York fabric printed

I think the York fabric was one of the most time consuming I've created, what with all the individual illustrations but I have some printed samples and I'm happy with the result. There are fat quarters and a teatowel which I had samples printed of.

I have the fat quarters packed and ready to go, might see if I can get any interest at a fabric or gift shop in York before I list in my shop.

My fabric to celebrate the wonderful city of York

Here's a project which I got stuck into rather last minute and I've been beavering away creating digital illustrations for the last few days.

I spotted a fabric design competition on PrintMePretty to design a fabric to illustrate 'My Town', in my case I've taken that to mean my favourite local place which is York.

This has been a great excuse to do some illustrations which may have use in other projects too.

King's Sq below

The legend that is Guy Fawkes!

Bootham Bar

You can't mention York without thinking of it's chocolate heritage!

The city walls

There are a few more illustrations of notable landmarks which I have now thrown together to create my York fabric for the competition.

It looks like this, the white background version is the one I have entered. If you felt inclined to fancy voting for my design I believe there are 2 ways to do it, either by leaving a comment on the PrintMePretty blog post when it goes live in a couple of days and you would find the blog page from this link

http://www.printmepretty.co.uk/

Or the other way is to look up the Print Me Pretty page on Facebook and when they show the designs in a couple of days you can like the ones you fancy :)

I created some different colour versions in small and large repeats. I'm thinking the pink one might make a fun table cloth in a vintage style tea shop in York.

Not the summer I had planned & open to improvement!

I'm sure in the months to come I will look back at this summer and notch it up as one of my worst. At the moment I'm just plodding through it as best I can. Since losing my Gran my OH has been ill and my dad has been ill and then fell and made the existing problems 10 times worse.

I've just reached the end of the week which saw me being a taxi service transporting OH and dad to 5 different hospital and doctors appointments between them. I had absolutely dreaded taking my dad to hospital because there's the hassle of parking and hardly ever any spaces and then I have the joy of searching for a wheelchair to get him inside. On one occasion I was very lucky as an ambulance man assisted with the wheelchair pushing. We went to another hospital the next day and the lifts were a nightmare, it's like a scrum to get in and out, rather like getting on a London tube.

Anyway the end of this difficult week has arrived and generally things are picking up for the poorly ones however my dad will be going for an operation next week which my sister will come over for and organise. Hopefully that will be the start of getting him mobile again.

We got finished at hospital early one day and that meant I could take advantage of a stroll in the sun around the Sunk Island area and along the bank of the Humber where I used to go gathering samphire as a kid.

Cow parsley and teasels at Sunk Island.

A random gate by a field side at Sunk Island (a lonesome gate to a field of dreams)

My route home took me via a new craft outlet at Hornsea Freeport, it was definitely worth a look as they have some great fabric at low prices and pretty much loads of other stuff for sewing, knitting, crochet, felting etc.

I bought a few nice fat quarters.

Not that I'm finding much time at the moment to do anything creative, doing normal work is a task in itself.

I think in the last 5 weeks, other than my taxi-ing duties & school day we've only been out twice, managed a stroll along the walls in York last weekend.

Then last night we went for tea in Scarborough with the little furry friend to Eat Me Cafe. This is called a tin plate feta and walnut salad, it arrives quite quirky wrapped in paper, chased by a slice of key lime pie :)

I'm not sure which street we parked down but Scarborough does have a lovely mish mash of architectural styles as you wander around. I hadn't noticed this wonderful Gothic looking place before.

Next week I will catch up with some work and then hopefully I might have chance to visit the Driffield Show on Wednesday if everything is ticking along ok.

Have a nice weekend :)

Rendezvous with The Waterboys - York Barbican

Went to see one of my favourite bands last week (6th), The Waterboys who returned to York.
The support guy, Freddie Stevenson was pretty good.

Was very excited to enjoy another couple of hours with The Waterboys although I have to say the sound quality on the night was a little over loud to the level of sounding muffled and blurry. I know it's not me just getting old because I've seen them at this venue before and couldn't fault the sound but this time something was different, either the way the roadies were mixing it or the amplifier was cranked up too high. Shame as the guys seemed to be having a ball and giving it their all as usual.
Don't get me wrong though I thoroughly enjoyed it.

They had a new guy on keyboards, Brother Paul from Nashville, he was quite a dude in his white 1970's flared suit and purple velvet cap.

Some pics

A busy weekend for me

It's quite unusual these days for me to do something Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, but it was just such a weekend.

Friday night I went to the Moonbeams Festival at Wold Top Brewery.

