For the love of flowers..

The other day I met up with two of my close friends who I have not seen for sooo long. Lotte and Barbara used to work with me in my shop in Warminster, for 3 years. We had some great times :)  Everyone used to think Barbara was my mum! She is a very trendy dresser and used to wear all the clothes from the shop ( which were quite hippy and glitzy) and she always looked  amazing.  Lotte worked on Saturdays while she was doing A levels, I was pleased to hear she is off to Falmouth to study Contemporary Crafts, so she will soon be outshining my work!!

We went for Tea and yummy cake at Pythouse a lovely cafe with a walled PYO garden. We thought we'd go and pick some raspberries, and filled up our little basket only to find we'd picked logan berries instead doh! So then we filled up another basket with raspberries.
Lotte left us after lunch and I decided to take Barabara to Flowers Of Hatch just around the corner from Pythouse, a large field full of flowers with an amazing view over the countryside..a great 'escape' place.  Arthur went straight off with his scissors and bucket, he did like chopping the heads off the flowers so I had to keep an eye on him. We put the heads in a bowl and around Barbara's garden when we got back, so they were put to good use:)
I love the colours of the flowers, it's been ages since I did any paintings of flowers, due to lack of time , so it is great to be able to take lovely photographs :)
Echinacea's are one of my favorite flowers not only to they look gorgeous but they are used to keep colds away..handy at the moment :)

Gorgeous daisies and cornflowers, to remind us its summer..
and my lovely bucket of flowers I took home.
Barbara loves to see Arthur..she is his adopted granny ! They chatter for hours!

Barb was very happy with her flowers :) We also went home via the Dairy House as Barbara had never been there, Arthur enjoyed showing her every floor and all the little rooms full of yummy antiques, it was very difficult for me to go further than inside the door as thats where all the lovely fabric and buttons are kept ;) A fab day and I hope to meet up with the girls again soon, I have been so busy I hadn't realised how much I missed them.

Happy Day!!

I had a lovely day off on Monday, we decided to go to Lyme Regis whatever the weather. It was very grey when we left and even when we got there, but first stop was our favorite cafe for lunch so it didn't matter that it was raining.

This is the Bakers at Lyme Regis.  They have long tables and benches, I remember taking Arthur when he just started to walk and he just went up and down the benches holding onto them...now look at him. Straight in there with his apple juice. They have big jugs of milk, butter and jam out on the tables and you just go up and help yourselves and tell them what you've had at the end. 
We sit down and just feel ourselves relaxing, the food is always delicious. 

When we got to the beach, the clouds stayed behind us and we had blue sky for four hours..bliss
Not sure who was enjoying making sandcastles most ?

Arthur bought his big hat at Lyme Regis when we were on holiday earlier in the year and has not taken it off!

A beautiful day, I also knitted all the way down and back so have a few mobile phone socks to finish now :)

A little bit of Yarn Bombing..

The knitting went on the tree really well, Kate, Else and Gill turned up to help and Joyce my neighbour came along at the end to check out the tree she had made some gorgeous multicoloured bits to go on the tree.

I had sewn the main body of the tree ealier in the week and realising how much it stretched made it much smaller than the measurements I had, it worked really well.

Next we added some of the other squares and rectangles, as well as some of the bits I had previously sewn together. Arthur came along to help too.

I was glad Tony joined us, he was great at climbing the tree!  He has requested a knitted belt to hold his tools on the next yarn bomb :)

Well as usual the pictures have not gone exactly where i want them!

I love Cath's (aka snowbdrift) it of embroidery on her knitting it looks fab on the branch.

Arthur must be one of the youngest yarn bombers in the world..he really got stuck in and decided to decorate the tree with all the bits of yarn he had cut up.

Every one really enjoyed the sewing up, and apart from the teengae girls sat on the wall no one took any notice of us! 
It was lovely and calm as the tree got covered and the rain stayed off.
Else took lots of photos so i may be adding a few more on the next blog....I don't think I did much of the sewing on the tree by the look of it ;0
'Right lets get outa here'  Arthur practising for a quick get away ;) the next time we yarn bomb

we be in a better known spot, we do have some ideas for a winter yarn bomb which we talked about last year. This year I think the knitting group will feel a bit more confident that it can happen.  
I think it looks great, and will get a picture of it when the sun comes out, I am dying to know what Gillingham residents think.

I went to get Arthur a pizza after we finished and there was an absolute down pour!! We finished just in time.

A huge huge thankyou to all the ladies who helped with this, including Maria( aka Wonder woman not), Bridgette, Sandra, Roz, Alice (aka Ladypole on Ravelery), and Jo as well as the girls mentioned above and Tony and Arthur and all the other knitters who have helped over the last 3 months :)

Tree project count down!

