It's year of happy time again, the weeks really are flying by.We've got to the time of year when we get the most wonderful sunset. Any road here are this weeks 'three things'.
Number one:
Bank holiday Monday in the UK saw our annual family garden party, this year hosted at my Aunts house. We have a family get together like this every summer, it was something my Grandad started, a social gathering every summer as he felt it was a good way to celebrate rather than all the family just meeting up on sad occasions. Even though it has been some year now since he sadly passed away, we still honour his wish, that we should have these annual summer get together.
So on Monday we had a lovely afternoon with wonderful food and drink, a good old get together, with Aunts and Uncle's, Cousin's and Grandchildren Niece's Nephews. Brothers and Sisters, Parents and children. The children and some of the grown ups played croquet, quoits, rounders and had a Nerf gun battle. While the rest of us caught up on each others lives and chatted away the afternoon, the perfect way to spend a bank holiday afternoon. I was so pleased I felt just about well enough to attend.
Number two:
This passed week I've started a new top secret crafting project, it's a gift so I won't be able to share this make with you yet, not until it's arrived at it's destination, but I've been taking lots of pics so I can blog about it at a later date. On Wednesday, I got to play with this little beauty for part of the make. It's my Mum Singer Sewing machine, and it's such a beautiful thing, I just love these gorgeous old sewing machines. This Singer sure does make my heart sing with the happy.
Number three:
Yesterday 'P' was planting a new Hydrangea in the garden, I love these lovely blousy flowers, especially the pale pink ones, in the planting process one of the bloom snapped on the plant so I popped into a vase and now it is happily sitting on my bedside table.
Well that this weeks 'three things' of late summer happiness, what has made you smile this week?
This week I've started reading 'The girls' by Lori Lansens, it's a book that's been sitting in a big pile of things to read in the summerhouse for a few years now, just waiting to be read. I think it came with a group of books as part of a TV book club I used to follow but I never quite got around to reading it
Yarn wise over the past week I've completed a couple of little things, which is all I really felt up to with the current flare up of my ME/Lyme disease.
The first was something for the craft club which is held at our local library. Next year will be 100 years since the start of the First World War, so at the library the plan is to make a display of poppies in remembrance of the war dead from the town and raise money for charity.
I'm not sure how many that will be but I fear, that sadly it will be a significant amount for our small seaside town. As the memorial plaque for both World Wars in the entrance to our local hospital covers both sides of the Foyer.
The pattern for this crocheted poppy is by Wendy Poole I've put a link 'here'
Feeling so poorly this week I made the poppy over five days a petal each day and then I stitched a big black button to the centre. You could probably make one in about half hour though.
and Ta-Dah my poppy was finished,
due to brain fog I completely forgot to take a picture of my finished poppy with my book for the top of this post, before I handed it in. Doh !!
Seeing as I had the red yarn out, I also made a cute 'Attic 24 Ladybird' this week, just for a bit of fun, which is pictured with my book at the top of this post.
What have you been making and reading this week, why not join in too and link up with Ginny'sYarn along
It's pick and mix time again here at the Summerhouse, Summer's still hanging on but the nights are starting to draw in and there is a nip of Autumn in the air. It been a mixed month with the highs of a holiday and the subsequent crash of a relapse of my ME/Lymes, yes it would seem the bugs have got the better of me for now.
So before I get started I just thought I'd do a quick public service announcement and just warn anyone that's out and about in the countryside or even the local park to please be tick aware. Lyme Disease is not fun, it's a world of pain, heartache and exhaustion, Right so that's the serious bit over with, on with the Pick and Mix. Who like me wants to disappear off over the horizon on the stunning sail boat picture above?
The view from the window:
The fields were looking so golden the day I took this picture, I kept thinking I really must take a photo and then forgetting to bring the camera upstairs. So it's a good job I finally remember last week as I caught the view just on the cusp of Summer as that very night they started the harvesting.
So by the next morning, it looked like this, very Autumnal, as I said earlier there has been a feeling of Autumn in the air for about a couple of weeks now, just every now and then, like it's lurking around the corner. The harvest is a sure sign of this, yes the next day when I looked out the window, it looked like someone had been playing a giant game
of jenga or a giant toddler had scattered there building blocks across the field.
Even the Horse Chestnut tree by the Summerhouse is showing signs of the season turning from Summer to Autumn
I don't mind so very much though, as Autumns one of my favourite seasons, with leaves changing, bonfires and snugly blankets, so many Autumnal things to look forward to.
Yarniness
I've not really manage that much crafting this month with my health so bad, but I did manage to have a sit out the other afternoon and do a little bit more of my latest crochet project. It's taken four days so far but I've nearly finished this little make. ( you could probably make one in about half an hour, it's just my energy levels are so poor right now) It's for craft club, can you guess what it is ? think summer meadows and remembrance, and you'll be on the right track. I'll post a pic once it finished
Out in the garden :
Yes out in the garden the flowers are blooming, it cheers my heart so to see them, I've been snapping away over the month and had enough pics to make two mosaic's, so much colour everywhere.
