Kusudama flowers

One of my favourite blogs to visit is TDoesWool. I'm no kind of knitter, but the photographs are always subtle and delightful, the posts generous and thought-provoking and my lack of knitting prowess is no handicap to enjoying it. A recent post was about kusudama flowers, linking back to another lovely blog, twoandsix, where there are yet more links to sites which offer the instructions for making these little paper flowers from book pages.

Despite the fact that I am generally fairly impatient, I did obey the instructions to wait until the glue was dry (sigh) on each 'petal' and was glad. I made a couple of flowers from some lovely soft old faded paper from a wrecked French novel that I've had for years (tried to read it - lost patience). Another one is a page from the Daily Express Community Song Book of 1926 - the songs are mostly so xenophobic and un-pc that they shouldn't really see the light of day! While the glue was drying (more sighing) I made some stalks for them out of rusty wire, twisted here-and-there to look like tendrils.

If you've got ten minutes to fill, I'm sure you would really enjoy making one of these little flowers - you might want to try using more colourful paper than I did and have a vase-full of blowsy blooms on your work table. Oh go on, have a go!

Lavender-Limbs Kitty

Well, I eventually went back to finish off Kitty after the monotony of turning her skinny arms and legs inside out and stuffing them with lavender buds.

As you can see, she's off on a picnic.And she's remembered her pocket handkerchief ...

She can hang from a hook, so if you pinch her knees as you go by you are followed by a wonderful lavender aroma.

Next one's going to have really chubby arms and legs, let me tell you!

Merry Wives

Oh I've been looking forward to this for ages! Tonight we're going with some friends to one of the productions in the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival - The Merry Wives of Windsor. The festival lasts for a few weeks and the plays are all performed in the university's college gardens. Merry Wives will be in the Fellows' Garden at King's College, usually out-of-bounds to the hoi-polloi! I just love a bit of outdoor Shakespeare, there's something even more magical about the story unfolding as the evening falls.

Though now I think about it, there was the occasion, a July night, when things weren't quite so idyllic. We went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in our local park - little fairy creatures were lolling in the branches of lantern-lit trees, scattering us with petals as we strolled towards the amphitheatre, full of anticipation and excitement for the evening ahead.

Unfortunately the wind suddenly got up. Just as Oberon was transporting us with,

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine
There sleeps Titania .....

I let out a blood-curdling Lady Macbeth-type scream as the No Smoking sign flew through the air and struck me a fierce blow on the head.

Don't worry, I've checked the weather forecast - the omens are good for a calm evening.

What are you doing this weekend? Enjoy yourselves, whatever it is!

down the garden

Great to be able to walk down the garden this morning without sou'wester and galoshes.

The (torrential) rain yesterday has left everything a bit drippy and puddles have gathered in anything up-turned.

Leaves are shiny.

Not all the strawberries made it back down the garden path .....

Sweetcorn - one day.

Fannie hunting for worms.

Purple-podded beans.

I felted a mouse

Before you all complain about my grammar, I have felted a mouse! Needle-felted, in fact. I think his nose needs to be a bit more pointy and maybe have a little pink tip on it - we'll see. I was stabbing away at this little critter in bed last night, which is not the ideal place to have long sharp needles, is it? He's not the main event, however, just a little accessory for a more major 'oeuvre' - lavender cat.

That's one of those projects that you begin to wish you'd never started. I wanted long skinny legs on her. I make Christmas angels with the same kind of limbs, in calico, shove a bit of dowel up inside the tube and, whoosh, everything's right way round. This kitty is made from vintage Irish linen, rescued from antimacassars, and the legs and arms were a divvil to turn the right way round. Dowel, knitting needles, nothing doing, so it was millimetre by millimetre with the tweezers. But the patience required for that was nothing compared with what was needed when it came to stuffing them with lavender buds. Who's idea was that, anyway!! So, for the moment, kitty is lolling on my steam-powered Singer until my patience tanks are refilled. Whatever - she smells great!

Carpe diem

The rain is thrashing against the windows, the wind is blowing, the sky is leaden grey - it must be August in UK. So I'm putting up some photos of last month's roses, just to cheer us all up and as a reminder that we did have some warmth and blue skies. I do hope we see some more sunshine before the summer is out.
The calendar is filling up with weekend activities and commitments going into September and October and I'm busy making things for Christmas, so the year seems to be whizzing by.

So, whatever the weather, let's make the most of every day.

jumping for joy!

Hope you have a joyful weekend!