Seaside Postcards

 Hello!...I'm back again...after a few lovely days of sea air and sunshine, I have tipped the seashells out of my bag and shaken the sand from my shoes ready to begin normal life again....hello to all my regular blog readers and hello to the new followers who joined me here just as I was about to go away for a few days, I look forward to visiting you all very soon.....

 We went to some of our very favourite coves, cliffs, beaches and villages on the south west coast......

 ....places we've enjoyed visiting all our lives and this time we had the added pleasure of lots and lots of sunshine and blue sky....

 ...I had quite a lazy few days, did a bit of sketching for some new illustration work and thinking about a new book plan...but lazy hooky time on the shingly or sandy beaches was my main crafty activity and the pile of grannie squares has grown a lot more.....we walked miles, visited gardens and craft fairs and had more than one Devon cream tea...

 ....we also sampled a few of these...as a small child I was surprised at the relative size of the cornets I received compared to the ones on display outside the shop and I have a fondness for the oversized retro advertising icecreams to this day...

                   Some seaside crochet...inspired by the colours of bright stripy seaside rock.....

I hope you have been enjoying sunny summer days too, and I can't wait to catch up with all your blogs now. Thank you for the lovely comments on my last post and for your good wishes for my little break. It's good to be back in blogland again!! I hope you all have a happy weekend and see you again soon xxxxx

Seaside

It's the start of the sailing season where we live, and I love to walk along the prom in the sea breeze and see the white sails against the blue ....most of my life I've lived on the coast, and I missed it when I lived further inland for a few years. The sea side has always been a big influence on my designing....

I've often stitched the words of sea poems into my samplers for books and magazines, and special ones for family and friends too - we know lots of people who love the sea and the seaside as much as us...

I find it hard to resist any seaside fabrics too - like the cushion above from CK - and her gorgeous boats print which I made a bag from last year shown in earlier posts...the red white and blue colourway is one of my favourites...

When I saw Julia Crossland's Harbour print I was immediately smitten and had to buy it at once...It's at the framers now and I'll collect it tomorrow and enjoy it on my wall...I love Julia's style and her paintings, like this seaside one really appeal to me...Julia is bringing out some new cards soon which I can't wait to see...

Seaside bunting...little embroidered beach huts, boats and flying gulls to bring the seaside even closer...

 The bunny and the bunting are both from my book Simple Sewn Gifts which has now been translated into French....

 My copy of the translated book came this week and I was tres excited to see it too...I read bits out in my schoolgirl French to my daughter on the phone and we both wondered why things sound so much more romantic when translated into French....charmante....merveilleux....lovely words...

This is my seasidey plant this week - at least red geraniums against white wood always make me think of seaside holidays in France and Italy and good old Blighty too....I love geraniums, even though they go in and out of gardening fashion I always like to have a few each summer, on the window sill or brightening up a corner...Thank you for visiting me here and for the wonderful comments you leave..I do enjoy them so much. Have a lovely weekend everyone, sending you lots of sunshine, sea breezes, flowers and happy times..Back soon xxxxxx

Seaside Quilt

Here are some pictures of the seaside themed quilt I made for Charlie's first birthday...he is now three and a bit and how the time has flown since then...

I loved making this quilt - I sewed together large patches of red, white and blue fabrics, with a deep turquoise panel in the centre for the sea...then I had fun adding applique images of boats and bunting, a little bucket, stars and badges and flags...

...and lots of flying seabirds giving a feeling of movement across the quilt...

Earlier this week Charlie excitedly showed me his new big boy's cabin bed, complete with little ladder to climb up and underneath the bed is a play tent with red gingham curtains... and his little seaside quilt still fits his new bed. I'm working on a seaside project again today, doing a summer magazine project - it's a theme I never tire of...

Thank you for visiting me here, and for all your lovely comments on my newly painted potting shed! I will be out there again this weekend and will take my camera too. So many flowers are popping up, each day something else has unfurled. I wish you a happy weekend, full of sunny days, spring flowers and crafty times. Back soon. xxx

Summer Dreaming

We're thinking about summer here this week...choosing cottages to stay in by the sea and in the country...

I'm dreaming of summer and all the things I love about it...and seeing my summer boats bag that I made last year storing some yarn at the moment but knowing before long it will be filled with...what? Sea shells, maps, sun glasses, bottles of water, ice cream money, gardens leaflets...I am soo looking forward to that.

I love to have seaside pictures and postcards and other reminders of summer around my studio through all the seasons, like this sweet seaside scene by Julia Crosland. (You can find it here.) I often keep shells and sea glass collected from different holidays in jars with labels, to preserve a little bit of those jolly times...

I've been dreaming of gardens, especially our own - soon to be more flowery than ever! - and I've been looking at some of my garden scrapbooks, filled with ephemera, and pictures of flowers we grew and will again...

 This was our garden last summer and I am sooo looking forward to the roses blooming again. Late spring just tipping over into early summer in a cottage garden...pure bliss to me!

