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We are back from a short but refreshing break in Whitby, Yorkshire, which has got to be the land of sky and sea – it is just immense.
I didn’t know in advance (although you had tried to warn me!) that it was as cold up North as it was, but the upside was the beautiful colour of the sky. I love this photo, it reminds me of the perfect gradient you get on a Pantone colour swatch.
I love this coastal colour palette of indigo blue, grey and fawn.
We stayed in Whitby which is super hilly (but good for walking off the homemade fudge) and famous for its association with Bram Stoker who wrote Dracula. Yes we did do all the must do’s – Magpie fish and chips (sorry, got to say that they aren’t the best I’ve ever had) and the Dracula experience (where an actor jumps out and scares you for real at some point) we walked six miles to Robin Hood’s Bay which was spectacular. But the biggest hit of the holiday was this place…
Humble Pie is a sweet little shop dishing up bangers and pies in enamel dishes. The interior is the biggest charm as it has an old wood burning range going, wartime hits playing and lots of vintage cookery styling around the place. And at a fiver a head, you’ve got to go if you’re up that way.
I brightened a grey British day by turning this bag of mangled scraps into a rainbow.
I believe it’s called stripping? I spent two hours sewing very thin strips together to make a fab piece of fabric. I totally get why they first used tiny scraps of left over fabric to quilt with back in the day, you can actually make quite a large piece of something.
This bunny was so gorgeous today, that he had to put in an appearance. This is Ash, who was in on one of his runabouts when it was photo shoot time. I’m glad he was having a loll about otherwise he’d have hopped all over it without a care!
I’m not sure what to do now with this rainbow of tooty fruity Kaffe fabrics. A cushion is the obvious choice but I’m open to any suggestions if you have some.
As for my quality control assessor…well I totally understand lying sideways with legs out after a good bound around, but I’m not sure he gets what I’m up to.
I’m signing out of here for a few days to go and have some sea air up North but I’ll see you soon.
© Claire Leggett "Alstroemeria"
I finished this last week and for the life of me cannot remember what these flowers are called! Does anyone recognise them and can supply a name?!
P.S. Painting now named correctly! Thanks Orangerie 
I have been happily crocheting away for the last 5 months, enjoying mixing up the colour’s in different variations and watching my stack of squares grow.
So I began to get that feeling (especially as the yarns were dwindling down to being nearly all gone) that I must be nearly there.
So I laid the squares out and got a wake-up call when I saw that they covered about half of the area of my desired blanket size.
Wow – only half way. This is a Project with a capital P. Should I regroup and make a knee blanket?!
No, I opted for a trip to John Lewis for reinforcements and a few more yummy colour’s that could not be left out. It’s a good job that X Factor is on for three hours every weekend as I can crochet guilt free.
Looking at these photo’s below you may be forgiven for thinking I’d been on a mini break to somewhere in Europe!
This is actually the interior of our newly (well 5 months ago) opened and refurbished mac (Midlands Arts Center) and it is way cool and I totally love it!
We’ve had more than our fair share of dodgy 1970′s architecture here in Birmingham, so it is so exciting to be the proud ‘owners’ of this smart contemporary building. And is it OK to have fallen head over heels with the carpet designs?! Colour’s, patterns and placement – genius.
Now all that remains is to test the breakfast choices and my tourist report will be complete!
Here is this fortnight’s Creative Tuesday entry on “Art”. I found this really hard to convey because art is such a broad title as it is so far-reaching in what it means to me, to others and what it is in itself.
I settled on trawling the internet for quotes on art until I found one that resonated with me and gave me an image in my mind, and this was the one;
“Every artist dips his brush into his own soul and paints his nature into his pictures” Henry Ward Beecher.
And this totally sums it up for me. At the risk of getting all deep, I can see my personality (for good and bad) all over my works of art. Which is why I find that quote so profound.
I’ve spent the last few days curled up suffering some from some kind of stomach bug.
So I spent some time researching ideas for large, inspiration boards because I wanna make a BIG one!
I also chose Penny as my winner of the comments on my diary project.
So a pack of eight of my postcards will be going to her this week.
I got in the doldrums today and so took a restorative walk in the woods. So beautiful.
You can’t beat a little sun.
I recently came across this book in my local Oxfam bookstore and only picked it up for a look because I recognised it as one of those books of my Mum’s that I had sniffed at in my lofty youth. Twenty odd years later and I can now see what a charming diary of paintings it is and I bought it feeling inspired by it.
Now that we live opposite the woods, we often go for a walk and I come back with little treasures that I’ve found from combing the ground. We have also inherited a lovely garden full of things I’ve never been lucky enough to have (honeysuckle, finches, blue tit’s, fruit trees) and unlucky enough (a toad – uuck! frogs, teasels.)
So I thought I’d record all these things month by month in the style of ‘The Edwardian Lady’ and it would structure my use of a sketchbook and get me back in the habit of using one continuously. Can you improve on the title of “Sketchbook of a Suburban Female”? Lets have some funny comments and I might find a little giveaway for the one that makes me laugh the most!
