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Is that sunshine??? Haven't seen that for a while.

 

Monday morning and after at least a week of grey dreary skies we've finally got a sunny day.  It's amazing what that does for our collective mood, isn't it?  I've spent a lot of the weekend happily - and sometimes irritably - going down various rabbit holes.  You see, the Find my Past website had free access for those two days, so I was merrily building a family tree and scouring old newspaper articles for mention of long-gone family members.  It was enjoyable, but also frustrating when you hit a brick wall and can't get further than a couple of generations ago.  I can find endless records for the Pughs, Dunkleys, Thompsons, Arnolds, etc but can I find my Keyte ancestors?  Their name's liable to be mis-spelt in old records, so I'm looking up Kites and Kytes too.  Anyway, I decided to buy myself a month's access to Ancestry as they were offering an initial month for a tenner.  I just need to remember to cancel before it auto-renews in early December!  
I've dug out old photo albums and am going to upload various pictures to the site.  How smart did people used to dress?  The men in hats, the ladies in their best dresses or skirt-suits.  I just wish more of the photos had peoples names on the back.  Sometimes I can identify them, but sadly others are lost in the mists of time.  
This photo shows an angelic looking child who's now a grand old lady of 94, and my favourite aunt.  She's having a day out at the seaside with her grandparents, and note how he's wearing his jacket, waistcoat and hat.  Well dressed, even in a deckchair on the sand.  
I had to put the family history stuff aside for a while in order to start this.  Hopefully this'll be an on-going project.  I'm calling it my colour study, inspired by this account on Instagram.  Lorene makes this beautiful little swatches of colours from the natural world, and as I'm not good at colour mixing - or painting in general - I wanted to have a go.  I started this morning with an autumnal leaf, and tried to represent the colours I saw in it, using a combination of watercolour paints and watercolour pencils.  The paper is just a sheet of A3 sketchpad paper that I've folded into a zine.  
It's not a highly accomplished start, but it's a start.  After all, I can't get better if I don't practise.  (Or is it practice?  I never know.)
I'll also show you this photo of something I've been stitching, after watching yet more Jude Hill videos on YouTube.  There's no particular purpose I've got in mind for this piece, but I've really enjoyed putting these materials together and finding a simple but interesting enough arrangement.  I've always tried to make things that are practical - quilts, cushion covers, etc - so it's a mind-shift to sew things purely for the pleasure of stitching, with no purpose in mind. 
Okay, that's it for today, except to mention I've started reading Gaynor Arnold's 'Girl in a Blue Dress' and it's superb.  Well, it was a Man Booker prize winner in 2008, so it should be.  
Bye for now, and do check out Lorene's Instagram.  It's well worth a look.



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