I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, yarn is all around us and so the knitting grows .....

It is a time of year for finishing things off.  Northern Man has a problem with finishing things:  if he does a DIY job the tools sit where he last used them for weeks;  he has an issue with using up the last of the mayonnaise from a jar and he deserts a tube of toothpaste with at least two or three good squeezes left in it.  I was not surprised, therefore, when I found several almost-but-not-quite-used-up bags of potatoes in the fridge last night when I went to make the shepherd's pie.  The first was a bag of Vivaldi potatoes - we know who he was.  The second was a bag of Chopin potatoes - we know who he was.  The third was a bag of Maris Piper potatoes - who was he?  Is there such a place as Maris or was he a non-geographically-specific figure from Scottish history, heard piping mournfully across the Highlands at the end of the year to welcome Hogmanay?  Perhaps he followed the lead of Scottish football teams in not being named after his place of origin - Queen of the South (Dumfries), Raith Rovers (Kirkcaldy), St Mirren (Paisley), St Johnstone (Perth), Hibernian (Leith), Queen's Park (Glasgow), Albion Rovers (Coatbridge), Heart of Midlothian (Edinburgh), etc, etc.

Every year we have to move the The Box in order to make room for the oversized Christmas tree that Big Girl and Youngest Child insist I buy.

 The Box, which stores the-things-I'm-going-to-do-something-with-one-day, has to be partly emptied and this is when I come face to face with my own inability to finish a project.  I decided that this holiday I would finally put this right.


A knitted gargoyle has been in a dismembered state for  at least two years .....

A knitted devil who was completed all except one foot!  Why?  What can have been so important that I got distracted at that late stage and left him?

These knitted dolls have been partly knitted and partly put together for months.  I had a problem with the hair which I feel I have solved and with the face, which I have not.

And finally, the knitted dragons produced off-spring ......

Happy New Year and every blessing to you all.

Fortune telling and glue gunning ......

This morning I went to Chiswick car boot sale, not to sell, but to wander in the hope of finding a thing or two to buy.    As I was passing one stall I heard a lady ask the dealer if he had any books on fortune telling.  The dealer looked her straight in the eye and said 'Next week'.  I can only hope that she can see far enough ahead not to go back next Sunday in the hope that he is a man of his word.

I was tickled to find a professional sign writer there with beautifully painted things.  He had a collection of vintage saws for sale.  They were painted with opulent scroll work around the words 'Tattoos Removed'.

I have indulged myself with the purchase of a hot glue gun, Who knew there was so much fun to be had?  Everything is getting a stick-on make over ....

Sets of painted drawers with crochet flowers ...

Baskets, boxes and a hat box with crochet flowers .....

and a pretty vintage basket with knitted and crocheted flowers.  I've taken this basket to lots of fairs and it has refused to sell.  Add a few flowers and it disappeared first thing yesterday morning!  This could be the future .....

Summer's lease hath all too short a date.

In the knowledge that we are almost at the end of the car boot sale season, I went fair distances on Saturday in search of things to buy.  My route took me across country along lanes and byroads and, as it was still very early, wildlife was out in large numbers.  As I swerved around the tenth or eleventh pheasant, I mused on the joke nature played on them - delicately camouflaged so as not to be seen by predators but so stupid that they cannot stay hidden.

Here are some of the things I collected today ....

Lovely painted paper mache coffee filter paper holders. I don't understand why anyone would want a coffee filter paper holder, even one as beautiful as these, as it seems to me that they are the ultimate dust collectors.  However, I didn't buy these to sell - they are staying in my collection.

Pretty trios and a very damaged but charming porcelain flower box.

A velvet hat box with the strangest porcelain flower decoration glued to the top and vintage crochet gloves.

Carved wood panels and vintage wooden shoe shapers ...

Isn't he great?  No hint of camouflage here!

I welcome little fishes in with gently smiling jaws!

I was reminded of this poem on Wednesday when the doors of the hall were opened and 160 new year 7s, with shining morning faces, poured through to begin their secondary school education.  The full poem, as you will likely know, goes:-

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

But rest assured, I have not yet been known to feast on any part of a year 7 student ....

