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....

rest-oration....

how beautiful it is to do nothing...and then rest afterwards....

after a somewhat challenging fortnight... time for a leetle sofa therapy.... if a)I can find it under the teetering piles and b)get there before daughter esconces herself....and catch up with a week's viewing of the delights and floriferaliness of the Chelsea Flower Show - must put going there on my Wishful Thinkingness List (along with Slevedge Fair)...so inspiring and beautiful...fell in love with 'A Postcard from Wales' by Kati Crome and Maggi Hughes...it is a considerable relief to see that 'wild' gardening continues to be popular, as I look around our garden...which thrives on me doing nothing to it... with plants sorting themselves out and growing where they please and always room to squeeeeze just one more in....I like to think that our garden echoes the principles of William Robinson (see the RBC 'New Wild Garden by Nigel Dunnett) ...showing an 'ecological awareness with an artistic use of materials..... and a theme of sustainability'...so maybe not weeding or worrying is the way forward.... along with not hoovering in the house??

so here's a wee garden update... bit of a blue theme...till the pinks take over

the gorgeous blue of geraniums

the delicious creamy white lacy blossom of guelder rose

blueberries in waiting...

fabulous blue cornflowers

green and hairy poppy buds

tiny white flowered geranium, seeding itself everywhere

chives, grown for their flowers

 

fabulous alliums

spring brings aquilegias, as regular as clockwork

royal blues of more aquilegias...or Granny's bonnets

  

a group of elegant allium globes, rather tall... 

and....strange flower here...ok so the orchard gate isn't hen proof...

craftyness, busyness and happenings.....

where to start with the last week or so...crafty beginnings as a craft fair loomed on the horizon....getting closer and closer so it was off down to the studio at every spare moment...as the dust bunnies grew into monsters and the piles of clean washing massed encroachingly on every available chair...(at least it was clean....)

and then there's the news about Sally the goose.... turns out she's Brian the gander!! ...this may explain 'her' predilection for hissing and menacing your ankles.... ( well how would you like to be called a soppy old girls name like Sally when you're a red blooded male?? - Brian) 

had to take Bethany cat t'vets with a wounded horridness on her bottom ...probably a cat bite.... kept her in the kitchen for a week for lots of tender loving care and cuddles –  she got used to having the run of the house and lying in state on all the sofas while she got better.....and was restored to her full cattyfluffyness, bless her...

the next casualty was Emily hen, victim of 'Sally' ....who attacked her badly around her head and she was battered and couldn’t see, poor thing....so she was kept in the kitchen in the big box we keep for duck/hen/goose transportering.... and slowly she has recovered.....she is now outside in the wee hen run and all the other hens are out and about...and there is now a big new sheep wire fence down between geese and hens in the orchard ....like a sort of Berlin wall, minus the searchlights and guards.....we thought about sending Brian to a new home ... but this is where he lives now, we couldn’t bear to send him who knows where...so he’s our goose come what may...tho' maybe the solution is to teach him to read.....

then there was the night of the big storm...the sky loomed darker and darker and the rain came and forked and sheet lightening.... we watched from an upstairs window as the drama unfolded and the thunder rolled round the hills and the storm came closer...all very exiting...

things in the studio getting a leetle tense by now as craftyness enters a phase of frenzyness of cutting, sewing, finishing 8 things at once, labelling (first design then print your labels the night before and then ask husband at breakfast on the day of the show to cut 'em up... which he heroically did) as everything piles up everywhere and there definitely isn't anything for tea...wishing you had another week, collecting up paraphenalia galore and throwing it into the back and front and side and boot of the car and screeching off at high speed...

then the pleasure of arranging everything on a table in a local village hall...the craft fair is a lovely homely affair with some delightful arts and crafts, friendly makers and wonderful stalwart ladies of the WI making tea and cakes, not a whole lot of customers but made some splendid new maker friends....sharing ideas and swopping ‘how to makes’with kindred spirits is priceless...there are some talented people out there.....

the end result, love it! well worth the effort....must go for a lie down now...

and then there's the gorgeousness of other makers' work...it is the highest of compliments to say I wish I'd done that.....beautiful handmade books presented in deliciously crafted bags....loveliness and practicality in delightful colours...who could ask for more? Talented Mrs Hill.... and connect with printmaker and bookbinder Ian Hill in his delightful musings at Printedland 

and then a different feel again from the beautifully made embroidered rich silk handbags and hand knitted delightfully twirly and lacy scarves in jewel colours, together with jewellery all patiently created by the talented Jackie Farnworth....

it is so wonderful to see handmade and making is alive and vibrant, creativity is so many things, art, craft, printing, carving, painting, jewllery making, knitting, sewing....so many talents one small village hall....the pleasure in the making is even more so when someone else likes what you make.... 

