five excuses

five truly rubbish excuses why I've not posted for 18 days.

1. I was decorating banister rails; sanding, undercoating, glossing, swearing when the gloss had drips in, and more swearing when the masking tape that was protecting the carpet pulls off a layer of gloss paint from the base of the railings.....
2. urmm.... no nothing, no more excuses,     well I suppose I did go and choose some paint samples for the walls, at the moment it's a toss up between chalk white and sail white. no-one except me can tell the difference between the samples I painted on the walls, and someone else said they liked the colour the wall already was better than the new choices........... I am wondering why I thought it was a good idea to decorate the hall at all.........
3. I've finally managed to buy E a pair of school trousers that are long enough, he's only been back 2 weeks, so it's not that bad surely.... and I did have to drive 20 miles to collect them, and sit in the store's cafe drinking tea until I got a cheerful email telling me my order was ready to collect. 
4. I baked the nicest blackberry crumble in the whole world and then ate so much that I couldn't move from the sofa for hours. 
5. I was abducted by aliens and therefore couldn't take any decent photos or doing anything that might actually be worth writing about?   this is as good as excuse as any in reality............ 

I can imagine this being marked at school. E for effort. Must try harder..........

joining in with Amy's five on Friday.

remembering Vanessa

There is something about blogging that makes the world both a bigger and a smaller place.

Through blogs, and their content I am filled inspiration to create, write, grow, nourish, explore, dream and nurture. My world becomes bigger as I read.

Blogging makes the world smaller too. I can connect with places I can't even dream of visiting one day, as the distances are too far, and yet an email or a blog post brings them right into my home.

I've been blogging for seven years, and in that time I'm lucky enough to have made many blog friends, some of whom are now real life friends too, but along the way many many of the blogs I read have vanished, some people announce they are stopping, others just quietly diminish as time and life take over, occasionally one just stops suddenly and you may quietly ponder whatever happened to them. Recently I learnt of the tragic death of a blogger whom I'd read since I first started blogging, whose blog was a vibrant source of colour and laughter and when she stopped blogging suddenly a year or so ago after announcing some personal sadness I often thought of her. Sadly there is no happy ending to her story, and the world seems smaller without her, but I will remember the happy things about her, her love of colour and creating, and sharing that joy.

love, create, share.

perhaps these will be my resolutions for the year.

Happy New Year to you, may it be filled with happy memories.

seven

I missed my blog birthday. 
I always thought I started blogging in October, but I just checked and it was 26th September 2007. 
That makes me seven.
and a week or so. 
but let's not worry about that. 
better late than never.

so how to mark the occasion? how about a stroll through the photo archives. 
Seven mosaics, of seven things, with seven links.

cakes.

raspberry lemon drizzle, a wedding cake, chocolate, 

gingerbread pine cones, 40th cake, bakewell tart,

44th cake.

sewing things

summer blouse, liberty fish, mermaid outfit

, pin cushion mouse tutorial, allium embroidery, incredible outfit, 

washing on the line.

wooly things

tiny pumpkin, shawl, beret, 

mittens, socks, bunny,

socks.

quilts

pirate ship, blue baby quilt, sea hanging,

shirt quilt, quilt a long, picnic quilt,

deep blue sea.

more quilts

pink bento box, rainbow, charm square,

wallflower 1 and 2, cupcake,

Xmas runner.

flowers

 alliums, roses, cornflowers,

dandelions, anemones, cow parsley, 

poppies.

adventures

snowed in, moved house, wild animals from afar, 

a marathon, retreating, memories,

friends.

Seven years of feasting, creating, appreciating, and making memories. and friends.

memories and friends. 

thank you for being part of it.

hopping about writing

Isabelle from Notes from Delft  nominated me for a blog hop about writing.

what am I working on?
I'm writing this blog hop which is much harder than I thought it would be, I want to share some craft finishes and some garden stories and there hasn't been a recipe for a while.... also I'm trying to plan some new things.

why do I write what I do?

Why do I write? What is it for?
I use it to look back and it makes me look forward.
I write because when I do I pay attention to the world I am in so much more.
I write to celebrate the simple things. A few months ago Annie of Knitsofacto wrote in a comment on one of my posts

" the way in which the perfectly ordinary and everyday can be elevated by the attention we pay to it, thus encouraging others to do the same" 

I love that.

