Little Hare

Several weeks ago one of my collectors asked if I would consider a hare commision. Oh dear. I have been trying to design a hare ever since I took up needle felting over three years ago and have failed.

As shy and hard to catch as the real creature itself, I have been unable to visualise a satisfactory toy version, despite it being one of my favourite animals.

But I've broken the hare curse at last! Maybe it was because someone actually requested one, but I finally saw how it would be done. He has glass eyes, a waxed cotton nose and thread jointed arms -

Even underneath, where it won't be seen, attention to detail is paramount.

At my client's request, he was named Harris. Of course, now I've cracked the hare code, I have all manner of similar characters in mind, but they will have to wait until my present orders are fulfilled.

I get many enquiries about when I am going to update my Etsy shop with more needle felt things; I seem to work mostly to order now, but I have two little toadstools looking for homes and who knows when I'll have time to make more...

I am having another 'Puddletown Tales' book signing, this time in central Oxford, at Waterstones bookstore on the corner of Broad Street - very soon! In fact, this Saturday the 27th of August, 1.30 - 4.30. If it's possible for you to make it (and help me break the last record of one book sale) I'd love to see you there and put names to faces.

Raggy rainbows

One of those little chores which gets side-lined for months - washing the stiffness out of new fabrics. I am not one for bright, busy, decorative patterns; exquisitely simple prints are joyful to me.

This one is my very favourite - I bought a whole metre of it and almost bankrupted myself, just in case I never found it again. It's style number 31944-4 in the 'Cat in the Manor' range from Windham Fabrics.

But they all looked lovely once they were hung out to dry.

Raggy rainbows.





While I was playing Mrs Tiggywinkle, I tea stained a length of poplin too.

Spot the cat - not in the manor, but in the strawberry patch.

This blogger has an awesome amount of gorgeous fabrics - makes my stash look like a drop in a puddle.

Little Flourishes

A few years ago I was able to rescue a small letterpress studio - which caused a little bit of a problem with where to put it in our tiny cottage. The type cases ended up stacked up various walls and the printers are safely wrapped and stashed in my kind neighbour's stone shed, all waiting for the day when we move somewhere bigger and I have more space.

Anyhow, I was cleaning the spider webs from our front bay window and was idly looking through some type chests when I found an undiscovered stash of decorative flourishes.

Aren't they lovely? And I didn't even know I had them!

Llandudno

Returned from a break over the border in North Wales. Against the odds it barely rained (for Wales, at least). While Andy went off yomping and scrambling over mountain-y things, I amused myself. This day I was dropped off at the pretty seaside town of Llandudno, where I had a very passable time pottering about and taking photos. Firstly I quickly sketched the beach from the pier, as I had a new Moleskine sketchbook to break in.

I am very much at home in old-fashioned seaside resorts, having spent much of my childhood living by them or day-tripping at them in Devon and Somerset. And I like what other people sometimes regard as 'tacky'.

And I do love a nice pier, even on a damp, grey Welsh morning.

It did rain a little. I retreated to the town and found the charity shops. When it stopped raining, I was just in time to catch the end of this traditional Punch and Judy show, run by the Codman family, which has been performing here since 1860. The original Codman, a circus traveller called Richard, carved the first set of figures from driftwood gathered on Llanduno beach. It was extremely funny and stuck to the proper story (no PC nonsense here). Punch outwitted the hangman and did his best to outwit the Devil himself. Hurrah!

Smiling broadly as I popped my coins into the collecting cup, I realised I was now very hungry and headed back to the pier for fish and chips.

I took my feast over to the beautiful wide promenade where people were strolling and sitting, a happy atmosphere of people on holiday, the elderly enjoying the sea air and invalids being wheeled about - very gentle and relaxing. I even heard a local group of lads decide not to play football on the beach as there were too many people around. How refreshingly considerate.

I had to eat swiftly and economically as the seagulls are always on the prowl for food and are quite fearless, striding up and squawking in a bullying tone, demanding titbits with menace. They got nothing from me - fish and chips is a rare treat and one of my favourite meals. Afterwards, I spent a couple of hours drawing thumbnails - not 'pretty' sketches to be ooo'd and aah'd over, but little observational exercises to keep me amused and to register details in my mind.

Llandudno pier looked magnificent in the distance - actually, much of the Llandudno sea front houses are quite lovely, beautifully maintained hotels and bed and breakfasts, painted in ice cream colours and with their names painted above the entrance in Welsh and English.

I think perhaps the happiest people that day, apart from the children, were this elderly couple who had their chairs right at the sea's edge; I am sure their feet were in the waves.

A Couple of Swells

This is a much loved character, Mr Lavender, as he was back in 2008. He travelled a long way to a gallery for an exhibition and failed to sell for the princely sum of £65. (He has since doubled in price). He later became a part-time actor in the second 'Puddletown Tales' book, 'Peggy's Lost Pennies' as a toyshop owner.

