WOYWW 839 French monuments and heatwaves

Hi all, firstly my desk from art class. 

 

I’ll be adding to it when we get back. 

We came down to Central France on Sunday to see Chartres cathedral which had amazing statuary and stained glass. It was built around 1000 yrs ago and has that deep sense of spirituality that you get from more than a millennium of worship. I’ve felt the same in the temples of Angkor Wat, for example. 

The heat is ferocious,38deg today across most of France but it’s due to abate a bit soon. 

We drove down to Montluçon today to stay in the Chateau St Jean, which is superb. When we arrived we were given a gorgeous fresh and chilled ice tea made of lemon balm and mint. Waiting for us in our room was quite the nicest welcome pastry I’ve ever tasted. Sorry not to take a picture of it. It was a tartlet made with almond shortbread pastry, filled with crushed pistachios and blackcurrant caramel. It’s an excellent way to spend our 42nd wedding anniversary (2 days early, but so what😀). 

Tomorrow we’re going to a 14th century paper mill. Last time I visited, B had a nap in the car. However, they did the specially French style of guided visit where they shut doors behind you and you can’t opt out, so he didn’t see me for 2 hours 😅 This time we'll go round together. They make watercolour paper too!  😻 Here’s their link: 

https://www.richarddebas.fr/

We’ll spend a few days at a hotel north of Avignon in the hills before going up to Beaujolais for our goddaughter’s birthday. 

Bella is being looked after by her Aunty Liz; she no doubt sends us and you all purrs. She was happily supervising me with hen mark 3 before we left. 

And finally…

For other aged CSNY fans like me:

That was almost B, but we found a shop in Chartres to replace the one he left at home. 😹

I’ll try to visit but it will be dependent on hotel , and may be after our next journey. . 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 838 Thrones and apricots

Hi all, I’m back for bloghopping care of Sarah’s craft shed, though it doesn’t seem like a week has passed. 

Here’s my art course desk for our ink and wash paintings. I’m now doing one of the logs and two details, one of a carved woodland throne in the park and another of animals on it. 

Claire asked us to go straight in with pens rather than doing pencil first - (“its summer, we should experiment”) it’s scary and when I got my hare wrong it looked like tracked motion 😹. Hopefully it’ll be better once I’ve added shading. 

Here’s the classes wild leaf and flower paintings from last week in the style of Sue Lewington,( not Levington, sorry).

Bella’s been helping me with emotional support chicken no.3. She sends you all purrs. 

I wish she could talk our apricots into ripening. For once we have an excellent crop. They’ve coloured but are still hard. 

Could they ripen in the car? (Next week’s blog will be dependent on hotel WiFi ). No, I’ve just checked and bl@@dy Brexit means we can’t take them to France. Brian’s ready to stuff our unripe apricots down the throat of the person I’ve called niff Sewage. 

For so many years we’ve had a poor or no crop, and now look at them! Hopefully our neighbours and Aunty Liz who’s feeding Bella, will get the benefit of them. 

And finally, 

I’ll be visiting tomorrow 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 837 Chickens and leaves

Hi all, I’m joining in with our weekly bloghop care of Sarahscraftshed.co.uk/?m=1

This's my art class desk. 

I’ve now added notes:

📝 

I should’ve done them all in ink, instead of inktense pencil but never mind. I like the whimsical style of them. 

This week we’ll be starting ink and wash studies of the cafe at the country park where our course is now held. 

They’ll be in the style of Sue Levington, with several views per page. Here’s one of her books and an example of her work:

I’ve also finished my second emotional support chicken, received happily by my cousinette. 

I’m happier with the wings this time, sewn all together rather than just down the middle. 

Her name is Minnie Chucklebutt. 

Bella helped and sends you all purrs. 

And finally:

Happy WOYWW to you all,

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 836 Leafprinting and chickens

Hi all, 

I’m back for our weekly bloghop care of Sarah’s craft shed. 

Here’s my desk from our summer art class. 

We’ve started the season with leafprinting, painting the backs of leaves with watercolour (the secret is to paint them with washing up liquid first) and pressing them down, rolling over them. We also painted around the negative space, such as the dandelion leaf on the left, and rolling leaves on an inked plate then transferring them to the page. This week we’ll add watercoloured flowers. 

