Colour at Kew...

...and A Bit of a Ramble.

Yesterday, Husband and I took a day trip to Kew Gardens. While we were on holiday in Cornwall, we visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan and joined up to their "Friends" scheme which allows not only unlimited entry to Heligan, but Kew and Wakehurst, too. So, I booked the afternoon off work and we went to take advantage of our deal.

We took the train up and walked over the Thames from Kew Bridge station; there are some FAB houseboats on the river there. I'd been to Kew a couple of times while at uni to do location drawing, but that was eight or nine years ago now. (Eek!) I'd never really walked around the grounds, having just headed straight for the glasshouses, and I'd also never noticed Newens just outside Victoria Gate on Kew Road. Wow, that's all I can say. It was a definite Day Off From the Diet.

So we had a lovely wander about, went up the slightly scary Treetop Walkway, and I took a few pictures, including some of glorious fallen leaves:

 

After that, we bused it on the no.65 to Kingston, where I took Husband for a gander at my old campus. From the outside it looks pretty much the same, but we sneaked in for a look at the new and swanky reception and art shop area and what was the canteen but is now some kind of creative communal space just right for brainstorming and the like. Flash. We had an early dinner at Byron Burger (oops, off the diet again; I sidestepped the Skinny burger this time AND I had an Oreo milkshake), and then a rather wobbly and full look around John Lewis. LOVE that place. We were just heading back on the train and changing at East Croydon when I jokingly said "Let's go to Ikea!" "Alright then," says Husband. "What, seriously?" says I. "Yup," he says. So off to Ikea we went. We're SO rock 'n' roll on a Friday night.

We got in after eleven hours out and about. Suffice to say, I was cream crackered and pretty much just fell into bed; it was INCREDIBLY hard to get up for library work this morning! But it was a lovely day off and I got to walk about in my favourite type of weather in my favourite season; it was worth the journey just for that.

And I suppose the company was pretty good, too!

Work Has FINALLY Begun on the Xmas Card...

Yesterday I Bought...

 

...a Ukulele. Yeah, I'm cool.

I don't really have any idea what I'm doing, but I'm keen to learn! It's a cheapish beginner model (in gorgeous powder blue, no less. I did want yellow, but they were out of that colour) which suits me fine at the moment. I want to change the strings for some of higher quality, though, and I've been wading my way through this fab site here. My goal is to have some quality Xmas tunes ready for the festive season!

I'm nowhere near this standard (and probably will never be!), but check out this video:



Awesome.

End of Week 42

Ten weeks of the year left. Eek!

Sunset, The Beach, 5.59pm Today

Another Folksy Friday

Check it out, this 'ere print:

...is in a Folksy Friday blog post here. Thanks to Sam of The Simple Melody.

I Haz Been Dyeing

Thanks to Jan for providing the venue, the colours and the photos. I duz heart her.

End of Week 41

We Woz 'Ere

Kate Nash, De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill, 4th October. We were sensible (old) people and sat up in the balcony, though.

Awesomeness Itself

AMAZING new Michael Miller fabrics, courtesy of Lovely Sam. Cheers, chuck! The tractor driving bunny is my fave:

Check it Out!

My Wolf print is mentioned on a Folksy Friday today. Kellie from It's The Little Things has put together a lovely Little Red Riding Hood- themed treasury on her blog which includes my Wolf print. There are some lovely things in there. Go see here.

I like this necklace by Penny Masquerade:

Awesome.

Signs of Approaching Autumn III

Tights! In funky colours!

(They look a bit mustardy here, but, believe me, they are YELLOW.)

Never mind the approach of autumn, it's here good and proper. After the past few days of dismal cloud and rain, today was my favourite kind of autumn day: bright and ever so slightly crisp. Not cold enough for a coat, but definitely nippy enough for a cotton scarf.

You won't have noticed it from the picture above, but I've faffed around with that particular dress. Here it is in its original state:



And after I tweaked it a bit:

I found that I had made the neck elastic far too short in the original, so I was forever tugging the neckline down, which meant the waist line kept dropping, too, until it was at a really unflattering height and just made the hemline look dowdy. So, I chopped a inch or two off the bodice, stuck in a channel for a belt, and sewed the skirt back on. Then all I had to do was change the elastic in the neck casing for a longer piece. Et voila. Much more flattering, I think. I may do the same on my green, polka-dotted dress, too. The belt, as in my red dress, is just a length of bias binding sewn together. I have tonnes of the stuff knocking around, so I may make belts in other colours. I do love grey paired with pink, yellow or red. Yum.

Saintly vs Sinful

 

Yep, that's a chocolate scone there. From a lovely place called Schooners right on St. Agnes beach at Trevaunance Cove. The chef had "discovered" them that morning. They were served with clotted cream and Nutella. Genius. (In our defence, we did share it as it was the size of my head. Seriously.)

