December in Pictures: Frosty Leaves, Festive Fun & a New Home

It was rather quiet on my blog this December because I was a) busy getting ready to move, then b) moving house, and then c) doing lots of DIY in my new flat... but I also got up to some fun stuff and shared pictures! Wanna see?

I started the month in true Instagrammer / blogger style, by almost missing my train because I'd stopped to take photos of some frosty leaves. Totally worth it.

I got some gorgeous post from one of my (then) blog sponsors, in thanks for hosting their ad. How sweet is that? The adorable bunny brooch is by illustrator Emma Evans. 

I spent most of the start of December packing ready to move house, and ticking lots of other things off my "stuff that needs to get done before I can move" checklist. That bunny brooch got packed within hours of me taking that photo!

Of course, I couldn't resist squeezing in a couple more local Nice Days Out before moving away from the South-East. I spent a busy day in London, doing some Christmas shopping and oohing over all the festive loveliness (the lights, the shop windows and all the sparkly things for sale).

This is the swoonworthy flower stall in one of Harrods' food halls. It was such fun picking out delicious gifts for friends and family, umming and ahhing over all the loveliness.

 
I can never resist popping into the haberdashery department when I'm in Liberty. Not least because they're still selling my book! So thrilling.

My second last-Nice-Day-Out-before-I-move-away was a trip to Windsor. They had a gorgeous Christmas tree this year - a gift from the German town where Queen Victoria's husband Albert was born. Victoria and Albert popularised the idea of Christmas trees in Britain, and apparently Albert had his first tree at Windsor shipped in from his home town!

Windsor Castle is always a wonderful place to visit, but especially so at Christmas. It's quieter in the off-season, and the Castle is decorated with wreaths and garlands and Christmas trees, including a huge tree in the main hall.

 

I had a marvelous bit of luck, as it turned out that the only day I could manage to get away to Windsor for the day was not only wonderfully sunny (yay!) but it was also part of a special festive weekend of events at the Castle (hurrah!). There were choirs singing carols, ornament-making workshops, and a very funny "pop-up Panto". So much fun!

I also really enjoyed Fashioning a Reign, an exhibition of some of the Queen's outfits. Some of the embroidery and beading was quite incredible.

Back at home, I wrapped all my Christmas gifts super early so I could leave them at my parents house (to save carting them back and forth as I moved house then headed "home" for a family Christmas). Isn't the gift wrap gorgeous? It's not technically Christmas wrap, but who cares!

I totally dropped the ball on Christmas cards this year (I didn't send a single one! and I love sending Christmas cards!) but at least I managed this.

Before my unplanned blogging break I finished blogging about my trip to Leeds (so much great architecture!) and my day in Oxford with Polly. This is one of my favourite photos from that Oxford trip: a quiet corner of All Souls College.

 
I also blogged about the felt Christmas baubles tutorial I'd designed for the Village Haberdashery's blog. It feels a teeny bit pointless linking to a Christmas tutorial in January, but maybe you could bookmark it (or Pin it!) and make some felt baubles for Christmas 2017?

Then in the middle of December I moved to the seaside! Into my very own flat!

I'm really happy to be living in the South-West again (I love it here and had missed it a lot), and it's very exciting having my own place.

I shared this photo a few days after moving in: I might not have had a cooker or a fridge yet (or much proper furniture!) but I did have all the important stuff, like piles of colourful handmade blankets.

Seriously though, it has been such a joy finally using these blankets in my new home.

There's my Happy Rainbow Blanket (which I still need to take "finished" photos of!), a Giant Granny Square blanket (the first and only thing I have ever crocheted), my Sky Blanket, and my Random Squares blanket (which includes squares I knitted as a teenager). Each of these blankets contain so much meaning and so many memories, and they're all so wonderfully colourful. I love them.

It's also been really nice rediscovering some of the things I've had in storage for the past few years. I missed these plates rather a lot - isn't the pattern lush?

After a couple of busy weeks of moving boxes and doing DIY it was time to head to my parents house for Christmas. These are a choir of singing trees from the Christmas at Kew light trail I visited with my mum back in November; the trees lit up as they "sang". Delightful!

We had a lovely quiet Christmas - just how we like it. We watched lots of films and some Christmas telly and ate far too much food.

