Bits and Pieces

I had hoped to have a picture of the finished Lotus Moon Tile Afghan, this post, but it is not to be, silly person that I am I forgot that there were triangles to do to make the sides straight.  I sat down to do them yesterday and realised I didn’t have enough white, and the shop where I get that particular wool is closed on Saturdays!  Lucky the deadline is next Friday, lol.

So that gave me an opportunity to start my next CAL, The Julie YeagerSweet Pea Mystery ‘Ghan.

My inspiration is a watercolour I did earlier in the year,  I love water colour as you can get the colours to merger into each other as the petals of sweet peas do.

I have spent ages trying work out my colour scheme and in the end decided to use a long variegated wool and a silver grey as the main.

So here is week 1 clues, they come out on Wednesdays/Thursdays, so it is a nice feeling not to be lagging behind as I usually am.

During the week I dragged out another UFO, Colourful City Bag, a project bag that was part of a Cal on the Colouirful Cals group on Ravelry.  I am dreadful at doing the finishing touches of projects as I am eager to get on to the next project, but I want to keep my Sweet Pea Bits and Pieces in it.

I have to line and sew the zip in and add handles, so quite a quick job really,  I made a butterfly to pin to the side as I felt it needed something to match the lettering.

I don’t know if I have said that I love vintage doilies, while I was in town last week I came across these in a local charity shop, all for $2.

Of course I had to get started on one, I think I will do the whole set.  Will make a wonderful gift for a family member who is into vintage china.

Well that is it for today, and I will finish the Lotus Moon this week or I will be trouble, as Kendal wants it for her birthday sleepover!

Here is a very early rose poking its head through the shrubbery!  A promise of Summer.

See you next time and have a wonderful week.

Working My Way Out...

I am back on track health wise, but struggling to get my creative mojo working.  I have heaps of projects but finding no interest in carrying them out.  I am sure it happens to all of us when we have a break, or we have been working hard. 

Over the years I have found that going to my watercolours or gouache paints and painting the flowers in my garden help me.  I am sure that the colours spark the inner soul and get me thinking “what if….”  So here are some flowers from my garden I’ve done over the last week or so.  Hopefully, next week I won’t have the reluctance to pick up my brushes and am able to get back on track.  So have a great day and today I am linking this post to the wonderful artistic souls at Paint Party Friday.

my favourite flower of summer

 

This climbing rose made me tear my hair out in frustration, I had 4 goes!

The first year that this Rhodo has flowered.

Spring is on its Way!

Hey, I think spring might be on the way.  This morning I saw crocuses, peeping their way up through the weeds.  The plum trees buds are about to burst into flower and of course the daffs and jonquils all have been flowering for a few weeks.  Then I realized it August now, where has the time gone?  I just had to get my gouaches out and do this little gem.  I think I like them better for some flower studies as they have an opacity that you can’t get with watercolours.

This is the only bit of painting I done this week.  Most of it has been taken up with finally, finally getting my illustration website up and running.  I decided last week I had to do something about it and got cracking.  Most of it was done so I went to registrar my domain name and guess what I couldn’t have it, so had to think of new name, and settled on Rainbow Splashes.  Then I had to change my header, logo and so on!!!!  Then I went through the hassle of uploading it.  I had problems and finally emailed my host, it was their mistake, so it was all sorted yesterday, phew!  So now I am online, I do have pages for my painting and journal art so if you would like to go and have a peek here’s the link;

http://www.rainbowsplashes.com

 
Now that the challenges are all over I hope to get some serious painting next week, here’s hoping nothing will interfere.  Got to see the surgeon

about my shoulder, hoping that he will decide all is well, although I have to admit it is giving me a few hassles, probably overdoing it! 

So everybody thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week.

Linking to PaintParty Friday thanks to Eva and Kirstin for hosting, a stellar job.

Pansies

Two watercolours today.  I usually use gouache in my flower studies, but I have always wanted to master them in pure watercolour.  So I thought I would practice today and this is the result.  It was hard not using white but with a bit of practice I think I will get there.

Not a 100 per happy with them, but they will make nice postcards for my give away.  I have heaps of these flowering in my garden at the moment, only polyanthus and pansies seem to flourish in our winter.  Although I noticed that some jonquils were starting to bud up.

Last week’s give away winner was Christine at Christines Blog,  I have left my email address on her last post, so Christine choose 2 postcards from the postcard page and email me your snail mail address and I will send them off to you. 

 
If you want to win some postcards leave a comment and you will go into the draw.

Have a happy creative week everybody.

Linking to Sunday Sketches.