I think I may have previously mentioned that one of my favourite groups were playing, the Peatbog Faeries, and this was my first time seeing them live.

Here we are just as the sun was setting heading into the big top stage and we caught the act prior to the Peatbogs, another Scottish group Breabach who were very good.

Shame about the quality of my photos but they are purely to remind myself of the fantastic evening.

Top photo below is Breabach followed by pic of Peatbogs.

They were absolutely brilliant and everything I hoped they would be. I'm putting a link to their closing track on the night, if you don't like Celtic fiddle, pipes, techno trance music then probably best you don't click the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkhHVzCBhRs

Super evening, a magical little festival and a very late night.

Saturday and lack of sleep meant for a later trip to York than planned for the Ukulele Festival. Arriving at 4pm meant I'd pretty much missed all the action in the street and I would've been too tired to go into the evening for the uke open mic sessions in the pubs.

Still, I managed a nice snack in The Attic and this is the view from there into Kings Square.

Sunday was the Sledmere House car boot sale, it's usually very good for vintage and antique finds so I decided to make the effort. Oh dear, I'd only been there for about 20 mins when it decided to chuck it down, what a shame for the stall holders some of which were prepared for the rain, others just left their stuff to the elements.

The quality of stalls and items was not nearly as good as previous years and with the weather quite a few packed up at lunch time so it was all a bit disappointing.

Very little Hornsea Pottery this year, only really saw this which is a design called Seasons from about 1991.

Busy week ahead, new projects on the horizon.

Yellow bikes at Tour de France Grand Depart

You've probably heard that Yorkshire was hosting the Grand Depart for the Tour de France this year and now we've reached Sunday evening it's clear to see it has been a huge success with bigger crowds than I think they expected.

The race was whizzing through York this morning and we ummed and aahed on Friday evening as to whether it would be worth getting up at the crack of dawn to try and see some action. The road and travel reports were giving the impression that most of the route areas would be in lock down for the 2 days so we decided to avoid and watch on telly. Lets face it, I don't like huge crowds and I would not have managed to get to the front to see anything so I think it was the best decision.

Instead we had a lovely stroll around York on Saturday evening to look at the trimmings although I have to say it didn't look as well decked as Harrogate. Here are some of the pics I got, unfortunately I didn't walk by Cliffords Tower and on TV today it looked lovely with bunting around the top.

I did enjoy the aerial views on TV showing many sights I recognised.

The bit that annoys me is over enthusiastic spectators getting in the way of the cyclists, patting them and running alongside, Grrrrrr! Just get out of the way and let them get on with the job.

So pleased the weather was kind and there's been a real buzz all week.

Back to reality and it's chucking it down here this evening :(

York Festival of Vintage

I made it to the Festival of Vintage yesterday. I ummed and aaahed whether to go or was I too busy this year, the weather was not encouraging me to go either as it rained all the way but I threw caution to the wind and went. All wrapped up for a chilly day and no sooner had I parked up and walked across a field to the racecourse and it stopped raining!

I always have a quick look at the vehicles before I go inside and I spotted these lovely vintage caravans and vans.

Off we go inside and the retro displays of loveliness never fail to delight me in reminiscing of old pieces of furniture we had when I was a kid. The little coffee tables with spiky legs, those sideboards with formica tops and sliding louvre style doors.

I then start to spot Hornsea Pottery on stalls and given that I have a bit of knowledge on the value of some of the pieces, they are very highly priced at this event. If anyone is ever on the lookout for Hornsea Pottery at a sensible price the place to go is Hornsea Freeport Nostalgia Day, Aug 25th, '14.

These Bronte storage jars were about £10 - £12 each which is quite high, 4 Heirloom eggcups were £10, also a bit high.

Next we have the black and yellow Hornsea Elegance cruet set, not sure of the total price.

Moving on I found this wonderful stall with some Scandinavian pots, out of my price range!

I loved this next stall, everything was just so groovy, colourful and flower powery and I could've bought any number of things.

There was a Festival of Britain book on this stall, another era of design which I am particularly interested in.

And look at the typewriters, makes my fingers sore just looking at them as I think back to learning typing at school!

I was very restrained with my buying as I was mainly browsing, here's what I got, a tiny little brass brooch with mosaic bits, I need to restore a few missing bits but I liked it for £3.

Only one piece of fabric bought, it's 1960's kitchen cotton and quite a nice size bit.

And for my last picture, embroidered linen. I found one very reasonably priced stall with all their embroidered tray covers £1 each.
A lovely inspiring trip out as always.