Kensington Gardens & Sensational Butterflies

After my trip to Birmingham last week to visit The Festival of Quilts I decided that my schedule needs to involve more fun days out! When you're self-employed it's just far too easy to look at your gigantic, never-ending To Do list & convince yourself that you don't have time to take proper days off, and to just end up working all the time.

So, I am declaring Thursday to be "get on a train and go somewhere" day, even if I just go as far as the next town and sit in cafes reading books all day. No excuses! (Except legit ones like being stuck in bed ill, or it snowing or something like that, and even then I hope I'll be able to make up for it by taking extra time off another week). And to make sure I stick to this plan each week, I'll be blogging about my trips... so you can all tell me off if I, er, slack off at slacking off! I hope you'll enjoy a peek at some of my travels :)

I've already been enjoying the magical power of A Proper Day Off.... I took a trip to London this Thursday,  getting out of the house much later than I'd planned, already sort-of regretting my decision to take a day off and feeling stressed about my To Do list... and had a lovely, relaxing day and came back feeling de-stressed and inspired and really very happy.

First up I went to Kensington Gardens, which is somewhere I'd never been before. I went up to London a lot in my teens but it was mostly to go shopping with friends and to hang out in places we thought were "cool", so we didn't go to a lot of parks!

I visited the Italian Gardens (very peaceful) ...

... and the Albert Memorial (very shiny) ...

 

... and the Serpentine Gallery. I'm not a big fan of contemporary art (& the main exhibition left me a bit cold) but the Pavillion (designed by Sou Fujimoto and on display until 20th October) outside the gallery is pretty darn awesome and an amazing space to sit in. 

I also loved this huge (5 metre high) sculpture: Rock on Top of Another Rock.
 

Then I had a quick look round the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society which was really interesting, and a lovely oasis of calm on busy Exhibition Road. (The last day for this exhibition is tomorrow, but I guess it's an annual thing?)
 

Next up: the Natural History Museum which is such a fab building.

We went here on a school trip when I was a kid and I remember being totally obsessed with the bits in my souvenir guide book that showed details of the architecture.

I'd planned to spend the whole afternoon at the NHM (I visited briefly last year to see the Captain Scott exhibition but didn't get a chance to look at more than a few dinosaurs)... but it being mid-August the queues to get in the museum itself were pretty crazy. So I just went to the Sensational Butterflies exhibition instead- a tropical butterfly house on the museum's front lawn (open until 15th September). 

 

I ummed and ahhed about whether it was worth paying to have a look at this but I'm so glad I did, there were so many large and beautiful butterflies, it was quite magical.

 

 

The whole place was full of kids with their mouths wide open in amazement and adults grinning from ear to ear at how lovely it was. In terms of happiness per minute, my ticket for this may have been the best value thing I've bought in years!

Then I popped to the V&A ...

 

... and had a cuppa in their magnificent cafe. It is impossible to not feel super-fancy sitting in a space like this, or to not spend half the time staring at all that decorative detail!

Everything in the V&A is great, but one of my favourite bits is the ceramics galleries which I just had time to wander round before starting my journey home. I always enjoy the ceramics rooms in museums - there is so much colour and pattern and shape to look at (always inspiring!) and they're not usually very popular so you get this wonderful peace and quiet that you rarely get in tourist-filled places. The ones at the V&A are, of course, the best. Cabinets that seem to go on for days! Just wonderful.

I've got no idea where I'll be going next Thursday, but I'll let you know what I get up to...

Mmm... Lovely Books...

Since I started doing more knitting in my spare time, I have noticed that I'm spending more and more evenings knitting & watching the telly (or DVD box sets*) and fewer and fewer evenings reading actual books. I do sometimes listen to audiobooks when I sew, but it's just not the same.

As you may have guessed from reading this blog, I love making things... but this makes me sad! Books are awesome! So, I am determined to try to put down my knitting (or sewing or whatever other crafty project I'm working on) a bit more often (or a bit earlier in the evening) and curl up with a book instead.

