I Love Lucy - the candy factory - Rick Busciglio youtube
20 May 2013
19 May 2013
The village in May 2012...
In May the bunting goes up in the village and stays there until the end of summer.
This year, 2012, it serves two purposes, firstly as decoration for the village festival and also to celebrate the Queen's Diamond jubilee. So I need to find it from it's hiding place somewhere in the garage! An easy task you might think, no. Unfortunately the inside of our garage is like the inside of most people's garages, full of boxes almost floor to ceiling in some places. After all, who bothers to put their car in a garage? The only time we ever garaged a car was when we had two garages and one of the cars was the sort of car that gets stolen to order if you left it out, (which we did, and it was, but that’s another story).
This year, 2012, it serves two purposes, firstly as decoration for the village festival and also to celebrate the Queen's Diamond jubilee. So I need to find it from it's hiding place somewhere in the garage! An easy task you might think, no. Unfortunately the inside of our garage is like the inside of most people's garages, full of boxes almost floor to ceiling in some places. After all, who bothers to put their car in a garage? The only time we ever garaged a car was when we had two garages and one of the cars was the sort of car that gets stolen to order if you left it out, (which we did, and it was, but that’s another story).
Ooh
I tell a lie… at one time when my husband was going through a funny phase he bought
a mini moke, which was so small it could fit into the garage of the house we
lived in and still leave plenty of room for boxes and a lawnmower down the
sides. I remember it was blue, and only came out a few days of the year in the
summer. Sometimes he would drive it to work with the roof off, but was puzzled by the reactions of the other drivers. People with huge grins
on their faces would stop and let him out at junctions and bus drivers would
wave to him, something unheard of when he drove the hated gas guzzling Jeep. The
final moment of truth dawned when our lovely 90 year old friend and neighbour
asked him if he played a lot of golf, ‘No not at all, why do you ask?’ ‘Oh’ she
replied ‘because I often see you driving your golf trolley up the road'.
Strangely he didn’t have any problem selling it; there were plenty of buyers happy to look like Noddy driving his car.
At that
time, our lovely elderly neighbour had herself only recently stopped driving. She had
owned an immaculate classic Morris Minor but didn’t drive far, just off to the
book club or to visit her sister, which is probably just as well as it was a
frightening experience to see, the top of her head was practically level with
the top of the steering wheel and it looked as if the car was driving its self.
One day my husband came home and said that he really didn’t think she should be driving any more, when I asked why he beckoned me to follow him outside. There across the front lawn of her house, just missing the stone sundial in the middle, were the clear tire marks in a smooth arc where she had obviously come off the road and cut the corners to park in her driveway. I think she must have come to the same conclusion herself, because just before her 90th birthday she gave the car away to one of her nieces.
17 May 2013
16 May 2013
14 May 2013
Take a step...
and cover it in vintage wallpaper
stairs photo - Debi Treloar / lilac and roses - the collection of Karen Watson / pink roses - yahoo / roses - PatinaPaperie / blue flowers - http://www.vintagewallpapers.be/en/collection/wallpaper/604 / 1940's roses on grey stripe - http://www.ourcottagegarden.com/store/products/details/?product=,,06 / pink flowers - http://www.larkstore.com.au/ / blue circles - http://retrovilla.dk/cms/ / 1930's coloured flowers - Adair733 / roses on grey + white stripe - unknown / multi coloured flowers - http://secondhandrose.com/products/RE%252d194.html / red roses - simplecottage12 May 2013
Gerald Brockhurst...
Dorette 1933
Several years ago I attended an exhibition of paintings and etchings by the English artist Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, and the picture above is the one I fell in love with. The Dorette of the title was Brockhurst's young model Kathleen Woodwarde, whom he renamed Dorette and with whom he had an affair. In 1939 he left his wife Anaïs and moved to the United States with Dorette, where he died in 1978. In his lifetime he painted over 600 portraits, many of famous people such as Marlene Dietrich and the Duchess of Windsor, but of all his portraits this is the one I would steal, unfortunately it's owned by the Harris museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire, UK where I'm sure it's very carefully guarded.
11 May 2013
10 May 2013
9 May 2013
8 May 2013
7 May 2013
6 May 2013
5 May 2013
4 May 2013
Stump work...
How beautiful are these?
violets... my favourite flowers, I can't believe how many hours work must have gone into making them
all stump work flowers made by - Svetlana Yuzhalina
red currants brooch made by - Victoria Trump
3 May 2013
2 May 2013
R.I.P. little elna...
Yes... this was me trying to remember how to use the new sewing machine!
photo - google search - I love Lucy
I say new... I've had it for months now, but after so many years with my lovely little portable elna lotus ZZ, bought before going to art college, this one takes some getting used to. Perhaps it would be better if it came out of the cupboard more often! but having been on a knitting frenzy for some time now where all I needed was a ball of wool and two needles, it hasn't seen the light of day very much. And it's such a palaver getting it out, plugging in, and then finding it's threaded with white when you want black, or vice versa, then having to check the instruction manual because you've forgotten how to change something. The thing is, my little elna almost became a part of me, I knew it's workings intimately and just went into automatic mode when using it.
photo - mine
But nothing lasts for ever, and after so many years of faithful service maybe it was beginning to get a bit sloppy in the length and tension of it's stitches. Or maybe I thought it was about time I had a grown up sewing machine, something that could do the kind of things the little elna struggled with. What ever the reason, it meant a trip to the sewing machine emporium, which also houses a huge selection of anything to do with sewing / knitting / cake decorating and card making, in other words, when you go there, don't expect to leave with just the couple of rolls of ribbon you went for! There I stood in bewilderment at the array of machines and their capabilities, they even overlocked now! I just wanted something simple to use, and the lovely assistant who knew all the machines like the back of her hand, asked a few questions, and settled me down to try a middle range machine that did every thing I could ever want. So... if I ever do get it together to go on one of the lovely Linda Miller 's machine embroidery days I've been promising myself for years, I won't feel as though I'm taking a toy sewing machine with me.
embroidery - Linda Miller
And my little elna? in the garage with all the other things we don't know what to do with but can't bear to part with.
1 May 2013
30 April 2013
29 April 2013
28 April 2013
27 April 2013
26 April 2013
Felting dreams...
Oh... I so would like one of these lovely felted mice made by Johana Molina
Why? what would I do with it? who cares...
I think it's just that they make me think of my son going off to university
Oh well... I have some of her beautifully printed postcards that will have to do
Johana Molina - www.etsy.com/shop/feltingdreams
25 April 2013
Dark things...
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
Pablo Nerudo
Entrance to the Temple Church built in the 12th century by the Knight Templars.
24 April 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