My second emotional support chicken is on its way. I call this the spatchcocked stage. 

Bella has been helping and sends you all purrs. 

I had a lovely birthday, thanks for all your good wishes. After my art class we went to a local restaurant, the Hide and Fox, which now has 2 Michelin stars and is very grand. The five course tasting menu looked like a lot but was lovely and not too filling, though there were salmon and tomato starters, turbot and pork mains and an almond and caramel parfait. 

And finally …

Happy WOYWW, 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 835 Chickens!

Hi all, 

I’m back for our weekly bloghop care of Sarah’s Craftshed. 

I confess I’ve been obsessed this week with making my first Emotional Support Chicken. 

Please meet our cockerel, Billy, named after a bantam rooster we had when we lived in the North East. 

I got fed up of doing tails using a French knitting tool so did crochet tail feathers with notional wing feathers. 

He’s been fun to make and I’ve learned some lessons for my next one!

Bella’s not keen on him - a bit big for her. She loves  belly rub though, and sends you all purrs. 

The specialist reviewed my knee MRIs last week and confirmed it’s arthritis. Not bad enough for a knee operation yet, but they can replace knees with a spinal block so he reckons it would be possible, eventually. 

Till then it’s ice and my walking stick! 

We’ll be going out on Thursday evening for my birthday, to a 2* Michelin restaurant nearby. It’s new to us so 🤞🏻🤞🏻. 

And finally…

Happy WOYWW

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 834 Grapes and Chickens

Hi all, Here again for our weekly bloghop care of Sarah’s Craft Shed. I’ve been getting the days all wrong this week. I woke up on Saturday thinking I hadn’t written my story for “today’s” (Monday’s) creative writing class. Today I thought was Wednesday and I’ve lost a week and had to check when we went to the exhibition! Doolally tap!

Here’s my watercolour desk. Annie’s ATC hadn’t come out of its black hole so I painted another and made it into a picture. I hope she gets it today! 

Here are the lovely ATCs I received for our anniversary 

Left and top are from Jo (Twiglet) and the bottom two were sent by Mary-Anne. They’re all beautiful, many thanks. I adore the peacock especially and the blessing on Mary Anne’s.   

I confess I was struggling with the baby book - such tiny stitches! I can go back to it later perhaps when travelling. 

I then saw on Facebook that people are making chickens in crochet or knitting. They’re called Emotional Support Chickens and they look rather cuddly. The patterns are for sale on Etsy or as a Crochet pattern on Ravelry. 

The example below is from the pattern: (not my work!)

I’m fancying one that’s a cockerel rather than a hen so I’m hoping to emulate this magnificent one by Sue Hill. 

Bella was sleeping on the supervision job, I’m afraid, and I sewed my tail feathers on the wrong side.  She woke up to send you all purrs. 😻

I love the colours of Sirdar Jewelspun but it does not give in easily to frogging (undoing) so I started again, with the colours I really wanted to use. The left over bits can be part of the stuffing. 

Bella’s happier now I’ve sewn it right!

I love the way its coming together, The green flaps will be the chest but it doesn’t look far from an odd corset at the moment!

There are videos to show how to crochet or knit a chicken. I’ve saved them here: Emotional Support Chicken video links with a reminder for me of how to French knit the tail feathers, as per Sue’s rooster. 

It was terrible to view the car crashing into celebrating Liverpool crowds. I’m glad the police shared the ethnicity of the driver to avoid the shameful riots based on misinformation that we had last year. I really hope the injured are ok. 

Wasn’t it sad to see Rafa Nadal’s retirement at Roland Garros? I had to watch it on Facebook as it wasn’t deemed newsworthy in the UK 🤬. He was my favourite and it’s right that he was celebrated at the French Open. No one else has come near to winning it 14 times!

I had an MRI of my knees last week and have a consultation this Friday so I can see what’s going on. Maybe the consultant can tell if it will get better on its own. Otherwise, if an op can be done with a spinal block that’s a possibility, (I had one a few years ago on my ankle) but if it’s a general anaesthetic or live with it, it will be the latter as anaesthetists avoid my damaged lungs like the plague. 

And finally…

I do love Mack the Knife!

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx