WOYWW 888 birthday and slowly growing owls

Hi all, Isn’t that a satisfying blog number, 888! I’m visiting our blog circle again care of Sarah’s Craftshed.

My second keepsake owl, based on a pattern from the Wishing Shed, is growing. I’m not happy with the waterlilies so I’m doing that again. 

In this photo, you can see my stitch threader secured to the catch of my basket to stop it escaping into its black hole 😀 and the unsatisfactory water lilies. 

Bella helped a lot with the earlier stages but she’s been doing a lot of gadding about her garden this week. Brian says she’s scaring off the effalumps. It must be working ‘cos I can’t see any 😹. She sends you all purrs. 

It’s been a busy week. My birthday started last Wednesday as a hamper from Philps Pasties arrived from my friend Deb in Cornwall, with the tastiest Cornish pasties we’ve ever eaten and the lightest scones. I discovered that the Cornish put jam on first because the scones were eaten warm and the cream would have melted. 

On Friday we went to Franc’s restaurant in Canterbury with friends. Although we were a disparate group everyone enjoyed themselves. 

Some were neighbours, a couple from my art class, a beekeeper who I met at T’ai chi and my creative writing tutor. 

We really enjoyed it. 

On Sunday, we went to Amberlea, the Japanese tea house in the countryside near Sittingbourne. Once we got over being lost on single-track roads for half an hour, it was lovely. 

I had some lovely presents, including some made by our LLJ, others bought by her from Jan the jeweller at the same fairs, which went superbly with my new dress, as do the turquoise earrings from my godson. 

The Australian opals, a Georg Jensen dolphins brooch and the Syrian cookbook were from Brian. (Since he’s the chef in our kitchen, the present becomes meals made by him 😋. )

Jan’s cat design triplet and handmade books and cat card:

I also had what I believe is called a jester bag and tweed brooch made by my master quilter friend, Liz.  The tweed came from our local Romney Marsh sheep. 

Even yesterday we received another afternoon tea and flowers from one of my goddaughters. 

And finally..,

Happy WOYWW to you all. I’ve still some shortbread fingers, Victoria sponge and millionaire’s shortbread so put the kettle on and I’ll be round with them via the blog. 😹

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 887 More owlish embroidery

Hi all, I’m back for our weekly blog circle care of Sarah’s Craftshed.

My desk is my lap again this week

I’m making more keepsake owls from the pattern by the Wishing Shed. This one is for a friend who has a dachshund. 

I’m also doing one for a Ukrainian friend, but haven’t got further than the wing decorations yet. The one on the right is a national symbol, a trident often shown as a sort of art deco bird carrying an olive branch. 

Bella works so hard, supervising me, sometimes she has take a little nap 😼. She sends purrs to you all. 

We’ve an exciting weekend coming up, a party at Franc’s restaurant in Canterbury on Friday for my birthday, then on Sunday we’re going to Amberlea Japanese Tea house for a meal. Brian somehow found it online - he’s always been an excellent at finding interesting days out. 

And finally …

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 886 Chilled crafts

Hi all, I’m back for our weekly bloghop courtesy of Sarah’s Craftshed. 

Our art class has finished for the summer now, and there weren’t enough takers for the summer course so it was cancelled. I guess people have holidays etc. I shall have to get painting anyway as our exhibition is September and October this year. There’s also been a request for more Emotional Support Chickens so I’m looking for some nice multicoloured Toy standard yarn. 

My desk, this week, is a little plastic tray on my lap, which gives  Bella space to sleep. She sends you all purrs. 

I think she likes our ProBreeze air cooler as well, which was recommended by our Neet. It blows moisture-cooled air and works better than a fan, especially when we put an ice block in the water tank. 

I’m just playing with felt embroidery at present and don’t have anything to show yet, but I like this Fybrespates ‘Gleem’ embroidery silk. 

I handed over my 10 cannula sleeves and have started to knit more. This one’s 17 inches long, from the pattern of the Handmade for Dementia Facebook group. I’m just starting the lining. 

The pattern for these was created and risk assessed by dementia nurses, with only knitted or crochet twiddles, with shorter than 2” free ends, to avoid choking hazards. 

