A Jolly Good Time

It was my birthday last week. I was twenty six. Twenty Six! I don't know where the years are going anymore, and yes I am probably too young to say that.

So to celebrate this momentous event me and my other half took a trip to the big smoke for 3 days. It was fun I can tell you! These chap on the left are currently floating about Carnaby Street watching over some very crazy christmas shoppers! We popped there first on Thursday for some slipper buying in Muji and Droplet buying in Playlounge (will take a pic of the Droplet soon)

Next stop was a spin on the London Eye. There is a picture of that too. We checked to see what time sunset would be and booked our 'flight' accordingly. It was amazing. The sun set behind big ben and moved further down the sky as we got further round the Eye. You can see for miles and miles, I spent much of the time pointing to sites and being in complete awe!



Most of the pictures we took were on the eye but there are a couple more I'd like to show you. We spent the next day in the shops in Covent Garden and Marylebone High Street and Goodge Street. We began with a cup of tea and piece of cake, or coke and mince tart in Chris' case, in Paperchase. Lots of lovely Christmas decorations and art goodies later we went to Habitat and Chris got sucked into Heals and couldnt get out. Then Marylebone High Street for lunch with our Flo, a trip to a wonderful bookshop who's name I don't know and a quick but productive visit to Cath Kidston occured of course. Then Covent Garden for geeky design shops, a cuppa and home for a nap and out again to see Sigur Ros.

They were amazing. The crowd was a very mixed bag, old and very young and everything in between. It rained indoors from their lighting rig which they projected videos onto. It was outstanding, apart from the venue. Do not go to Alexandra Palace!




Saturday started slowly with another trip to Heals, and then a walk to Russell Square to see an exhibition of tapestries made by some rather well known artists. It's a very small show called Demons, Yarns & Fairytales, but worth a look! There's some great stuff there and The Dairy is a good gallery space. And finally, one of my highlights of the trip, Persephone Books.

There is is, Persephone books. The most wonderful little bookshop that sells plain bound dove grey books that have gone out of print and they reprint specially, with a beautiful printed paper inside and matching book marks. The shop had stacks of books wrapped in brown paper, some fabric, mugs, postcards and beautiful wartime posters on the walls. It was delicious. A brief trip to a wonderful shop, and one of my favourite parts of out trip.

Oh and I must not forget, we went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for dinner and Chris had a Buffalo Burger which was, in his words 'the greatest burger he has ever had' and it tasted 'like really beefy beef' It was good!

Goods and Wares

Yesterday I visited the Remnant Shop in Felixstowe, if you know Suffolk you will know how wonderful a place the Remnant Shop is. To the left is my haul. Not just for the sake of it like most visits to fabric shops! For example last week's trip to Quilter's Haven in Wickham Market where I bought a knitting pattern book, two metres of Amy Butler fabric which I have no plan for and some beads!

Anyway, back on track, I bought the fabrics to the left with the intention of making it into things to sell on Etsy. If I can ever sort that out, it should be easy, but I have a Maestro card and you can't use it with Etsy so now i'm trying to arrange another one to pay my earnings into!

I have, however, already been making some things that are ready to be listed as soon as I get my account up and running. So here's a few pics of my goods.

Brooches made of handmade felt, machine and hand embroidered.

Turkey

I had two days in between coming back from Latitude and flying to Turkey for 5 days in a villa in Fethiye. In those 3 days I managed to pass my theory test with flying colours and find out i'd passed my PGCE. Awesome!

We went out for dinner by the beach and harbour each night. This is the view from the restaurant where we ate on the first night.

It was HOT! When I say hot I mean 44-45 degrees! Can you beileve it?! Luckily what people say about it being a different kind of heat is entirely true. It is just hot it isn't sticky or humid and so I could deal with it easily. Shockingly! I did say when I found out that it had been 44 degrees that really I should be dead hehe. Luckily there was a pool at the villa which we spent a lot of time in and the villa had air conditioning. It's only now i'm back in Blighty that I realise how hot it was even at 8 in the morning.

Latitude

Two weeks ago Chris and I went to Latitude festival near Southwold in Suffolk. Southwold by the way, if you didn't already know, is where our dear Prime Minister is taking his summer hoiidays. If you know Southwold you should agree with me that he does not deserve to spend his holidays in beautiful Southwold!! Anyway, Latitude is a festival that is not just music. They have several music stages, a comedy tent, a literary tent, a poetry tent, a music and film tent, a cabaret tent AND a Radio 4 tent! Brilliant!

There I am at the train station rooting through my backpack cos the electric pump for our airbeds had got turned on. Chris found this very funny.

The highlight of the weekend was Sigur Ros on the main stage on Saturday night. They were absolutely mind blowingly amazing. Just stunning. They're string quartet backing group Amiina looked beautiful with sparkling batwinged smocks and sparkling leggings and huge pom pom headpieces. I plan to recreate a few of those! Other highlights were The Early Edition with Marcus Brigstock and guests in the Literary tent. Death Cab for Cutie on the main stage, Joanna Newsom on the main stage on Sunday lunchtime. I fell in love with her! and seeing The Now Show live on Thursday night.


