I Can't Sing a Rainbow!

But I can spin one!

I've been pedalling away whenever I get the chance, in between less creative chores, and feel happier to have some stock made in time for the forthcoming Open Studios event and November's Woolfish Festival. I've been experimenting further with needlefelting too, though nothing that will ever come close to the excellence of Gretel's menagerie!
I feel I should be reporting on lots of other creativity but the reality has been huge piles of bedlinen to iron for the cottage, form filling for more online 'presence' for said cottage and for the new website being built for Crossing Borders, and picking a steady stream of courgettes!
Fast approaching is the annual Southdean Show SATURDAY 22nd AUGUST where we will be Hurling a Haggis (no animals will be hurt, only surgical tubing filled with cooked rice!), making puppets, eating pancakes and trying to win dodgy bottles on the tombola - and I'm on duty in the tea tent this year. Ah, the rustic life....

Progress Report

Progress indeed! As I write this our very first let of the cottage is underway - and the sun is shining on our holiday makers so all is right in this corner of the world.
Construction is happening too. This house has a slightly silly carport/covered entrance way which is not big enough to get a car under. It has a proper pitched slated roof, like the rest of the house, and one solid wall. Those have been its only attributes; most of the time it has taken misplaced pride in acting as a wind tunnel.
But not for long! Hugh is busy forming a front and side to it, which will be weatherboarded to match the porch on the cottage and before long we will have a wonderful store adjacent to the house. No more tripping over wellies and wet waterproofs in the rainy season (!), no more jam packing the hall cupboard with everything from a sack of dog food to a Kenwood and spare tins of tomatoes. Order WILL prevail.

Do you like the two images above? They are by the Morag Muir and I saw more of her gloriously coloured and detailed works at Pittenweem Arts Festival last Sunday. It was the best day out I have had in a long time. Good company, great picnic, sunny day, picturesque harbour village and masses and masses of open studios/houses/garages/church halls with fantastic work to view and buy. We were each tempted by different pieces and now that I know what to expect, I am determined to have pennies in my pocket next August...

From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous,
I just had to show you a couple of pages from a quirky 1950s embroidery book [Contemporary Embroidery Design by Joan Nicholson] given to me by Janis. It is very dated and curiously lacking in, well, sense really. I love the ideas and the dinky little drawings but the same images occur throughout the book and there does not seem to be any sequence. Ah, but so what? You can't help but smile at the illustrations, and the enthusiasm for oddly shaped animals...