Where do ideas come from?

Following on from my last post here, here is some of my current food for visual thought.

The drawing is a quick sketch I did on Twelfth Night (6th January) of how an outsider might see the Christmas tree being taken down in our household.

A very quick impression, but one that is staying with me mentally, so I sense that a more worked drawing up is brewing. What I like about this drawing in particular is how I've captured something of the character of Toby, who is a very inquisitive and bright cat, as well as being large, fluffy and solid! He'd only lived with me for six weeks at this point, so was still very much learning about me and what I do.

Then here is a small collection of recent acquisitions that are feeding my creative imagination!

The book is "How to Draw in Pen and Ink" by Harry Furniss, originally published in 1905, and discovered by me in the Oxfam shop in Cirencester over the new year holiday.  I've been drawing with pen and ink for years, and I found some useful tips in this book, plus interesting observations on the composing of illustrations at the point in time when photographs were becoming more frequently used instead in newspapers and magazines.

The small plastic character toy was another charity shop find, and was used as the model for all of the plastic figure toys in the "Sebastian's Sink City" I made. Being able to study the construction of joints, and exaggerations of body proportions to enable the toy to stand, etc was very helpful.

The wonderfully evocatively shaped "nest" ball of yarn is currently home some tiny owls I knitted last year

Painting, knitting and planning to combine the two

Here is the illustration I have mostly been working on this week: an improved version of "The owl and the pussy cat", with an anatomically correct cat! Previous versions included an elbow, which a kind friend reminded me cats do not have. I also prefer the tortoise shell and white colours for the cat.

Knitting-wise, I've had fun making this log cabin square for The Log Cabin Blanket 2011 to help with fund-raising for the excellent Medecins Sans Frontieres via p/hop.

I'm also intending to knit a couple of squares for the barn-raising blanket; then if I am brave, for the crochet one, too!

Planning to combine painting with knitting led me to visit the fantabulous Loop this afternoon to photograph some lace-weight Wollmeise for next top secret at the moment painting!

Oh, and while I was there, a lovely sea blue ball of Lima found it's way into my bag, so will be casting on later.

Humpty and the Windmill

A humpty has found his way into my drawings!

 This is a pen and ink drawing project that I had begun before Christmas, when I was ill with the bronchitis, but refusing to give in and simply be ill. The conseqence of this was that when I looked again at my work when I was well again, I discovered a fundamental flaw in the composition, plus that I was thoroughly bored with the project. Not good, and thankfully, very unusual for me. So, I began again, and began again, etc, and was still stuck, and increasingly frustrated.

Then one morning I had the bright idea of actually making the cleaner bottle windmill, which miraculously solved my artist's block!  Now I am pleased with how the drawing has turned out, and will be happily adding to my portfolio.

Love Bites Wrist Warmers - completed!

These really were the perfect project to take with me to my dad's over New Year, and the joggless stripe method worked a treat!  Also achieved success with the cunning plan I had thought out to knit the little fair isle hearts:  the challenge there in knitting in knitting the mitts in the round is that the yarn for the hearts ends up at the wrong end of the motif on every other row! I solved this particular problem by slipping the heart stitches; then reversing my knitting and purling the hearts; then turning knitting back to right side,  which leaves the heart on the left needle, and needing to be slipped to the right needle; then slipping the heart stiches onto the right needle, carefully undoing and re-knitting every other stitch so that I could hook the main stripe colour yarn along the back. Fiddly, but worked well, and only had to be done on three rows.  


I am a confident knitter, so was not daunted by the prospect of fiddling this way. However, an alternative way to achieve the same visual result would be to knit the wrist warmers without the hearts, then darn them on afterwards. Thanks to bluestockingstitching for this suggestion.

New Year, New (Knitting) Challenge

Santa gave me a fabulous book of knitting patterns: Pretty In Punk by Alyce Benevides and Jacquline Milles, and I have the yarn to knit myself a pair of "Love Bites" striped wrist warmers. The pattern is straightforward: narrow stripes with an fair isle heart written for knitting flat, then sewing a seam afterwards.  However I much prefer to knit everything in the round and avoid seams altogether! So time to learn a new knitting skill: joggless stripes.  Fortunately for me, Techknitter has provided some very good instructions on how to do this on her blog here . So this will be my project for the few days away over new year. Watch this space for photo of the finished articles!


