making, art and craftyness galore....

...have had to go for an even longer lie-down than usual after all the exitement...actually smitten with a heady-nosey-coldy thing, feeling fine from the neck downwards...so much to see and love from the exitingly talented students at the Contemporary Applied Arts degree show at Carlisle....and then Woolfest at Cockermouth full of delicious inspiringness on all sensory levels with yarns and fabrics and colours and textures and abundant loveliness...a feast for the eyes and food for the soul, shared with lovely like-minded kindred spirits...

warm teacosiness necessary medicine in current affliction, back off to the sofa, where languishes daughter with similar end-of-term-but-sadly-not-quite cough and cold...we shall share the tissue box and TV remote and hopefully feel loads better very soon....xxxx

let's celebrate

...the longest day, the lightest brightest day...summer solstice partying and cake eating, children laughing and playing together, running and playing outdoors as they soon as they are free from school, let us all celebrate friendships and the joy of living, the miracle of life, feel the lushness of gardens and parks, the green-ness of hills and roadsides flush with wild flowers, our gardens full and flowering, vegetables growing apace...ok a leetle more warmth from le soleil would be nice, but hey, this is Cumbria and rain and cloud are a welcome part of our life too! After all we had glorious sunshine yesterday....
Wishing you all a wonderful summer solstice....

As the sun spirals its longest dance,
Cleanse us
As nature shows bounty and fertility
Bless us
Let all things live with loving intent
And to fulfill their truest destiny

Wiccan blessing for Summer

in the pink....

fabulous June roses.....truly summeryness is here and despite the now almost terminal confusion in the house which one is trying valiantly to organise into a 'liveble mess' (whilst the good work contnues in the studio) I am feeling 'in the pink' as so many good and positive things are happening....and what sheer joy there is in the colour pink... I seem to be more and more attracted to anything and everything in pinkness...am I turning into Barbie...or Barbara Cartland (bless her!)??..I trust not!...actually pink is thought to help improve self-confidence and can promote peacecso I'll go with that...I shall 'think pink' as recommended by Tricia Guild in her fabbydoo book...

it's June already, a bit chilly with some welcome rain and some sun, even one or two hot days... 11.6.11 somehow there is a pleasurable rhythm in such a date, a pattern, and 'man is a pattern maker'.... I read that somewhere once, on my journey of learning...if only I could remember who wrote it but as I have trouble remembering where I park the car that seems a lost hope...I can however recall who said 'A garden is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man' ... (Francis Bacon...bit of a food link maybe that's how I remember!)... it is one of my favorite thoughts, as I wander out into the garden on a sunny June morning...in PYJAMAS because I CAN meaning a)it is just about warm enough if I apply a fleece to my top half, b)we are not overlooked except by sheep and the donkeys and c)it is part of my ruse to pretend that summer really is icumen in!

found a lovely card by Jane Brocket in our lovely local bookshop - fab pink wellies - sums up the delicious gardeny pinkness!

the garden is looking pretty wild and flush with flowers now, humming with bees and insects and the swallows twittering and tweetering overhead, it is a delight to sit out in the early morningness, the grass fresh after rain, and eat my breakfast and commune with Mother Nature...a most pleasurable way to start my day...

and here's another delightful way ... to commune with my new delicious copy of Mollie Makes... huzzah!! issue 2 has wended its way here and is teasing me with it's loveliness as I toil with house-loving tasks (I prefer that term to 'house-work...far too work-y) and after a visit to an inspiring local arty degree show (more of that next blog methinks) and lunching with a friend who is by way of being a secret poet or do I mean poet in secret and anyway she too has dust bunnies the size of a house and is far to busy crafting words into exquisite poetryness to be bothered by such trifling affairs...

...but enough of such diverting digressing...to return to the important and vital matter in hand, Mollie is surely in touch with her pinkness this month and full of lovely summeriness and enticing making and makers..the pleasures of hand embroiderying and more garden flowers from talented Charlotte Lyons

and yet more tempting crocheting this time from Jane Brocket's new book....The Gentle Art of Knitting ...must get down to our lovely local bookshop and see if they have it in yet...loved her previous one on the Gentle Art of Domesticity...

Mollie is very much a girl after our own hearts and seems to love all the things and people we do...last month she featured the wonderful Dottie Angel and all her makeringness and this time it's  the lovely vintage inpiring emporium Girls Own Store run by the talented Sara Mahon....

 ...and a wee snippet on the printerly Jane Foster...whom we adore and even have some of her vintage cushionwares and printed deliciousness in our possession....

....as admired by Basil the cat - so discerning tra la....he knows comfy cushions when he sees 'em..but we say Basil, you may look but definitely and most emphatically these 'ere vintagely lovely cushions are not for sitting on by cattys with claws and dare we say it not entirely cleanish derriers...meantime herewith more pinkness in the making of new brooches

...and you may remember a certain pink wool bag, now adorned with bright pink corsage ( a magical word implying a decorously decorated bosom)...and happiness indeed, sold to a lovely lady for a present for her sister who we surely hope loves it as we did!

...and in the great outdoors....pink flowers emerging into the warming sun all over in the jardin....a variety of shapes and sizes and shades of loveliness...from huge papery poppies, all crinkled leaves unfolding from impossibly small green buds

....delicate wild roses with darker pink buds - I expect to see a pretty flower fairy sitting with folded wings on each ephemeral collection of petals...

...more acquilegias showing off their amazing complex and beautiful scuptural forms

...I was lured by a delightful stall of flowers grown locally to buy a bag of goodies...and as it's flower day in the Moon Diary on Sunday will be out planting up hanging baskets and restoring planters from grey witheredness to full floriferality...

in our garden wild flowers mingle with their deliberately planted sisters...to some they may be 'weeds', to me they are beautiful gifts from Mother Nature...even the much affeared ground elder..what beautiful lush green-ness and lovely white flowers it brings....they say you can eat it but I haven't yet tried, I just know I can't battle with these plants, even bindweed has to have a say...it's a bit like dust and dirt and mess in the house, it's far more relaxing to be tolerant than to seek to control...um maybe a wee message for wo-mankind there....



 ....red campion in it's delightful pinkness and a single pink thanecetum... at least I think that's what the label said, if only I could find it...think big pink daisy instead...

and here's one we made earlier...

....and geraniums spreading everywhere in their glorious versatility in all shades and hues, such a forgiving plant as battered by rain and wind they rise up and grow profusely once more

...and the tall floating pincushions of scabious waving in the breeze, turning from green to pink, with such fine delicate stamens they seem to be made of light

so here's to more tidyingupness this coming week and even more joyful encountering in the garden flowering...ooh and don't forget Woolfest is coming (53 Cheers!)and that very self-same weekend perhaps a leetle trip may be undertaken in order to share in the arty craftyness of the Arnside and Silverdale Art Trail...maybe bribe and lure daughter and overworked husand with a relaxing trip to Leighton Moss RSPB reserve... and bird watching while I go off round the trail of lovelines and inspiration...bound to be tea and cakes too...

and maybe some snoozing in the sun...here's Neddy showing us how to relax amongst the buttercups....