rubykittyruby

  Brrrr!  It's cold enough to want to stay indoors all day and drink endless cups of tea.  Which is more or less what I did, and to fill part of my day I completed a few more pages of Lorna Scobie's book '365 Days of Creativity'.  This page particularly appealed to me.  There were splotches of colour, & you'd to turn those into animals.  After completing this, I decided to make some splotches of my own in watercolour, using an old sketchbook -  - and turned those into weird creatures.  Daft, but fun.   That daftness was followed by me sewing an equally daft reindeer in gingham trousers.  As you do.  You might've seen me mention an Instagram account under the name of Ievate.  She makes quirky fabric animals, and I was very smitten with the reindeers she's made recently.  So I had a go at making one.   I drew a simple outline, and sorted out a red & white gingham, plus a faux suede material for the bod...

Okay, let's start with some prettiness.  Growing on the allotment are these pink Californian poppies.   Calendula, lots of 'em.   I intend to gather up handfuls of petals and make some calendula oil.  Have been googling how to do it.   This photo doesn't quite capture the intensity of colour with these Catananche.  Grow them if you can, they're lovely.   After trundling along to the allotment, taking pictures of flowers and picking raspberries - mmmm! fresh raspberries, delicious- I came home and made a little fabric fox.   As with the leopard's head I made, I was influenced by the work of Instagrammer ievate.  It was only after I'd finished that I realised my fox has the look of a shocked kangaroo ... Doesn't matter, I like him anyway. He's hanging around with the leopard, the bee, a felt picture of a winter's scene and a crumpled postcard of Edith Sitwell.   Honestly, I wonder at my sanity sometimes! ...