Every cloud has a silver lining ..........

January is not one of the easiest months of the year,  after Christmas finances are tight and budgets stretched.  It has been an expensive month with car tax due and a long overdue service on said car plus the replacement of a shock absorber spring due to the rather sad state of the roads.

Perhaps as an artist I am an extremely visual person very aware of my surroundings.  Leaving home early in the morning to deliver the car to the garage and feeling rather down,  two small things caught my attention.  After days of grey rainy days a most incredibly colourful sunrise brightened the sky. Driving through open fields I spotted several rows of black birds so tightly packed together on the telephone wires that it was quite hard to identify them as birds.  Something which appealed to my sense of the ridiculous as the telephone lines had the appearance of thick black lines.  Small things but it helped to lift my spirits and remind me to be grateful for the little things in life.

I have completed several bears but still have lots more work to do.  Several naked bears sitting on my work table waiting for inspiration but I do have a new bear listed on e-bay.  

Roselaine is wearing a pink cotton lawn dress with embroidered rosebud detail holding a tiny embroidered strawberry.  

She is sitting on a biscornu pincushion with embroidered roses which started out as two squares of fabric like this.  Whilst living in France I was very fortunate to discover several yards of natural coloured tightly woven vintage linen fabric which is wonderful for embroidery 'tho a good laundering is necessary to soften the fabric a little. 

The squares have been stitched together to make this biscornu pincushion.

This is Roselaine waiting for her dress.  I made a slight mistake when designing the embroidery as the rosebuds on the lower part of the pincushion are sort of upside down.  A learning curve for me and hopefully not too obvious except to my critical eye.

 

Then there is a little bear with a new outfit and name.  Pictured on my previous blog I was not happy with the dress she was wearing as it was just too full and overwhelming making her look rather 'legless'.  She has been re-dressed in a tea dyed lawn dress with floral embroidery trim around the edge of the skirt and she has feet!  This little girl is now on our web page waiting to be adopted.

Looking through old photographs recently of a bear wearing a lacy knitted dress,  in one of my more insane moments I decided to find the pattern for one of my new bears.  In theory a good plan and knitting with fine needles and yarn is not too much of a problem. However, casting on 199 stitches proved interesting.  My first attempt was going well until I discovered after some ten rows that I had dropped a stitch.  As the pattern is extremely complex it would have been quite impossible to try and pick up the stitch so I started all over again.  Knitted a couple of rows and did a stitch count to discover that I only had 150 stitches.  The moral of the story is not to be disturbed when knitting fancy designs.   So third time lucky it appears to be working out and I am now at a stage where it is a little easier to see the pattern.   It will have to be for a slightly bigger and taller bear as the skirt is very full, hope to have it complete and ready for my next blog update.

The dreadful weather continues, this little island is totally saturated whilst America freezes.  Although I would love some warm sunshine I understand that in Australia the heat has been unbearable.  The world's weather definitely seems to be doing odd things.  The spring bulbs are starting to show in the mud in the garden,  this year I am looking forward to spring and a little colour.  Lots of work to do when the weather finally settles.

Back to work on the Hugglets bears and to continue with that knitting!