Happy New Year: may your dreams become reality in 2011!

Christmas soap and mug

Gradually catching up with work, and preparations for Christmas festivities.  Lots of xmas pressie knitting going on here: there will be some photos after the presents have gone to their recipients!

The special xmas tree soap - which spells spicy - has been brought out,  and likewise my xmas mugs!

This red-nose reindeer one is my favourite for coffee drinking : )

Absence and a pink tree

Blogging absence is down to being poorly with bronchitis, something I have not had before. Fortunately, I have a viral type, and am on the mend, just still very weak! It's been most disconcerting being ill for more than ten days: I'm rarely sick for longer than a day or so.

So to cheer myself up, today I treated myself to a pink tinsel Christmas tree, and some white lights for it.

All the glass baubles, etc are ones I've treasured for many years. The cute chubby angel-fairy on the top was a lovely gift. The little glass santa at the foot of the tree was saved from the original set of fairy lights my parents had when I was small. Enjoy!

Gertrude Woolsworthy and Cranford mitts

I was recently invited to create a festive seasonal illustration of the fabulous Agony Aunt Gerty Woolsworthy  for Stitch London's 2nd December newsletter.

 For those not familiar with her, Gerty is a giant ball of pink variegated yarn, with a penchant for gin and cake (especially Battenburg), as well as dispensing pragmatic and hilarious advice for all manner of loosely knitting-related problems!

Fortunately, I have met Gertrude in real life, so dreaming up how she would celebrate at this time of year was great fun.

These are my fabulous new Cranford mitts, which I knitted in November in a Ravelry P/Hop group November knit-a-long. (A knit-a-long is where several people get together on-line and agree to all knit the same pattern and compare notes, photos, etc). A grand total of fifty pairs of the mitts were completed in November, raising funds in the process for Medecins Sans Frontiers via Pennies per hour of pleasure.  All of us had such fun knitting the mitts from Jane Lithgow's lovely pattern that we agreed to extend the knit-a-long to the end of December, so there is still time to join in!
The eagle-eyed may spot that I knitted one less repeat after the thumbs: this is because these are my painting mitts!

Pink fairy armadillo and other creatures

Yesterday was a day for feeding my imagination in the company of some fellow children's illustrators: we all met at the Natural History Museum for a morning of sketching there. A truly amazing place for drawing, both the exhibits and the people looking at the exhibits (or on their mobile phone!)
My plan was to head straight for my favourite of the mammals galleries - the one with the whales and dolphins, then I got distracted on the way there by the bats! I never feel quite comfortable looking at stuffed, dead animals, but reminded myself that this is probably the only way I am going to get the chance to study bats up close.  Such dainty creatures, and with a lovely contrast between the soft, fine fur of their bodies, and the leatheriness of their wings. I especially loved the way the shape of the nose of the spear nose bat echoed the shape of it's ears.

My discovery of the day was the wonderfully named "pink fairy armadillo": a tiny creature from the Argentine pampas, that I had never heard of before.  In spite of it's name, the specimen in the glass case is not pink - more of a slightly pinky beige fur, with creamy plates on it's back. I want to find out a lot more about this creature.

I was also excited to see some of the fossils Mary Anning discovered in Lyme Regis, having thoroughly enjoyed reading Tracy Chevalier's "Remarkable Creatures" 

The Coming of Cats

Life at home has been lonely and sad without a furry feline companion since the beginning of October.

Happily, this was all changed yesterday. I painted this birthday card last week for a friend, which presciently had a tiny black cat peering round an open door!

At the top is Poppy: she likes hiding out and watching what is going on from safe spaces, which will make getting a good photo of her quite tricky for a while.

Toby is the handsome black and white long-haired boy who loves to be groomed, which is just as well given how long his coat is!

Both cats have agreed to pose for drawing, and to refrain from playing with paintbrushes, or sitting on paintings. As for interfering with knitting, that remains to be seen!

An Owl, A Pussycat and A Sheep

Edward Lear's poem "The Owl and The Pussy Cat" continues to hold a fascination for me: I like to imagine the story with a contemporary setting, and also answer questions like how did the pair meet? I think there will be a children's book in the musings eventually.

