Flying the Nest

We'll be leaving this behind tomorrow to take child #1 to university in the big city. (sniff, sniff)
He's the first one in our family to go and we're very proud of him. (sniff, sniff)

Though we only see him briefly when he ventures out of his room to forage for food at about 2pm and 6pm; I shall miss him terribly (sniff, sniff)

I'll miss the aromatic fug that meet you as you near his room. I'll miss his sparkling conversation that usually starts and ends in one sentence, "How long till tea?" I'll miss seeing the light shining under his bedroom door at unearthly hours of the night with accompanying sounds of explosions and gunfire.

So I've posted tonight as I will be a snivelling, sobbing wreck tomorrow night.
(sniff, sniff)
.

Good luck

I hope with all my heart that this is the start of a wonderful life.

Enjoy every minute.

Love Mum x

In my youth.

Yes it's me again already, after I left you yesterday I was very brave and ventured into the loft to look for some craft stamps. I say 'brave' because the sound of the wind in the attic was bad enough but under the eves in the loft it was even worse but needs must and all that. Anyway there I was on my knees in the loft scrabbling around in boxes when I came across my old sketch books from my time at art college some 25 years ago.

Well sketch books are just like old photo albums, once you find them you can't help but open them up and take a look and before you know you've lost an hour or two!

I only attended art college for a year doing a foundation art course and lodged away from home with a friend from school.
I was always sketching, usually in pencil and always portraits from pictures in magazines.

Colour wasn't really my thing. This one was done with watercolour pencils.

I'm afraid Hilda is looking a little worse for wear, the pencil now looking very smudged and faded. I think I actually did this one while I was still at school. (So it's very, very old)

A very rare landscape. The deckchair stand on Cleethorpes seafront.

Another in coloured pencil. The inscription reads Charlotte Lewis (what ever happened to her?) I think the year said 1986!

Sharron Gless

and an unfinished Tyne Daly.

Ah! This one has a little story with it. This one must have been a year or two later after college, I'd be about 21 and not long married. I occasionally did commissions for work colleagues, portraits from photos. This one was a workmates parents on their wedding day and I don't know if you can see but there is a stain right down the ladies face. Yep I nearly had this double portrait finished when I spilt a glass of Baileys down it and had to start all over again! There was certainly a lesson learned that evening I can tell you!

This one has lost some of its depth and definition, not to mention having a big crease across the top of her head. It's whats her face... er...can't remember her name...er...Shirley Maclaine! (I had to google Sweet Charity, lol)

This one is just a made up doodle. Isn't it weird how I can remember that. I can't remember what I did yesterday but I can remember a doodle I did a quarter of a century ago.

I found this one in a separate sketch pad, it's dated 2006. This would have been at the end of a year long textile course I did while the children where at school. It was only one afternoon a week but the best thing I ever did.
I must have been having one of my "I wonder if I can still do it" moments.

Keira Knightly 2006.

5 years ago.

Hmmm...I wonder if I still can?

.

Just to add - I didn't find the craft stamps in the loft, no they were neatly stacked in a cupboard in #2's bedroom!

Fi x

Thank you for your lovely comments. I really appreciate the time you take to tippety type them to me and I always read every single one. I know I don't get back to you all on your own blog pages as often as I would like but hopefully life will slow down a bit once Autumn is fully here and #1 is settled in at Uni. Our #2 has already put in a request for a change of bedrooms!

Aaaargh!

Good morning all. I'm up in my attic room typing this today as I often am although today I'm not so sure it's a very good idea. Today the UK has a day of blustery gusting winds from the tail end of Hurricane Katia and she's certainly making her presence felt. To make matters worse we live in a stone house on the top of a hill looking out over open countryside so being buffeted by strong winds is usual for us but today I can feel the whole house tremble (the coffee in my mug is gently jiggling back and forth on my sewing table) and the noise of the wind around the roof sound as if it's being torn off. I shall turn up the radio and sing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' Dorothy style, teehee.
Onto gentler things, this is my current work in progress. Hand felted Merino and Wensleydale wool, machine embroidered and then hand embroidered, I'll show you more when it's finished, I didn't want you to think I'd been sat here twiddling my thumbs!

Hearts, hearts, hearts.

Shed loads of them all full of aromatic lavender.

I think this one is my favourite.

No...these are my favourites.

No these.

I can't decide, they're all quite delicious and all destined for a Wedding Fair at the end of the month. There are still more to make but I've come to the bottom of the bag of lavender now.

Remember my Twiggy Crochet Flowers tutorial? (you can find it on my sidebar) Well these little crochet blooms have all been waiting months for stems, so at last they are complete (I noticed there was only one left in the vase last week, oops!)

That's all from me, I'm just off to check that the shed and the hen house are still in the garden and not residing at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the high street...."some where over the rainbow..."

love Fi,