pandora pocket

 

Yellow roses remind me of Wolfgang Tillmans - the first ever photographer to win the Turner prize and my personal favourite of the four that year (2000). Yellow roses are also a symbol of friendship, which is most appropriate as these were a gift from my dear friend Caroline as she leaves London for a new adventure in Birmingham. Yellow roses will now always remind me of both Wolfgang and Caroline.

 

My birthday weekend last weekend was lots of fun. Chez Bruce, pancakes and champagne in bed, chocolate cake and contractions (Lisette) in Richmond Park, London marathon (David), and a rat in the toilet.

Circus Violet and the Gang - new prints and ceramics by Camilla Engman.

Watergate Bay

 

I think the sandcastle building was more about the competitive dads and the paddling was definitely about the cold. Jamie Oliver's Fifteen was fantastic and delicious and the old school rave back at the Blue House afterwards was I'm sure a rare treat for the neighbours. All in all a fantastic weekend - Happy 40th Paul, Ru, John and Chris.

Josie is giving away prizes all week.

DIY

 

A lovely long weekend which involved a birthday celebration at a masked ball, a chocolate overdose at the Redshaws and a good dose of DIY. Although now that I have painted the shelves, I feel the need to repaint the whole room. David agrees wholeheartedly (from the sofa).

Inspiration for a new quilt from The Small Object: triangles.

Rob Ryan's pop-up shop in New York, posted by Lena Corwen: Ryantown USA

Girls Style Book

 

A most productive weekend. With David away climbing snow capped mountains in Wales and the sewing room soon to disappear forever, I trialled a new pattern from the Japanese 'Girls Style Book'. A new birthday dress - a puffball dress. Not sure how they will look, or whether indeed they are the right size for the birthday girls in question but I will soon find out. I like them a lot. Especially in the cute polka dot fabric.

   

Ants get out of my kitchen.  

A cowboy and two pirates

The glue has dried and the second, third and fourth birthday presents of the year are wrapped (January is a very busy birthday month) and ready to have little hands shoved inside. They are basically blanket stitched felt gloves onto which I mod podged more felt. Of course, they each have a moustache.

      

Today has been my favourite day of the year so far.

Lazy

I've been a bit lazy. Maybe more than a bit. Over the last month, I have been doing a lot of visiting my dad interspersed with sleeping, watching crappy movies in front of a crackling log fire, plenty of eating and absolutely no blogging or crafting. It's been bloody lovely. But a little bird in Buffalo has been tweeting in my ear, so here are a couple of things I actually left the house for in December...

Christmas opening on Columbia Road and the Rob Ryan shop

 

Ice skating at the Natural History Museum...

 

... and pints of beer afterwards

 

Santa's express at Selfridges

 

Spoons in Cranleigh

 

and Caroline's 40th

 

Phew that was exhausting, I need a lie down.

Down to Margate

(Don't forget your buckets and spades and cossies and all)

What else could you want from a traditional seaside day trip? A teacup ride at the funfair, a mouthful of jellied eels, a game of frisbee on the beach, a dip in the icy brown ocean, fish and chips for lunch and a good old singsong on the bus ride home. 

Actually we spent most of the day at Broadstairs which is a lovely seaside village with winding streets, tudor arches (not so ideal for a routemaster bus) and a great beach with a big rock pool appearing once the tide goes out. I had insisted we stop in Margate - not just for the funfair and the jellied eels, but for the shell ladies. Lifesize sculptures created by Ann Carrington from locally found shells, these souvenir style ladies represent historical lady figures of Margate and are to be wheeled around the town for the rest of this month.

 

Of course it rained a lot (it is summer after all) and we spent most of the day in waterproofs but we were all very happy to help Matthew Bartholomatthew Short celebrate his special birthday.

all the Bs

Books, Birthdays, Buddies, Blogs, Buffalo...

thank you mum, aj, phillis and josie for such a fabulous birthday book bonanza.

happy birthday sari.

and great news of our media buddies:

nuala, who is blogging about her amazing trip to meet president museveni in uganda..

josie - craft sensation - who was interviewed at home for buffalo TV and rocks!

weekend

thank you for a weekend of warm sunshine, good food, belly laughs, homemade cards, champagne and flowers. I am now half as old as my dad.

print

had I been blessed with some birthday luck this weekend and won the lottery, I would have returned to the london original print fair and splashed out. I'm thinking ben nicholson, louise bourgeois, patrick caulfield and I quite liked the colour ladder by john plumb.

happy to see rob ryan as always (birthday tile I love you), and amazed to see the prices on a banksy.

and really happy to see copies of beasts of india (birthday book I love you too) and the night life of trees for sale through the rebecca hossack art gallery. I read about them both on a blog ages ago and was keen to rifle through the pages. bizarrrely julia rothman listed trees as one of her favourites the very next day.

orla kiely's new prints in liberty.

hennie print storage tins and bezelle print bed linen in habitat.

poster by lisen adbage, found through fine little day.