Crafting and Gardening Plus...

A Gift From my Daughter. See end of this post.

Hello everyone, I can't believe it's almost March. Have you proposed to anyone today? It's 29th February and of course it only comes around every 4 years, rather like the Olympics.

It's Jim's birthday on 6th March, another one already, 66 he'll be. Poor old thing sounds like a real 'old man' this morning. I took a trip to the UK to visit Jason, Sam, Jack and Kitty and brought back the usual cold. Nature took it's course and Jim duly caught it too. It's a real nasty with a hacking cough that just leaves you exhausted. I hope his clears up soon.

UK Trip to Suffolk

I visited Jason and co during half term week to get the most children time.



The UK had had quite a lot of snow. We didn't have any and it was quite a surprise to see it from the air. It was also very cold. I love the river in the above photo.



Here's Kitty in a lovely dress and jacket, bought for her by Granddad Ken. We were ready to go and visit Jason's Granddad Ivor and Nanny Maureen for the day.


Kitty showing me the sweet Great Granddad Ivor gave her, Jack chilling!


The children played 'pantomime horses' under this lovely blanket that Maureen had crocheted. Sam looks on bemused!


Ivor chatting to his Grandson Jason - they are very close. Jack in the middle engrossed in his Lego.



Back home and Jack is welded to his DS! Note he has lost his first tooth. He had fake tattoos on his arms from the school's Valentine's Disco!

Finally Kitty, princess indeed:


Ooops, perhaps I over indulged on the photos of the Grandchildren a bit. Ah well, it's my blog!

Ireland

Back to Ireland and our weather's been quite mild but wet, as usual. I have managed to get out into the garden quite a bit though. Even at this time of year, it seems full of weeds. I had a walk round this morning and it's lovely to see everything bursting into life. One of our magnolia trees is just about to flower and the other one is covered in buds. The daffodils are all out and I picked some to put inside. They are so bright and cheerful, even on dull days.



Daffodils in the fireplace. The photos (on the fireplace) haven't made it to the wall yet!

Animals

Buster has had a trip to the vets with a tear in his chest. It's gradually healing up but of course he keeps licking it! Sandy is just Sandy! Lolling about most of the time with the odd trip outside. I knelt down to take a photo of my chicken and they both appeared behind me on the floor. I quickly snapped them holding hands? LOL.



Jim is now well underway in the end room. He has dry lined the walls and put in the 2 new double glazed windows. Now he's building the staircase. Not an easy job and because he's not too well he's had to take it slowly. Lots of thinking time!


One of the new, bigger windows and the staircase rises phoenix like from the ashes! Jim's gone off today to buy some more wood and supplies.

The sun's shining so I'm off out until later.

Hm, much later, it's now 11.40pm. I didn't come in until it was dark, then had some chores to do. Jim was back quite late too, then it was dinner time and the evening just goes.

Crafts

Equinox Doll

I made an Equinox Doll for a swap with the Milliande Art Community for Women, which Jim posted off for me today.


Here she is outside in the garden. I made a basic rag doll then adapted it for the Autumn Equinox. I thought she was going to Australia, in fact she's headed to the USA.


This is her back with a 'cloak' of red, black and gold. I must say I was quite pleased with the end result. I hope the recipient likes her too.

Pete The Slug

Yes, I know, you think I've gone crazy. A pet slug? Well, it happened like this. I had an old piece of chicken wire and decided to do something with it. I played around with it and made a shape, which I then covered in papier mache and painted. I decided it looked like a sea creature and covered the back and sides with my hand made paper beads - a bit of a labour of love. Then I varnished them. The front I made into a mosaic with cut up food containers. One of the black pieces has 'Pete' written on it for some reason, so thus the name. Finally I covered the underside with dried leaves and seeds from our garden. Everyone says it looks like a slug so Pete the Slug he is!






All these leaves have stuck to him while he's trailed along! I am going to try and make some sort of 'tentacles' come out of his rear end! That sounds rude but isn't meant to. At the moment it's just a hole and you can see the inside. In the meantime he sits on our strange table 'Boris' to be admired, laughed at etc.

Rug

I am also making another woolen latch hook rug and here it is so far:


I am a bit of a sucker for Autumn colours! It's taking rather a long time but is soothing to do in front of the television. I just use any of my wool and chop it to size - ish!

Chicken

You may just have wondered what I was talking about when I mentioned that I was taking a photo of my chicken. On Sunday 26th Feb, I went to an all day workshop and there we made a papier mache chicken. It was great fun, the tutor, Krystyna Pomeroy, was lovely and helpful and we all had a thoroughly enjoyable day. All this happened at Ennis Creative Arts Centre, which is now based in Tubber. They do classes on all sorts of things, knitting, crochet, altered clothing, sugercrafting to name but a few.

Here are the photos of the day:


Krystyna demonstrating a technique.


Chickens on parade. Mine is the 3rd from the left without eyes!


A close up of the chickens.


Krystyna checking out one of her photos at the end of the workshop.

My chicken, now complete:


Yule Present from my Daughter

Can you stand a little more? I had thought, before Christmas, that K was making something for me but nothing appeared so I thought no more of it. Well a few days ago she posted on her Blog and on Facebook about the present which is now completed. She has been working on it for a long long time and - well, you will have seen how lovely it is from the photo at the start of this post. Here's a reminder:


It will of course be framed and take pride of place on the wall. K also said these lovely things:

'I wanted to add but wasn’t sure how to word it… with every stitch I thought of all the lovely memories, the good and treasured ones; holidays, trips, visits, conversations, hugs… I wanted every stitch to be filled with those precious things. To share how special she is to me. I’m hoping she’ll feel it when she sees it. The piece is filled with my love for my momma, properly stitched in magic! xxx'

Well, there really isn't much to say after that is there? Lucky me.