On to other things.  The nasty boot, which has been my constant companion this summer, has gone, the bandage has been removed and my battered, puffy, scarred foot is once again in daylight.  It was an interesting experience wearing the boot:  complete strangers struck up conversations in queues, on trains, in restaurants and at the car boot sale.  People got out of my way, apologised for bumping into me and offered me seats.  The assumption was that I had done something to my foot by accident and I had to explain that, actually, I had decided to put myself through the last, very boring, six weeks of inconvenience.

We did have some amusing times together, the boot and I, particularly with the business of keeping clean.  One hotel in which we stayed had no bath (didn't check in advance - lesson learned) but, luckily, did provide little plastic bags to dispose of STs, etc.  I discovered that the plastic bag was a lovely snug fit over my foot and its bandage so that was how I showered for several days.  We also had a few days at the Scottish estate and there is no bath there either, only a shower with a waist level barrier around it.  I knew that I would have to shower with my foot over the barrier in order to keep it dry and I was so focused on this that I forgot to take the shoe off my good foot.  Once I noticed the squishy feeling, I was so suprised that I immediately put my bad foot down in the shower to get my shoe off!

In two week's time, on 21st September, it will be the Vintage Bazaar at Hartley Witney.  There will be lots of exciting stall holders there selling lovely things and I shall be there too. Here are some of the things which will be coming with me ....

Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren't go a-hunting, for fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, trooping all together. Green jacket, red cap, and white owl's feather!

I am very bored.  Did I mention that?  I have been driven to such things as scrubbing the grouting between the kitchen floor tiles, sorting out the yarn stash and vacuming the beams to get rid of spiders' webs.  Luckily, I have Pinterest to keep me going.  Some weeks ago Nikki mentioned Maggie Neale's Pinterest page and I have been following keenly ever since.  Every time I visit Pinterest there is a lovely array of pictures to gaze at and, when you follow the links to other pinners, lots more beautiful things.  So much to look at and, luckily, so much time to spare!

Also, so much time to knit.  Following on from the dragons last week, I now give you the following mythical creatures spotted in the garden .....

 Knitted gnomes....

 Knitted elves (or are they imps?).  Every time I look at these boys I think Jedward ...

and a knitted troll (or is it a goblin?) who has has clearly been going to the gym and working out to develop those muscles.

Romance and Northern Man .....

Northern Man is bored.  He is working from home to help me following the removal of the hallux valgus last week which is a sign of his love - or so he would have me believe.  Personally I suspect that it is a practise run for retirement, something I have been discouraging vigourously.  I know nobody less suited to a sedentary life than my husband as this week has conclusively proved, to me if not to him.

He has always had, right from the very beginning of mobile telephone technology, a work 'phone and he is supposed to pay for any private calls he makes from it.  So bored was he yesterday that he decided to work out how much he owed his employers for calls made over the last few years and he started with me.  Last year, my husband spent £10.40 calling me from his mobile.  Who says romance is dead?

I am bored too.  Many people, I know, would love to be told that they had to spend 6 weeks off their feet, preferably lying down with one foot elevated above the level of the heart.  It would be all their summer holidays come at once.  Not me - I'm just bored:  can't drive so can't go to a car boot sale; can't walk so can't enjoy the weather or the countryside;can't cook, shop, clean, launder - ok, so it's not all bad.  But I can knit!  Here are the latest creations ....

Dragon rampant and Dragon couchant ...

Graduation, goodbyes, goblins and gargoyles ...

Goodbyes seem to be a theme in our household recently.   It was no time at all ago that we left Big Girl at university for the first time but last week she graduated and waved farewell to Lancaster, at least for a while. Northern Man also said a sad, permanent goodbye this week to a friend from the North from his formative years.  I was luckier:  I said goodbye to my hallux valgus which has been keeping me company since my teens.  I shall not miss it and I am already planning to buy a completely new shoe collection as soon as the swelling has subsided!

As I am unable to walk at present I have been doing some knitting and decided to revisit gargoyles.  I love the Georgina Manvell gargoyle patterns but they are labour intensive and I thought I'd have a go at something smaller and simpler.  Here are the results with Simon the Baleful for comparison.  I feel a little Victor Frankensteinish - have I created a goblin or an imp?  If I add horns, wings and a tail do I have a gargoyle? 

