Charitable giving: crochet and baking

Say hello to Lennie the Lion, my first ever finger- puppet! For Operation Christmas Child of course.
Pattern from Inside Crochet mag, latest issue: #24 with the weird green baby hat on the cover.
OK ok hand embroidery has never been a forte of mine...Kinda cute though?

At 17 degrees C and sunny at 1pm on 13th NOVEMBER????? aMAAAZING. This was Cuttlebrook where at last the leaves are falling/ have fallen. Tiny bit of autumn.

Lucy BEHIND me , what's going on? She usually races ahead.
Lovely trees.
Lucy panting. Maybe she's too hot? Or unfit? Or exhausted? We walked from the top of the upper High st today AND stopped off at the Children In Need stall AND had walked round the block at home with Pippa too.
Such gorgeous trees.
No she definitely didn't want to walk, she's still way behind.
Here are just some of the delicious cupcakes Miss E baked on Saturday 12th. With Hummingbird bakery recipes and Hummingbird frostings.
Aren't they lovely? I'm just sorry I didn't get a photo of the PUDSEY BEAR ones she iced by hand with a yellow bear face and spotted eye bandage? And she did some RAINBOW ones too.
She was baking ALL day from 8 am to the evening and had shopped at Waitrose on the Friday evening for all the ingredients. ( huge bill but never mind) We're sooo PROUD of her!!!!
And here they are a team of 4 from year 9 AHS manning their charity bake sale stand in Thame.



THANK YOU to the people of Thame who supported them as everything SOLD and they have just over £150 to give to the CHILDREN IN NEED charity! WELL DONE girls!
And this is the left front of the white cotton SALICE I finished yesterday evening at the Autumn concert at AHS. Miss Y was in the GLEE club performance. The music and singing was of an outstandingly excellent standard and that's speaking honestly, as a classic FM devotee, not as a mum. I thought I'd video-ed it on my i-phone but ooops I got only a small part and somehow all you can see is my skirt, not sure why. I'm certain I focused on Miss Y who was in the front row.

So proud of BOTH my daughters! WOW.

Colourful inspiration from nature

Bunting AGAIN! This time it's turned RED! Just a quick foretaste of what is yet to come...
This same bush / tree/growth was seen as all green bunting, leafy glorious bunting on.26 October 2009, here.

Monday and Tuesday this week was foggy, but I kind of liked it as it gave the walk a mysterious and adventurous mood.

Lots of mud too. Many towels have now been re-allocated to the doglets for rubbing down and rubbing most of the mud and wetness off. Lucy thinks it's a game and attacks the towel with vigour, tearing it -almost- every time.

Teasels: pretty to see but a right p.i.t.a.( insert words as appropriate) to pull out of doggy-furry-coats! Pips especially has a knack of collecting them onto the back of her front paws.

Me - thinks there be a drawing in there somewhere though! Funny how dark it seems too, this was at 9 am in the morning!

There you are, the light is back again. I just HAD to capture these reflections- for later drawing again- and it took a great few takes too, the first 3 were black! Had to turn the flash OFF.

No blue skies today, all grey but it's sunny in my heart and my soul is singing, because I'm going to do ''arty'' things all day!

Yellow berries. Never seen a tree like it? Felt like I was in Provence?

And then, and THEN: I spied the BUNTING TREE!!! WOW what GLORIOUS COLOURS!!!

So here is a small selection of what I photographed....Sorry if it's too much? I just LOVED it so very much , you see? Makes your heart and soul soar and sing!

So many colours and so many tones and shades and combinations of green,red,orange,yellow and browns.

Here we're at the yellowing end with a tiny bit of green still remaining.

Red to red-orange!

Bye bye ''bunting bush/tree''. I have to go look up what you are actually called: you know, botanically speaking.

At home I spent the day drawing, playing the piano ( lesson today) and finishing the hat and scarf for the Christmas box: I'll show and tell tomorrow?

Autumn leaves

Do you remember this row of trees? I took a picture here. It's a few weeks later and the colours are changing, some are even better, brighter now.

And this is the red Boston Ivy which with all the blustery blowy winds we've been having is no more, the red leaves are all on the ground.

It's been a lovely homey- kind of 2 days. The kids have made things with Fimo, trampolined a lot, built a den in Miss E's room and then spent many giggly hours playing in it. Miss E tried to teach Miss Y piano and vice versa for some cello too. Alas I have been poorly with a chesty cough and seemingly endless shortness of breath with frequent recourse to the Ventolin remedy and not enough energy for a trip to London. However mums cannot be ill, ever and especially not in half term ....

