Seeing What's What

The wind blew down my sunflowers. Poor things are all of a tangle, propped on the fence in the hope they will drop their seeds or maybe provide a meal for a fast bird. (They would need to be fast if they were to eat here.) Peeping from under the giant leaves-a squash growing and ripening. I was beginning to worry that none would ripen in time as the weather has turned cool and windy and I think they need more sun to mature. But this one, and the one below are at the beginning of this giant plant, and had been quietly getting larger without me noticing.

Sunset apples seen over the fence.

And a collection of clouds in the sky just behind.

So many lovely things to see and all in my garden.

Thank you for the kind comments yesterday about my paintings!

Old Art

As I was looking for something else last night I found a display book with a group of paintings I did 12 years ago. Time goes by so fast. I remember doing these and was glad to find them again as I liked them. Here are three of them-scanned rather than photographed so some of the picture has been lost. They are painted on lovely coloured pastel paper, using school block paints -they will mix nice and thickly and have quite vibrant colours-or at least they used to-I think the quality of school paints has deteriorated a lot in the last ten years.

A wind up boar-once used for a maths lesson on something (can't remember what!) with more wind up toys. A wild thing from the story. A lot of my possesions have, at one time or another, been used in teaching. Mainly in art I suppose, and story telling. I have all the Chinese new year animals as various little toys, collected in a cardboard box which I also found during my clearout. At school I have a basket of nursery rhyme props, a bag containing a selection of about seven frogs from various sources. I have three bear sets, pigs, wolves, goats, model houses and Barbies to bury in the garden for Traction man-and this is only a small selection. I need a massive warehouse to store it all in!

I have just read a craft book that made me laugh out loud quite often. It is not every day you get that with a craft book, so I thought I would share. It is yet another felting book-I have a small collection now. I don't like to directly copy projects in books very often, though sometimes I do, but they always give me ideas and this one is brilliant. It is called 'I Felt Awesome' by Moxie.

If you are a beginner needle felter it would be great as it goes through the basics well. If you are not a beginner it is still good for its quirky original ideas.

My Memories Winner!

As the captain of the starship Enterprise would say, tomorrow I will 'Make it so' for Ros! Well done Ros-you are the winner of the My memories suite giveaway! I have to email Liz and let her know my winner and she will send me the code to download the suite free of charge. Also, for anyone else who may want to either buy the software or any resources, here is the code to get a discount of $20 from either of these purchases.

Go to MyMemories.com and use the code when checking out.

STMMMS99985

Tall

I am looking up at this giant sunflower, and I am quite tall. It must be about 12 feet high. I will measure it tomorrow.

You get more of a sense how tall it is here, compared to the tree in the background. Amazing!

This one is shorter but has a very pretty face.

Going back to school has its nice side too!

The other nature related thing I saw today was a sleeping fox, when I went round to check on Forest School. He was fast asleep and had his back to me, so I was really close to him-and actually didn't notice him at first-the grass is really long on there now. The wind blew past me towards him and he started to sniff, then slowly turned his head-the look of horror as he scrambled away was really comical!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Shadowy needle felting shot from our holiday. It seems so long ago now!

For more shadows from around the world, visit Tracy at HeyHarriet.

Happy Sunday!

Winchelsea

Strange weather at Winchelsea beach. Warm and misty-the sun trying to get through, and a few people with a wind shelter in the distance.

I haven't been to Winchelsea before. It is quite near Rye and the town itself is some distance from the sea, since the harbour silted up over 400 years ago. It was called New Winchelsea when established 700 years ago, to replace the original Winchelsea, which now lies beneath the sea. It is a lovely place. Medieval and later buildings mix, and the church is a beautiful half ruined building. There was hardly anyone about. A couple of tourists taking photos like me, and a couple of locals washing cars and such everyday activities. As I was walking around, I couldn't help feeling that the cars were spoiling the pretty views. Mine included! I have not included any in my pictures.

Sorting and Star Wars

Sorting cupboards for stuff to get rid of is quite a rewarding thing for a hoarder like me. There is always forgotten treasure to be unearthed, such as these Star Wars characters from my bag of plastic children's toys-action figures and others. I thought I might sell them all, but when I looked through there were only five I wanted to part from. Most are back in the (now tidy) cupboard, but these stayed out and went in a long redundant box frame. I made the background with ink pads and splattered white ink, then stuck the characters down. I then took five of them off again as they were stuck beyond the edge of where the frame goes. Whoops. I am not even a big Star Wars fan, I just like these little figures. I do want to know who some of them are though, as I only know the obvious ones. That, wrapping Ebay parcels to go, having a haircut, and tidying my fibre collection is how today has been spent. Not the most exciting day, but satisfying. The last of the scaffolding has now gone from the school, so my garden is my own again. I am looking forward to doing some work in it without feeling overlooked.

So many colours-I laid it all out on the table and it looked luscious. I have had a bit of a splurge recently and bought even more-from ebay and on holiday. Hence all the felting recently and I have more planned. I need to use some of this up!

See the curly grey one? It is from a Gotland sheep from Sweden. I just love that name and it will make perfect witch hair.

The sugar pink one is so silky and soft. I bought that on Skye, from a great shop which was really close to where we were staying, called 'The Handspinner Having Fun'. It had curly wool tops, handspun yarns, a man spinning quietly in the corner, in a world of his own, and a grey haired pretty lady, knitting behind the counter. It also had an amazing amount of beautiful hand knitted things. I bought some blue, grey and white socks, knitted by a lady called Katy.

It is all now put away, sorted into colours, apart from the box of Jacob's sheep fleece which is exactly where it was. There is no space for that at the moment.