gardening project day 10

When I went to look at the watering can to refresh my memory for painting it, I discovered that bindweed had looped prettily through it! Bindweed has such pretty heart-shaped leaves. However, due to it's strangling of everything else growing behaviour, I spend lots of time pulling out bindweed - no chance of eradicating it completely because it invades from the railway cutting which backs onto my garden.

gardening project day 9

These gorgeous purple tulips are growing in a tub in the front yard. The bulbs were another fab birthday present last autumn: )

gardening project day 8

The hanging basket I can see from kitchen window does have some greenery growing in it: weeds!

gardening project days 6 and 7

Hooray! I've been able to upload these two images : )

The pruners are antique: they came from my Grandad, and I have seen identical pair in a museum of gardening. They are the best: I've had modern pruners, which have not lasted more than a couple of years, unlike Grandad's which still do sterling service in my garden : ).

The flower pot was knocked over sometime during the winter - probably by a squirrel! Fortunately, the geranium, or to be strictly correct, perlagonium, is very forgiving, and will recover now I have replanted it.

Gardening project day 6

Hmm.. Well, I have another image ready to post, and blogger won't let me upload an image at the moment!

gardening project day 5

This is the winter flowering jasmine, which brightens up dull December days with yellow flowers : ). At this time of year it needs to be pruned, and I can never remember how to do it! I'll have to ask gardener and cartoonist Chichi http://chichiparish.blogspot.com/ for some advice.

Gardening project day 4

A lovely facet of tidying my neglected garden is discovering hidden plants like this tiny violet and the muscari hyacinths : ) The violets have arrived on their own, and the tiny hyacinths have migrated from where they were originally planted by me. It is so rewarding seeing them - a definite encouragement to go outside and do more tdying.

Gardening project day 3

Here is today's new illustration: next step in the garden is some serious pruning and weeding! Fortunately, local council collects garden waste separately for turning into compost. (Bonfires are not allowed where I live). I also had another go at tweaking the colour balance from yesterday's illustration: this time using Photoshop's "curves" function, which has worked a lot better.

Gardening project day 2

Well, today's is an experiment in re-sizing the image, etc in Preview instead of iphoto! Anyway, stage two for me in gardening is to dream up what I'd like to grow: basil for sure, and some cornflowers : )

Gardening project day 1

Here is the start of my project for April: gardening! I have a tiny garden, and it is currently in a disgracefully neglected state. I'm hoping that focussing on painting gardening images will focus my mind to taking action in real life out doors. Plus I love painting plants, etc anyway.

new spring wardrobe day 9

Here is my final addition to my fantasy new spring wardrobe: a highly essential hooded mac for the showery days! I'd love a grey blue coat, with pink lining, fish tail hem, and a dragonfly embroidered on it : )

I've already thought of a fab new blog project for April.

New spring wardrobe days 6, 7 and 8!

I had a lovely and exhausting weekend away over easter - seeing lots of my family, age ranges 5 to 80! It was fun seeing them, but the travelling was a nightmare, thanks to engineering works. Anyway, it has taken me a few days to recover, so that although I started painting the lovely pink cardigan on Tuesday, twas only completed today. In fact, this is an example of wanting to have exactly the same thing again: my beloved pink cardigan is rapidly wearing out - I keep finding new holes in it! The jacket is soft, dusky blue cotton, with more of that wonderful hearts print cotton for lining - and it is fully lined with this - none of the awful shiny polyester they seem to use for sleeve lining these days! The pretty skirt would ideally be silk crepe de chine, proper 1930s style : )

New spring wardrobe day 5

Here is my new denim skirt! Lovely soft denim, with a large scalloped hem, bottom 3 " lined with the same pretty and soft pink dotted cotton as the waist band!

New spring wardrobe day 4

The rock chick side of me wants a new U2 t-shirt: one that is navy blue, with a scoop neck line, instead of the throttling high ones customary on band t - shirts! Organic, fair trade cotton, of course..

New spring wardrobe day 3

A new t shirt! Lovely seagreen organic and fair trade cotton, with delicate silk chiffon cap sleeves and edging : )

New spring wardrobe day 2

Today I decided on some lovely silky mid-blue stockings; a pair of soft grey knee length socks with sea-green dragonflies on them; and some snuggly pink cotton socks with a crochet top for those evenings when I am at home and it is too chilly to go bare foot!

New spring wardrobe day 1

Here are first items: new underwear! The pattern on the cotton fabric of the "dotty" set would be tiny hearts - see the bottom corner. This set of undies is girly days. The other set - blue'grey denim type - is for "rock chick" days : )

here is the missing address

Both blogger and Firefox are giving me grief, so the link to Catherine's blog got missed out of previous post today: http://www.scatterboxtwo.blogspot.com

13th March 2008

I've decided on a theme for a mini-series until the end of March: with spring coming, I want a whole new wardrobe! A virtual one will have several advantages: I can choose exactly what I like, regardless of whether it is available in the shops this year; I won't need to worry about whether it fits (especially an issue in the case of shoes for me); plus of course, a fantasy wardrobe will cost a lot less. So watch this space..

Thanks for all the lovely comments about "sleeping beauty"!

Here is one of my favourite blogs:

I love the things Catherine makes, and am already the proud owner of a fab blue bag : )

New project

Well, I have been feeling that something is missing from my life since I completed "sleeping beauty", and am looking for a new story to tell here - maybe Sinbad the Sailor, if I can work out a picture sequence. In the meantime, I have begun a new project of painting 100 ethnic kids. Here are the first five: