adventures in gardening

I've been having a go at gardening now for the last few years. I'm by no means an expert but I'm learning little by little as I go along and I enjoying the fruits of my labours when the garden looks good and the plants are fruiting.
Last year I started growing veggies, some from seed and some from plants. This year, I've grown everything from seed, and it's all coming along quite nicely. I love going into the greenhouse and seeing how much everything has sprung up - the tomatoes grow so quickly, and at the last count I had 92 plants.

The garden is looking very green at the moment - so I've added a bit of colour until everything starts to flower:

new fabrics

I have some new fabrics for sale in my spoonflower fabric shop:

I've ordered some of each and am really looking forward to seeing them in the fabric-y flesh (so to speak). I just need to decide what to make with them now.

birdy

A little bit of what I'm working on at the moment:

picture book of knowledge

I do like a good picture book - especially an old one. This is one of my latest purchases and is from the 70's - called a picture book of knowledge. These were the kind of books I remember looking at in the library and at school when I was a child:

This one was illustrated by Alain Grée and his brother Gérard Grée.

just peachy

I'm having a bit of a sorting out kind of week this week. My blogging will likely be quite sporadic. I'm feeling the need for decluttering, cleaning and tidying. It's just the everyday mess that our eyes don't normally see. Where once there was something - now there is nothing and it feels good to have some more bits of space (and less dust!) here and there.

It seems I am subconsciously liking peachy tones quite a lot at the moment. This little selection is from my recent pinning activity:

This little pattern came as a result of another pattern I was working on - a christmassy one, which is actually nothing remotely like this floral:

I like it when things like this happen. It's kind of like when you are shopping for something specific and you can't find it, but when you don't want something specific your eyes are opened to other things.

pop up shop

a snapshot of my desk today!

Come and see me tomorrow. I'm going to be at the pop up shop in the Nicholsons Centre in Maidenhead (in the former Waterstones shop) from 10am-4pm.
More info on all the sellers and the happy cakes cafe (yes there will be cake!) can be found here

7th and 14th

I'm really chuffed that my monster mash fabric design made it into the top ten (7th) of the imaginary animals spoonflower competition:

I was also chuffed that last week my ice ice baby fabric got to 14th position in the ice cream design competition:

I've also been beavering away on some Christmas designs this week, as well as something pretty tasty. Here's just a snippit for now:

go where you wanna go

Today, I'm very much liking this, by The Bees:

get up and go

when I found this picture on pinterest it had palette written all over it:

 and of course, it was destined to be used in a pattern:

These last couple of days, it seems my get up and go has got up and gone.
The effort required to do anything seems just too much. It's a weird feeling of being drained of energy or enthusiasm for everything. I'm hoping this is just a blah few days and it will quickly pass because I'd really like to start feeling like my good old self again very soon.

Henley Arts Trail in pictures

Here are just a few pictures of what is on offer at venue 12 (Woodclyffe Hall in Wargrave) of the Henley Arts Trail. There are over 20 artists participating at this venue along the arts trail. The quality of the work is really high and there are many disciplines covered, so something for everyone.
Click on the individual pictures for a more detailed view:

The above pics are just a small sample of what is on offer. I didn't manage to get decent pictures of everything sadly.

Lastly, a couple of pictures of my softies and accessories:

Tomorrow is the last day of the event (venue 12 is open from 11am-6pm).

lavender village

I've been doing a bit of sewing this week - a few new bits and bobs for my upcoming fairs.
Yesterday, I made a little village of lavender bag houses:

I bought some lavender a few weeks back and it's been smelling lovely in my work room ever since. I sewed up some little bags (they almost looked like teabags) full of lavender which I then inserted into the houses along with some stuffing. The materials I have used are a combination of new are recycled fabrics - some old pillowcases, one of my husbands old shirts (I have many of these in my stash waiting to be cut up) and an old duvet cover along with some of my vintage and recycled buttons from my stash.
Today I'm packing up my wares for the Henley Arts Trail. Come along and say hello if you're in the area. I'll be at venue 12 in Wargrave (see link above for details).

Henley Arts Trail

This coming weekend I will be showing and selling my softies and accessories, along with other talented artists and makers at venue 12 of the Henley Arts Trail, Woodclyffe Hall in Wargrave. If you are in the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire/Berkshire area this bank holiday weekend, it's definitely worth coming along to see some of the talent on show.

There are 23 venues in all, packed full of original art work to buy. The link to the website above gives full details and addresses of each venue.

The Seychelles

Looked something like this:

 beach art we made from found objects

This last week (and a bit), me and the Mr have been away on our (slightly delayed) honeymoon, or maxi-moon as we've been calling it - as we had a mini-moon in February just after we got married.
It was a very relaxing week where we did very little but lounge around in the sun, swim in the sea, eat nice food and drink nice drinks. It seems we managed to get back just before the Icelandic ash cloud put a halt to flights (again). Phew.

Tammis Keefe

I thought I'd blog a bit of what is inspiring me today. I really love these Mid Century Tammis Keefe tribute (repro) prints by Michael Miller fabrics:

They'd be great printed on a textured bark cloth wouldn't they.
There is a really good Tammis Keefe write up and lots more pictures on the True up blog from the launch at the Fall Quilt Market in October last year. Go and have a look.

a little birdy

This little birdy was a recent commission:

I do love sewing with paper. It's a lot less forgiving than fabric so you really don't have much of an opportunity to dither because the paper will rip or get an hole in it. I don't get on my sewing machine enough at the minute - I think I need to remedy that.