Snowflakes and Reindeer

You know how it is, suddenly it's the end of November and Christmas is almost here and there is still so much to do! I love this time of year. I have just collected the tickets for my son's nativity play, the letters to Father Christmas are being written and I am making lists!
Spoonflower is having a 'Snowflake' contest so I thought I would enter this design. Spoonflower are even offering it as a wrapping paper for a short time as well.

A limited palette of Seagulls

Seagulls are not my favourite birds, living where I do there are too many, they raid bins and can be quite aggressive during the nesting season, but this lot were so comical, stood in a line on a roof, they needed drawing. Then for a bit of fun, I decided they were just the thing for this weeks Spoonflower contest entitled 'flights of fancy'. The brief included a limited palette (Hex codes grey - 707c7c, light teal - 83c5ba, apple green - 93d300, pale yellow - F9ea62.) which I found interesting as they are not colours I would necessarily have chosen myself; the green in particular was a challenge for me to include as you probably can tell.
I have no chance, as there are some quite stunning designs entered, but, the winner will be featured on the cover of Mollie Makes, a craft magazine published here in the UK.

Super Hero Obsessed

 

Ok, to say my smallest son is obsessed with 'Super Herios' as he puts it, is probably a little strong. Never the less, this weeks contest on Spoonflower was one not to be missed as it meant designing a fabric he would love. The contest is titled 'Be My Hero', and can, I am sure be interpreted in many ways, but for smallest son it had to be 'Super Hero'. He created the poses and I just drew him! I think I now have to make some pyjamas!
You can vote for my design here if you like

Uta's African Wax Prints Collecting

My sister in law Uta, is a very talented tailor and specialises in up-cycling clothes and fabrics (I will tell you all about her work at a later date as she is about to start her own blog.)

She has started collecting African wax print fabrics. Beautiful complex designs originating from both the Netherlands and Africa.

Melted wax is printed onto the fabric and then the fabric is dipped in dye, often indigo. The wax resists the dye to varying degrees and the pattern is built up.

The patterns are hugely varied and have many meanings. I find these fabrics quite awe inspiring and mesmerising. The complexity of the designs and intensity of the colours defy the basic simplicity of the process used to make them. To find to more go here.

Kids Creations

 

I wanted to show you some work by my 5 year old son and his friend. The fabric designs were a project from a rainy day in the summer holidays and the dancing chicken was made by my son, inspired by Aardman's 'Chicken Run', finding out how stop frame animation is created.

I am constantly wowed by the creativity of the kids!

Totnes Lantern Procession

All sorts of creations

Spotty dog lantern

Dragon fly

An  animated monkey

Walking up town with a weird bug hovering next to us

Monkey and Fly processing

My favourite community event in my town is the Lantern Procession that this year celebrated the autumn moon.

 Everyone who wants to can make a lantern and join in. As myself and family and friends were in the thick of it my photos are somewhat limited, but it was amazing to see the creativity from so many people, bigs and smalls.

Green Tomato Chutney

This year our tomato crop succumbed to tomato blight, so the only thing to do was to harvest all the tomatoes, red and green. My favourite thing to do with all these green tomatoes is to make chutney.

You need some apples. I scrumped ( a Devon word for picking fruit ) these apples from our community orchard.

 Then you need a bit of time to chop everything up......

 ..........and a few hours later you have a batch of chutney. Now I just have wait a few weeks for it to mature before I can have my favourite cheese and chutney sandwich. So while waiting I drew this old family recipe for They Draw and Cook.

The basic quantities below, but you can easily scale this up if you have more green tomatoes.

3lb Green Tomatoes
1 lb Onions
1 1/2 lb Apples
1/4 oz Ground Ginger (I used grated fresh ginger)
1/4 oz Pepper
1/4 oz Salt
3 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Mustard
1/2 lb Sultanas (you don't need to add these if you don't want to)
3/4 pint Vinegar (I used distilled white vinegar but malt vinegar is fine)
(I also added 2 chillies as I had them and wanted to heat this up a bit)