Illustration, The Universe and Everything

I'm really enjoying the freedom of this past week. No deadlines, no one to please but myself, no artist's block. I've mainly been spending my time out in the garden - check out our house blog for recent activities - and demolishing the awful panelling that covers the majority of the downstairs walls thus:





I've also been working on knitting up a stripy monster to my own pattern. Here he is so far:



He could do with a bit more stuffing, I think. He's going to have googley eyes on stalks and, of course, he still needs arms and a mouth. I've never really come up with my own pattern before. I mean, it's a pretty basic shape, but the planning of it all is so much fun. I hope to sell these guys - providing I make some more! - on my soon-to-be-made etsy shop. I actually quite fancy the idea of writing and illustrating a toy monster pattern book. How cool would that be?

Lovely Jon and I went up to Lobbs Farm Shop this afternoon and picked up a few goodies. I came across these stunningly packaged biscuits made by Artisan Biscuits:



They also had boxes with The Hare and The Tortoise and The Lion and The Mouse on. I'm going to try to collect the set. Yummy, yummy, yummy, and I haven't even tried the biccies yet.