These are the excellent gifts I got for Christmas: the Ghostbusters remake on DVD (which I made my family watch immediately; such a great film!) and a Chocolate Orange (yum!).  

Aaaand that's it for another month!

I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

July in Pictures: Lots of Flowers, Infinite Pumpkins, a Giant Ice Cream and a Very Long Walk

July was pretty busy! Let's take a look at what I got up to...

At the start of the month I went to Windsor and walked all the way along the Long Walk and back. It was a rather long way (and, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda regretted the decision two thirds of the way along) but 100% worth it for this fabulous view back to the Castle.

I wrote some letters and cards to my friends and penpals and shared a pic of some of the lovely snail mail I'd recently received (is there anything nicer than getting a bit of happy mail?). 

I went to London for the day and came back with treats: a gorgeous mini tray from Liberty (in my all time fave Liberty print) and a book from Daunt Books. I was supposed to be sticking to a tight budget in July (and mostly succeeded!) but couldn't resist these lovelies, both of which I've had my eye on for simply ages.

In the evenings, I was working on a couple of personal projects including a tiny scarf for a polar bear! The bear is one of Alicia Paulson's charming felt ornament patterns. I've been slooooowly making these since buying a bundle of her kits a few years ago (too many projects, too little time!) and have re-started them in the hope that I will actually have some finished in time for Christmas this year.

Those super skinny knitting needles belonged to my late grandmother. It's always quite moving using her old tools to make stuff - I actually wrote about this a couple of years ago.

I also started something new: an embroidery project inspired by the late great website The Toast. I have a friend who loved the site, so I decided to stitch her something inspired by one of its unofficial mottoes. I had so much fun stitching this and posted lots of in-progress pics... I'll be blogging about it in more detail soon :)

In the middle of the month I went to see the incredible Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery. The mirror rooms were particularly amazing. You only got about 30 seconds in each room but it was totally worth it (and I was lucky to visit when the exhibition was quiet - I heard people were queuing for over two hours in the final week!).

This piece is called "All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins". "Chandelier of Grief" was also amazing.  

Later that week I went on a photo-taking-tour of London with Kate and friends. We visited lots of Art Deco stations on the Piccadilly Line oohing over architectural details, taking lots and lots of photos, and generally having a lovely, happy, nerdy day out.

This is my favourite station of the day, the gorgeous seven-sided ticket hall at Hounslow West. The staff were most perplexed by us all showing up with our cameras, so it's clearly a hidden gem

Back at home, the garden was looking lovely in the sunshine. How amazing are these hydrangeas?? Like the hydrangeas, I wilt a little in the heat and neither of us was especially happy in the mini heatwave we had in late July. I spent a lot of time in the shadiest place I could find and ate a lot of ice cream!

The new issue of Mollie Makes came out, which was exciting because it includes three projects designed by me (yay!). Click here to read more about my makes for this issue.

I spent a lot of July working on felt flower patterns for my shop. I will, of course, be blogging about the patterns when they're ready for sale... in the meantime there's lots of felt to cut out and sew, photographs to take and edit, instructions to type up and proofread, templates to draw and label, etc etc etc.

Cutting out lots of flower pieces means a big pile of colourful felt scraps! I love the sculptural look of these.

In between working on my new patterns, I took a day off and went to Cookham to visit the Stanley Spencer Gallery (click here to see a snippet from my train journey through the countryside!).

I spent a very relaxing couple of hours exploring the village (expect a blog post as soon as I've got my photos edited!) and discovered that (contrary to my previous belief) you CAN have too much ice cream when I accidentally ordered the world's largest Mr Whippy (oops). I tried to finish it but, sadly, it defeated me.

At the end of long days of crafty work you might think the last thing I'd want to do is more crafting, but you'd be wrong. In the last week of July I kept myself entertained in the evenings by adding some more stitches to my ongoing "using up my scrappy leftover bits of embroidery thread" cross stitch project...

... and sewing together some of the white squares for my mini patchwork squares blanket. I've got lots more squares to knit (then sew together) - I must remember to buy some more white yarn!

I finished the month working on more flowers. These are just some of the samples I'm stitching for my new patterns. I want to make my tutorials as useful as possible so I'm including lots of variations and project ideas along with the basic pattern... which means lots of pieces to cut and sew.