My writing is for sharing and it is for telling stories.

It is for the community I find I am part of when I write and for the friendships that it creates.
I write to make connections and by writing I make memories. 

how does my writing differ from others in my genre?

I couldn't tell you what genre my blog is. I wonder what you would call it? Whilst I write about a range of things there is no plan for it to be lifestyle, nor family, nor craft specific, nor gluten free, or  about gardening or walking, although you will find posts about all those things. I suppose what makes it different is that it's mine.   Oh and I use quite a lot of full stops...........

how does my writing process work?

Good grief this is hard.
I write lists. I take photos. I choose photos I've already taken, and I take some specially. I get cross (most days!) when the camera battery yet again has lost all it's charge, and I don't take photos. Instead I write lists. I lose my lists.
I think of things I want to blog about, and I frequently wonder about the types of regular posts that other people write.
I love reading those posts, the way those blogs have a sense of rhythm, of purpose, of continuity.
and yet....
I don't want to copy, those ideas belong to someone else.
I would like more structure and yet I don't want to feel restricted.
I joined in with a photo scavenger hunt for a while but whilst I enjoyed taking the photos I never enjoyed writing the posts and so I stopped.  I'm enjoying #the year in books, but already I'm worrying that I haven't planned this month's post. Or started the book.

Sometimes I am so fickle, do I want a plan? or do I want to be spontaneous?
I know I need some fresh ideas.
Almost 7 years of blogging.
And still I don't know what I'm doing.....

I'm supposed to nominate some people now, but I'm going to follow Sue's lead and open it up to anyone who'd like to join in. If you want to answer the questions please do, and then come back and let me know when you've written your post and I'll link to you here. That being said I'd love to hear from Ali at Domesticali or Monica at Quilt while you're ahead, because I love their writing styles and I want to know how they do it!

meanwhile if anyone has any top writing tips all will be gratefully received.

looking back on five years of photos

quilt roll

 

Our camera is not working at the moment, and I've been feeling a little like I can't blog without it.
I realised that so much of what I write about it is because of something I've seen, or want to capture, or when I can't find the right words, I'll use a picture.

snowy birdhouse

Today is the 5th birthday of my blog, and I was going to take some celebration photographs, but instead I found myself pouring over the photo archives.

driftwood

which told me a huge amount about my blogging over the years,

roses

there are a lot of pictures of roses, of quilts and of cake

footprints in the sand
 

of exploring

tissue lantern

and celebrating

socks

and crafting that I've been inspired to make.

friends

but none of it would be there if it weren't for all of you.

thank you.

 

London highlights

travelling by tube.

the thing I love most about the tube is the font on the signs. how geeky is that.....

truly beautiful meringues in the V&A cafe.
there are no photos of the actual cakes that we ate, as they were too busy trying to blow away. I have never known a cup of tea could blow away, but apparently they can.

the oh so lovely yarn heaven that is Loop.

I was far to overwhelmed to actually buy anything.

 a shiny new red bus.

the olympic rings at Kew

toasting friendships

verification

the characters you have typed don't match the word verification.

the most frustrating sentence in blog land.

Blogger those new two word verifications are Dreadful. and unreadable.
the characters I typed don't match because I can't see what they say. 
and oh and they are utterly unnecessary.I turned off verification months ago. and the spam (almost) all gets filtered happily for me, no worries.

oh and while I'm moaning I'm not in love with threaded comments either. I never go back to a blog, to see if someone replied to my comment. and they always come in those horrid embedded boxes, which have a scroll down bar so you can read the really really annoying verification words (see above)

ok moan over. please forgive me this indulgence.
what is frustrating you right now?

scandinavian needlecraft

this week I recieved a wonderful parcel of goodies from Annie and Laura from their birthday giveaway.
As well as gorgeous fabrics it included this wonderful book, scandinavian needlecraft.

this dandelion head embroidery is calling to me,

but first I think some of the Christmas projects are crying out to be made.

and I think this little bird garland and these horse gift tags are going to be the perfect craft ideas for Miss K's birthday party.

thank you sooo much x

october hunting

October scavenger hunting, I've managed 10 of this months 12, (much better than last months zero................)



pumpkin, a tiny knitted one, and the only one we had, I forgot to buy one, and then they were all gone. this one is supposed to have been on it's way across the pond, but it is a little delayed.
heritage, a flag.