...and finally, BIG studio news - after much debate and wheeling and dealing we are putting in underfloor heating and a heat pump so it will be so cosy and ever so very ‘green’ next winter!!! and I won’t need the gloves and woolly hat....just the small effort of clearing out my life’s work and all my fabric stash(!) and an odd collection of furniture and more....so we now can’t move up at the house.....and my nice clean white studio is full of black dust and the smell of plaster.... but it will so be worth it! Daughter has been 'out-messed' as there is nowhere to sit in the lounge and there are teetering piles of delicious fabriccy necessities and pretty items and what nots I can't possibly do without....

and the last word today is from Basil who simply wonders what all the fuss is about........biggest decision is whether to stay in in hope of more cuddles and a third breakfast, or to head for the big outdoors....

Mollie Makes ....

it better! Having had a whirly wild week or two, of which, more anon, it is soooo exiting and lovely to open a mysterious package brought to our postbox at the backdoor by our trusty postman .....and to find inside....the very FIRST issue of the delicious BRAND NEW Mollie Makes!! Huzzah for its twirly girly craftyness and light, bright and cheering colours and enticing pics and Makes and Makers and their scrumptious habitats and general gorgeousness! Am still lying down to recover from the sheer loveliness of the free gift and the feel of the paper and the smell of its newness and all the arty crafty yummyness.....

homemade....

for the Royal Wedding Tea...Ok not at Buckingham Palace but A Royal Wedding celebration tea at a friend's house.... with Royal Pink Blancmange and all the trimmings and lots of playing in the garden whilst Mothers of Offspring watched it all again....the marvels of digital recording .... we had a lovely day of Royal Weddingness.... PJ's on the sofa and full colour televisual watching and radio 4 listening around the house.... just waiting to see Her Royal Kateness and THAT DRESS (tho' husband resolutely went out to do important and essential things outdoors having no truck with such Royal flummery) with early afternoon teapartying in a Village Affair....it's like buses, you don't have a Royal Wedding Teaparty for years then three come along at once....

....home made by daughter with right Royal Icingness and handmade Rosy Decorationing...

aren't they gorgeous...almost too pretty to eat...

I was brought up on homemade everything....shopbought cakes were a luxury (and a treat!).... my Mum knitted and sewed for 4 children and helped my father run a business or two...  I don't know how she did it all....and my Granny sewed and made and baked ...so it is always a pleasure to make and bake myself (using Grannys' old scales and cake tins) and even better when daughter does it too....she has "cooked" since she sat in a high chair with a bowl of flour and a spoon at the end of the table where I made bread or cakes or prepared tea...when she was really small she sat in her little baby chair ON the table... it's a bit different now she is 13 and taller than me and much better and more imaginative at the cooking lark...somehow making food everyday (takes the edge of imaginitve cooking...especially when one would rather be sewing...or gardening ... or lying down ....or anything but making tea....please will someone tell me what IS for tea??...

buns...or do I mean 'cupcakes' awaiting the full on icing and decorating treatment then ...some eating....and then there is the case of the amazing strawbwerry pavlova in all it's mouthwatering meringue magnificence, recently witnessed at the homecoming of the 'birdwatching race' team (daughter plus 2 friends) who spotted a magnificent 45 birds within a 1 mile radius of home and spent all day from 5.30 am tracking down the various feathered species whilst travelling 12 miles on foot and by velocipede and raising a good sum for RSPB...very deserving of such delicacies....we will return to you 'hills of the north'.... 

ooh we do like friends and eating and sharing...

must just mention the joys of new red shoes for the spring - make me feel like skipping around...

....maybe I'll get to wear'em with the dress...yes, I win the bet cos I wore it! Not quite as Gokked but still brave!

Got to go now...time to make tea....