Work in progress – a knitted teacup

You know that feeling when you want to make something, just because. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but it catches your eye and whispers ‘make me’. Well, that happened to me when I spotted a knitted teacup pattern in craftseller magazine. Naturally I set to work and used some of my leftover neon green wool (naturally). Although I must remember not to use this wool in the future as it’s so difficult to photograph!

Here’s my progress so far... 

...an inside-out cup and TINY handle...

...just need to sew it all together now.

The Yorkshire Dales

We really fell in love with the Yorkshire Dales on our holiday last week; beautiful countryside, picturesque villages and friendly people (and no rain!). As much as I wish we could have stayed for longer we did manage to fit a lot into our four days. And just to give you an idea, here’s the math...

18 miles walked
2 books read
5 pub dinners, including 3 at the same pub
1 metal duck purchased (she’s named Daisy)
9,568 sheep seen (estimated figure but they were everywhere and surprisingly noisy)
2 National Trust properties visited
10 minutes in a Jacuzzi at the local swimming pool
5 swan feathers collected

As you can see, we spent most of it walking and exploring local villages and pubs! We stayed in the village of Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales National Park at Raines Close Bed and Breakfast, which was only a 2 minute walk from the village centre so great for pubs in the evening. I’d definitely recommend the B&B - yummy breakfasts (the most important thing, let’s face it), clean room, comfy bed and nice views. Their breakfast room overlooking the garden had the best view in the house and you could watch the rabbits and ducks who were regular visitors to the bottom of their garden! The joy of watching ducks over breakfast may have influenced the metal duck purchase listed above. Oops.

Our walks included several around Grassington, a visit to Fountains Abbey (more on that in another post) and walk to Malham Cove, which is a natural limestone cliff with great views and a strange stepping stone-like limestone pavement at the top, fantastic fun to walk and jump across. We printed most of the walks from this website.

As usual I took a lot of pictures, but here are some of my favourites.

Have you ever been to Yorkshire?

Picture postcard #11

Sunlit evening walks are possibly my favourite thing about summer. It’s been a stressful week but a wander down the road and across the fields after dinner makes everything look brighter. Plus there’s the thought that after today I now have a week off work! We'll be going up to Yorkshire for a couple of days and generally relaxing for the week, I'll also be trying to take a little blog and twitter break so will see you all next weekend. Hope you have a great week.

DIY vintage style painted table – before and after

I spotted a little dark wood table at a car boot last summer and immediately saw its vintage, shabby chic potential. I love the distressed painted furniture look, and after buying the table for just £2 I figured I couldn’t go wrong. It took me a lot longer than planned to get round to painting it, but now it’s finished I couldn’t be more pleased! The darker wood looks great underneath the chipped white paint.

This was the first time I’ve bothered to use primer paint when painting furniture and it definitely meant I could get away with fewer coats, plus it seemed to give a nice smooth base for the paint layers. So I might be a primer convert, unless I can suddenly afford nice Annie Sloan paint of course!

Top tip: when distressing your painted piece with sandpaper alternate between using the paper as normal and by wrapping it round a block of wood or similar (I used a particularly chunky screwdriver handle). By wrapping the sandpaper round something sturdy the paint chips in different sizes and shapes to when simply sanding, giving a more realistic distressed look.

Before

After

Floral fringe fair at Knepp Castle

Last weekend I headed to the wonderful Floral fringe fair at Knepp Castle, a celebration of all things vintage, floral and food. It was packed with stalls and was much bigger than both myself and my fair exploring companion (my Mum) expected. There were vintage caravans to look inside, vintage stalls, vintage cars, plant and flower stalls, cake and food stalls, craft stalls, morris dancers, a singing quartet and even a tree house to explore. As well as a bit of shopping, I sampled a delicious marshmallow filled with raspberry (wish I’d taken down the stall name) and had a go at weaving on one of the craft stalls.

And if the fair wasn’t enough, the setting was just beautiful too. Knepp Castle itself is privately lived in so you can't go inside but the exterior with its turrets, towers and climbing roses made the perfect backdrop. Then there was the huge lake, also gorgeous and its banks made a great place to eat our picnic and enjoy the sunshine. We made sure to wash down our lunch with a chocolate brownie from one of the cake stalls too! Bliss.

We’ll definitely be back next year.

florals and feathers: the May edit

These monthly features really do highlight how fast the months go by and I can’t believe it’s time for the May edit already. But without further delay, here’s the florals and feathers I’ve been admiring during the month of May.

florals

Flowered alphabet embroidery kit / French Needle
I’ve been so busy with my crochet cushion that I’ve been neglecting other crafts but this floral sampler kit would definitely get me to pick up an embroidery needle. It’ll look great finished and framed too.

Gardinea top / Joules
Simple style mixed with delicate flowers, perfect with pale denim shorts on a hot summer day!

feathers

Watercolour feather print / Grow Creative
It's the second month in a row that watercolour feathers have featured, it must be love.

Washi tape feather / DIY inspiration / Pinterest
A super easy feather DIY which would look great made into a garland, as if anyone needed an excuse to buy more washi tape!