I hope you all have a lovely week, and enjoy some summer dreaming too, and maybe a few more signs of spring as well. Back soon for a splash of colour. xxxx

Seaside Memory-Keeping

The seaside has always been a very special place for me, since my childhood days. Seaside holidays to traditional resorts or remote and magical coastlines are something I've always loved.

A few years ago I discovered the inspiring memory-keeping craft of scrapbooking and it became a craze for me, an obsession for quite a while. I found old family photos and made scrapbook pages and mini scrapbooks with them, and chose pictures of my daughters to turn into little books about them. I created little books about meeting my husband, about my earliest childhood memories and family history. It was a thrilling creative time for me.

These little books are some I made to store my seaside memories. It's lovely to think that tucked inside these little covers along with treasured photos are words and ephemera to recall those times, small things to capture the often fleeting moments.

I now use all the scrapbook techniques I learnt then in my paper crafts projects for books and magazines, and I still make pages for my continuing family scrapbook. The picture below shows

the memory book cover I designed for a magazine project earlier this year.

How do you keep your memories? x

Seaside Stitching

While I'm on a seaside theme I thought I'd show you this little coastal inspired picture. As you can tell, it uses several techniques of a stitched and textile nature, including applique, cross stitch, crewel embroidery and patchwork.

The idea for it came from my Spindrift Cottage Sampler, a cross stitch design inspired by a trip to the remote and beautiful Scottish coast. I produced it as a chart years ago, and a lovely lady once wrote to me and told me it was exactly like the place in Scotland where her daughter lived and she was stitching it for her.

I was experimenting here, trying to make sea pinks, shells, boats and buckets from little scraps of fabric with a tiny bit of stitching. I love how a scrap of fabric in a certain colour and with a certain shape can capture the look of an object - there's such a lot of fascinating serendipity in this kind of work.

The words are from the classic poem Sea Fever by John Masefield, written in 1902 - and slightly misquoted by me for design purposes!

I might just keep this as a picture, what do you think? Or maybe I could use it as a panel in a small seaside quilt?

Seaside Knitting

Last week I had a very nice break from my usual routine, and part of the time I indulged in a lot of knitting. I was making the Frankie boyfriend cardigan from Breeze by Kim Hargreaves. It was quite addictive to knit and I had to be prised away from it to go out at night to eat, drink and meet up with various friends - and not talk about knitting and crafts all the time!

I bought this knitting card at the V&A shop earlier this year, for a friend whose birthday was last week. She's a great knitter and I felt sure she'd love it - which she did. Her present was a box of wool!

And look at this - could it be the tiniest wool shop ever? Right by the sea at Moelfre, looking over the beautiful bay and pebbly beach. I discovered Helen's shop last year and was magnetised to it by the sight of wool in the window. It may be tiny but it is absolutely stuffed full of gorgeous wool, patterns and buttons. The perfect work/life balance for some - a wool shop by the sea?

Beside the Seaside

Hello! I'm back from my little break and feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Surprisingly, the seaside was a little bit grey this year, but a lot less windy than last time so the regatta sailing was on for Mr P - and the pottering, knitting, reading, shopping, coffee drinking and generally lazing around were on for me!

When the family came down we added beach combing, paddling, a bouncy castle, and delicious ice creams from the Red Boat for a real seaside day out.

One of the highlights of Beaumaris for me in recent years is a visit - or possibly several - to the lovely Janet Bell Gallery on Castle Street. We love Janet's beautiful paintings and have a lot of prints of her work around our house. The Gallery also has other artists' work, all with a seaside theme, and a range of gorgeous gifts (the kind you want to keep for yourself!)

So now it's back to designing for me - and guess what I'm doing this week? Christmas themed designs - so it must be August now...

I hope you have a good week. x

Regatta Week

I am going away for a few days to the seaside. Each year my husband sails in the Menai Straits Regatta and we go to stay in the pretty little town of Beaumaris. We meet up with friends there, some who sail, some who don't, and the family will join us for a day too. So I will be there soaking up the seaside atmosphere that I love so much, which often influences my designs, but I won't be able to write my blog till I get back. Sigh.

These are details from my Regatta Quilt, made a few years ago, with its fleet of sailing boats very similar to the one Mr P sails in, and some jaunty bunting to add a sense of occasion.

As I may have mentioned before - and no doubt will do again - I absolutely love the seaside so I am really excited to be packing to go there again...

Back in a few days. Have a lovely week.x

Blue Boats

I fell in love with this Cath Kidston fabric when it came out last summer, and was lucky enough to be given this piece for my birthday last year. It made me think me of Cornish holidays as a child, the bright blue of the sea, and the vintage style design on heavy cotton fabric reminded me of long ago holiday cottage curtains. I wanted to make a summer tote bag with it, but at the time was too busy sewing projects for my next book. (More about that soon). But the other day, despite the work I've got on my desk, the chores piling up, and especially the sweet new baby granddaughter I need to go and cuddle every day - I found time to sew this bag and I love it! I added some recycled fabric labels to the inside, a phone pocket and one or two buttons. All set for the seaside now - not long to wait.