I'm really pleased with how these patterns are coming together, I can't wait until they're finished so I can do the big reveal and finally get them listed in my shop (and get started on the other ideas I've got in my sketchbook!).

Knitting, sewing, cross stitch... art, walks, architecture... flowers, nice post and tasty ice cream. All in all, July turned out to be a pretty good month :)

I'll share another Instagram round-up next month. I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me.

A Walk Through Windsor

One sunny Sunday a few weeks ago I had planned to stay home and get some admin done but the sunshine was just too hard to resist, so mid-morning I decided to abandon my To Do list and instead have a local Nice Day Out in Windsor.

I thought I'd just visit a couple of small museums and find somewhere quiet to sit and drink tea and read my book... but I ended up going on a long and highly enjoyable walk round the town (and neighbouring Eton). Want to come on a virtual tour with me? Here goes...

The branch line train I caught was absolutely crammed with tourists excited about visiting the castle - plus a whole bunch of kids who were very excited about visiting Legoland (including one overexcited bunch whose mum was threatening to turn around and take them straight home if they didn't stop misbehaving "I haven't bought the tickets yet, you know! Behave!!")

Even if you don't actually visit Windsor Castle, it looms over everything and gives the town a huge amount of charm.

I visited Windsor a lot growing up, but it was mostly to shop (one of the department stores had a great toy shop with toy trains running around the walls - how could you not love that as a kid?). It's funny coming back as a "tourist" as the town is so familiar but I really hardly know it at all.

It was nice to take the time to just wander around, admiring the castle buildings and other historic bits and pieces in the centre of town.

I didn't know that Windsor is home to Britain's shortest street! Queen Charlotte Street is just 51 feet 10 inches long. I stood right at one end of it to take this photo:

Tiny huh? On one side of the street there's a fabulously crooked house...

... and nearby is one of these old Victorian post boxes. Did you know post boxes were originally painted green to help them blend into their surroundings? Unfortunately they blended in too well and people couldn't find them when they wanted to post a letter! They repainted most of the boxes to the bright red they use today but there are still a few old green ones dotted about the place (two in Windsor).

I visited Windsor Parish Church, which has some lovely decorations and a 16th century painting of the Last Supper...

... then headed to the Windsor & Royal Borough Museum (Windsor is now part of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead and the museum focuses on the history of Windsor and its surrounding area). The museum is free to visit if you're a local resident and is a charming little local museum with an audio guide available and a nice mix of artifacts on display.

I especially enjoyed the clips of old black and white films of the area and learning about the UK's first airmail service which flew from Windsor Great Park. People bought specially designed postcards celebrating the first flight which were then sent by the aerial post and (later) posted in special blue airmail post boxes. You can buy replicas of one of the postcards in the museum shop.

I was delighted to spot the commemorative blue post box mentioned in the museum, later in the afternoon. The box stands near the former site of Windsor Post Office, where the mail from the aerial post was received. Sadly you can't actually use it to post letters.

 
A ticket to the museum also includes a guided tour of the Guildhall (when it's not in use for events). This was great! Our guide was funny and very well informed and the building has a fascinating history. It's often used for weddings and other celebrations, and was the location of Prince Charles' wedding to Camilla, and Elton John's civil partnership with David Furnish.

After visiting the museum I headed to the Long Walk. This is the famous straight path that leads from Windsor Castle to Windsor Great Park.

The Long Walk starts at the Castle gates...

... if you peer through the gates you can just make out the guards on duty.

 

The Long Walk is about 3 miles long and ends at the Copper Horse - a statue of George III on horseback.

I haven't been to the Long Walk in about 20 years, when we took part in a world record attempt here (laying the longest line of 2p coins - I can't remember if the record got broken or not, but it was a weirdly fun day).

I'm planning on coming back to walk the whole walk (and to explore the Great Park, too) but for now contented myself with walking just a little way and enjoying the views back to the castle.

 

Then it was time for some lunch, and on to my next stop: Eton! Click here to see the second part of my virtual tour :)

Two Very Different Kitchens - One fit for a Queen, Another for Bicycles!

My first Nice Day Out of 2015 was actually two half-days, as I took a couple of small local trips.

First up my mum and I spent a morning in Windsor. On my last visit to Windsor Castle back in 2013 one of the staff had recommended I return at Christmas to see the decorations... I'd not got round to it last Christmas so I was determined to manage it this time!

