini tour around our little cottage garden and perhaps I will show you a craft made inside before too long.....but while the weather is nice you know where I will be :0)