And a fruit salad comprising of figs, blackberries and redcurrants. There's got to be some balance somewhere, right? What's even more angelic of me is that just before said breakfast I'd been for a swim in the open air pool at the campsite. Me. Swimming. Outside. At 8.45am. In late-ish September. I know! I swear it was still summer in Cornwall.

End of Week 40

Eek! Week 40!
Really don't like this one. Sorry, Mr. Royal. It's mainly because the punctuation is incorrect, you know.

Mousehole

One of my fave places in Cornwall, a couple of miles from Penzance. You pronounce it as one word; "Mowzall". It was the only place I found the Malty Mystery flavour of Roskilly's ice cream. (Vanilla with malt and Malteasers). Yum. We had fabulous fish and chips (and said yummy ice cream) on the harbour side there on the last day of our holiday.

End of Week 38 and 39

Annnnd We're Back!

Well hello!

We are back from our travels and trying to acclimatise back into B&H life, wash five mountains of laundry and catch up with the 277 emails in my inbox. Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post and for the cards we've been sent. Here are a few more photos, then I'll leave it alone as the whole girly-scream-oh-I-have-elbows-weddings-blah-cake-dress-flowers ick is the main reason we didn't go for all that in the first place:

I'm working my way through my New Forest/Cornwall photos and will put a few up when they're suitably fiddled with, and I have a couple of calendar pages to catch up on. Plus, I'm sending out my new postcard this week and I have step-by-step snapshots of how I put it together to share, which is interesting for me as a documentary of how I work at the moment (or even just how I worked on that particular day), but I hope won't be really dull for you!

I also am trying VERY hard to forget about the two weeks of sugar/carbohydrate overload. The two or three ice creams a day are especially proving difficult to get over. Back to the good diet 100% now.

Honest.

An Announcement

We got married yesterday.

End of Week 37

Zipperdeedoodah

Another project to share. After umm-ing and ahh-ing for weeks about what to get, I finally decided to make a set of three different sized zippy pouches for my friend Sally (the one who's off on the year-long round-the-world trip who we are not jealous of at all) for her leaving present. I thought they'd be small and light and practical at the same time:









The fabrics are either from my stash, or ones lovely people gave me for my birthday. I think all of them came from the fabulous Fabric Rehab. I think I'm finally happy with the outcome of these. The best tutorial I've found is this one (although obviously I miss out the clear pocket part), and I use fusible interfacing ironed on to the reverse of the outer fabric, and a heavy weight sew-in interfacing sandwiched between the outer and inner fabrics. Nice and sturdy without being too thick and cumbersome. LOVE these. Think many a Crimbo present may have one of these in there somewhere this year.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Phew!

Well, it's been all go here over the past couple of weeks. Deadlines out the wazoo, birthdays, sorting holidays, library work..... This morning is a fairly quiet one so I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog while I could and share a few things I've been working on lately.

Here's my latest dress:

The fabric is from the Sussex Beacon charity shop on George Street, Hove, who have been selling LOADS of fabric recently. I believe at the moment they are offering the fabrics for half price. Anyhoo, it's pretty similar to the other dresses I have made; slightly more empire line, though, and with a channel put in under the bust to make a housing for a simple belt (it's just 2m of black bias binding sewn flat). I also put in slightly more flowing sleeves gathered with elastic at the cuffs. I'm just off to a leaving do in this photo (hence the slightly pants evening light). One of the ladies I work with has just gone off on a year-long round-the-world trip. I'm not at all jealous.

And here are a few sketches and colour samples and the like from projects I've been working on:





It's strange, I always think I've done no work whatsoever, but, actually, looking though the stuff I've been working on recently, there's really quite a bit. I can't really share more of it, though, until it's out in the Big Wide World. My new postcard came though this week, but I'll share that once I've sent it out, which won't be until the end of the month.

We're off on our hols from Tuesday, so blogging will be pretty non-existent for two weeks. I hope the weather stays fine for us, especially as we're camping! I do love the onset of autumn, though. My absolute favourite time of year. I have bought pretty much all of my autumn/winter wardrobe already (can't resist new knits in the shops!), although I'm sure I'll make myself a few wintery dresses as the season progresses. There is a definite autumn smell in the air, though, and it's amazing how quickly it's getting dark already. After the hols, I'm starting a 10-week book-binding course which I'm really looking forward to. And then there are more birthdays, more deadlines, and Christmas (eek, the C-word) to look forward to. Sigh. I do like being busy, though. Good job, really!!

End of Week 36

Signs of Approaching Autumn II

Conkers:

Sunset, 8.01pm Today

Open Market Haul

I got this bunch of lovelies for the grand total of a fiver from the Open Market yesterday. I've washed them since, but aren't they yummy yum yum even as they are? They've been added to my rapidly increasing china collection.