Wednesday 24 September 2014

'SheepFest' weekend

SheepFest weekend came and went (Sept 14/15), but unfortunately in the end I was unable to go along. So I missed out on all the excitement of the weekend, which I understand was really good. Lots of craft workshops, and artisan and craft stalls, and of course the sheep trail with well over 100 sheep. However, there are still sheep about in Sedbergh, and now quite a few have been taken back to Farfield Mill and will be on display there until after the October school half term - so I have been able to have a good look at quite a few. Below are the three winning sheep…..



How cool is this one outside the Vets - you could actually have a go at lambing!!
……. and the rest are sheep that took my eye as I walked around the Town and the Mill.


Our very own Baaa Baaara - the Knit and Natter sheep, sitting in the corner of the Cafe at the Mill, where we meet each week.




Outside the Bull Hotel in town…..
and I love this one that the Post Office contributed….
and this one in the Church, where the 'wool' was made of curled music scores…...
and the Art shop.
The Mill also has on display the 'Technicolour Dreamcoat' that was made by local school children. Each child wove a square and into it poured their hopes and dreams. A great achievement.
I was really looking forward to seeing the felt work of Andrea Hunter, and was hoping to go to a talk she was giving over the SheepFest weekend - may be another time. Her work was on display for such a short time and now the exhibition has finished, but I did manage to call in and see it. It was difficult to photograph as there was a lot of reflection.


All in all a fantastic community event, with a great deal of hardwork in planning the event by Farfield Mill, and hopefully will be repeated!

Thursday 11 September 2014

Kaffe 2014 : The colourful world of Kaffe Fassett at the American Museum in Bath

I had a few days away visiting daughter Molly -  a couple of weeks ago now. She lives in Bristol at the moment, and I haven't really spent a lot of time in that area, so before I went I was looking for things we could do and remembered reading on Amy's blog Love made my home about the Kaffe Fassett exhibition at the American Museum in Bath. If you pop along to Amy's blog you will see so many other photographs - well worth a look! We decided to go and visit, and daughter Clara came over from Oxford to come with us - so a little family outing - and it was truly amazing.
I love Kaffes work and have been to a couple of his exhibitions now see here and here, and although I had seen many of the pieces before it is always a thrill to see them again. The excitement began (well my excitement - not sure the girls were quite as excited as me, although they did enjoy the day) walking from the car park passing yarn bombing on the lamp posts and the huge tree outside the exhibition space. Then inside and through the wobbly tunnel into a little area based on Kaffes studio with all the fabrics on shelves, yarn in baskets, etc then turning left we went into the main exhibition area which is divided into colour zones, we went into the yellow zone, then green, red and blue - such a colourful explosion. I loved the detail, with the chairs in each zone matching the colour for instance. Anyway a visual feast, so below are just a few of my photos from the day…...





















We also had time to visit the House and the gardens. It was a lovely sunny day, so we strolled around and then had a cup of tea and a cake on the terrace.

Then we went inside the house to look at the exhibitions, and the fantastic American Quilts (difficult to capture as they are behind glass), but I loved these of Kaffes hanging in the stairwell.


The exhibition is on until 2nd November, so if you have a chance to go along I'm sure you will really enjoy it!

Tuesday 2 September 2014

In the garden

A productive time in the garden, I'm so glad that I did make the effort to grow things this year, not knowing if we would still be at this house or moved. (more on the renovation project in another post soon)

In the greenhouse - tomatoes, both tiny and huge beef ones
and cucumbers …...
…. lots of basil. I can feel lots of greek salads coming our way!
The crab apples are nearly ready - so soon lovely crab apple jelly.
 
Lots of damsons and Victoria plums too. I have frozen lots of plums for crumbles and pies for later in the year.
There are also loads and loads of blackberries in the hedge rows again this year, so my dog walking routes will be visiting all the good picking spots!

 and more figs on my little fig tree!!!!
 The vegetable garden is still productive, with runner beans and french beans, 
 and the butternut squash are really thriving - this one looks like an over grown courgette, but it is actually around 30cm long and about 15 cm across. I hope they all have time to ripen into that lovely buttery colour so they will store - if the weather forecast is correct we may still have some warm weather so that should help.

 I love being able to walk out into the garden and pick veg for us to eat.