Camping fabric latest & other creations

It's always great to receive positive feedback for something you've designed or made, almost as good as making it.
Today was such a day, a lovely Spoonflower customer had bought some of my green vintage camping fabric and she sent me a link to her Etsy shop to see what she'd made.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/154147579/retro-green-overnight-weekend-bag-with

Isn't this fun, it's an overnight bag and it's so beautifully made. Thanks Theresa for sharing that with us.

The camping fabric has proved quite popular recently and I have released it in 2 new options, a smaller design of the brown colour and a retro pale blue colour. I think more colours may follow too.

I've been busy making things for galleries, I took a small delivery to Gallery 49 in Bridlington on Friday. One of my new makes was this fabric roll up pencil pouch. I created the base fabric by fibre felting onto an old woolly jumper and I built up layers of wool, tweed and machine stitching.

I was amazed to get a note from G49 to say they had sold it within 2 hours of me dropping it off, really delighted by that.

I also took a few of these brooches and I'm hoping to do a few more to show the Art & Rose Gallery in Pocklington.

Plus, these recycled wraps for tins to use as pencil pots went to G49 also.

Warning - great new fabric shop, Bridlington

Last week I found a 'new' craft and fabric shop in Bridlington, although the lady said she had been open for a few months so I'm surprised I hadn't spotted it before.
It may be because, in my humble design opinion, the shop sign doesn't do it much justice for the quality of stock inside. The shop is Daisy Crafts on Bridge Street and the logo is just a big clip art daisy which gives the impression of crafts or toys for children.

Anyway don't be fooled, once you venture inside you will find the most amazing and up to date selection of fabrics. She has all the groovy stuff that you would probably only find online, it is all nicely laid out in sections and there are pre cut fat quarters neatly arranged next to each section of fabric bolts.
She is concentrating on ordering the latest designs and has some exciting fabrics on order for Halloween and Christmas.

Also lots of lovely ribbons, buttons, embroidery threads etc. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the shop interior or exterior but I can show you a little bundle of FQ's I purchased (£2.95 ea). 
(one other thing, cash only, no credit card facilities at present).

(below) I also bought a few FQ's from the fabric shop in Harrogate last weekend, they are incredibly cheap at only £1.75 ea.

I'm currently busy making brooches but I am also on with some crocheting, this is a big chunky waistcoat for winter, it is coming along well and should be finished within the week, not bad going for me as I don't really crochet clothes.

Trips out in the sun - The Dutch House

What a glorious week it's been for weather and finally I feel summery, I have optimistically parceled into vacuum bags some winter jumpers and vests and got some summer shirts out. This should be a sound idea for a few weeks at least!!!

I have made the most of getting out and about with my little friend Bob.

Last weekend we visited The Dutch House, an interesting little wildlife garden, plant nursery and tea room in Yorkshire (not far from Castle Howard), and no clues for guessing it's run by a lovely Dutch couple!
You can find out more here:

http://www.dutchhouseyorkshire.com/

You can have a nice little walk around the grounds and see the sculptures and then head for a snack, Dutch pancakes a speciality but I felt it was a bit early for a juicy, sweet pancake so I opted for mushrooms on toast and we basked in the outside courtyard.

It was a Holland day when I visited so you could buy Dutch produce, salt licorice, a selection of cheeses and traditional cakes.

During the week I visited friends having an exhibition at the gallery in Bainton, that was another super hot day.

Yesterday we had a lovely afternoon in York, it was late in the day, still warm but pleasantly quiet as people went home after work, so very nice for pottering. Visited favourite coffee shops and today did another favourite coffee shop in Harrogate.

From the top pics are Spring Espresso and Bob looking at an iced coffee dripper experiment, The Attic with a delicious warm mozzarella wrap and bottom is Bean & Bud with a very tasty slice of dark choc tiffin.

Vintage Fair at Bridlington Spa

Thank you all for your concern over Bob in the last post and how he was looking a bit chilly. You will be pleased to know we visited the seaside again on Sunday and enjoyed wall to wall sunshine at the vintage fair in Bridlington. He certainly warmed his whiskers up!

Lovely old cars outside the front and a barrel organ to set the mood.

Inside the selection of stalls was great, obviously nowhere near the size of the York racecourse event but I was more impressed with the choice of stalls than the ones I've seen at the York city centre vintage events in recent times.

Vintage clothes are always quite expensive these days but I did find some well priced items and some of the Hornsea pottery was a realistic price too.

I treated myself to one or two little things, this is what I scooped up;
Quite a nice old tea towel, I like my vintage planes.

A pretty crinoline lady plate and some doillies.

A stall with a great selection of vintage children's hankies, I remember having some of designs on sale so I couldn't resist Pinky & Perky as I know I used to have this hanky.

Then I found a wonderful stall selling old beer mats and antique labels and advertising cards so I snapped up these which will work lovely in a forthcoming fabric design of more memorabilia.

And finally, I found these fabric samples which are lovely quality from a fabric book, quite big pieces the size of a fat quarter for a pound each.

That was my trip to the vintage fair.
Hope everyone enjoyed the sunshine as it seems to have vanished again!