The weather’s a bit hot for knitting now (over 30deg here) but it won’t last. 

We had a lovely day at the Pilgrim’s Way Art exhibition in the Tithe Barn in Lenham on Friday. We’d arranged to meet an ex-colleague of Brian’s and his wife for lunch, as they live in Lenham, and really enjoyed spending time with them. They took us to a pub near Charing, the Wagon and Horses, which had good food and a lovely garden. 

The exhibition had lots of good art

including paintings by my art tutor, Claire Sparkes. 

And finally…

I’ll be round tomorrow, 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 885 Neet’s funeral, drawing and painting embroidery

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

It was so sad but I was grateful to be able to log in and watch our Neet’s funeral last week. Neet’s son, Andy, gave a lovely tribute, and it was interesting to hear more of Neet’s life prior to WOYWW. It was kind of Chas to load the order of service up onto our Fb messages group. 

Here’s my art class desk. 

I liked the idea of a mixed media portrait of Hamza Yassin but I’m far from satisfied with my likeness of him. 

What I’m looking forward to is using lots of hawk and owl pictures to collage around him. I might have to start again with the portrait part. We had to put down text collage first, draw the portrait on a separate piece of paper,  trace it over the collage, then redraw the portrait in biro. The clothes and surround are a mixture of collage and watercolour. 

I’m much happier with my owlish embroidery, which now has a fully Potterish theme, though based on the owl pattern from The Wishing Shed. Closed up, it’s very snug, particularly as I stuffed the head which otherwise looked too flat  

Opened up, the left wing has a dragon covering charm storage, in the centre there’s a small pocket and on the right a larger pocket for the charm bracelet. 

 

When the dragon covering is lifted, there are a couple of chains to store charms not in use at the moment. Under the chains, I’ve embroidered Harry’s patronus. 

I’ve already shown the back: 

Bella has been helping, and sends you all purrs. 

And finally…

I’m planning to go to art class tomorrow morning and am out for lunch with the class after as it’s the last day of term, so I’ll be visiting later. 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 884 owlish embroidery

Hi all, Happy WOYWW anniversary to you all! I started my Lynnecrafts blog in April 2017 so I’m relatively new, though I’d been reading LLJ’s blog for a while before.  Thank you for all your friendship and support. 🥰

It’s been a strange week, but I’ll be glad to log in to watch Neet’s funeral tomorrow. It’s so helpful for people who live a long way away. 

I’ve finished 10 cannula sleeves with the twiddles which were the full extent of my crafting when I was ill with Bells Palsy. I am handing them over to the dementia team at Kent and Canterbury hospital tomorrow after my art class. 

I’ve also been ‘snitching’, embroidering and beading. It took me a long time to embroider a snitch that looks right. 

Here were my first 4 attempts:

Below you can see Snitch no 5 is embroidered and number 6 is the stuffed one on the back. 

The stuffed item on the back is a star in the Wishing Shed pattern but the snitch is more aligned to my HP theme. 

There are more beads to be sewn on, more pockets and charm holders, and, after Jan’s advice, I’m putting interlocking between the layers for my popper fasteners, which were pulling out before. I’m waiting for some stuff that has been ordered, especially to do with storing charms. My deadline is the end of June so it’s ok. 

My desk is reduced to a box so I can pick it up quickly when Bella jumps up. 

She sends you all purrs. 

This weekend was the festival in our village in Beaujolais. There’s was no way I could drive a 1000mile road trip with a fractured coccyx. I was sad not to be there but our goddaughter and family were there and kept us in the loop. 

I’ve done a separate blog post for the festival here: Létra Conscrits festival 2026

On the Friday night I would have been dressed like this, for the fancy dress parade to the theme of the French comic book series, Lucky Luke. It has the Daltons so the Eagles song Doolin Dalton has been my earworm all week. 

The big parade is on the Saturday morning before the banquet. 

There’s the full banquet menu on my separate page. 

Our goddaughter, Alexia, is on the right below. She videoed the family toasting me, the dances etc At least we’re going to her birthday party in July. 

And finally…

I’ve scheduled this as I’m going to try and go to art class in the morning (for the first time in 2 months) and then to deliver the cannula sleeves. 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts 🥰🥰