sea breezes

The BIG Birthday

I had my big birthday and was lucky enough to be given this beautiful bicycle.

I haven't had a bike for years and often fancy going for a ride along the beachfront at Whitstable or one of the cycle tracks around Canterbury. My friend Helen bought one last year so now we can go together when the weather improves, I refuse to ride in the rain or the cold!

It has a lovely comfy seat for my ample behind

I also got a lovely basket for the front, it was a bit plain so I made a lining for it, choosing fabric to match the paintwork

Not bad for a first attempt and no pattern to work from!

 

The Apprentice

I love the Somerset Studio books and magazines, as soon as Kate gets them in at the shop I flick through them to see which one(s) I would like to buy. I always have Somerset Life, Somerset Workshop and Somerset Apprentice, they are full of inspiration but best of all they have instructions to complete the projects inside. This month I bought the Apprentice and a project by Pam Carriker immediately caught my eye. I haven't heard of her before, which just goes to show that I like looking at pictures more than reading as she has been published quite a lot, her website is full of inspiration. This is her project:

I host a craft evening at Pickleberry on a Tuesday each month, it was an art journaling workshop but once everyone had finished we were so used to meeting up that we kept on going to work on current projects. I couldn't wait to have a go at this dress form and luckily Kate had some in stock, along with the new tissue roll by Tim Holtz. I more or less copied straight from the book, it was lovely to make something without having to think about it, I am usually designing classes in my crafting time. This is my version, very close to the original. There are more photographs in my album 'recent projects'.

After much nagging...

from friends and family I have updated my blog and promised to keep it up to date. I'm not going to do a huge catch up post, suffice to say we are all well, loving life and looking forward to the second year in our new home.

My first WI craft evening was a huge success, you can read about it on our WI Blog

Pickleberry life is great, lots of new classes coming up along with some social events. We are planning morning and evening sessions of sewing, knitting, crocheting when we will eat cake, drink tea and natter. 

I will be teaching some felting classes, starting with basic wet felting and going on to more advanced projects in the months ahead. I recently attended a fabulous course with Helen to make some slippers, taught by Gillian at the Fluffatorium in Dorking. Kate will be stocking their kits very soon.

These are my lovely slippers, they are toasty warm and comfortable. 

I have some major sorting out to do with my photo albums and then hopefully I will update them all with some recent projects. For now I am off to roast some lamb rumps for supper and then settle down in front of the fire to watch a DVD.