So we DID still have a quick and highly entertaining trip into Oxford , having chatty and observant girls sitting at the top of a double decker bus makes one feel alltogether better for a while! And of course the dogs still need their 2 good walks a day....

JJ said that a good show of berries means a harsh winter to come, but I hadn't heard that before?

If it's true, then oh dear oh dear, I'd better crochet up a storm of more blankets and jumpers!!!

Such a pretty sight: aren't they? Just before they get picked in order to make a wish... I expect these in Spring not in Autumn? When Miss E was about 3 I was teaching her all the flower names on the way to nursery one day and the next day she said: ''Look mummy these are some mummy -lions!!!'' I was perplexed until she explained that they were right next to the daddy-lions.....( !!!!)Oooh for those lovely innocent days again...LOL

Today there were riddles and jokes and MUCH lovely leaf kicking as well as tree climbing, while the dogs searched for rabbits and did ''puppy dashes''.

Just as good, only different. I must say hearing them chat and giggle is pure joy.

The dogs sometimes run wildly in a circle and back again and Pippa did this through piles of leaves so she'd picked up on the girls' fun when kicking through the autumn leaves.( =puppy dash)

Then Lucy who had watched in amazement copied Pippa and then they ran about together.

It was unseasonably warm- not to say weirdly HOT when the sun came out- as it was 18 to 19 degrees Celcius today.....I was shivery and JJ stayed home with a temperature, but the girls were in summer t-shirts.

Lots of leaves, kick, rustle, kick.

And I'm not a yellows or orange kind of a fan, but on a sunny day with a blue sky these are just sooo glorious!!!

Pippa in long grass: Now you see her.

Now you don't.

And yes I cheated a little, I forgot my camera today and took these before Pippa was groomed a few days ago.

Late afternoon to relax all 4 of us, we went to see ''UP'' the film and very enjoyable it was too.

With 3D glasses on and sitting in the front row- we were almost too late and these were the only seats left- we all forgot our colds/headaches/sore throat/drippy noses....and cried and laughed or screamed with the characters and the action.

Puppy # 2 was finished today but no photo yet, it's interesting how similar and yet different they look. Tomorrow I'd like to crochet a santa suit for the above bear....

Depending on the sleep I get and the progress of shaking off this bug I'll share with you how I get on with it, real soon.
Have a happy hookey time !!!!

Autumn Morning JOY

What a morning! Thank you, thank you thank you! Having walked the dogs in such a persistent ''drizzle'' that you end up being soaked yesterday it was such joy to walk them in glorious autumn sunshine today! Could not resist these trees with the shiny red car so beautifully parked right in the middle. On second thoughts it would be better cropped to a tall slim rectangle? With less tree ? Will try that later.

What sumptious colours!!! All those reds and purples, then to almost black and brown : I must have taken 20 or more pictures and this is one of the best- possibly?

Just showing off the lovely pointy 5 petal shape of these leaves too. And then there was this weird yellow ''window'' in the composition???

In a different light the reds are sharper, less pink, less purple and more brown? I'll move on .

Some clever planning person put all these trees in a neat row: lovely contrasts.

Lucy pulled me to a differnt path from our usual route and THIS was on the way. I imagine little green fairies just behind those trees....MAGICAL.

This I feel will be turned into one of my embroideries very soon....On we went and across a bridge. Lucy played with other dogs and attracted a large Doberman- we think she may be starting her first season.( He was a boy and very interested in her) There she was on her back waving tiny paws at him, very funny.

Aaah another embroidery, definitely, do you like the composition? I do, LOVE those diagonals! Not my doing of course, clever nature. How come the reflected blue sky is blue-er than the sky?

Magic around every corner, this one will get an ''impressionist'' treatment I feel....EEEEEH! I'm getting all excited and shivery, I can imagine the threads, colours and stitches...Bits of chopped up fabric...Must get to my machine soon! I wonder if it will be up to it? My dear Pfaff has had an accident you see and stitches rather sporadically and eclectically now.

All this machine stitchery excitement was re- awakened at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London on Saturday and I have - just a few- photos to share about that soon! BIG THING is that I have decided to do- if they'll have me- the Stitched Textiles course at Windsor from next October so I have to get my socks on and finish my C&G level 3 machine embroidery diploma : toute suites!!! I am probably about 55%-65% there....

And if I state it here in PUBLIC then I HAVE to do it don't I?!!!

Voila this is today's finale. THAT BLUE is for me the best ever blue, I can't get enough of it. There's my shadow on the left I should have cropped it, I know but it amused me. Lucy was there too a second before but she moved before she was recorded.

There was crochet on the coach to London so before I go all ''embroidery'', there'll still be some crochet to share soon too!