Looking up their Christmas opening times I spotted that they were running tours of the Great Kitchen, which is something that's usually only available for tour groups. A behind-the-scenes peek at Windsor Castle? Yes please!

It was nice to see the town decorated for Christmas...

 

... and the Castle is always a fantastic place to visit. We explored St George's Chapel then headed to the meeting point for our tour. It was rather thrilling being able to go into spaces that are normally off-limits to tourists - not just the Great Kitchen itself but all the rooms we had to walk through to get to it - and our guides were friendly and informative, sharing lots of tales of the history of the building and the people who had lived and worked there over the centuries (you can watch a short video about the kitchen tours here).

After the tour was finished we visited the dolls house (always wonderful) and the state apartments which were looking wonderfully festive with tables laid for Christmas feasts and huge, beautiful Christmas trees in several of the rooms. Then we headed back into town for a cuppa and some cake and chatted about all the great stuff we'd seen.

I'm hoping to pay another visit to Windsor Castle this summer for one of their Conquer the Tower tours - I love the idea of climbing the Round Tower! As local residents we're lucky to be able to visit the Castle for free (though these tours are extra), it's such a spectacular place with so much to see I definitely want to take advantage of it while I'm living here.

For my second half-day-out I took a trip to Reading. Awesome arts organisation Jelly were having a moving sale, which I thought was a great excuse to have a wander round the town, stretch my legs and do some shopping!

It was lovely to see how much-loved-but-now-closed department store Jacksons is now being used as a creative community hub. Jelly will be running workshops and other crafty events there soon (in the department where I got all my school uniforms many years ago!), there's also a crafty gift shop, a workshop space and the very cool Reading Bicycle Kitchen where you can access the tools and expertise to fix your own bike. 

You can't tell from the photo but the legs on that bike were cycling :)

P.S. You can read about my previous Nice Days Out in Reading here, here and here and my trip to Windsor & Eton here.

An Afternoon at Dorney Court

I've been having so much fun on my Nice Days Out that my mum has joined in! We've been to Hampton Court together, and to see the poppies at the Tower of London... and back in August we spent an afternoon at Dorney Court, a charming Tudor manor house built in 1440.

The village of Dorney is quite local to us, and Dorney Court is one of the places where I can get a discount with my Art Pass so it seemed like a perfect choice for a summer day out. It's great fun visiting the big, famous tourist attractions but sometimes it's nice to go somewhere where the "car park" looks like this:

Dorney Court has been owned by the Palmer family for nearly 500 years. It's still lived in by the family, who hire it out for weddings and as a film and TV location, and open the house to the public on open days each summer. Maybe you've seen the house in a movie or on TV? The house and village were also apparently the model for Huntercombe in Susan Cooper's novel The Dark is Rising.

We went on the guided tour of the house, then wandered around the small but charming gardens. The house itself isn't huge but it's fabulously quirky and full of interesting things including lots of pineapple motifs, as the first pineapple grown in England was grown at Dorney Court. Visiting a lived-in home is so different to visiting a property where everything is just for display - with family photos next to the antiques on the sideboard and the adorable family dogs excitedly sniffing all the visitors as we bought our tickets and postcards.

The tour was hugely entertaining, with lots of detail about the house and its contents and lots of funny stories about the family's history, like how one generation would modernise and redecorate and then the next would furiously put everything back again. We also heard snippets of local history (apparently Dorney is Anglo Saxon for "island of bees") and stories about the filming that's happened in the house over the years. You can see some photos of the house and read more about its history here.

After touring the house we visited the next door church of St James the Less, a petite and charming little building dating from the 12th century whose current "claim to fame" is that it's where Kate Middleton (the Duchess of Cambridge)'s parents got married. 

Then we headed to the neighbouring Dorney Court Kitchen Garden for a cuppa and a cake. This has to be one of the nicest garden centres I've ever visited! There was a nice selection of plants in a beautiful setting, with informative and quirky chalkboards dotted throughout with added info about the plants and gardening-themed quotations.

The cafe was lovely, serving lots of tasty looking food made with ingredients grown on site, and we were also very tempted by the gorgeous selection of gifts in the shop. A cup of tea and a slice of yummy homemade cake was the perfect way to finish our afternoon out!