Hello anyone home?

Yoooo hooooo it's meeee!

I hope you all had a lovely summer, I thought the 1st of September was a good day to start back, bit like starting school again! Shall we compare our new pencil cases and bags, oh and shoes of course. I hated comparing shoes in secondary school, my mother was a nasty woman who made me wear Clarks flat shoes while all my mates had platforms! Crickey the rows we used to have, usually in the shop! Still, I bet not much has changed in that issue. Oh and waiting 90 minutes with a pager from John Lewis for the childrens dept shoes! What a waste of a day, glad I don't have to do that anymore!

Well onto other things, crafting things... I tend not to do crafts in the summer,or at least I change my crafts in the summer. When I was quilling, I used to do patchwork in the summer, it was just right to sit in the sun sewing bits of paper to hexagons. This year I just faffed, bit of crochet, and a couple of needlepunches. Oh and these little hedgerow folk. Mr and Mrs Hedgerow and

their children Peach Hedgerow, Oaky Hedgerow, Petal Hedgerow in her buggy and not forgetting Badger the dog. They would be great in a dolls house, would put them in one of mine, but they are all packed away. If anyone is interested I will put them in the shop, got a bit of a fairy queen on the go at the moment, so watch out for her.

This is the cat needlepunch I made, took me a long time this one, kept picking it up and putting it down, never sure whether I liked it or not. But in the end I thought it turned out ok. The pattern was a doodle from Primitive Betty's blog - in the sidebar.
This little heart is a depicts a gardening angel - she has leaves for wings... The colours look dreadful on this picture, not sure what I was playing at there. The colours are a bit darker, lavender colours for the dress and leaves are a bit darker too. This is my own pattern.

Also during the summer, I have finally, at last after 15 years, thought myself good enough to be a Tarot consultant. I have spent most of the summer studying tarot catching up on new ideas and spreads. I have had my business cards made by a very talented friend, who took pictures of the cards I use.

I put these cards in hair salons, nail salons, cafes and as many places as I could find, and already I have been asked to do several readings.

I absolutely love doing this, the buzz that you get from knowing that you are helping people, reassuring them that what they thought they were going to do is right for them.

People come to have their cards read for any number of reasons, and usually they know the answer to their problems deep inside themselves, but somehow they just can't make this important decision on their own. It is quite amazing when say the cards say this or that, and the querant says thats exactly what they were thinking. It is a great feeling.

I may lose some readers of my blog for putting this down today, I have already been shouted at in the street for putting my business cards out. But so be it, tarot is non denominational and really no religious connotation at all, just archetypes of personality. These silly devil's picture book ideas of the tarot seem to come from people in the Victorian era, who, lets face it were a bit odd, I mean they put covers on piano legs as they thought they were obscene.... DUH

Anyway, thats what I do these days, crafting comes and goes but tarot is here to stay. I don't want to be touting for business on here but if you fancy a reading, email me, we can do this by email, post, msn, yahoo, or skype ( well at least once i get skype installed again!).

Love to hear your comments as always.

Rosie x

We apologise for the break in transmission....

Hey folks, how's things? Yeah I know the grass needs cutting, but I seemed to have found a new passion. Now I know you can't see very much, that's just my crappy photo. But let me tell you, this is going to be a wonderful garden

There is my mum admiring the three lone tulips that managed to grow on that side of the garden, amongst a ridiculous amount of forget-me-not, and dandelions.

However, I have been digging the borders bought some new shrubs, some lavender bushes and various other plants like stocks, and primula, and a ton of pansies. I love pansies! To the right hand side of my mum I am waiting for the daffodils to dry up and turn brown before I can start digging there and round the back.

The next job is to get rid of the forget-me-nots and get some trellis up against the wall, so they can't see us and we can't see them... Before we came to live here, my mum had this side of the garden done with pebbles, and with having 5 kitties in the household they do tend to use it as a giant litter tray, so thats going too!

I know it looks a mess at the moment, but I just want it nice for my mum, she would love to have a nice garden and I am determined that she will have one. At 90 and having progressive dementia it's the one thing I can do to make her happy.

This is a wonderful clematis, called Josephine, it unwraps all those petals in the middle to show a golden center. It has two flowers on it at the moment and mum and I both rush out in the morning to see if some more have opened. I just want to stand there all day telling it to grow!

Since I last posted, my 50th birthday came and went, I got the one of the best presents ever, the original Pride and Prejudice with Jenifer Ehle and Colin Firth. We managed to watch the whole thing in two nights and we so enjoyed it. On May the 1st it was Dan's 15th birthday, he is now surgically attached to his ipod touch till death us do part.

One of the things we like to do for my mum is to make her laugh, she sometimes gets so upset and frustrated when she can't remember things that keeping a crazy sense of humour really saves the day. On Saturday a parcel came from play.com, a dvd that John had found of Laurel and Hardy's film The Music Box, so we all downed tools - laundry baskets, hoover, etc and sat down to the most excruciatingly funny hour I have ever spent! We had tears streaming down our faces, and even now if I mention them, my mum starts giggling. Oh I am sure she would want me to tell you that when she was a child she had her name put in the punshiment book at school for giggling, once she starts she simply cannot stop.