This one reminds me of somebody ......

My purple patch or old bag blues .....

I have never been a graceful person and my mother told me, in the way that mothers do, that I was a clumsy child.  I wasn't, I just wanted to get things done quickly so I tended to have more accidents but I never broke a bone or hurt myself particularly.   Last week we had a fleeting stop in the Yorkshire Dales and went for a walk.  Half way around, while crossing a deep gill, I stumbled, then I slipped, then I fell and, when I came to a halt, my forehead was in contact with a large rounded boulder.  Shortly afterwards the proverbial egg came up and it was of a size to make an ostrich squeal during the laying process.  I'm not sure why I asked Northern Man whether he thought I'd get a black eye - he has no medical training whatsoever and  numerous qualifications in engineering are not much use when it comes to the prediction of bruising patterns - so I was probably just after reassurance.  He promised me that I would be okay but now I am sporting a black eye which would make a cage fighter wince.  I have to tell you that purple is not my colour and it will suit me far better once it has faded to a nice shade of green.

It did not prevent me from car booting, although my darkest sun glasses stayed firmly on (the very swollen) bridge of my nose.  This is what I found .....

A vintage painted magazine rack ...

Lovely little string box in the shape of a house and vintage glass Christmas decorations ....

A panel of crocheted flowers .....

A lovely embroidered picture and a silk embroidered picture ...

and last, but not least, the eponymous old bags.

The National Vintage Awards - your chance to vote ...

The following email was received from Vintage Bazaar HQ .....

The National Vintage Awards

The Vintage Bazaar is up for the award for 'Best Fair' in The National Vintage Awards and time is running out to vote! We are really grateful to those of you who have voted for us already but sadly we are lagging behind some of the very big event organisers and really need your help to show that big is not always better! We hope that you may be able to persuade your friends/family/milkman/blog followers etc etc to vote for us as well. If you have a moment could you share the link below on your FB/Twitter/Blog pages
Thank you so much for all your support

VB HQ x

http://thenationalvintageawards.co.uk/vote-here/

So get voting!

How to discipline your bitch and other doggy stories .....

It was with mixed feelings that I discovered at Shepton Flea in May that, even though I can now get my car insurance through Saga, my pulling days are not yet over.

I was minding the stall, knitting doves and smiling vaguely at passing possible customers, when I made the ill-considered error of making eye contact with a man who believed that 'rat-catcher chic' was an attractive look.  He obviously thought the ice had been broken and was standing in front of me faster than a bear after honey.  Because I am a well brought up girl, I had no alternative but to make conversation and we began to discuss the days purchases.  I asked him what he had found and he showed me a bamboo cane which he was carrying in his ruck sack.  I naively asked him what he intended to do with it.  He smiled archly at me and said 'Use it on willing ladies'.  Reader, for once, I was speechless .....

Now, you will see from the following pictures that there has been something of a theme to my buying over the last few weeks ...

Happy bank holiday - enjoy the sun while it lasts!

It's good to be car booting again .....

Yesterday was The Vintage Bazaar in Hartley Wintney. There were wonderful things on sale and it was a challenge to remember that I was there to sell and not to buy. The next one at this venue is 21st September so put this date in your diaries!

Next weekend, on 5th May, it's Shepton Flea Market which was a good excuse (as if one were needed) to go booting today .....

The most wonderful thing about it is that you never know what you're going to find .....

... and you never find the same thing twice .....

Here we have a potential St George and his dragons.  I am puzzled why anyone would go to such trouble to create this wonderful figure and then not give him a face.  An idea for an episode of Dr Who perhaps?

To Bee or not to Bee ...

Tuesday is the final of the BBC's Great British Sewing Bee.  I am already in my mourning weeds and hoping that sewing, like cooking, is about to become a minor national obsession.

I can forsee an epidemic of programmes dedicated to the needle and its art:  Come Tack With Me; Masterstitcher; The Great British Dressmaker.  Celebrity judges will appear and choose the contestants whom they want to go onto the live shows on the basis of blind top-stitching competitions.  There will be live auditions in front of a studio audience to find the sewer with the cross-stitch factor.  There will be books, dvds, magazines! 