By then he had aquired a smart new waistcoat.

I was asked by one of my regular customers if the original was for sale. As none of my Puddletown people are going to be sold - unless things get really bad - I offered to make a copy. So, Mr Lavender the First -

- and Mr Lavender the Second.

He is a little smaller, but has the same kindly, humorous look. Now he's about to bring pleasure to his new owner, who is delighted with him - which is always nice.

"We're a couple of swells

We stop at the best hotels

But we prefer the country far away from the city smells

We're a couple of sports

The pride of the tennis courts

In June, July and August we look cute when we're dressed in shorts

The Vanderbilts have asked us up for tea

We don't know how to get there, no siree

No, siree.

We would swim up the Avenue but we haven't any lake

So we'll walk up the Avenue

Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue

Yes, a walk up the Avenue's what we'll take."

(From 'Easter Parade' by Irving Berlin)

No more fairies

I had more or less forgotten about these two watercolours; they were in my first little exhibition in 2002, when I first discovered that people liked what I did and wanted to buy it. This pair are actually studies for a larger nursery commission.

They are also some of my last forays into fantasy subjects - I find my interest nowadays is returning back to the real world and painting what's in front of me.

The pixi and gnome were sold at the time but the purchaser never collected them, despite my best efforts to contact them, so they've been languishing under my desk for years. Time for them to move on to someone who will appreciate them more than I.

BUY YOUR OWN PIXI OR GNOME HERE!

Garden resurrection

Long term readers may remember that the heavy snows at Christmas and my neglectfulness caused our lovely polytunnel to implode. It was quietly heartbreaking and we didn't get round to clearing it until April. Andy dismantled it and I tidied up the debris. Our little back garden looked desolate. But I sowed a patch of broad beans, just over there to the left, covered with netting. Because you've got to really, haven't you?

Sowing seeds and sorting out the many winter casualties took some weeks, due to other commitments and lack of motivation; it looked as if the broad beans might be the only veg we harvested this year. This sparse looking snapshot was actually taken in June, not so long ago.

Gradually things got planted and repotted, pruned back and rescued. Our small yearly harvests will be late, but just as welcome. From here, it all looks somewhat weedy and jungly. And it is true, there are things growing where things shouldn't be - apart from pesky weeds, there are tomatoes in with the broad beans, thrown up from seeds dropped by the tomatoes in last years polytunnel harvest. The strawberries take care of themselves and grow everywhere, eternally fighting with the twitch grass and Clover's big ginger bottom which regularly sits on them.

I always forget what thugs squash can be - these *little* patty pans needed tying back, before they swamped the dwarf beans.

So I've forced them up and back with string and poles, to give the beans a chance. And finding another rogue tomato growing between the bean rows!

Tiny patty pan squash, just an inch or so wide.

Then the beans were given a bean frame, and the tomato plant growing amid them was carefully replanted to it's own spot nearby.

These two humongous, lovely lettuces are from the 'cut and come again' mixed salad leaf bed sown in this patch last year. Now they are grown up lettuce and ready to be picked.

This rambling patch of green is a hugger mugger potager of salad, courgettes, more dwarf beans, tomatoes, chard and the odd rogue potato. Despite the close planting, everything is doing well.

Almost time for non-stop courgettes.

Hiding somewhere in there are our first wax beans - just a few more days.

For the first time ever, I resisted the urge to plant a zillion tomato seeds; we bought a few various ones from local table tops and the rest are simply 'volunteers'. 'Gardener's Delight' is living up to it's name and look, oh joyous day, there are actually ripening tomatoes! After years of blight, this is a marvellous thing.

They are placed around a raised bed of peas, which are not doing as well as I'd like, considering they were grown in our own compost, but after a week or so of rain they are coming on.

As I left it far too late to purchase special potato seed stock, I reverted to my childhood method of simply planting old shop spuds which were sprouting. They're doing very well, in trenches and one batch in a sack - my first time at trying this. I'll be interested to see which method has better results.

This is one of my 'Blair Witch' charms, to look after the garden; one hare's skull and three portions of what I think are badger spine bones - could be deer. (If you think that's bad, never look inside my pockets...)

So although it all looks a bit disorganised, this is really a densely packed living larder.

I even have a fairly respectable pot herb garden again, and of course, sweet peas and nasturtiums. Can't do without those.

And finally the broad beans are ready. This is a really great variety, Suprifin, which I'll definitely be planting again. Just in front are three 'volunteer' tomatoes from last year - popped up in the ground and were shown mercy. Variety unknown, but probably Brandywines.

Deep in the bean patch, I am so pleased! Lovely big pods, heavy crops and plants just the right height; nice and tall but not too tall, so no staking required. Perfect.

Picking our first crop the other night, I was very glad that I'd mustered myself to rescue the remnants of the garden. This is why we do it.

It just wouldn't be summer without a few homegrown treats.