I also have to mention drinking Pimms by the river whilst sitting in a deckchair made for two. Wonderful! Lot of Aspalls Suffolk Cyder from limited edition Latitude glasses and Lykke Li. She was great in the Sunrise Stage in the woods.

Strawberry Fields

This is my strawberry plant just moments ago when i took off the little net curtain skirt it was wearing. A bird ate my first strawberry that was ripening nicely and as i didn't have a piece of net big enough for the whole plant i skirted up the stalks where the fruit would grow. I hadn't looked up it's skirt for quite some time so imagine my delight when I uncovered that lot!


I went out to construct this piece of architectural beauty. Obviously I should've trained as an architect.

~sigh~ delightfulness

I spend a lot of my time saying words like 'wonderful loveliness' and 'yumminess' and 'niceness' and the title of this post 'delightfulness'. I think most of my life revolves around finding things that mean I can use those words. And just now I had the reason to use one again, poor old Chris will have to endure a whole hour of Gardener's World tonight because it IS delightfulness. Yum.



This is a picture I took in the garden yesterday, when the sun was shining and I was warming myself and having a good think. Sadly today the weather is not so nice, the clouds are blocking the wonderful sun away and tomorrow we will be back to April coldness and wrapping up warm again.




I took this picture too because the seed pods are just bursting open with beautiful red berries inside. I want to use it for something but i'm not sure what yet. I'll probably draw them and go from there. I have this overwhelming feeling of creativity at the moment and that does not coincide with the amount of typing I should be doing sitting in front of the computer. yawn!

Oh well. I best get back to that list of stuff I have to do. I just wrote 3 sentences for my college assignment and got bored. That is not good.

The Halifax

Please God. Someone stop Halifax making adverts. They are bloody awful.

Bad Form

I just decided it was about time i made a new post on my blog, as it had been a while. Upon signing in i found out i haven't posted since 28th January!!! As the title of this post says, Bad Form!

I have just been reading the blog of Alys Fowler, Head Gardener of Berryfields where Gardener's World is filmed. I love Gardener's World because even though I don't have a garden of my own to prune and plant and tend, i'm looking forward to having my own and so, am swotting up on all the techniques, plants, flowers and vegetables, so I will be ready when the time comes!!

Not to mention being jealous every now and again! She constantly mentions cooking up yummy lunches and dinners of vegetables grown fresh in the gardens of Berryfields, but in the entry i just read she bought herself a new Pashley bicycle. Have you seen the bicycles Pashley makes?!?! They are beautiful, there is no other way to describe them. And i want one. All £545 of one. ~sigh~

I'm afraid this entry is going to be free from photographs as i don't have the camera currently so I haven't taken any pictures I can post on here. On that note, i am checking the Curry's website for those super cheap 8 mega pixel cameras, don't buy one before me as there may not be any left!!

Tea and....

This weekend has been spent doing things I want to do and some things I don't want to do. Had some college work to do first thing which was frustrating and quite tedious but that done, I set to doing many things I really do want to do.

I bought World of Interiors and Sublime magazines on Saturday morning, just a good magazine to read is really quite luxurious and then Chris came over. We decided to play Scrabble, which for me, is a very foolish thing to do, because I always lose and seem to forget how annoyed I get about that between games. The above photo is of Chris' letters, what a good three letter word! Whilst he was picking his words and where to strategically place them I was knitting. And here is the finished scarf!! So after a productive weekend, also learning some new embroidery stitches I now have to go bake a lemon drizzle cake and have a cup of tea for 3 points. I do plan, however to place it over a triple word score.

Pom Poms & Flowers

Today a parcel arrived for me. I got a little bit excited on Saturday when I saw a flower loom and what wonders you can create with them. So i found a site that sold them. But of course it would be a waste to spend the postage just for one thing, so i ordered a set of large Clover Pom Pom Makers and a very tiny 2mm crochet hook too. Shockingly they arrived today! Now that's what I call service. So to the left is the first two pom poms i made, I swear to god this is one of the best inventions ever, it took less than 5 minutes to make one pom pom! And what an ingenious design.

And beneath that is the first two flowers i made with the flower loom. the instructions were quite hard to follow but after some internet research i think i've got the hang of it. What a good day!

Another great charity shop find!

After fighting for some time to try and figure out how to upload my photos from the new iphoto to my flickr account i gave up and called Chris. It was not as simple as i assume it would be. Anyway, the reason for the post was yet another brilliant charity shop find, as the subject says. And so here it is... Oooo isn't it lovely!

Things I've made I'm proud of

I've been making these for a little while now but just realised i hadn't posted about them. Over the years i guess i have realised that I'm quite happy working with circles, I always come back to them and this little fella falls into the same geometrical category. Also see the sewing in the last post, again, circles.

So that little thing to the left there is a circular piece of handmade felt, made by my own fair hands and crafted into a decorative brooch which is frequently proudly placed upon my lapel, or shirt, or cardigan, or jumper. Now the kitchen is almost complete, and more importantly, now I have a proper sink I can make some more felt and make some more of these! AND bake!!

Pink and green AND blue and white

Ooo, what's that word for when you're doing some embroidery whilst listening to Ipswich Town play West Brom on the radio??? Oh yeh!! Odd!