Just a very quick update on the tree sock project.  Everyone was still busy knitting squares tonight and I did a bit of needlefelting graffiti, as above which will be sewn onto one of the branches.

I have got measurements for the tree, but when i laid out the knitting and measured it, I did not allow for stretch...and there is a lot of that :) So tommorow i will sew up some squares for the branches but only half the measurements, the rest will be sewn on while at the tree.
Which will be 5.30 Friday 10th July. Lots of knitting ladies meeting by the tree..Tony will also be joining us with a ladder.. I have volunteered him to do the higher branches! He is actually very good at sewing. I have watched him sew hems on his trousers.. I am pretty rubbish at sewing so he did not ask me to do it :)

I laid out some of the squares in the garden (lawn not looking good!) to get an idea of how it will look, the trunk is roughly 41 " .

Can't wait to see it on the tree, everyone has worked really hard, including the neighbours.

The Anonymous Traveling Market Visits Melton Abbas

This was only our second trip out with our little gazebo. I gave myself a lot more time to set up, and really should not have taken so much stock ,the shop was shut so when I was loading the van I kept taking things off the shelves. (which is not good, cause now I have to put it all back )

Arthur helped set up the gazebo by hammering all the pegs in..this started with Tony holding the pegs while Arthur hammered..ouch! not one of his best ideas :) Then we couldn't get the hammer back off Arthur (I know he's only three, but he did not start the day in a great mood!)
The setting was amazing, we looked out over an imaculate lawn to fields and woods. It was in the grounds of Melbury Abbey.  Tony and Arthur had a fab day, they went off and explored and went swimmimg in the pool, they even got a ride on a fire engine which went down to the village and back. I didn't see them again until it was time to pack up..so I had a very relaxed day!
It took a while to set up, but I feel much happier this time. It was a very good practice. Unfortunatly there were not that many customers.  The traveling market has some amazing stalls and excellent food stalls. The last one we did we were rushed off our feet, this one was a more private affair and the girls who run the market were not allowed to advertise it and were told there would be 600 people.

Ah well it was a very nice day, i did lots of chatting and quite a bit of knitting. I actually felt like i had a day off.
I feel a bit more confident about booking some more fairs now.  More established ones!

Am going to completely rearrange the shop tommorow while it is shut. After I have escaped for a bit :)

Lovely day for it..

Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public day, which I knew way in advance but really only got organised last Thursday.  So we decided at short notice to sit outside my shop and knit. It was a gorgeous day.  I cast on my extreme knitting needles which I actually bought last year but have not really had a good enough excuse to use them since..they are not ideal for knitting on the sofa ;) or in my shop which is so packed full there is not even room to stand them up straight!
and she's off ha! it was a great fun knitting with them, i had cut up a few of my t-shirts the night before to make a giant ball to knit. This is going to be a strip to go on the knitted tree.
It knitted very quickly :) Bridgette (one of my angel knitters) and Maria (aka Wonder woman) joined me for the morning.
Then Roz and Alice (aka ladypole on Ravelry) joined me for the afternoon , Kate and Jill also came along for a bit of knitting so we were outside from 10-5pm which was really good going and we must have got enough knitting done to cover the trunk of the tree. Ha ra!

Arthur was very good and played by himself for most of the day..we had a lovely picnic by the river after i finished work so that made him happy.

I must just say a huge thanks to all the ladies that joined me, it was great to be out in the sun all day. 

 I may put my spinning wheel outside one sunny day soon at sit all day producing yarn, of course I do expect to get interrupted by customers :)

Knitting a tree sock project!

This is the start of quite a huge project, and being really organised (noooot!) we have only three weeks to complete it!

For the Gillingham Festival which starts on the 4th of July for two weeks, I suggested we cover the tree opposite the show ground with knitting, people have nodded and agreed but not really got any idea what i'm talking about (this happens alot he he ). I am on twitter and am following Knit City which is so inspiring and this is the sort of thing I hope to achieve hopefully with a little bit of help from fellow knitters.
Some of the knit and Natter group have donated knitted bits already as above, which is fantastic.  Tommorow 13th of June is World Wide Knit in Public Day and we are going to knit outside my shop...I am going to attempt knitting with my giant needles (should help the project along a bit!)  There will be lots of tea and coffee and Biscuits  to keep us all going.  If any of you would like to join us and knit a square you would be very welcome :) Also if any of you knitters out there have odd bits of knitting (ie tension squares) that you don't know what to do with we could add them to the pile..then there's going to be one huge sewing day. I did pick up an extreme sewing needle from Rachel John at Ally pally last year so that should make it a bit easier.
This is the tree..it is going to be so colourful!! The sign may need a bit of knitting to.