York Open Studios

I’ve been accepted for Open Studios again! Yay!

This time I’ll be sharing my workshop with my friend Ellie Crosby who’s a jeweller. It’ll be nice to have some company when it’s quiet, and an extra pair of hands for when it’s busy.

I think this is the last year I’ll apply because really I’m too busy and I’d like to sell more work through galleries. It’s nice to have a firm deadline though, because it makes me get busy making a new range of work to show alongside the regular ranges that people know me for.

If you’d like to see more of my work you can click here or you can follow me on Facebook. Elle doesn’t have a website up and running yet but when she does I’ll keep you all posted.

Beccy

A chook update…

We got three new chooks last Saturday! They are sort of ex-bats. Sort of, because battery hens were banned in the UK in January (woo!), so these aren’t from battery cages but from a ‘higher welfare barn’ or some such thing. Better for the hens in the short term but after a couple of years they still get turned into pet food.

You can see the difference between Rigby (on the far right above and at the front of the top picture) and the three new girls – even in higher welfare environments they still come out looking shabby with patchy feathers, trimmed beaks and wiry little bodies.

We had only had one egg in a week though - not unusual, the shock of the move often gives them pause – but that egg was a few days ago. Why only one? Well a little walk around the run (AKA next-door’s neglected garden) this afternoon gave us the answer when we found a grass nest holding a clutch of five eggs! I’m convinced there must be more somewhere but a couple of big patches of nettles stopped me probing further.

After a flurry of pecking Rigby has taken well to the new chooks. Lucy is oblivious, but she’s now totally blind – you remember Lucy, who seemed on her last legs almost exactly a year ago when we had to leave her with a friend while we went to New York? Well, she’s fine-ish. She gets around ok but has trouble finding food (she might have no sense of smell either) so we hand feed her twice a day. Considering hen’s propensity for dropping dead with no notice, Lucy has done amazingly well!

So that’s that. We Just have to find a way to get the hens to lay in the nest-box. Any ideas?

Beccy

Jumble sale booty!

I only really have one thing to show you because we arrived ten minutes after opening. When we got there we saw people leaving with the most amazing stuff but sadly when we went in the scrum had dissipated leaving only a few practically empty tables. I don’t know about your part of the world, but here jumble sales last at most half an hour so ten minutes is a long time in jumbling!

Anyway, this is what I got:

Ten knitting magazines for 50p! Anyone who knows me knows I like collecting patterns even more than I like knitting. I trawl the magazine bins of charity shops as well as craft book sections but people never seem to get rid of knitting magazines and books. Lots of single 80’s jumper patterns to be had, but nothing more modern. Ok, so I might only knit one thing from all these mags but for 50p? A bargain!

I’ve already had a look on Ravelry and there are a few gorgeous versions of some of these patterns, plus ideas for cheaper/better yarn substitutions. Why do these magazines insist on using lime green and hot pink all the time? Often they manage to make an expensive yarn look cheap just through poor colour choice and styling. Rowan magazine is the only exception. Drool. Ravelry (or at least the extremely talented members) can be a godsend for helping you see through all that and make the right choices.

Beccy