So here is my latest water colour version of the invitation to go to sea! I'd love to know what you think of it.

This little ewe, from a very rare breed,  attended Sarah McIntyre's book launch for "Vern and Lettuce", which was enlivened no end by being also a "Stitch a Sheep" evening with Stitch London.  Tiny Lady Kidsilk was delighted to meet many other wonderful sheep, and also to win a medal for "Most stylish sheep"!

More adventures with yarn

More tiny items I have knitted in the past few weeks.

 The tiny hats are for Innocent's annual fundraising campaign with tiny hats on their smoothie bottles: Big Knit . It's always fun to come up with new ideas, and this year's contributions are cat-themed in honour of Willow.







Plarn Dragonfly encounters the woolly yarn dragonfly! I knitted both: the tiny yarn version is my own design, and pattern is in process of being written up. The plarn version was designed by Lauren O'Farrell for Stitch London's workshop at Prince Charles's Start Garden Party in September, as was a tiny sheep. Lauren's sheep pattern is for woolly yarn, but I got creative and made the perky plarn one shown here!

the adventures of Mini-me, Part 5

Remember the mini-me from earlier this year? She now lives with another 256 stitched-selves at the Fleece Station, but currently they are all very excited to be on a trip with Stitch London to the Knitting and Stitching Show at the very fabulous Alexandra Palace in north London! Can you spot mini-me? (A clue: she is on the grey wall). Thanks so much to Deadly Knitshade for the photo : )

Willow 1990 to 2010

Beautiful and very loving Willow lived with me for over twenty years.


 "I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky"

Knitting while life goes on

Life sometimes has a way of throwing a large spanner in the works, so that even the best made plans have to be re-jigged. Hence the lack of painting! There have been some good times amidst it all, mainly adventures in knitting, which is somehow easier to do than drawing when I am distressed.  The photograph shows my haul from iKnit Weekender: some gorgeous New Lanarkshire blue yarn for a shrug, 2 mm circular needle, and most importantly Hedwig and three bat stitch markers from The Bothered Owl.

I also helped out Stitch London with knitting sheep and plarn bugs at Prince Charles' Start Garden Party To Make A Difference : fuller explanation and photos here! It was great fun, and I was astonished to meet Brian Blessed (who can knit!), plus catch sight of myself on the edge of news items about the event.

Goth seaside Day 4 Version 2

Here is version two of paddling at dusk! I am much happier with this painting than the previous one: her proportions are better, and I prefer the way the skirt is bunched up.

I've got one more idea for this mini-series of illustrations, so that will be here in the next day or two. Then I'm going to be doing an "Alice In Wonderland"/"Through The Looking Glass" project.

Goth seaside Day 4

It proved surprisingly difficult to paint this one: the problem for me has been getting the proportions right with her feet hidden in the waves! Not to mention the sea breezes blowing her hair. For this painting I could definitely imagine the sensations I associate with paddling in the sea, but then found this hard to translate into paint. I'm going to have another go to see whether I can catch better what I want to depict.

Little Lion and Tiny Squid

This handsome accordion-playing lion has come to live with me, thanks to Ladysnail.

The tiny yellow squid is impressed, and quite fancies a turn with the accordion himself! He thinks having multiple tentacles would give him an advantage with playing intricate tunes. I knitted him in preparation for the exciting  Stitch A Squid event at the Natural History Museum, where I was a Stitch London  "knit a squid teacher".

I am part way through knitting Mr Squid a companion using DeadlyKnitshade's pattern for the Finger-fighting stitched squid.

Goth seaside Day 3

September 1st Giveaway Humpty!

This cheerful humpty dumpty has been specially knitted for my blog "give away" on September 1st!

I like to do something special on September 1st, which was my mother's birthday. It was my mother who taught me the rudiments of knitting: how to cast on, knit, purl, and cast off when I was tiny. She also encouraged me to experiment with knitting, and allowed me to delve into her knitting encyclopedia to discover fancy stitches like cable that I could use to embellish the doll's clothes I made.

On September 1st, I will pick a winner at random from amongst all who have left a comment on this blog post about "September 1st Giveaway Humpty". Please also provide an email address so I can contact you if you win. Good luck!