Such a wonderful feast for the eyes, they speak for themselves, I don't think I need to say much more.
Buttonbag Birdie :
Seeing as I rebelled a bit the other day while making my Little Gingham Bird
and went off piste on a creative little Clare wander. I thought I should maybe make another bird to show you all what the birides turn out like if you follow the instructions that come with the kit. I still think I prefer the raw edges not be visible on the little birds but I think it turn out OK, I made this birdie purely with the contents of the kit, see I can be a good girl, no adding of buttons or beaks, strictly following the kit instructions (but boy was that a struggle though !!!)
Over in the wildlife strip :
Yes I know what you're thinking, this pick and mix has gone a bit overly floral, but you can never have too many flowers even if like me you have hay fever and besides come the winter we'll all be longing for flowers and summer days.
August has been a bumper month in the Summerhouse garden. I'm so glad that we planted the wildflower border or as 'P' calls it the weed patch !! How can you possibly call these little beauties weeds, I just love them, as do the butterflies insects and bees. I'd love to be able to identify a few more of them, so if you know what any of them are please leave a comment.
Just two more and I'm done for this months pick and mix, I promise, there were just too many for one mosaic again.
Lady bug :
All this wild life gardening has certainly encouraged some little critters to the Summerhouse garden. Seeing as I had the red yarn out, I spent a little time making this cute little Ladybird. It another fab pattern created by Lucy over at Attic24 A perfect low energy make, I even learnt how to make french knots for the spots and I stuck some tiny pearls beads on for eyes.
I managed to make this over a day, (slow coach me again) I'm thinking it would make a great brooch or as a friend suggested a fab fridge magnet, which I think is what I going to make this little ladybird into, it's a tiny 5cm, so I think it'll make a perfect magnet. They would be great on the radiators and metal bed frames in a child's bedroom.
Music corner :
Just before I go I thought I share with you a little bit of music. I've not been up to much musically this month with feeling so ill and a slight guitar tragedy, yes my guitars is broken and needs to go in for repair No I didn't go all rock and roll !! and smash it up, I just discovered a big piece of wood has come loose and was rattling around inside the body of the guitar one morning. So I'm not really sure what happened
The above clip 'Hey There Sunshine' is the debut single from the talented Dani Nicholls's first album 'A little redemption' a wonderful mix of Country, Folk and Americana. I saw this clip on Facebook last week and was singing it for the rest of the day, I've put a link 'here' to her website if you want to find out more.
I hope you've had a wonderful Sunshine filled month. Before I go I just wanted to say a warm welcome to all the new readers that have been stopping by lately and a big thank you too, for all the wonderful comments that have been left, I love to read them all.
Linking this post up with Frontier Dreams Keep Calm craft on and Made by Hand so why not check out what everyone's been up too.
It's year of happy time again, so here's this weeks three things.
Number one :
Isn't this picture fab, it's meant to represent Craft Club, which is exactly as glamorous in real life, as the crafters in this shot. !! (in fact if you google 'craft club' this is one of the images that comes up, don't you just love that !!) Having spent the last week or so resting in bed, it was wonderful, to be able to go out to the local craft club on Wednesday evening just for a little for a while, to chat with friends and eat chocolates, I took another little birdie from my birdhouse kit along to make. (more on that another day)
Number two :
Is warm summer rain, it's was a rainy all day Thursday here at the summer house and it was so lovely hearing the gentle rain falling, you could almost hear all the plants and trees in the garden sighing with relief as the warm rain fell. If I were well enough this would have been the perfect summer rain to go for a walk in. So lovely but alas walking is beyond me these days so instead, I spent a little while sitting in the Summerhouse tidying the craft table, I took this picture of the geraniums in one of the Summerhouse window boxes while sat in the Summerhouse. I love all the little raindrops on the pink flowers.
Number three:
Number three this week is spending time with good friends, yesterday afternoon, here at the Summerhouse we had a paddling pool come knit and natter get together, it was a lovely afternoon with lots of paddling pool fun, for the children while grown ups chatted, laughed, knitted and crocheted, I finally finished the last pennant for my granny bunting.
We feasted on a picnic afternoon tea, including some yummy homemade blueberry muffins.
I even taught my friends little boy how to crochet, look at the chain he made not bad for a young beginner, he was so keen he wanted to take the hook and yarn home with him to practise the double crochets I'd shown him. We had such a lovely fun afternoon.
Plus I'm glad to say that my energy levels are slowly picking up again, since Thursday I've been feeling a little better each day so hopefully I'm starting to come out the other side of this recent flare up.
This week I've been working on my purple leaf cushion which has been a ongoing project for quite some time now, I'm so easily distracted by other projects and find knitting can be quite hard going with my painful joints and muscles, so it a bit of a slow process, but I'll get there in the end. I've knitted some more of the main body of the cushion and also a couple more of the small leaves over the last few days
Reading wise I've been refamiliarising myself with some of the mandolin tunes in 'Teach yourself Bluegrass Mandolin' by Andy Statman, I'm a bit rusty after not being able to play for six months but I'm hopefully going to be able to build my playing back up as it would be great to be able to take my mandolin to a local pickin session again.
