Diary week 4

Last weeks diary pages. I didn't manage to fill all the spaces, I'll come back to it with some doodles, sketches or things to stick in...

Oh no, another snow picture..

 Just to show, once again, that I can take pretty pictures of snow. Even though it did mean I had to slither and spin all the way up the hill to work and trudge through snow with buckets of water and bales of hay (bah!). I snapped this very quickly when the farmer took me to a distant location to check that some sheep were ok. I had to walk through this beautiful undisturbed woodland then into and across a field. The sheep were all ok you may be pleased to hear, tho they were a bit unhappy about having to snuffle about in the snow to get at the grass! I don't suppose they were thinking how pretty it was?
I like this image so much I might have a go at drawing it...

whoops, sorry about the funny colours, I was 'playing about and then couldn't get rid of it!

New house!

Oh my goodness look at this. 

Lynne from 'Textile Treasury' is in New Zealand and has just visited Hobbiton. Oh I want a house like this............

Click on the image or below to see more amazing hobbit houses.

http://textiletreasury.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/hobbits-and-sky-jumps.html

Snow and sewing

I have been aware this week that other people have been getting all excited about the snow thing and I've been all 'bah humbug' because it makes it difficult for me to get to work (I'm back lambing this week), and impossible for me to do my other work, gardening. Gardening, ha what's that? I've done so little since November because it's either raining, frozen or snowing! 

This morning I went to a new yoga class which was wonderful, so I'm looking forward to more of that, and then, as the ground wasn't actually frozen, I went to the allotment to dig up some parsnips and horseradish to go with the aforementioned beef. And I got SOAKED. It rained and rained (I was home by now) and then it turned to snow, and I thought that actually it looks very pretty, so I took this picture from our sitting room window. (You didn't think I was going to go outside did you?!)

So there you go, pretty snow, I feel better now.....

Do you see the date stamp, that's a long story relating to my new computer, which has sorted all my photos by date, but as I never set the date properly on my camera....imagine the chaos, I won't bore you with that!

This afternoon I got out my lovely hand crank singer sewing machine. I'm planning to take it on the boat with me when we finally go off on our big adventure, to make stuff and do repairs with, so I thought I'd sew up these hatch covers for the boat with it. It needs a bit of attention, I haven't got the correct bobbins for example, but in general it works really well.

I've also been playing my fiddle a lot. I've had it for two years now and have have played it very little. A few of us from the singing group have started a music group. I played a slow but passable version of the Skye Boat Song last night along with a whistle, a harmonica and two guitars. It probably sounded dreadful, but we were pleased with ourselves and we can only get better!

Making pastys

 Vince was getting bored of cheese sandwiches for lunch, and I have a freezer full of meat that needs eating. I've been vegetarian on and off over the years, but as it's factory farming I disapprove of I'm happy to eat home grown or local organic meat. As I'm not rearing any animals at the moment I've started buying a meat box once a month from a local organic farm. The last box we had had some 'skirt' in it, which my research told me was the traditional pasty meat filling. (I'm tempted to do a 'skirt' joke here, but I won't!)
We like a lot of veg in our pasties so I chopped up carrot, onion, swede and potato and stirred in salt, pepper and some paprika.

Pasty ingredients

All chopped up
(a bit of leftover red cabbage sneaked in there..)

 Home made wholemeal pastry (might have been half and half actually)

Yum

I'm really pleased with them. That bowlful of filling made tons, so there are lots in the freezer, definitely a nice change from cheese sandwiches. I might make some cheese and veg ones sometime.
I love cooking. I particularly love cooking with what I've got, rather than looking at a recipe and going out to buy ingredients, partly because the shops are three miles away.

Diary week 3

 

 

 

This weeks diary

(click on the image for a larger version)

 

 

 

 

...is it me or is blogger being difficult about uploading pictures, I seem to have to do it via the picassa web album sometimes.

Quick sewing project

Vince treated himself to a new phone. It's one of those all singing all dancing things that only cost a few pounds a month if you don't use them too much. It will be useful for keeping in touch and getting weather forecasts when we are on the boat. Well it will be useful if we can ever work out how to use the thing.
He bought a case for it to protect it when he throws in in his lunch bag or in the van, but the case only covers the back and sides and doesn't protect the screen (!?) so he asked if I could make one for him. Never one to turn down a quick fix sewing project I produced this. Sorry I haven't rotated the image, I had enough trouble re-sizing it, then finding the re-sized image (new computer!)

leather phone case

When he was asking me to make this he went slightly into silly mode and asked if it could be monogrammed in gold and have the family coat of arms on it etc etc .........
.....So he got a gold 'V' on it!

The next best thing to a family coat of arms?!

Nature journalling

I did a trial nature journaling workshop with friends, then two half day drop-in workshops with Organic Arts at West Town Farm. It all went well and participants seemed to enjoy themselves. I've learnt a lot and I'm looking forward to doing more and developing/adapting them as I go. Here are some pictures of some of the little books that were made.

I'm still not comfortable with the term 'nature jounals', anyone got any other suggestions?

Diary 2013

I have been playing with scanning rather than photographing my diary pages. I think the images come out a bit washed out, but it's more instant, as in I have them on the computer instantly without having to wait for good daylight to photograph them, and then get round to transferring them from the camera. My diary is also a little over A5 size, so it misses off a bit of the edge of the page, but not enough for me to worry about.
I thought I'd try and post each weeks diary pages as the year goes by, which means I'll feel driven to fill each week up, and I might get to post every week this year!
I've filled two weeks so far and have done the first day of week three (my weeks start on a Monday)
(and I've just discovered I can do coloured fonts, though it might look silly on the blog?!)
Click on the images for a larger view.







January week 1







January week 2



January week 3 (just started)