Monday, 30 January 2012


30th January 2012
Ahh birthday weekend - didn't get a great deal done! (apart from having fun!) Back to work now though. To be precise, my drawing course at Open College of Arts.

Wednesday, 25 January 2012



25th January 2012
Introducing my organic cotton super-soft handknitted washcloth. Knitted to my own pattern I can work the name of your choosing into the cloth. It's knitted in, so there is nothing to unravel. These cloths last for years....

Tuesday, 24 January 2012




24th January 2012
Did my first listing on Etsy yesterday (thankfully I re-painted that door last summer)! The photographs are just as difficult to achieve as I thought they would be! Particularly this time of year - when it's so dark. I was dashing around according to the few hours of sunshine in the morning. I need to take more photos but it's so grey and dark outside today, I'm going a sun-dance!

Sunday, 22 January 2012


22nd January 2012
I love this digital age.  Yesterday I spent an entire morning trying to buy some quality white cotton fabric. After trying three fabric shops, I gave up, went home, and within minutes had bought some on-line. Along with some beautiful Lota Jansdotter fabric - oops! (Don't tell my husband!) 

I got thinking about how photography has changed over the past few years. While I feel nostalgic about my old A-1, this is purely for the history we have together. The bands we've seen, the friendships that have been maintained or re-forged through the photos and facebook (technology again!) and the element of surprise.....will that photo come out as I hope? I love her metal body and the clunk of her shutter. But, I don't miss going out to buy film, then taking the exposed film to the chemist or posting it....waiting days for the pictures to come back..... realizing how to improve the pictures.....and repeat....the whole process could take weeks! And without a darkroom - any image manipulation had to be done 'in camera' and any cropping with a sharp knife! Now I've use GIMP . (It's not kinky, like the name may suggest!).

Sadly, too often it's the quantity of photographs that has increased, not the quality. Hey ho, at least I don't have physically sit through hours of other people's holiday slides.....one click on the internet and it's all over!



Friday, 20 January 2012




19th January 2012
Marmalade takes a long time to make - but smells amazing, and there's no waiting period before you can eat it! (which makes me happy, I like eating and hate waiting). I managed to get hold of some Seville oranges from my local greengrocer, along with a debate about imperial and metric weights. Me - 'Can I have 450g please?' Him - 'Oh you mean a pound' Me - 'Ok, can I have a pound please?' Him-  'Ah, well that would be 454g' (I was losing the will to obtain fruit at this point) Him - 'Well these weigh 500g' Me - 'That will do!' 

I 'bottled it' and used some preserving sugar (to guarantee a good set - I wasn't going to boil orange peel for 2 hours and risk ending up with a runny marmalade!).  The end result is a three jars of yummy strong marmalade and a kitchen that still has a variety of sticky spots that appear to be resistant to the strongest cleaners available to woman-kind and a good dollop of elbow grease.....