in progress...

I have a new love.

Ceramics you are my first love, nothing will ever change that but spinning is warm, fluffy and much more portable. Before Jess was born I bought a secondhand spinning wheel and had a few lessons. Then I found out I was pregnant and pregnancy and sheep and lambing time don't really mix -  I live in a rural area with lots of lovely sheep all around. So I gave up for a long time. My spinning wheel looked mournfully at me from the corner of the room. I felt a bit guilty...

This summer I was walking through Hay-on-Wye (as a stop off on our way to Snowdonia) when I found a shop with with a baskets of beautiful hand dyed merino and bamboo tops. A few of those bags came home with me and I dreamed of my wheel again, it was time...

By the time we got to our holiday cottage I was dreaming of the yarn I would make... The fates were smiling on me and in a local store I found a drop spindle and a copy of Respect The Spindle. I'm hooked. I go everywhere with a bag of fibre and a drop spindle (along with my knitting.) The house is covered with fluff, I answer the phone spindle in hand and get in a muddle as I realise that I can't write down notes and spin at the same time. My family just smile - and indulge me - bless them!

(More about what I'm spinning in a future post)

trying something new

 

I've never been a big fan of cross stitch. It's not a craft that made my soul sing. I think I thought it was too mathematical - I come from a family where you're either an artist or a mathematician. My fabulous sister is both a mathematician and a cross stitch addict. I knit, I sew, I work with clay, I photograph. I was biased. I found Emily Peacock. I changed my mind.

this is the time....

.... for enjoying the daylight lengthening minute by minute

.... for being outside being blown along by another stormy day

.... for watching Jess and her new love (ballet)

.... for puddle splooshing with Jago - I love moving at toddler speed and splooshing is a real word...
     honest

.... for toasting (english) muffins on the fire, smothering them with soft butter and opening them with
     a jar of last summers strawberry jam - instant sunshine

.... for rediscovering books I loved as a child and now sharing them with Jess, Ballet Shoes the
     current favourite. See a theme developing here?

sounds of winter

Half an hour before dusk the starlings gather.

The noise becomes deafening as more and more arrive until suddenly, eerily they fall silent and fly.  Watching them, we stand in awe, witnessing them swoop and dive as one. Winter is here.

seven good things

1. running barefoot in the dunes - even though it's a bit on the cold side
2. listening to the sea breathe in and out
3. being amazed at the bright autumn colour
4. touching frost crystals
5. planning future adventures
6. drawing and making
7. reading real books, made of paper and print (sometimes I'm a closet luddite)

air & earth

I have two very different children with very different spirits.

 One of the air who leaps and sprints with her head in the clouds surrounded by imagination - she's a dancer, a storyteller, a poet.

And one always barefoot, connected to the earth. He's a gardener, a farmer, an engineer. Watching them together is always an inspiration.

sunshine & rainbows

In between the showers we glimpsed rainbows - the colours shimmering brightly and briefly.

Jago, dancing in puddles shouting his new rainbow word, then suddenly heartbroken when it fades away. Jess reassuring and motherly - she's old enough to know that one will find you when the time is right. 

I try to imagine seeing a rainbow for the very first time, discovering that that beautiful thing has a name. 

Kimmeridge

Pebbles

I'm lucky that I live very near to the coast and I find inspiration there every time, in so many ways. In the horizon line, in the pebbles on the beach, in the constantly changing colours of the ocean. Patterns in rock and the way pebbles flow in the water is a theme that I find recurs in my work.