I'm also switching to reading books on my lunch break instead of being tempted to read the paper or various excellent blogs online, which so often turns into a working lunch as I check my email, etc. 

The important first step in making these plans a reality? Going to the library for some tempting reads, of course!

* This month I have been watching Justified, In Plain Sight, Medium, Doctor Who and Moonlight (which is a delightfully silly show about a vampire who solves crimes).

August Sponsors

It's the middle of the month and that means it's time to meet all my current lovely sponsors!

Blooming Felt sells 100% wool felt sheets, colourful fairtrade felt craft supplies like felt flowers and felt purses, plus other crafty goodness including buttons, ribbons, flat pad findings, glue, embroidery floss and craft books:

 

Big Fish sells lots of colourful buttons and felt balls, as well as other craft supplies like pins, ribbons, embroidery hoops:

 

At Busy Mommas Hair Effects you can buy pretty Lilla Rose hair accessories including hair clips, headbands and bobby pins:

 

At The Greeting Card Shop you can choose, personalise and mail paper greetings cards for a wide range of occasions: 
 

 

Cherry and Cinnamon sells kitsch, cute & geeky embroidery patterns and embroidered hoop art:

 

Fuzzy Fish (sister shop to Big Fish) sells 30-70% wool blend felt and high quality acrylic felt - in charm packs, or by the metre:

 

Pouch sells handmade bags, accessories and housewares made from vintage fabrics, plus vintage trims. Get 20% off this month with the discount code POUCH20

At Hand Knitted Things you'll find original PDF knitting patterns plus blog posts about knitting, crochet and sewing...

Hello Wilson sells illustrated prints, cards, bags and tea towels:

 

Byvala sells a whole mix of crafty creations - from bags to cushions to phone cases to hair accessories. Use discount code PROMO10 for 10% off this month!

 

CharlotteMusha.com is a personal blog that has a huge focus on crafts and craft inspiration:

Knitted Gems and Crafts sells knitted pin cushions, needle keeps and other crafts:
 

And Slightly Triangle sells decorations, embroideries and mixed media paintings inspired by the natural world and folk art:

 

P.S. Interested in promoting your shop, company or blog? Ad spaces on my blog start from just $5 for 30 days (that's about £3.24!) and I now offer a 25% discount if you buy 3 consecutive months (90 days) of ad space at once. Your site will feature in a sponsor post like this one and I also give new sponsors a shout out over on my Facebook page. Click here for more info re: rates and my blog's traffic, and to buy an ad.

Keeping Busy: Knitting, Sewing, Designing, Tidying & Planning

This week is flying by! Wanna see some pics of what I've been up to?

In the evenings I've been doing some wind-down-at-the-end-of-the-day knitting and have finally finished knitting all my leftover yarn into little hats for the Big Knit (and weaving in all the ends, and making little pompoms for all the hats).

 

Here are all the finished hats...

...  It's always quite hard to part with these, they are just so cute. I hope all the folks who find them on their smoothies this autumn will enjoy them :)

My "big project" at the moment is a series of free tutorials I'm planning to share here on my blog to celebrate the launch of my new book. I've been editing lots of photos and scanning lots of template sheets and generally prepping lots of blog posts - as you can see from my To Do list / chart there's still a few things that need doing, but I'm getting there slowly! I'm really excited about the new book coming out (less than a month to go! Yay!) and about sharing these free projects with you guys.

 
I'm also preparing a few other tutorials, including a tutorial for a handmade card that I totally meant to finish and share last week... before I got distracted by my trip to the Festival of Quilts! Oops. In the meantime, here's a snap of the pretty colours I've been using:

I've also been working on finishing some stuff in my WIP box, including lots of owl masks:

 

Here's a pic of the WIP box in its new home...

 

... earlier this year these shelves looked quite different! I've been rearranging the stuff in my studio quite a bit over the past few months, as now I'm no longer selling supplies there's a lot more space for all my other work stuff. I'm especially pleased that now all my craft books are on one bookcase all together (and on nice sturdy shelves that can take the weight of all those chunky books)

Right, I'm off to scan in some more template sheets!