On Saturday 27th April The Vintage Bazaar is once again in Hartley Wintney and I have been busy painting the unprepared items I found hibernating at the back of the garage.  But I also found time for some knitting and believe that I have created what the world has been waiting for - a knitted cherub!

I have to say that they are not completely anatomically correct, but they do have tummy buttons and bottoms ....

"You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you think, at your age, it is right?

I have just renewed my car insurance - with Saga.  I have only one thing to say to that .....

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray, what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs."

Lewis Carroll

Word Association Knitting .....

Last weekend my thought process went something along the lines of warmer weather - watery sun - green shoots - spring! - blossom ....

- March hares ....

I have been trying for a long time to knit a chicken.  I have knitted them from the tail forward, from the beak backwards, from the feet up, in one piece, in two pieces, with a gusset and without.  It has been something of an obsession and I am unable to decide why it has been so difficult to arrive at a version which pleases me. I haven't had the problem with any of the other birds I've knitted.  Here is the latest idea ( tail forwards, one piece, seperate legs!) with the Easter chicks from few years ago.

Speaking of obsessions, Northern Man's ipad addiction is becoming worse and has spread to include a mini ipad and an iphone.  These devices talk to each other and share information;  what is saved on one, is saved on all.  He thinks this is a wonder of modern technology but I think it's verging on Terminator territory.  I don't want my machines talking to each other;  imagine if the Yeti began to chat to the dishwasher, washing machine or dyson.  They'd share stories about my incompetence and slatternly habits, the way I cut corners, don't vacumn under the furniture or scrape the plates.  They'd begin to laugh about me behind my back, lose respect, refuse to carry out my instructions.  There's nothing worse than an uppity dishwasher ....

Living the Dream ...

Not so long ago, in a women's magazine found not so far away, I read about the modern-day myth of the 'capsule wardrobe'.  I have long attempted to recreate this ideal spending far too much money on the quest and still,  when I am asked to travel for a week taking only hand baggage,  I find that nothing I have matches.  Many of you will ask why I bother to try and the answer to this is Northern Man.  Northern Man likes to be first off the plane, at the front of the queue for passport control, through customs and at the car rental desk before the back row in economy have even thought about unbuckling their seatbelts.  He hates waiting and loathes queuing so he believes that hand baggage will quicken the passage through and out of an airport.  This is true but it doesn't solve the problem I have of not wanting to live in one pair of jeans for a week. From all of this, you will have guessed that we have been travelling again so I expect no sympathy from you for my unresolved struggle with my packing problem.    Here are some of the highlights ...

We stopped in Saint Augustine (pronounced as in langoustine), Florida and came across the delightful Dow Museum of Historic Houses which has been created by the simple conceit of enclosing an entire block of the town and opening its 'historic' houses to the public.  If I sound a  little snide about this it is because some of the houses in the museum were actually built after 1845, which is when our house dates from!  But, the reason I am mentioning the museum is not the buildings but the grounds, which had been turned into a retreat of shady nooks and quiet courtyards filled with moss covered trees, fountains and statues...

Some of the houses are furnished ....

I loved this shadow box with its arrangement of wool flowers.  I've been searching in vain for instructions to make flowers like this from wool.

We travelled on to the gracious city of Savannah with its squares and streets filled with huge live oaks draped in Spanish moss (it ain't Spanish and it ain't moss) .....

Beautiful buildings everywhere .....

Little bits of fun ....

And movie history ....

This is where Forrest Gump sat to say 'my momma always said life was like a box of chocolates'.

And then to glorious Charleston where every turn you make opens up another delightful view.  Charleston single houses are narrow and deep with one end turned to the street.  They are one room wide and have verandas running the length of the house to catch the breeze on hot summer days.  The verandas are known as piazzas and, as well as providing outdoor living space, they shade the windows of the house from the afternoon sun.  But, and here's the fun bit, many of the houses have front doors which open onto to the piazza, not the house itself.

From the front ...

..

... and from behind.

Some of the plots have been subdivided which leads to an interesting numbering of houses ....

So, as you can see, there was lots for me to see and explore while Northern Man played golf with the locals ......