witch hat, grafitti
something eerie, broomstick.



crunchy leaves, sunset
river, golden

I feel like my blogging and my photography need a little encouragement, so I've signed up for NaBloPoMo, in case a month of blogging everyday is what I need to find me feet again, or kill me off entirely..............

reasons to love blogging

reasons to love blogging no. 1
half way through cooking dinner whilst chaos abounds in the kitchen with children doing homework, and pleading starvation, it is perfectly normal to have to stop everything, go and find the camera and take a photograph.



why?
because the oh so green beans on the pink chopping board made me smile admidst the madness, and I thought they might make you smile too.

tell me some more reasons to love blogging, and have a lovely weekend x

August hunting.

The August scavenger hunt took me a bit by suprise, in the summer holidays I have a hard enough time working out what day of the week it is, let alone the date.
what do you mean it's September already.
how did that happen?
so I am few photos short, and several of them are a bit far fetched.... oh well.

picnic, we picniced here. really we did. I just didn't photograph the food before we ate it all. a sport. what do you mean - isn't river rafting on an old pallet an Olympic sport yet. well it should be, it's very entertaining. especially as a spectator!

a boat - a lifeboat, and a fountain.

fabric, E's quilt, something bizzare - ferret racing - it's true!

some thing ancient - fossils on the beach, and ooops more fabric, I had a mountain photo, I was really pleased with it, it vanished.........

what can I say. must try harder.

friendships

walking through the gardens every now and again a little hand reached out and took hold of a bigger one.



blogging has brought me many wonderful friendships.

it is a delight to see them extend to the children too.

June hunting

childhood memories - old books, cutlery - I love these tiny spoons
tree branches - baby crab apples, night - I've used this before but I love it.



beginning with z - zebra, wheel trim - lego
view from the door, cheese - a whole shop of it!



town name on the town crier, farm animal - harriet
elephant - in the fair trade shop, architectural detail - on a random wall.

I took most of these today with two helpers who were off school, it's much easier with helpers!

lessons learnt from blogging

Since I started blogging I have learnt a great many things from a fantastic range of places. I have learnt to crochet, been inspired to bake, joined quilt-a-longs, and photo challenges, made and met friends, planted flowers, and learnt more about a community of friendship and inspiration than I could possibly have imagined.

to the bemusement of my family and friends I photograph everything, write lists in notebooks of things to make/bake/create and have a favourites bar on the computer that is so long they can never find the links to cbbc or the premiereship table.....

I hadn't realised just how much my life had changed though until I tried to photograph a few things recently.

first there were the purple tinted meringues, the white plate they were heading to the party on just wouldn't do........



and I couldn't work out why, so I sat for a while and thought about it, and I realised it was Alice. From Alice I have learnt that there should be plates for scones, and the correct bowl for strawberries, not forgetting the biscotti plates.



the burden of responsibility is immense. I hope this pale pink plate does justice to the first egg.

and the winner is

I've been shutting myself away in my study for the last few weeks, as I've rather foolishly booked a table at the Alnmouth Arts Festival. engage panic mode...... it all looks terribly professional.....



I've been making some stitchy pictures



which will be alongside the lavender bags and some cushions

I've also borrowed an embellisher from a friend

and to show off the stuff for the arts festival I've made it a new blog Northumbrian Textile Art - which one day might even have links to etsy and folksy.

thanks for all lovely comments on the last post, and now for the giveaway winner, drum roll please, and the winner is Laura of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows, a blog which has a lovely format of letters sent between friends.

"a year of posting" and 4 excuses

365 posts. A year of blogging. ok so it's taken 3 years, 7 months and 4 days but I'm not counting. talking of counting I used to have a gadget that counted my visitors and comments, but it broke. I do know that my blog email account has 6233 messages in it, that's a lot of nice chat. so to say thanks for coming and chatting leave me a comment on this post and I'll send a little treat to someone at random including a mini lavender bag and maybe some chocolate if you're not all fed up of it by now.

so what are my excuses for not being around much, well we had lots of preparation to do to get ready for some new members of the family, and well here they are.
Firstly let me introduce Cornflake. She is E's.



This is Ruby. She is Miss K's.



This is Harriet, she belongs to my niece, but lives with us.



and lastly this is Myrtle. She's mine.



no eggs yet, chocolate or otherwise, but we're waiting patiently.....