The pattern for this cushion come from my Mum's copy of the 'Women's Weekly UK' way back at the end December, and called for the biggest ball of yarn I've ever seen 400g of Hayfrields Bonus Aran in a gorgeous ' Purple Heather' colour.
The cute little leaves are easy to knit, now I know how !! and are in Sirdar country styles DK in Feather grey, Damson and Pansy, hopefully I'll have it finished by this December, I can but hope.
Happy Crafting, linking up with Ginny's Yarn along why not check out what everyone else is making
Last Monday we went for a bit of a stroll along the promenade, in my home town. We put my mobility scooter into the car and drove down to the seafront.
Where there we sailing ships a plenty to see.
We Strolled toward the town from the wilder end of the beach passed the castle and fishing boats
and on passed the Time Ball tower, which used to be so useful in it's day, giving ships at sea the accurate time, so important in the time of sail. It's now a local museum, but the ball still drops every day at 1pm like it always has.
We continue down and onto the pier, something I've not done in years, I suppose when you live in a place you don't really do the touristy things, and as I'm not a fisherman the piers not a every day place to go.
I did take some lovely photo's of the seafront from the pier, there have been some great clouds about lately. So good for cloud watching.
The sea was so calm which is quite unusual for around these parts, it's more common for it to be blowing a gale, waves crashing to shore, hence so many ship of old, being wrecked on the 'Goodwind Sands' which lie off the north end of the beach.
I spotted this lovely sail ship, on the horizon, (wouldn't it be great to be out on the water on it.) I think it's a Lugger (but don't quote me) if it is, then this is the type of vessel the local smugglers I mean boatmen! used to use, in the towns murky history.
Sadly my scooter ran out of juice on the way back and my sister had to come and rescue me in the car, which curtailed our adventure, but to tell the truth it wasn't just the scooter, I'd pretty much run out of energy too.
At least that meant that 'L' 'P' and I got a closer look at the funky mural on the seafront, I was torn between the bongo drumming octopus and the above, but I think I like this section the best. As in my head I'm imagining them 'pickin on' some under water bluegrass.
Phew it's taken over a week but I finally got this written, thanks to everyone for the kind words and well wishes on my last few posts, I'm resting up and hopefully finger crossed I'll be up and about again soon, that's just the way of things living with a chronic illness.
Hello... Over the last weeks or so, my ME/Lyme's has been having a bit of a flare up, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just payback from over doing things when I was away on holiday and not a full on relapse kicking in. I really do hope so.
So a few days ago I decided it was time to break into the emergency
relapse crafting supplies. Something low energy and fun that I could
easily pick up and put down and make from the comfort of my comfy bed.
It was time to open the cute little 'Buttonbag birdbox' that has been
sitting and waiting to made in the Summerhouse for the last few months isn't it cute, do you want to see what inside the birdie box.
Lookie lookie it's a little treasure trove of colour. I think this super cute birdie box is aimed for kids crafts, but I'm not the best at sewing and desperately wanted to make some birdies when I saw this cute little box. In my defence on the back of the box it does say children over eight and adults and as you know I do love 'all things birdie'
The box contains seven cute fabric squares, a sewing kit, stuffing, scissors some colourful thread and a pattern everything you might need if you follow the instruction.
The first thing I did was cut out the pattern pieces as per the instructions I decided I would make a super cute gingham birdie with spots and stripe too. A cheery little bird, the more pattern the better. It was at this point my inner creative took over and I ditched the instructions, which basically just showed you to stitch the two pieces together so that a raw seam was on the outside then sew on the wings, perfect for children who are just learning to sew.
I pinned my birdied together reverse side out so all the raw seams would be on the inside, when I turned my bird the right way out, sewing the three pieces together to get a three dimension bird.
I then stuffed my little yellow bird as per the instructions and sewed up the gap.
Then it was time to play with so ideas for decorating my birdie.
I stitched two pieces of fabric together for each wing, I choose the blue
striped fabric and the pink polka dot piece, I used the decorative thread from the kit to blanket stitch around the edge of the
little wings.
I decided on a black button eyes
and cut two little pink felt pieces for the beak, and stitched them onto my yellow bird. The buttons and felt came from my crafting stash.
Once that was done I just had to stitch the wings onto my bird with invisible thread, I only stitched the wings part of the way around, so that they are not flush to the body and the spotty underside of the wing is visible.
and Ta-Dah my little gingham birdie was complete.
Here he is sitting in the Jasmine in the Summerhouse garden this afternoon, I think maybe I might add a little hanging loop later to my bird but for now he looks quite happy sitting on my little blossom tree.
Happy Crafting
Clare xx
If you feel the need for a colourful little buttonbag bird box in your life I've put a link earlier in the post. Linking this post with KCCO- crfating on link up so why not check out what everyone's been up to.
