End of July roundup - creations and trips out

August already and I'm noticing the shorter days and I feel like I haven't done much creative work recently so I just looked back to my photos and found a few bits I'd done in July.

Made a few more lavender wands.

I very quickly (hence the hand scribbled look) knocked up this 'transport' theme fabric design for a competition Print Me Pretty are having next week, I've called the design Motoring Sing a Long as I've popped some song titles onto the design. I've snook my own car on there and a few classic shapes, I always wanted a Citroen 2CV or a Morris Minor van so they are on but I did have an old purple Mini Clubman van at one stage which I loved, I realise now that I like vans better than cars!

I had some designs printed on to thick canvas as I'm making some mini messenger bags although they will probably be a bit more simple and like cross body purses when I get chopping and sewing.

That is the current creative doings.

It's fairly quiet on the wildlife front here, most of my bird friends have moved on or cleared off for a few months to do whatever they do before returning for food in winter. I only see one robin now and again.
However we did have something exciting a fortnight ago, a family of shrews. It was as if they had just popped out of the nest for the first time, tiny little velvety things sniffing around and hiding in the dead leaves. They were quite unafraid of us and standing on the patio they would run around your feet before taking cover again. You need to look closely on these pics as they were amongst a pile of rubble and wouldn't stay still for long. 
We had about 7 of them scurrying all over for a few hours one afternoon and the next day they were gone as quickly as they appeared, never to be seen again.

The strange summer weather has not made it very appealing for evening strolls this year. Probably only been out about 3 times but here are a few pics of Flamborough Head the other week and the lovely wild weeds and grasses.

My sister has been back in the country for a week doing some more hospital runs with my dad so we took her out for the day on Saturday for a change of scenery and some tea and cake! Our trip was not very far away, just over the Humber Bridge.

We went to the Ropewalk Gallery at Barton, it's always a nice place to have a potter around and enjoy the lovely treats in the cafe. New to me this time was a little sculpture garden with some of my favourite sculptural plants, the sea hollies and grasses and not sure what these quite vivid purple pods were.

I hope everyone has a lovely August and it turns out to be a good late summer.

Saturday was a good day

I think the measure of whether my days are good or bad has a lot to do with the weather one way or another. 
Saturday was good and it was beautiful weather, today is bad, it has been raining all day and I'm suffering from cold hands and feet and it's miserable here. If I could sit my computer and desk in front of the aga then I'd benefit from a bit of heat but I'm having a cold reminder today of how bad this draughty bedroom of an office is when no sun is out and it's wet and windy.

Anyway lets relive that nice day on Saturday. 
I went over the Humber Bridge to Barton, now that bridge fee has gone down to £1.50 a journey I had been looking forward to doing this trip on a fine day.

The destination was The Ropewalk, museum, gallery, workshops etc. I didn't realise it was an Open Studios weekend (and also next weekend) but that added to the pleasure of wandering around the gallery and visiting some of the artists in their studios.

I went to see Wendy Chan who is a lady I did a fabric workshop with a couple of years ago, Wendy was demonstrating some simple screen printing which caught my attention. She insisted I had a go even though I was happy watching but anyway I scribbled down a quick bird design and cut out a template. Within minutes I had a print and then we did a second onto a canvas bag, it was brilliant, I was very impressed and pleased with my result.

Visited another lady doing pretty textiley things and she had an interesting business name, Pampootie, she told me where she's from in the west of Ireland it's the name for a slipper, an ancient shoe. Most interesting, she is just developing her website.

http://pampootie.co.uk/

After tea and cake and more artists studios we went for a wander at the nature reserve by the Humber bank in Barton and here are some sunny pictures, it was lovely and warm.

From the nature reserve we drove to Thornton Abbey which would also have been nice for a wander however it was no longer free entry. Not that I want to sound like a cheap-skate because I am pleased funds are being taken for the upkeep of such a great place, but time was of the essence and I've been so many times before that on this occasion I gave it a miss.

The other place I wanted to revisit, and these are all places I used to visit regularly when I lived over there, was Julians Bower which is an ancient turf maze. The maze is in the village of Alkborough which over looks the Humber, the maze is maintained by volunteers. It was smaller than I remember but interesting non the less.

That brings us to the end of our trip over the Humber!