It's nice to be back, if you have any gardening tips please don't keep them to yourselves I need all the help I can get!

Rosie xx

Home Sweet Home

I love the little house on this heart, who lives there, what do they do -apart from looking after the alien looking sheep in the front garden. It looks comforting, with the sun peeping out from behind the clouds.

This one is for a lady in the US, but I had to show it to you before I packed it up.


Another pretty backing, together with the Suffolk puff and shell button to hold the ribbon together.

I am going to the Patchwork Garden this afternoon, its just a nice time sitting with friends sewing and making things. Will take pics if anyone will let me.
Catch you later...

Spring dolls

Hi everyone, isn't it nice now that it is lighter during the evenings? John was getting so fed going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark.

So due to Spring actually being here, I made a couple of Matryoshka's this one is based on an original stacking doll, I think she looks quite cute.

She is backed with this zingy material which I have had for some years, I had a hard time finding something to back her with, but in the end I chose this. I have this material in several colours and thought I would never use it.

And here we have Miss Spring, she is wearing a rabbit a couple of carrots and a daisy. Her ambition is to work with children and bring peace to the earth.... Oh sorry I went into an Eric and Julia Morley role then.

Anyway Miss Spring is backed with my favourite material of the moment, little blue and yellow pansies on a yellow background, it also has a bit of silver in it too. Just think it's really pretty.

I have been thinking about doing a giveaway, either for my blogiversary, or my birthday in April, it's rather a big birthday and although I am not really bothered about being 50 - you are only as old as you feel - it would be good to celebrate it with something nice like a giveaway. Then of course there is the niggling feeling that nobody will join in and I shall be sat here like Billy-no-mates. We shall see.

Hope you have all had a great Monday - I love Monday's it's the most exciting day of the week, a new start and you really don't know just what is going to happen during the week to come.

Rosie xx

Punching Spring

Well I have been punching again. All hearts this time, spring like colours filled with lavender and stuffing.


I am completely useless at adding ribbons and then sewing them into the heart when I sew the background on. Usually the ribbon seems to move inside the heart and I end up sewing it to the seam at the side or something daft, anyway I have ruined too many by doing that so instead I make a little Suffolk puff and a pretty button to the back of the heart and add the ribbon that way.

I love this one, thought it might look nice in a baby's room. This piece is sculptured, the lamb is quite furry against the short background and the lambs head. I do love doing these I like the fact that I can make the thread furry or short and combine the them. I love the fact that I can use any thread from just normal sewing thread to gorgeous rayon and silk embroidery threads.

I have quite a collection of threads now, my latest being from Steph Francis which are being kept for a mermaid.

I love the Springy material on the back of this heart, so pretty.

Another sheep on this one, I do love sheep. On the next Matryoshka doll I have done a rabbit so watch out for that one, just got to do the backing on it.

I have opened a shop on Art Fire, see the button at the top of the page. My shop looks a mess at the moment but am working on it. Best thing of all is that it is free to put things in the shop and there is a great deal going on there, so take a look.

Got to go in town with my mum now, and the thought of fighting my way through M&S food hall with her is something I hate! But she loves her M&S and she is far too fragile to go by herself. Wish me luck!

Florence and films.

This treasure of mine always reminds me of Spring, it was Spring when we went to Florence, Easter in fact. I had never been to Italy before and i loved it. Florence especially, all that art, all that history. We bought Venus in the Uffizi - oh boy what a place that is, if ever you want to go in there, and there are huge queues as there normally are, you can book for later and just walk in. I could have spent hours and hours in there, mainly just looking at Venus and Primavera.

It's a shame that old Sandro was a follower of Savanarola who by all accounts was a right numpty.

Numpty's have featured large this weekend, my mum didn't really fancy going out for Mother's Day, so we trolled down to Blockbuster and got a few movies out. Easy Virtue, in which Kristin Scott Thomas's character was an absolute cow! She was just so brilliant.

We also had The Duchess, Keira Knightly gorgeous as always, married the Duke of Devonshire who to be honest needed a slap round the head with the hobbin' foot. Best film of the night was Taken starring Liam Neelson violent and nasty but quite excellent and judging by the story I don't think any of the violence was gratuitous, it was all very well deserved.

Tonight we have, after Holby City, Quantum of Solace, that is of course if we could actually get into it, I think that the dvd case has been invented by Q and we need an Omega watch with bells, whistles and a laser to open it.

At home with Miss Valentina and Miss Olga...

I know you have seen this delightful young lady before, but the pictures were rather blurred, so I thought she deserved a second chance. This is Miss Valentina, she's a romantic soul and quite obviously wears her heart on her - well I was going to say sleeve, but chest would be more accurate, and legs and feet.
She has a penchant for gardening too, especially roses.

She is a happy soul and loves to see gardens, and would like to live on a pretty windowsill where she can look out at the flowers.

This is her friend Miss Olga. Olga feels the cold and has a lovely furry scarf to keep the March winds at bay. She has a GSOH and seems to be winking at you!

More traditional than the fashionable Valentina she has a lovely patterned coat, and beautiful sculptured flowers on the front.

Olga is filled with lavender from Hitchin lavender farm.