A cold trip to the seaside

Bob and I had the pleasure of going to Hornsea on Monday as I had a dental appointment, I like going to the dentist as he's good fun, although it's tricky laughing when your mouth is clamped open!

We then went for a stroll on the prom although it was rather chilly and windy and difficult to believe it's late May. Some brave souls were on the beach with ice creams but we had a car picnic instead.

I hadn't been to the north end for a while so these were new to me, some sort of compartments with sensory gardens in them and wildlife information boards, I imagine quite nice on a sunny day.

Monday finished with our monthly networking group of ladies at the pub in Bishop Burton, lots of new faces so good to see numbers picking up.

Tuesday I went to the opticians, I don't like going to the opticians, not because of the optician who's different every time at Specsavers, I just don't like the eye tests, that puff of air gets me. It turns out I hadn't been for 5 years as they'd forgotten to send my reminder and I didn't think it was quite that long but it was.

I also find it very difficult to get used to new glasses, last time I opted for the second pair of sunglasses and another pair and basically I didn't wear them. I was convinced the prescription was different in the extra pairs although they said not when they tested them after I couldn't get used to them. It just means lots of money was wasted with 2 extra pairs I never used.

Anyway I spent almost 3 hours in there yesterday choosing frames, I wanted pretty much the same as I had got used to in shape so that I didn't have to spend ages choosing but things have changed such a lot and I've finally picked 2 fresh sets of frames. This Red or Dead one is going to be the main pair and then I went for a second pair of reactions.
Fingers crossed they are going to be ok.

A recent cakey offering!

I haven't had much to blog about recently, I seem to be busy with a number of work, play and life related projects at the moment but nothing yielding results just yet.

So it's a quick catch up with some cake. I made this cake the other week and I have called it my Vanilla Black cake, Vanilla Black was a wonderful veggie restaurant which used to be in York a few years ago but they relocated to London, boo hoo!

My cake consists of 2 sponges, done to a victoria sponge recipe.

They are sandwiched together with chocolate ganache, warmed cream with a good quality dark choc melted into it and beaten.

Next, mix up a bog standard vanilla buttercream icing and spread liberally on and around cake if you have plenty for the edges.

Next the fun bit, I've been wanting to try out a doily pattern for ages so I scattered cocoa through the holes and here it is.

I did share it with some family members as it was quite rich and it lasted a full week with small portions.

On a different subject, birdies.... they have returned, Ruby is back on the scene and hanging around for food again with her new man who I've named Ralph. He's a bit photo shy so no pic of him!

This year mr & mrs chaffinch are still around but new birdies on the block are tits, both blue and great. One chappie is rather cheeky and comes up to the window like Ruby and I've called him Graham the great tit.

Do excuse those disgusting window ledges, please bear in mind this is a rented house and my landlords do not seem to know the meaning of the word maintenance or how to offer a nice house for rent. Why give your tenants a nice house when they seem to put up with living in a hovel and still pay the extortionate rent! I never thought I'd be here this long is the answer to why I'm having to put up with these conditions.

There's been an overnight bunny tragedy. I saw the smallest baby bunnies I'd ever seen yesterday, their eyes were barely open so I'm guessing maybe only a day old. There were 4 or 5, some a bit weak and weedy and only 1 quite active one. Usually I see the mother come to them but they really did seem to be alone and stumbling around on the gravel parking area, no shelter, no grass to eat and no mother in sight. The area where the nest is was in a raised border and this is where they attempted to get back to last night but they were too small to jump up the little raised wall into the border. Loathed to intervene incase the mother returned and our scent was on them, we made a small ramp up the wall in the hope they would crawl back up. 
The last I saw at dusk was the weakest bunny struggling to walk as if it's legs were not formed properly, the others went in a corner out of my view, I thought an owl or weasel may come for them overnight.
This morning when I went outside I found the smallest one which was not a surprise were it had last been but I was horrified to find the other 4 all dead in a huddle near to my car. I guess they had starved and frozen overnight, it was such a sad sight but this must be a case of the mother completely abandoning them for some reason. Nature can be cruel, unfortunately for me it goes hand in hand with the bad vibes I feel living in this place, I just don't like being exposed to this as it puts me on a real downer.

So I think this brings me full circle to the point I need to make a weekend cake to cheer myself up. It will be courgette lemon cake with cream cheese frosting.

Have a good weekend folks!

A design which has evolved into a skirt

Way back in 2009 or '10 when I was on the textile course, I doodled some plant like ideas using Honesty Pods as the theme. These became a stitched piece of textile imagery using threads, sheer fabrics and solufleece, see below

From here I then turned the work into a digital format which I made into a repeating pattern, see below

I'm not convinced that the repeating pattern was terribly easy on the eye and therefore I didn't develop it further but I did still like the overall feel of the Honesty Pod imagery.

So, last autumn I approached Skye Batiks with a slightly simplified version and said they could use it if they thought it would work printed in the batik style. 
To my delight they said yes and hoped it would turn into something for this years collection.

And here we are, only about 6 months later since the batik artists got hold of it and worked their magic, my design has evolved into a range of wrapover skirts in many colours. Last week I was over the moon to receive the purple and blue skirt you see in the photo.

Beautiful quality as always, thanks Skye Batiks.

http://www.skyebatiks.com/